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Title: William Pitt and national revival
Author: J. Holland Rose
Release date: March 13, 2024 [eBook #73157]
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd, 1911
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM PITT AND NATIONAL REVIVAL ***
Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Superscripts
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WILLIAM PITT
AND
NATIONAL REVIVAL
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
_Fifth Edition. With many Maps and Plans and numerous
Illustrations from contemporary paintings, rare prints
and engravings, medals, etc._
_In Two Volumes, Large Post 8vo. 18s. net._
_Also a Cheaper Edition, without the Illustrations, 2 vols. 10s. net._
THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON I
INCLUDING NEW MATERIALS FROM THE BRITISH
OFFICIAL RECORDS
_Second Edition, revised. Post 8vo. 5s. net._
NAPOLEONIC STUDIES
LONDON: G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
[Illustration:
_Emery Walker Ph. sc._
_William Pitt
as Chancellor of the Exchequer
from a painting by T. Gainsborough_
]
WILLIAM PITT
AND
NATIONAL REVIVAL
BY
J. HOLLAND ROSE, LITT.D.
A rarer spirit never
Did steer humanity; but you, gods, will give us
Some faults to make us men.
SHAKESPEARE, _Antony and Cleopatra_.
[Illustration]
LONDON
G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
1911
CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
PREFACE
In this volume I seek to describe the work of national revival carried
out by William Pitt the Younger up to the time of the commencement of
friction with Revolutionary France, completing the story of his life
in a volume entitled “William Pitt and the Great War.” No apology is
needed for an attempt to write a detailed description of his career.
The task has not been essayed since the year 1862, when the fifth Earl
Stanhope published his monumental work; and at that time the archives
of the Foreign Office, War Office, Admiralty, and Home Office were not
open for research in the period in question. Excellent monographs on
Pitt were given to the world by Lord Rosebery and Mr. Charles Whibley
in the years 1891 and 1906, but they were too brief to admit of an
adequate treatment of the masses of new materials relating to that
career. Of late these have been greatly augmented by the inclusion
among the national archives of the Pitt Manuscripts, which comprise
thousands of letters and memoranda hitherto little used. In recent
years also the records of the Foreign Office and Home Office have
become available for study, and at many points have yielded proofs of
the influence which Pitt exerted on the foreign and domestic policy of
Great Britain. Further, by the great kindness of the Countess Stanhope
and Mr. E. G. Pretyman, M.P., I was enabled to utilize the Pitt
Manuscripts preserved at Chevening and Orwell Park; and both His Grace
the Duke of Portland and the Earl of Harrowby generously placed at my
disposal unpublished correspondence of Pitt with their ancestors. These
new sources render it necessary to reconstruct no small portion of his
life.
Among recent publications bearing on this subject, the most important
is that of “The Manuscripts of J. B. Fortescue, Esq.,” preserved at
Dropmore (Hist. MSS. Comm., 7 vols., 1892–1910), the seventh volume of
which comprises details respecting the death of Pitt. This collection,
containing many new letters of George III, Pitt, Lord Grenville,
and British ambassadors, has proved of incalculable service. Many
Memoirs, both English and foreign, have appeared of late. Among foreign
historians who have dealt with this period, Sorel holds the first
place; but his narrative is often defective on English affairs, to
which he gave too little attention. The recent monograph of Dr. Felix
Salomon on the early part of Pitt’s career (Leipzig, 1901), and those
of Herren Beer, Heidrich, Luckwaldt, Uhlmann, Vivenot, and Wittichen
on German affairs, have been of service, as well as those of Ballot,
Chassin, and Pallain on Anglo-French relations. The bias of Lecky
against Pitt detracts somewhat from the value of the latter part of
his work, “England in the Eighteenth Century”; and I have been able to
throw new light on episodes which he treated inadequately.
Sometimes my narrative may seem to diverge far from the immediate
incidents of the life of Pitt; but the enigmas in which it abounds can
be solved only by a study of the policy of his rivals or allies at
Paris, The Hague, Madrid, Vienna, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. These
questions have not received due attention from English students; for
Lecky did not treat the period 1793–1800 except in regard to Irish
affairs. Accordingly, while by no means neglecting the private and
social life of Pitt, I have sought in this volume to describe his
achievements during the period dominated by Catharine of Russia, Joseph
of Austria, and Mirabeau. That age is also memorable for political,
fiscal, and social developments of high interest; and I have dealt
with them as fully as possible, often with the aid of new materials
drawn from Pitt’s papers. It being impossible to extend the limits of
this work, I ask the forbearance of specialists for not treating those
problems more fully. It is a biography, not a series of monographs; and
I have everywhere sought to keep the figure of Pitt in the foreground.
New letters of George III, Pitt, Grenville, Windham, Burke, Canning,
etc., which could only be referred to here, will be published in a
volume entitled “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies,” containing also
essays and notes.
I wish to thank not only those whose generous assistance I have already
acknowledged, but also Mr. Hubert Hall, of the Public Record Office,
for advice given during my researches; the Rev. William Hunt, D.Litt.,
for a thorough recension of the proofs of this work; the Masters
of Trinity College and Peterhouse, Cambridge; Professor Firth, and
Mr. G. P. Gooch, M.A., for valued suggestions; the Ven. Archdeacon
Cunningham and Mr. Hewins for assistance on economic subjects; M.
Raymond Guyot and Herr Doctor Luckwaldt for information on French
and German affairs; also Mr. E. G. Pretyman, M.P., for permission to
reproduce the portrait of the first Countess of Chatham; Mr. R. A.
Tatton, for similar permission to include Gainsborough’s portrait of
William Pitt; and last, but not least, Mr. A. M. Broadley for the
communication of new letters relating to Pitt and his friends.
J. H. R.
FEBRUARY 1911.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
I. EARLY YEARS 34
II. AT CAMBRIDGE 50
III. POLITICAL APPRENTICESHIP 63
IV. AT WESTMINSTER AND GOOSTREE’S 76
V. THE PEACE WITH AMERICA 97
VI. THE COALITION 124
VII. THE STRUGGLE WITH FOX 152
VIII. RETRENCHMENT 178
IX. REFORM 196
X. INDIA 216
XI. THE IRISH PROBLEM (1785) 241
XII. PITT AND HIS FRIENDS (1783–94) 267
XIII. ISOLATION (1784, 1785) 296
XIV. L’ENTENTE CORDIALE (1786) 321
XV. THE DUTCH CRISIS (1786, 1787) 349
XVI. THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 368
XVII. THE PRINCE OF WALES 391
XVIII. THE REGENCY CRISIS 406
XIX. AUSTRALIA AND CANADA 432
XX. THE SLAVE TRADE 454
XXI. THE SCHEMES OF CATHARINE II 480
XXII. PARTITION OR PACIFICATION? 503
XXIII. PARTITION OR PACIFICATION? (CONTINUED) 518
XXIV. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 537
XXV. THE DISPUTE WITH SPAIN 562
XXVI. PITT AND CATHARINE II 589
XXVII. THE TRIUMPH OF CATHARINE II 608
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
WILLIAM PITT AS CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. (From a painting
by Gainsborough in the possession of R. A. Tatton, Esq.)
_Frontispiece_
LADY CHATHAM, MOTHER OF WILLIAM PITT. (From a painting in the
possession of E. G. Pretyman, Esq., M.P.) 38
WILLIAM WYNDHAM, LORD GRENVILLE. (From a painting by Hoppner) 280
WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. (From an unfinished painting by Sir T.
Lawrence) 458
ABBREVIATIONS OF THE TITLES OF THE CHIEF WORKS REFERRED TO IN THIS
VOLUME
ANN. REG. = “Annual Register.”
ASHBOURNE = “Pitt: some Chapters of his Life and Times,” by the Rt.
Hon. Lord Ashbourne. 1898.
AUCKLAND JOURNALS = “The Journal and Corresp. of William, Lord
Auckland.” 4 vols. 1861.
BUCKINGHAM P. = “Mems. of the Court and Cabinets of George III,” by
the Duke of Buckingham. 2 vols. 1853.
B.M. ADD. MSS. = Additional Manuscripts of the British Museum.
BEAUFORT P. = “MSS. of the Duke of Beaufort,” etc. (Hist. MSS.
Comm.). 1891.
CAMPBELL. = “Lives of the Lord Chancellors,” by Lord Campbell. 8
vols. 1845–69.
CASTLEREAGH CORRESP. = “Mems. and Corresp. of Viscount Castlereagh.”
8 vols. 1848-.
CHEVENING MSS. = Manuscripts of the Countess Stanhope, preserved at
Chevening.
CUNNINGHAM = “Growth of Eng. Industry and Commerce (Modern Times),”
by Dr. W. Cunningham. 1892.
DROPMORE P. = “The Manuscripts of J. B. Fortescue, Esq., preserved at
Dropmore” (Hist. MSS. Comm.). 7 vols. 1892–1910.
FORTESCUE = “The History of the British Army,” by the Hon. J. W.
Fortescue. vol. iv.
HÄUSSER = “Deutsche Geschichte (1786–1804),” by L. Häusser. 4 vols.
1861–3.
HOLLAND = “Memoirs of the Whig Party,” by Lord Holland. 2 vols. 1852.
JESSE = “Mems. of the Life and Reign of George III,” by J. H. Jesse.
3 vols. 1867.
LECKY = “Hist. of England in the Eighteenth Century,” by W. E. H.
Lecky. 8 vols. Fifth edit. 1891–1904.
LUCKWALDT = “Die englisch-preussische Allianz von 1788,” von F.
Luckwaldt. 1902.
LEEDS MEM. = “Political Memoranda of Francis, Fifth Duke of Leeds,”
ed. by Mr. O. Browning. 1884.
MALMESBURY DIARIES = “Diaries and Corresp. of the First Earl of
Malmesbury.” 4 vols. 1844.
PARL. HIST. = “History of the Parliamentary Debates” (after 1804
continued in Hansard).
PELLEW = “Life and Corresp. of the first Viscount Sidmouth,” by Rev.
C. Pellew. 3 vols. 1847.
PITT MSS. = Pitt MSS., preserved at H.M. Public Record Office.
PITT-RUTLAND CORRESP. = “Corresp. between ... W. Pitt and the Duke of
Rutland.” 1890.
ROSE G., “DIARIES” = “Diaries and Corresp. of Rt. Hon. G. Rose.” 2
vols. 1860.
ROSE, “NAPOLEON” = “Life of Napoleon,” by J. H. Rose. 2 vols. 1909.
RUTLAND P. = “MSS. of the Duke of Rutland” (Hist. MSS. Comm.). 3
vols. 1894.
RUVILLE = “William Pitt, Earl of Chatham,” by A. von Ruville (Eng.
transl.). 3 vols. 1907.
SOREL = “L’Europe et la Révolution française,” par A. Sorel. Pts. II,
III. 1889, 1897.
STANHOPE = “Life of ... William Pitt,” by Earl Stanhope. 4 vols. 3rd
edition. 1867.
SYBEL = “Geschichte der Revolutionzeit” (1789–1800). Eng.
translation. 4 vols. 1867–9.
VIVENOT = “Quellen zur Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserpolitik
Œsterreichs ...” von A. von Vivenot. 1873.
WITTICHEN = “Preussen und England in der europäischen Politik
1785–8,” von F. K. Wittichen. 1902.
WRAXALL = “Memoirs of Sir N. W. Wraxall” (1772–84), edited by H. B.
Wheatley. 5 vols. 1884.
ERRATA
On page 157, l. 23, _for_ “Richard” _read_ “Thomas.”
On page 267, _ad fin._, _for_ “Bob” _read_ “Tom.”
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM PITT
INTRODUCTION
ENGLAND AT THE CLOSE OF THE AMERICAN WAR (1780–3)
I think it proper before I commence my proposed work to pass under
review the condition of the capital, the temper of the armies,
the attitude of the provinces, and the elements of weakness and
strength which existed throughout the whole Empire, so that we
may become conversant, not only with the vicissitudes and issues
of events, which are often matters of chance, but also with their
relations and causes.--TACITUS, _The History_, bk. i, ch. iv.
In the course of the session of 1782, when the American War was
dragging to its disastrous close and a change of Ministers was
imminent, one of the youngest members of the House of Commons declared
that he would accept no subordinate office in a new administration. At
the close of 1783, during a crisis of singular intensity, he became
Chief Minister of the Crown, and thenceforth, with one short interval,
controlled the destinies of Great Britain through twenty-two years
marked by grave complications, both political and financial, social and
diplomatic, ending in wars of unexampled magnitude. Early in the year
1806 he died of exhaustion, at the age of forty-seven. In these bald
statements we may sum up the outstanding events of the life of William
Pitt the Younger, which it is my aim to describe somewhat in detail.
Before reviewing his antecedents and the course of his early life, I
propose to give some account of English affairs in the years when he
entered on his career, so that we may picture him in his surroundings,
realize the nature of the difficulties that beset him, and, as it
were, feel our way along some of the myriad filaments which connect an
individual with the collective activities of his age.
William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, died in 1778. His second son, named
after him, began his political career at the close of the year 1780,
when he was elected Member of Parliament for Appleby. The decade which
then began marks a turning point in British history. Then for the first
time the old self-contained life was shaken to its depths by forces of
unsuspected power. Democracy, Athene-like, sprang to maturity in the
New World, and threatened the stability of thrones in the Old World.
For while this militant creed won its first triumphs over the soldiery
of George III, it began also to colour the thoughts and wing the
aspirations of the masses, especially in France, so that, even if the
troops of Washington had been vanquished, the rising tide of thought
would none the less have swept away the outworn barriers of class. The
march of armies may be stayed; that of thought never.
The speculations enshrined in the “Social Contract” of Rousseau and
the teachings of the Encyclopaedists contained much that was crude,
or even false. Nevertheless, they gave an impulse such as no age ever
had known, and none perhaps ever will know again. The course of the
American War of Independence and the foundation of a State based on
distinctly democratic principles proved that the new doctrines might
lead to very practical results. The young giant now stood rooted in
mother-earth.
Side by side with this portent in the world of thought and politics
there came about another change. Other centuries have witnessed
experiments in the direction of democracy; but in none have social
speculations and their results been so closely accompanied by
mechanical inventions of wonder-working potency. Here we touch on the
special characteristics of the modern world. It is the product of two
Revolutions, one political, the other mechanical. The two movements
began and developed side by side. In 1762 Rousseau gave to the world
his “Contrat Social,” the Bible of the French Revolutionists; while
only two years later Hargreaves, a weaver of Blackburn, produced his
spinning-jenny. In 1769 Arkwright patented his spinning-frame, and
Watt patented his separate condenser. The year 1776 is memorable alike
for the American Declaration of Independence, and for the publication
of Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations.” In 1779 the Lancashire weaver,
Crompton, produced his “mule-jenny,” a vast improvement on the machines
of Arkwright and Hargreaves. The year 1785 witnessed not only the
Diamond-Necklace scandal, so fatal to the prestige of the French
monarchy, but also the patenting of Watt’s double-acting steam-engine
and Cartwright’s “power loom.” In the year 1789, which sounded the
knell of the old order of things on the Continent, there appeared the
first example of the modern factory, spinning-machinery being then
driven by steam power in Manchester. At the dawn of the nineteenth
century, when the democratic movement had for the time gone astray
and spent its force, the triumphs of science and industry continued
peacefully to revolutionize human life. In 1803, the year of the
renewal of war with France, William Radcliffe of Stockport greatly
increased the efficiency of the power loom, and thereby cheapened the
production of cloth. Finally, the year 1814 ought to be remembered,
not only for the first abdication of Napoleon, but also for that
peaceful and wholly beneficent triumph, George Stephenson’s “No. 1,”
Killingworth locomotive.[1]
The list might be extended far beyond the limits of the period treated
in this work, but enough has been said to show that the democratic and
industrial forces closely synchronized at the outset, and that while
the former waned the latter waxed more and more, proving in the years
1830–2 the most potent ally of English reformers in efforts which Pitt
and his friends had failed to carry through in the years 1780–5. So
intimate an interaction of new and potent forces had never been seen
in the history of man. In truth no one but a sciolist will venture
to ascribe the problems of the present age solely to the political
movement which found its most powerful expression in the French
Revolution. Only those can read aright the riddle of the modern sphinx
who have ears for both her tones, who hearken not only to the shouts of
leaders and the roar of mobs, but also listen for the multitudinous hum
of the workshop, the factory, and the mine.
* * * * *
The lot of William Pitt the Younger was cast in the years when both
these revolutions began their mighty work. The active part of his
father’s career fell within the old order of things; the problems which
confronted Chatham were merely political. They therefore presented
none of that complexity which so often baffled the penetration and
forethought of his son. It is true that, with a prophetic vision of
the future, the old man foretold in thrilling words the invincibility
of the American cause, but then his life-work was done; from his
Pisgah-mount he could only warn, and vainly warn, the dwellers in the
plain below. His son was destined to enter that unknown land; and
he entered it when his people were burdened by debt, disaster, and
disgrace.
What were the material resources of the nation? Were they equal to
the strain imposed by a disastrous war? Could they resist the subtly
warping influences of the coming age? The questions closely concern
us in our present inquiry. For the greatness of a statesman is not to
be assessed merely by an enumeration of his legislative, diplomatic,
and warlike successes. There is a truer method of valuation than this
haphazard avoir-dupois. It consists in weighing his achievements
against his difficulties.
It is well, therefore, to remember that the British people of the year
1780 was a small and poor people, if we compare it not merely with
modern standards (a method fallacious for the present inquiry), but
with the burdens which it had to bear. The population of England and
Wales at that time has been computed a little over 7,800,000; that of
Scotland was perhaps about 1,400,000. That of Ireland is even less
known. The increase of population in England and Wales during the years
1770–80 exceeded eight per cent., a rate less, indeed, than that of
the previous decade, which had been one of abounding prosperity, but
surpassing that of any previous period for which credible estimates can
be framed.[2]
The wealth of the nation seems also to have suffered little decline;
and after the conclusion of peace in 1783 it showed a surprising
elasticity owing to causes which will soon be considered. But in the
years 1780–3 there was a universal conviction that the burden of debt
and taxation was unendurable. Parliament in 1781 voted the enormous
sum of £25,353,857 for Ways and Means, an increase of £814,060 on the
previous year. As the finances and debt of Ireland were kept entirely
separate up to the end of the century, this burden fell upon some
9,200,000 persons, and involved a payment of about £2 15s. per head, an
amount then deemed absolutely crushing.
But two important facts should be remembered: firstly, that the
investments of British capital in oversea undertakings, which are
now enormous, were (apart from the British East and West Indies)
practically non-existent in the year 1780, Great Britain being then
an almost self-sufficing unit financially; secondly, that modern
methods of taxation are less expensive in the collection and less
burdensome to the taxpayer than those prevalent in that non-scientific
era. The revenue of 1781 included the following items: £12,480,000
for “Annuities and Lottery,” £2,788,000 for “Certain Surpluses of the
Sinking Fund,” £2,000,000 Bank Charter, and so on. Only about one
fourth of the requisite amount was raised by means that would now be
considered sound.[3]
The National Debt was then reckoned at £177,206,000; and the annual
interest, amounting to £6,812,000, ate up considerably more than one
fourth of the “bloated estimates” of that year. The burden of debt
seemed appalling to that generation; and the Three per cent. Consols
sank from 60¼ in January 1781 to 55 in November. But further blows were
soon to be dealt by Ministers at the nation’s credit; and the same
stock ranged between 56 and 58 when William Pitt became Prime Minister
in December 1783. Predictions of national bankruptcy were freely
indulged in; and it should be remembered that Great Britain, vanquished
by a mighty Coalition and bereft of her most valuable colonies, seemed
far more likely to sink into the gulf of bankruptcy than triumphant
France. The events of the next six years turned essentially on the
management of the finances of the rival Powers by Pitt and by the
Controllers-General of Versailles. Apart from the personal questions
at issue, the history of that time affords the most instructive proof
that victory may bear within itself the seeds of future disease and
collapse; while a wise use of the lessons of adversity may lead the
vanquished to a lease of healthier life.
* * * * *
If we turn our gaze away from the material resources of Great Britain
to the institutions and sentiments of our forefathers, there will
appear many bizarre contrasts and perplexing symptoms. At first sight
the self-contained, unreceptive, torpid society of the Georgian era
might appear to be wholly unfitted to bear the triple strain of a
serious national disaster, and of the warping influences of the new
democracy and the new industrialism. The situation was indeed most
alarming: “What a dismal fragment of an Empire!” wrote Horace Walpole
in June 1780, “Yet would that moment were come when we are to take
a survey of our ruins.” In truth, had the majority of Britons been
addicted to morbidly introspective broodings, they would have been
undone. There are times when a nation is saved by sheer stolidity; and
this characteristic alike in monarch and people, which was responsible
for the prolongation of the war, helped to avert collapse at its close.
The course of the narrative will show that the brains of Englishmen
were far from equal to the task of facing the problems of the age
then dawning; but Englishmen were equal to the task of bearing the
war-burdens manfully, and thus were able to supply the material out of
which Pitt, aided by the new manufacturing forces, could work financial
marvels.
Then again, British institutions offered that happy mixture of firmness
and adaptability which at many crises has been the salvation of the
race. Had they been as rigid as those of Sparta they must have cracked
and fallen asunder; had they been as fluid as those of Athens they
might have mouldered away. But, like the structure of English society
of which they form the framework, they lend themselves to reverent
restoration, and thwart all efforts at reckless innovation. Sir Henry
Maine happily assessed the worth of this truly national safeguard
in the statement that our institutions had, however undesignedly,
arrived at a state in which satisfaction and impatience, the chief
sources of political conduct, were adequately called into play. Of this
self-adjusting process Pitt, at least during the best years of his
career, was to be the sage director.
There were many reasons why Englishmen should be a prey alternately to
feelings of satisfaction and discontent. Instinct and tradition bade
them be loyal to the throne and to the institutions of their fathers.
Reason and reflection bade them censure the war policy of George III
and the means whereby he sought to carry it through to the bitter
end. St. Stephen’s, Westminster, had been the shrine of the nation’s
liberties; it now, so Burke declared, threatened them with a slow and
inglorious extinction. Obedience to the laws had ever been the pride of
the nation; but now that virtue might involve subservience to a corrupt
and greedy faction.
Yet however great the provocations, Britons were minded to right these
wrongs in their own way, and not after the fashions set at Geneva or
Paris. In truth they had one great advantage denied to Continental
reformers. At Paris reform almost necessarily implied innovation; for,
despite the dictum of Burke to the contrary, it is safe to say that the
relics of the old constitution of France offered no adequate basis on
which to reconstruct her social and political fabric. In England the
foundations and the walls were in good repair. The structure needed
merely extension, not rebuilding. Moreover, British reformers were by
nature and tradition inclined towards tentative methods and rejected
wholesale schemes. Even in the dull years of George II the desire for
a Reform of Parliament was not wholly without expression; and now, at
the time of the American War, the desire became a demand, which nearly
achieved success. In fact, the Reform programme of 1780 satisfied the
aspirations of the more moderate men, even in the years 1791–4, when
the excitements of the French Revolution, and the writings of Thomas
Paine for a time popularized the levelling theories then in vogue at
Paris.
Certainly, before the outbreak of the French Revolution, the writings
of Continental thinkers had little vogue in Great Britain. The “Social
Contract” of Rousseau was not widely known, and its most noteworthy
theses, despite the fact that they were borrowed from Hobbes and Locke,
aroused no thrill of sympathy. This curious fact may be explained by
the innate repugnance of the islanders alike to the rigidly symmetrical
form in which the Genevese prophet clothed his dogmas, and to the
Jacobins’ claim for them of universal applicability. The very qualities
which carried conviction to the ardent and logic-loving French awakened
doubts among the cooler northern folk.
Then again, however sharp might be the resentment against George
III for this or that action, national sentiment ran strongly in the
traditional channels. After the collapse of the Stuart cause loyalty
to the throne and to the dynasty was the dominant feeling among all
classes. As Burke finely said of the Tories after the accession
of George III, “they changed their idol but they preserved their
idolatry.” The personality of George III was such as to help on this
transformation. A certain _bonhomie_, as of an English squire, set off
by charm of manner and graciousness of speech,[4] none too common in
that class, went to the hearts of all who remembered the outlandish
ways of the first two Georges. Furthermore, his morals were distinctly
more reputable than theirs, as was seen at the time of his youth,
when he withstood the wiles strewn in his path by several ladies of
the Court with a frankness worthy of the Restoration times.[5] His
good sense, straightforwardness, and his love of country life and
of farming endeared him both to the masses of the people and to the
more select circles which began to learn from Versailles the cult of
Rousseau and the charms of butter making. Queen Charlotte, a princess
of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, also set her face against vice
and extravagance, but in a primly austere manner which won few to the
cause of virtue. Domesticity in her ceased to be alluring. Idle tongues
wagged against her even when she sought to encourage the wearing of
dresses woven in Spitalfields rather than those of ever-fashionable
Paris; or again, when she prohibited the wearing of ostrich feathers at
Court.[6]
The reader will fail to understand the political life of that time
and the difficulties often besetting Pitt until he grasps the fact
that George III not only reigned but governed. His long contest
with the Whig factions left him victor; and it is singular that the
shortsightedness of the elder Pitt signally aided the King in breaking
up their power. Both of them aimed at overthrowing the supremacy of the
old Whig families, but it was George III who profited by the efforts
of the Earl of Chatham.[7] The result was seen in the twelve years
of almost personal rule (1770–82), during which Lord North and the
well-fed phalanx of the King’s Friends bade fair to make the House of
Commons the mere instrument of the royal will. The King’s influence,
impaired for a time by the disasters of the American War, asserted
itself again at the time of the Lord George Gordon Riots in June 1780.
That outbreak of bigotry and rascality for a time paralyzed with fear
both Ministers and magistrates; but while all around him faltered,
George III held firm and compelled the authorities to act.[8] The
riots were quelled, but not before hundreds of drunken desperadoes had
perished in the flames which they had kindled. Those who saw large
parts of London ablaze long retained a feeling of horror at all popular
movements, and looked upon George III as the saviour of society. This
it was, in part, which enabled him to retain his influence scarcely
impaired even by the disasters of the American War. The monarchy stood
more firmly rooted than at any time since the reign of Queen Anne.
Jacobitism survived among a few antiquated Tories, like Dr. Johnson, as
a pious belief or a fashionable affectation; but even in the year 1763
the lexicographer, after receiving a pension from George III, avowed
to Boswell that the pleasure of cursing the House of Hanover and of
drinking King James’s health was amply overbalanced by an income of
three hundred pounds.
As a sign of the reality of the royal power, we may note that public
affairs were nearly at a stand-still at the time of the lunacy of
George III (November 1788 to February 1789). The following Foreign
Office despatch, sent to the British Ambassador at Berlin at a critical
time in our diplomatic relations, shows that Pitt and the Foreign
Secretary, the Marquis of Carmarthen, considered themselves the King’s
Secretaries of State, and unable to move until the royal will was known:
Whitehall, January 6 1789.
TO MR. EWART,
SIR,
I have received your letters up to No. 93, but I have not any
commands to convey to you at present, the unhappy situation of His
Majesty’s health making it impossible for me to lay them before
him. The present situation of this country renders it impossible
for me to send you any particular or precise instructions. I trust,
however, that the system for supplying the present unfortunate
interruption in the executive part of the Government will be
speedily completed, at least with as little delay as the importance
of the object will admit of, and which, being once more formed,
will of course restore that part of the Constitution to its usual
energy and effect.[9]
Ewart and our other ambassadors were therefore urged to mark time as
energetically as might be; and no orders were sent to them until after
17th February 1789, when the King began to recover.
At ordinary times, then, the King’s authority was looked upon as
essential to the working of the Government, a fact which explains the
eager interest, even of men not place-hunters, in the Regency disputes
of 1788–9. In truth, the monarchy was the central fact of the nation’s
life; and, as it acquired stedfastness from the personal popularity
of George III, the whole of the edifice had a solidity unknown in the
years 1680–1760.[10]
* * * * *
Montesquieu praised the English constitution as providing without undue
friction a balance of power between King, Lords, and Commons. This
judgment (penned in 1748) still held good, though the royal authority
had in the meantime certainly increased. But the power of the nobles
was still very great. They largely controlled the House of Commons. The
Lowthers secured the election of 11 Members in the Lake District; and
through the whole country 71 Peers were able directly to nominate, and
secure the election of, 88 commoners, while they powerfully influenced
the return of 72 more. If we include all landowners, whether titled on
untitled, it appears that they had the power to nominate 487 members
out of the 658 who formed the House of Commons.
In these days, when the thought and activities of the towns overbear
those of the country districts, we cry out against a system that
designedly placed power in the hands of nobles and squires. But we must
remember that the country then far outweighed the towns in importance;
that the produce of the soil was far more valuable than all the
manufactures; and that stability and stolidity are the characteristics
of an ancient society, based on agriculture and reared in Feudalism.
If we except that metropolitan orgy, the Wilkes’ affair, London and
Westminster were nearly as torpid politically as Dorset. Even in
the year 1791 the populace of Manchester and Birmingham blatantly
exulted in a constitution which left them without any direct voice
in Parliament. It was in the nature of things that Grampound, Old
Sarum, Gatton, and Castle Rising should return eight members; the
choice of the Tudor Sovereigns had lit upon those hamlets or villages
as test-places for consulting the will of the nation, and the nation
acquiesced, because, even if Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and
Sheffield had enjoyed that privilege, they would probably have sent
up country gentlemen of the same type, and after a far greater output
of money and beer. Where the will of the nation is almost entirely
homogeneous there is no injustice in selecting representatives by the
haphazard methods then in use.
Strong in their control of Parliament, the nobles sought to hem in
the throne by meshes of influence through which even the masterful
and pertinacious George III could with difficulty break. Their circle
was small. True, they had failed in their effort of 1719 to limit the
number of creations at any one time to six; but jealousy had almost
the force of law. Ultimately we find George III declining to confer
a dukedom on any but princes of the blood, and Pitt incurred the
displeasure of his cousin, Earl Temple, because he failed to bend the
royal will on that question. The need of caution in respect to the
granting of titles may be inferred from the Pitt Papers, no small part
of which refer to requests for these honours. Pitt has been reproached
with his lavish use of this governmental device, for he created about
140 peerages in the years 1783–1801. I have, however, found proofs that
he used it reluctantly. In the Pitt Papers are several letters which
the statesman wrote refusing requests for peerages. On this matter, as
also with regard to places and appointments, he treated any attempt at
bargaining with cold disdain, witness this crushing reply to an Irish
peer who, in September 1799, applied for a British peerage: “... There
is a passage in the conclusion of your Lordship’s letter on which it is
impossible for me not to remark that it appears to convey an intimation
with respect to what may be your political conduct, which would at
all events induce me to decline being the channel of bringing your
application before His Majesty.”[11]
But rebukes and refusals seem to have made little impression on
that generation, imbued as it was with a deep-seated belief that the
victors had a right to the spoils and should apportion them among their
followers according to rank and usefulness. The whole matter was spoken
of under the convenient euphemism “influence,” which, when used in a
political sense, denoted the secret means for assuring the triumph of
the Crown and the reward of the faithful. While not implying actual
bribery, it signified persuasion exerted through peerages, places,
and pensions. According to this scheme of things, strenuous support
of “the King’s cause” would earn a title, a bishopric, a judgeship,
or a receivership in the customs or excise. These allurements offered
irresistible attractions in an age which offered far fewer means of
independent advancement than the present. With the exception of those
strange persons who preferred to make their own way in life, men of
all classes had their eyes fixed on some longed-for perch above them,
and divided their attention between the symptoms of decay in its
occupant and the signs of the favour of its patron. The expectant part
of Society resembled a gigantic hen-roost at the approach of evening,
except that the aspirations upward were not signs of quiescence but
of ill-suppressed unrest. Those who delve among the confidential
letters of that time must often picture the British nation as a
mountain-climber. Perhaps one sixth part of Pitt’s time was taken up in
reading and answering requests of bewildering variety. College friends
dunned him with requests for preferment, with or without cure of souls.
Rectors longed to be canons; canons to be deans; deans to be bishops;
and wealthy bishops coveted sinecure deaneries, among which, curiously
enough, that of London was the greatest prize. The infection spread to
all classes. Gaugers of beer longed to be collectors of His Majesty’s
revenue; faithful grooms confidently expected a gaugership; and elderly
fishermen, who in their day had intercepted smugglers, demanded, as of
right, the post of harbourmaster. A Frenchman once defended the old
_régime_ on the ground that it ranged all classes about the King in
due gradations of privilege. Similarly Britons of their own free will
grouped themselves around the throne on steps of expectancy.
A curious example of the motives which led to influential requests for
preferment in the Church is to be found in the correspondence of the
Marquis of Carmarthen (afterwards Duke of Leeds), who was at that time
Foreign Secretary under Pitt. His letter to his chief may speak for
itself:
_Private._
Grosvenor Square, Nov. 13 1787.[12]
MY DEAR SIR,
I fear it will not be in my power to return to Hollwood to-day, by
which I shall be prevented from so soon troubling you _viva voce_
with the only subject I do not like to converse with you upon,
viz., asking for Preferment. But my anxiety for my friend Jackson,
and understanding that the Bishopric of Chester is not yet given
away, will, I hope, plead my excuse to you for asking it for him,
and perhaps you may forgive me adding that from local circumstances
that preferment in his hands would be particularly agreeable to me,
on account of a large part of my northern property being situated
in the Diocese of Chester. I do assure you that a compliance with
this request would make me truly happy.
Believe me, etc.
CARMARTHEN.
Reverting to matters which are purely secular, we may note that in the
year 1783, at the time of Pitt’s assumption of power, the number of
English peers was comparatively small, namely about 240, and of these
15, being Roman Catholics, could not sit in Parliament.[13]
This select aristocracy was preserved from some of the worst evils
incident to its station by healthful contact with men and affairs.
The reversion of its younger sons to the rank of commoners prevented
the formation of the huge caste of nobles, often very poor but
always intensely proud, which crusted over the surface of society in
Continental lands; and again, the infusion of commoners (generally the
ablest governors, soldiers, and lawyers of the age) preserved the Order
from intellectual stagnation such as had crept over the old _noblesse_
of France. Both the downward and the upward streams kept the mass free
from that decay which sooner or later besets every isolated body.
Nor did the British aristocracy enjoy those flagrant immunities from
taxation which were the curse of French social and political life.
But let us view this question in a more searching light. Montesquieu
finely observes that an aristocracy may maintain its full vigour, if
the laws be such as will habituate the nobles more to the perils and
fatigues, than to the pleasures, of command.[14] In this respect the
British aristocracy ran some risk of degeneration. It is true that
its members took an active part in public business. Their work in the
House of Lords was praiseworthy. The debates there, if less exciting
than those of the Commons, bear signs of experience, wisdom, dignity,
and self-restraint, which were often lacking in the Lower House. The
nobles also took a large share in the executive duties of the State.
Not only did they and their younger sons fill most of the public
offices, including the difficult, and often thankless, diplomatic
posts, but they were active in their counties and on their estates, as
lords-lieutenant, sheriffs, and magistrates. The days had not yet come
when “Society” fled from the terrors of the English winter. For the
most part nobles spent the parliamentary vacations at their country
seats, sharing in the duties and sports which from immemorial times
had knit our folk into a compact and sturdy whole. Yet we may question
whether the pleasures of command did not then far exceed its perils
and fatigues. Apart from the demoralizing struggle for higher honours,
there were hosts of court and parliamentary sinecures to excite
cupidity and encourage laziness. The rush after emoluments and pleasure
became keener than ever after the glorious peace of 1763, and a perusal
of the letters addressed to any statesman of the following age must
awaken a doubt whether public life was less corrupt than at the time of
Walpole.
Then, again, in the making and working of laws, the privileges of the
nobles and gentry were dangerously large. Throughout the eighteenth
century those classes strengthened their grip both on Parliament and
on the counties and parishes. Up to the year 1711 no definite property
qualification was required from members of Parliament; but in that year
a law was passed limiting the right of representing counties to those
who owned land worth £600 a year; and a rental of half that sum was
expected from members of boroughs. This was equivalent to shutting out
merchants and manufacturers, who were often Dissenters, from the county
representation; and the system of pocket boroughs further enabled
landowners to make a careful choice in the case of a large part of the
members of towns. Again, the powers of the magistrates, or justices of
the peace, in the affairs of the parish, were extraordinarily large.
A French writer, M. Boutmy, computes them as equalling those of the
_préfet_, the _conseil d’arrondissement_, the _maire_, the _commissaire
de police_, and the _juge de paix_, of the French local government of
to-day. Of course the Shallows of Pitt’s time did not fulfil these
manifold duties at all systematically; for that would be alien to the
haphazard ways of the squires and far beyond their talents. Local
despotism slumbered as much as it worked; and just as the Armenians
prefer the fitful barbarities of the Turks to the ever-grinding
pressure of the Russian bureaucracy, so the villagers of George III’s
reign may have been no more oppressed than those of France and Italy
are by a system fruitful in good works and jobs, in officials and
taxes. On this point it is impossible to dogmatize; for the Georgian
peasantry was dumb until the years after Waterloo, when Cobbett began
to voice its feelings.
The use of the term “despotism” for the rule of the squires is no
exaggeration. They were despots in their own domains. Appeals against
the rulings of the local magistrates were always costly and generally
futile. It was rare to find legal advisers at their side; and the
unaided wits of local landowners decided on all the lesser crimes (many
of them punishable with death at the assizes) and the varied needs of
the district. With the justices of the peace it lay to nominate the
guardians of the poor and “visitors,” who supervised the relief of
the poor in the new unions of parishes resulting from Gilbert’s Act
of 1782. The working of the Draconian game-laws was entirely in their
hands, and that, too, in days when the right of sporting with firearms
was limited to owners of land worth £100 a year. Finally, lest there
should be any community of sentiment between the bench and the dock,
at the oft-recurring trials for poaching, the same land and money test
was applied to all applicants for the honoured post of magistrate.
The country gentlemen ruled the parish and they virtually ruled the
nation.[15] The fact was proclaimed with characteristic insolence
by the Lord Justice Clerk, Macqueen of Braxfield, in his address to
the jury at the close of the trial of Thomas Muir for sedition, at
Edinburgh in August 1793: “A Government in every country should be just
like a Corporation; and in this Country it is made up of the landed
interest, which alone has a right to be represented. As for the rabble,
who have nothing but personal property, what hold has the nation upon
them? What security for the payment of their taxes? They may pack
up all their property on their backs and leave the country in the
twinkling of an eye. But landed property cannot be removed.”[16] The
Scottish nobles, especially in the Highlands, still claimed extensive
rights over their vassals; and several of them made patriotic use of
these powers in raising regiments during the great war with France.
Thomas Graham, afterwards Lord Lynedoch, is the best known example of
this feudal influence.[17]
In many districts the squires received unwelcome but powerful support
from “nabobs.” Those decades witnessed a steady flight homewards of
Indian officials, for the most part gorged with plunder. They became
an appreciable force in politics. Reckless of expense so long as they
could enter the charmed circle of the higher gentry, they adopted
the politics and aped the ways of their betters; so that many a
countryside felt the influence of their greed and ostentation. The
yeomen and villagers were the victims of their land-hunger; while the
small squires (so says Grose in his Olio of the year 1792) often fell
in the course of the feverish race for display. As the Roman moralist
inveighed against the influx of Syrian ways into the life of his city,
so too might Johnson have thundered at the blending of the barbaric
profusion of the Orient with the primal simplicity of the old English
life.
For the most part, however, that life still showed the tenacity that
marks our race. Certainly in Court circles there were no signs of the
advent of commercialism, still less of democracy. The distinctions
of rank in England seemed very strict, even to a German, who was
accustomed to the formalities of the Hanoverian and Rhenish Courts.
Count von Kielmansegge in 1761 noted the precision of etiquette at
the State balls: “Rank in England is decided exclusively according to
class, and not according to service; consequently the duchesses dance
first, then marchionesses, then dukes’ daughters, then countesses.
Foreigners had no rank at all in England, so they may not dance before
the lords and barons.... For this reason foreigners seldom dance at
Court.” It was not etiquette for the King and Queen to dance at the
state balls; but, even so, the formalism of those functions must have
been pyramidal. The same spirit of formality, fortified by a nice sense
of the gradations of rank, appears in the rules of a county club at
Derby, where the proceedings seem to have been modelled on the sun and
planets, the latter being always accompanied by inferior satellites.[18]
The customs of the _beau monde_ in London were regulated by one
all-absorbing preoccupation, that of killing time in a gentlemanly and
graceful manner. Fielding, in his “Joseph Andrews,” thus maps out the
day of a fop about the middle of the century:
In the morning I rose, took my great stick, and walked out in my
green frock, with my hair in papers, and sauntered about till ten.
Went to the Auction; told Lady B. she had a dirty face, laughed
heartily at something Captain G. said (I can’t remember what, for
I did not very well hear it), whispered to Lord ----, bowed to the
Duke of ----, and was going to bid for a snuff-box, but did not,
for fear I should have had it. From 2 to 4 dressed myself; 4 to 6
dined; 6 to 8 coffee-house; 8 to 9 Drury Lane Playhouse; 10 to 12
Drawing-room.
The sketch of West End life given by Moritz, a Prussian pastor who
visited England in 1782, is very similar, but he enters into more
detail. He describes fashionable people as walking about all the
morning in a _négligé_ attire, “your hair not dressed but merely rolled
up in rollers, and in a frock and boots.” The morning lasted till
four or five o’clock, then the fashionable time for dinner. The most
usual dress in that summer was a coat of very dark blue, a short white
waistcoat, and white silk stockings. Black was worn for full dress,
and Moritz noticed that the English seemed to prefer dark colours.
Dress seemed to him to be one of the chief aims and occupations of our
people; and he remarked on the extraordinary vogue which everything
French then enjoyed.
One is tempted to pause here and dwell on the singular fact that, at
the time when England and France were still engaged in deadly strife,
each people should be intent on copying the customs and fashions
of the other. The decade of the “eighties” witnessed the growth of
“Anglomania” to ridiculous proportions in France; while here the
governing class thought it an unfailing proof of good breeding to trick
out every other sentence with a French phrase. Swift alone could have
done justice to the irony of a situation wherein two great nations
wasted their resources in encompassing one another’s ruin, while every
day their words and actions bore striking witness to their admiration
of the hereditary foe. Is it surprising that Pitt should have used all
his efforts in 1786 to bring about an _entente cordiale_ on the basis
of the common interests of the two peoples?
To revert to our theme: the frivolities and absurdities of Mayfair,
which figure so largely in the diaries and letters of the period,
probably filled a smaller space in the life of the nation than we
are apt to infer from those sources. Moritz, who had an eye for the
homely as well as the courtly side of life, noticed the good qualities
which kept the framework of society sound. He remarked that in London,
outside the Court circles, the customs were plain and domestic, the
people generally dined about three o’clock, and worked hard.[19] His
tour on foot through the Midlands also gave him the impression that
England enjoyed a well-balanced prosperity. He was everywhere pitied or
despised, it being assumed that a pedestrian must be a tramp. There can
be little doubt that even at the end of that disastrous war, our land
was far more prosperous than any of the States of North Germany.
The wealth of the proud islanders was nowhere more obvious than at
the chief pleasure resorts of Londoners, Vauxhall and Ranelagh. These
gardens and promenades impressed Moritz greatly, and he pronounced the
scene at the rotunda at Ranelagh the most brilliant which he had ever
witnessed: “The incessant change of faces, the far greater number of
which were strikingly beautiful, together with the illumination, the
extent and majestic splendour of the place, with the continued sound
of the music, makes an inconceivably delightful impression.” Thanks to
the curiosity of the Prussian pastor, we can look down with him on the
gay throng, and discern the princes, lords, and knights, their stars
far outshining all the commoners present; we see also a difference in
the styles of wearing the hair, the French queues and bags contrasting
markedly with plain English heads of hair or professional wigs. Most
of the company moved in “an eternal circle, to see and to be seen”;
others stood near to enjoy the music; others again regaled themselves
at the tables with the excellent fare provided for the inclusive sum
of half-a-crown; while a thoughtful minority gazed from the gallery
and moralized on the scene. The display and extravagance evidently
surprised Moritz, as it surprises us when we remember that it was at
the close of a ruinous war. In the third year of the struggle, the
mercurial Horace Walpole deplored the universal distress, and declared
that when he sat in his “blue window,” he missed nine out of ten of
the lordly chariots that used to roll before it. Yet, in the seventh
year, when the half of Europe had entered the lists against the Island
Power, the Prussian pastor saw nothing but affluence and heard nothing
that did not savour of a determined and sometimes boastful patriotism.
At Ranelagh he observed that everyone wore silk stockings, and he
was informed that even poor people when they visited that abode of
splendour, dressed so as to copy the great, and always hired a coach in
order to draw up in state at the entrance.[20]
Ranelagh and Vauxhall, we may note in passing, were beyond the
confines of the London of 1780. The city of Westminster was but slowly
encroaching on Tothill Fields; and the Queen’s House, standing on the
site of the present Buckingham Palace, commanded an uninterrupted view
westwards over the fields and market gardens spreading out towards the
little village of Chelsea. On the south of the Thames there was a mere
fringe of houses from the confines of Southwark to the Archbishop’s
palace at Lambeth; and revellers returning from Vauxhall, whether by
river or road, were not seldom sobered by visits from footpads, or the
even more dreaded Mohawks. Further afield everything was completely
rural. Trotter, Fox’s secretary, describes the statesman as living
amidst bowers vocal with song-birds at St. Ann’s Hill, Wandsworth;
and Pitt, in his visits to Wilberforce or Dundas at Wimbledon, would
probably pass not a score of houses between Chelsea and the little
old wooden bridge at Putney. That village and Wimbledon stood in the
same relation to London as Oxshott and Byfleet occupy to-day. North
of Chelsea there was the hamlet of Knightsbridge, and beyond it the
villages of Paddington and “Marybone.”
As Hyde Park Corner marked the western limit of London, so Bedford
House and its humbler neighbour, the British Museum, bounded it on
the north. The Foundling Hospital stood in open fields. St. Pancras,
Islington Spa, and Sadler’s Wells were rivals of Epsom and Tunbridge
Wells. Clerkenwell Church was the fashionable place for weddings for
the richer citizens who dwelt in the northern suburbs opened up by
the new City Road completed in 1761. On the east, London ended at
Whitechapel, though houses straggled on down the Mile End Road. The
amount of the road-borne traffic is curiously illustrated by the fact
that the Metropolis possessed only three bridges, London Bridge,
Westminster Bridge, and Blackfriars Bridge; and not till the year 1763
did the City Fathers demolish the old houses standing on London Bridge
which rendered it impossible for two carts to pass. Already, however,
suburbs were spreading along the chief roads out of London. In the
“Connoisseur” of September 1754 is a pleasingly ironical account of
a week-end visit to the villa of a London tradesman, situated in the
desolate fields near Kennington Common, from the windows of which one
had a view of criminals hanging from gibbets and St. Paul’s cupola
enveloped in smoke.
Nevertheless, the Englishman’s love of the country tended to drive
Londoners out to the dull little suburbs around the Elephant and
Castle, or beyond Tyburn or Clerkenwell; and thus, in the closing years
of the century, there arose that dualism of interests (city versus
suburbs) which weakens the civic and social life of the metropolis.
A further consequence was the waning in popularity of Vauxhall and
Ranelagh, as well as of social clubs in general. These last had
furnished a very desirable relief to the monotony of a stay-at-home
existence. But the club became less necessary when the family lived
beyond the river or at “Marybone,” and when the merchant spent much
time on horseback every day in passing from his office to his villa.
Another cause for the decline of clubs of the old type is doubtless
to be found in the distress caused by the Revolutionary War, and
in the increasing acerbity of political discussions after the year
1790. Hitherto clubs had been almost entirely devoted to relaxation
or conviviality. A characteristic figure of Clubland up to the year
1784 had been Dr. Johnson, thundering forth his dicta and enforcing
them with thumps on the table. The next generation cared little for
conversation as a fine art; and men drifted off to clubs where either
loyalty or freedom was the dominant idea. The political arena, which
for two generations had been the scene of confused scrambles between
greedy factions, was soon to be cleared for that deadliest of all
struggles, a war of principles. In that sterner age the butterfly life
of Ranelagh became a meaningless anomaly.
For the present, however, no one in England dreamt of any such change.
The spirit of the nation, far from sinking under the growing burdens of
the American War, seemed buoyant. Sensitive _littérateurs_ like Horace
Walpole might moan over the ruin of the Empire; William Pitt might
declaim against its wickedness with all his father’s vehemence; but
the nation for the most part plodded doggedly on in the old paths and
recked little of reform, except in so far as it concerned the abolition
of sinecures and pensions. In 1779–80 County Associations were founded
in order to press on the cause of “œconomical reform”; but most of
them expired by the year 1784. Alike in thought and in customs England
seemed to be invincibly Conservative.
The reasons, other than racial and climatic, for the stolidity of
Georgian England would seem to be these. Any approach to enthusiasm,
whether in politics or religion, had been tabooed as dangerous ever
since the vagaries of the High Church party in the reign of Anne
had imperilled the Protestant Succession; and far into the century,
especially after the adventure of “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” all leanings
towards romance were looked on as a reflection on the safe and solid
House of Brunswick. Prudence was the first of political virtues, and
common sense the supreme judge of creeds and conduct.
External events also favoured the triumph of the commonplace, which is
so obvious in the Georgian literature and architecture. The call of
the sea and the influence of the New World were no longer inspirations
to mighty deeds. The age of adventure was past, and the day of company
promoters and slave-raiders had fully dawned. Commerce of an almost
Punic type ruled the world. Whereas the wars of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries had turned mainly on questions of religion, those
of the eighteenth centred more and more on the winning of colonial
markets as close preserves for the mother-country. By the Peace of
Utrecht (1713) England gained the first place in the race for Empire;
and a clause of that treaty enabled her to participate in the most
lucrative of trades, the kidnapping of negroes in Africa for the
supply of Spanish-America. Never was there a more fateful gain. It
built up the fortunes of many scores of merchants and shipowners, but
it degraded the British marine and the populace of our ports, in some
of which slaves were openly sold. The canker of its influence spread
far beyond ships and harbours. Its results were seen in the seared
conscience of the nation, and in the lowering of the sense of the
sanctity of human life, which in its turn enabled the blind champions
of law, especially after the scare of 1745, to multiply capital
punishments until more than 160 crimes were punishable by death.
The barbarities of the law and the horrors of the slave-trade finally
led to protests in the name of humanity and religion. These came in the
first instance from the Society of Friends.[21] But the philanthropic
movement did not gather volume until it was fed by the evangelical
revival. Clarkson, Zachary Macaulay, Wilberforce (the ablest champion
of the cause), and John Howard, the reformer of prisons, were living
proofs of the connection which exists between spiritual fervour and
love of man. With the foundation, in the year 1787, of the _Society for
the Abolition of the Slave Trade_, the philanthropic movement began
its career of self-denying effort, which for some five years received
valuable support from Pitt. Other signs of a moral awakening were not
wanting. In 1772 Lord Chief Justice Mansfield declared that all slaves
brought to the United Kingdom became free--a judgement which dealt
the death-blow to slave markets in this country. In 1773 John Howard
began his crusade for the improvement of gaols; and seven years later
Sunday Schools were started by Robert Raikes. The protests of Burke and
Sir Charles Bunbury against the pillory, the efforts of the former in
1784–5 to prevent the disgraceful overcrowding of the prisons, and the
crusade of Romilly against the barbarities of the penal code are also a
tribute to the growth of enlightenment and kindliness.
These ennobling efforts, however, failed to make any impression on
what is termed “Society.” The highest and the lowest strata are, as a
rule, the last to feel the thrill of new movements; for surfeit and
starvation alike stunt the better instincts. Consequently, Georgian
England became strangely differentiated. The new impulses were quickly
permeating the middle classes; but there their influence ceased. The
flinty hardness of the upper crust, and the clayey sediment at the
bottom, defied all efforts of an ordinary kind. The old order of things
was not to be changed save by the explosive forces let loose in France
in 1789. That year forms a dividing line in European history, as it
does in the career of William Pitt.
* * * * *
Though ominous signs of the approaching storm might already be seen,
the noble and wealthy wasted their substance in the usual round of
riotous living. It may be well to glance at two of the typical vices of
the age, drinking and gambling, of course in those circles alone where
they are deemed interesting, for thence only do records reach us.
Drinking did not count as a vice, it was a cherished custom. The depths
of the potations after dinner, and on suitable occasions during the
day, had always been a feature of English life. Shakespeare seems to
aim these well-known lines at the English rather than the Danes:
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and tax’d of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition.[22]
Certainly in the eighteenth century drinking came to be in a sense
a flying buttress of the national fabric. The champions of our
“mercantile system” brought about the signature of the Methuen Treaty
of 1703 with Portugal, in order to favour trade with that harmless
little land at the expense of that with our “natural enemy,” France.
Hostility to the French being the first of political maxims, good
citizens thought it more patriotic to became intoxicated on port wine
than to remain sober on French claret. Though we may not endorse Adam
Smith’s hopeful prediction that the abolition of all duties on wine
would have furthered the cause of temperance, yet we may agree that
the drunkenness of the age was partly due to “the sneaking arts of
underling tradesmen”--when “erected into political maxims for the
conduct of a great empire.” Equally noteworthy is his verdict that
drunkenness was not limited to people of fashion, and that “a gentleman
drunk with ale has scarce ever been seen among us.”[23]
The habit of tippling, which even the moralist Johnson (_aet._ 70) said
might “be practised with great prudence,” was everywhere dominant. The
thinness and unpracticality of the studies at the old universities
were relieved by the depth and seriousness of the potations. The
phrase, “a port wine Fellow,” lingered to the close of the nineteenth
century as a reminiscence of the crusted veterans of a bygone age,
whose talk mellowed at the second bottle, and became drivel only at
the fourth. Lord Eldon relates how a reverend Silenus, a Doctor of
Divinity of Oxford, was once discovered in the small hours feeling
his way homewards by the delusive help of the railings encircling the
Radcliffe Library, and making lay remarks as to the unwonted length of
the journey.[24] Where doctors led the way, undergraduates bettered
the example; and the customs of Cambridge, as well as the advice of
physicians, served to ingrain in Pitt that love of port wine which
helped to shorten his life.
But the Universities only reflected the customs of an age when “drunk
as a lord” had become a phrase. In fashionable society it was usual to
set about tippling in a methodical way. Sometimes, at the different
stages of the progress, travellers’ impressions were recorded in a
quaintly introspective manner. Rigby, Master of the Rolls in Ireland,
when jocularly asked at dinner by the Prince of Wales to advise him
about his marriage, made the witty and wise reply: “Faith, your Royal
Highness, I am not drunk enough yet to give advice to a Prince of Wales
about marrying.”[25] The saying recalls to mind the unofficial habit of
training and selecting diplomatists and ambassadors, namely, to ply the
aspirants hard and then notice who divulged fewest secrets when under
the table.
Fortunately, amidst the Bacchic orgies of the time, the figure of
George III stood steadfast for sobriety. His tastes and those of Queen
Charlotte were simple and healthy. Further, he was deeply impressed by
the miserable end of his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, whose frame,
always unwieldy, became a mass of gouty corpulence and staggered on to
dissolution at the age of forty-four. The Duke, so it is said, had long
before warned the King, if he wished to live to a healthy old age, to
avoid all the pleasures of the table.[26] The life and death of the
Duke--an example more potent than words--and the homely tastes of the
royal pair themselves, served to keep the bill of fare at Windsor well
within the compass of that of many a small squire. After hunting for
a whole morning, the King was sometimes content to lunch on a jug of
barley-water. Stories to this effect endeared “farmer King George” to
the plain, wholesome folk of the provinces in whom lay the strength
of England; but they aroused no responsive feeling in courtiers and
nobles, who looked on such lenten fare as scarcely human, certainly not
regal.
The behaviour of the Prince of Wales, however, tended to bring matters
back to the level beloved of the _Comus_ rout. The orgies of Carlton
House were not seldom bestial; and yet fashionable society seems to
have suffered no qualms on hearing that the prince was more than once
saved from suffocation by prompt removal of enswathing silks.[27]
Dinners became later, longer, and more luxurious. Experienced diners
were those who could reckon the banquet, not by the number of glasses,
but of bottles. Instead of figuring as an incident in the course of the
day, dinner became its climax. We find Horace Walpole in February 1777
complaining that it absorbed the whole of the evening: “Everything is
changed; as always must happen when one grows old and is prejudiced to
one’s old ways. I do not like dining at nearly six, nor beginning the
evening at ten at night. If one does not conform one must live alone.”
Many letters of that amusing writer show how the latter part of
the four hours was spent. Take this reference to the death of Lord
Cholmondeley: “He was seventy and had a constitution to have carried
him to a hundred, if he had not destroyed it by an intemperance
that would have killed anybody else in half the time. As it was, he
had outlived by fifteen years all his set, who have reeled into the
ferry-boat so long before him.” There Horace Walpole laid his finger
on one of the sores of the age. Statesmen and generals, parsons and
squires, were generally worn out at fifty-five; and if by reason of
strength they reached three score years and ten, those years were
indeed years of sorrow and gout. In the annals of that period it
would be impossible to find a single man possessed of the vigour of
Mr. Gladstone at eighty, or the subtlety and firmness displayed by
Beaconsfield at Berlin at the age of seventy-four. A nonagenarian was
never seen at St. Stephen’s: at seventy statesmen were laid by in
flannel and wheeled about in bath-chairs. The cause of it all may be
summed up in one word--port wine.
This chapter would extend to an unwieldy length if a full account
were given of what was, perhaps, the most characteristic vice of
the age. Gambling has always flourished in an uncultured, reckless
and ostentatious society. Men who have no mental resources within
themselves are all too apt to seek diversion in the vagaries of
chance. Tacitus noted it as the worst vice of the savage Teutons whom
in other respects he lauded; and certainly none of their descendants
gamed more than the Englishmen of the Georgian era. In vain did
the King set his face against the evil. The murmurs grew not loud
but deep when he forbade gambling at Court on that much cherished
occasion, “twelfth-night.” The courtiers then substituted cards, and
betted furiously on them, until they too were banished from the royal
palaces, even on that merry festival.[28] But here again the Prince
of Wales neutralized his father’s example, and before long succeeded
in contracting debts to a princely amount, whereupon they were
considerately paid by Parliament. That sturdy opponent of George III,
Charles James Fox, outran even the Prince of Wales in zeal. At an all
night sitting he is known to have lost £12,000; and, putting fortune
to the test, lost successively £12,000 and £11,000 more. His great
rival, the younger Pitt, plunged into play for a brief space, but on
finding it get too strong a hold over him, resolutely freed himself
from its insidious meshes. Thereafter that genial wit, George Selwyn,
pointed the moral of their early careers by comparing the rivals to the
industrious and idle apprentices of Hogarth.
* * * * *
The mention of Hogarth awakens a train of thought alien to his
self-satisfied age. One begins to inquire what was the manner of
life of those coarse thickset figures who fill the background of his
realistic canvases. Were Englishmen of the lower orders really given
over to Bacchic orgies alternating with long spells of flesh-restoring
torpor? What was their attitude towards public affairs? While Rousseau
began to open out golden vistas of a social millennium, were the
toilers really so indifferent to all save the grossest facts of
existence? The question is difficult to answer. The Wilkes affair
seemed for the time to arouse universal interest, but the low class
Londoners who bawled themselves hoarse for “Wilkes and Liberty”
probably cared for that demagogue mainly because he was a Londoner
bent on defying the House of Commons. Personal feelings rather than
political convictions seem to have determined their conduct; for Wilkes
was not reviled a few years later when he went over to the King’s side.
Meanwhile the Gordon Riots had shown the London populace in another
light. As for the County Reform Associations of the years 1780–4, they
had very little hold upon the large towns, except in Yorkshire; and
there the movement was due to the exceptionally bad representation and
to the support of the great Whig landlords. The experience of those
decades proves that political action which arises out of temporary
causes (especially of a material kind) will lead to little result.
That mercurial and ill-educated populace seems to have shaken off its
political indifference only at the time of a general election. Moritz
describes the tumultuous joy with which Londoners took part in the
election of the year 1782. The sight of carters and draymen eagerly
listening to the candidates at the hustings; their shouts for a speech
from Fox; the close interest which even the poorest seemed to feel in
their country’s welfare, made a deep impression on Moritz, who found
the sight far more exhilarating than that of reviews on the parade
ground at Berlin. His mental comparison of Londoners with the Romans of
the time of Coriolanus was, however, cut short when he saw “the rampant
spirit of liberty and the wild impatience of a genuine English mob.” At
the end of the proceedings the assembly tore down the hustings, smashed
the benches and chairs, and carried the fragments about with them as
signs of triumph.[29] Rousseau and Marat, who saw something of English
life during their stay in this country, declared that Britons were free
only during an election; and the former averred that the use which they
made of “the brief moments of freedom renders the loss of liberty well
deserved.”[30] Certainly their elections were times of wild licence;
and the authorities seem to have acquiesced in the carnival as tending
to promote a dull, if not penitential, obedience in the sequel. Not
without reason, then, did Horace Walpole exclaim, at the close of the
American War--“War is a tragedy; other politics but a farce.”
The moralist who cons the stories of the frivolity and vice of that
age is apt to wonder that any progress was made in a society where
war and waste seemed to be the dominant forces. Yet he should remember
that it is the extravagant and exceptional which is chronicled, while
the humdrum activities of life, being taken for granted, find no
place either in newspapers, memoirs, or histories. We read that in
the eight years of the American War the sum of £115,000,000 was added
to the National Debt, the interest on which in the year 1784 amounted
to £9,669,435.[31] But do we inquire how a country, which with great
difficulty raised a revenue of £25,000,000 a year, could bear this load
and the far heavier burdens of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars?
The problem seems insoluble until we remember that British industry
was then entering on its most expansive phase. The condition of our
land may be compared with that of a sturdy oak which has had one of its
limbs torn away and its foliage blighted by a storm. Yet, if the roots
grip the soil deep down, the sap of a single season will restore the
verdure, and in a few years the dome of foliage will rise as shapely
and imposing as ever. So was it to be with England. Her astonishingly
quick recovery may be ascribed partly to the exertions of the great man
whose public life will here be set forth. But one man can do little
more than direct the toil of the many to fruitful issues; and the
fruitfulness that marked the first decade of his supremacy resulted
from the contact of the nation’s roots with a new and fertile layer of
soil.
Below the surface of the national life, with its wars and party
intrigues, there lay another world, in which the thoughts of Watt and
Trevithick, of Hargreaves, Arkwright and Cartwright, were slowly taking
shape in actuality. There lay the England of the future. Already its
strength, though but that of an embryo, sufficed to send up enough of
vital sap quickly to repair the losses of war; and the first claim of
the younger Pitt to the title of Statesman lay in his perception of the
needs and claims of this hidden life.
The mechanical inventions which led up to the era of great production
resulted indirectly from the outburst of industrial activity that
followed the victorious issue of the Seven Years’ War. “Necessity is
the mother of Invention”; and the great need after 1763 was to quicken
the spinning of yarn so that the spinsters of a household could keep
the father supplied with enough weft for his loom. This necessity
quickened the wits of a Lancashire weaver, Hargreaves; and in 1764 he
constructed his “jenny,” to lighten the toil of his wife. In quick
succession came the inventions of Arkwright and Crompton, as already
noted. The results obtained by the latter were surprising, muslin and
other delicate fabrics being wrought with success in Great Britain.
In a special Report issued by the East India Company in 1793, the
complaint was made that every shop in England offered for sale “British
muslins equal in appearance and of more elegant patterns than those of
India, for one fourth, or perhaps more than one third, less price.”[32]
Further improvements increased the efficiency of this machinery,
which soon was used extensively in the north-west of England, and in
Lanarkshire. The populations of Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and
Birmingham, after 1780, began to increase amazingly.[33] Hitherto
they had numbered between 30,000 and 60,000 souls. Now they began to
outstrip Bristol and Norwich, the second and third of English cities.
It is noteworthy that the Industrial Revolution in this, its first
phase, brought wealth and contentment to all members of the community.
The quantities of thread, varying in fineness, but severally invariable
in texture and strength, enabled the hand-loom weavers to push on
with their work with none of the interruptions formerly caused by the
inability of hard-pressed spinsters to supply the requisite amount of
yarn. These last, it is true, lost somewhat in economic independence;
for by degrees they sank to the position of wage-earners in mills, but
they were on the whole less hard-worked than before, water furnishing
the power previously applied by the spinster’s foot; and the family
retained its independence because the father and brothers continued to
work up cloth on their own hand-looms and to sell the produce at the
weekly markets of Manchester or Blackburn, Leeds or Halifax. In the
case of the staple industry of Yorkshire, many men reared the sheep,
dressed and dyed the fleeces, worked up the thread into cloth, and
finally, with their sons, took it on a packhorse to the nearest cloth
market. A more complete example of economic independence it would be
difficult to find; and the prosperity of this class--at once farmers,
and dyers, manufacturers, and cloth merchants--was enhanced by the new
spinning machinery which came rapidly into use after the year 1770.
This fact is emphasized in a vivid sketch of life in a Lancashire
village drawn by one who saw it at the time of these momentous
developments. William Radcliffe describes the prosperity which they
brought to the homes of the farmer-artisans who formed the bulk of
the population of his native village of Mellor, about fourteen miles
north of Manchester. He calls the years 1788 to 1803 the golden age of
the cotton industry. Every out-house in the village was fitted as a
loom-shop; and the earnings of each family averaged from 80 to 100 or
sometimes even 120 shillings a week.[34] This account, written by a man
who rose to be a large manufacturer at Stockport is probably overdrawn;
but there can be no doubt that the exuberant prosperity of the North of
England provided the new vital force which enabled the country speedily
to rise with strength renewed at the very time when friends and enemies
looked to see her fall for ever. Some idea of the magnitude of this new
source of wealth may be gained from the official returns of the value
of the cotton goods exported from Great Britain at the following dates:
1710 £5,698
1751 45,986
1764 200,354
1780 355,060
1785 864,710
1790 1,662,369
1795 2,433,331
1800 3,572,217
1806 9,753,824
After 1803 Cartwright’s power-loom came more and more into use, and
that, too, at the time when Watt’s steam-engine became available
for general use. The pace of the Industrial Revolution was thus
accelerated; and in this, its third phase, the far-reaching change
brought distress to the homes of the weavers, as was to be seen in the
Luddite riots of 1810–11. This, however, belongs to a period later than
that dealt with in these pages. Very noteworthy is the fact that in
the years 1785–1806, which nearly cover the official life of Pitt, the
exports of cotton goods increased almost twelvefold in value; and that
the changes in the textile industries enhanced not only the wealth of
the nation but also the prosperity of the working classes in districts
which had been the poorest and most backward.
Limits of space preclude any reference to the revolution wrought in
the iron industry when coal and coke began to take the place of wood
in the smelting of that metal. It must suffice to say that, whereas
the English iron industry had seemed in danger of extinction, it now
made giant strides ahead. In 1777 the first iron bridge was erected
at Coalbrookdale, over the Severn. Six years later Cort of Gosport
obtained a patent for converting pig-iron into malleable-iron by a
new and expeditious process;[35] and in 1790 the use of steam-engines
at the blast furnaces trebled their efficiency. This and the former
reference to the steam-engine will suffice to remind the reader of the
enormous developments opened up in all manufactures when the skill and
patience of Watt transformed a scientific toy into the most important
generator of power hitherto used by man.
Thus, in the closing years of the eighteenth century--that much
despised century, which really produced nearly all the great inventions
that the over-praised nineteenth century was merely to develop--the
Industrial Revolution entered on its second phase. The magnets which
thenceforth irresistibly attracted industry, and therefore population,
were coal and iron. Accordingly, as Great Britain had abundance of
these minerals in close proximity, she was able in a very short space
of time to become the workshop of the world. The Eldorado dreamt of
by the followers of Columbus was at last found in the Midlands and
moorlands of the north of England. For the present, the discovery
brought no curse with it. While multiplying man’s powers, it also
stimulated his ingenuity in countless ways. Far from diverting his
energies from work to what is, after all, only the token of work, it
concentrated his thoughts upon productive activity, and thus helped not
only to make work but to make man.
While the moors and vales of the North awakened to new and strange
activities, the agricultural districts of the Midlands and South also
advanced in wealth and population. A scientific rotation of crops, deep
ploughing, and thorough manuring of the soil altered the conditions of
life. Here again England led the way. Arthur Young, in his “Travels in
France” (1787–9) never tires of praising the intelligence and energy
of our great landowners, whereas in France his constant desire is to
make the _seigneurs_ “skip.” In the main, no doubt, the verdict of
Young was just. Landlords in England were the leaders of agricultural
reform. In France they were clogs on progress. Yet, the changes here
were not all for good. That is impossible. The semi-communal and almost
torpid life of the village was unequal to the claims of the new age;
and, amidst much of discomfort and injustice to the poor, individual
tenures, enclosures, and high-farming became the order of the day.[36]
New facilities for travel, especially in the form of mail-coaches,
better newspapers (a result of the Wilkes affair)--these and other
developments of the years 1770–84 heralded the dawn of an age which
was to be more earnest, more enlightened, less restful, and far more
complex. The times evidently called for a man who, while holding to
all that was best in the old life, fully recognized the claims of the
coming era. Such a man was William Pitt.
In many respects he summed up in his person the tendencies of the
closing decades of the century, just as the supreme figure of his
father reflected all that was most brilliant and chivalrous in the
middle of the Georgian era. If the elder Pitt raised England to heights
of splendour never reached before, the younger helped to retrieve the
disasters brought on by those who blindly disregarded the warnings of
his father. In the personality both of father and of son there was
a stateliness that overawed ordinary mortals, but the younger man
certainly came more closely into touch with the progressive tendencies
of the age. A student of Adam Smith, he set himself to foster the
industrial energies of the land. In order to further the cause of
peace, he sought the friendship of the French nation, of which Chatham
was the inveterate enemy; and in the brightest years of his career he
seemed about to inaugurate the golden age foretold by the Illuminati.
As by contact with Adam Smith he marched at the head of the new and
peaceful commercialism, so too through his friendship with Wilberforce
he felt the throb of the philanthropic movements of his times.
For the new stirrings of life in the spheres of religion, art, and
literature, Pitt felt no deep concern. Like his father, and like
that great genius of the South who wrecked his career, he was “a
political being.” In truth, the circumstances of the time compelled
him to concentrate all his energies on public affairs. It was his lot
to steer the ship of state through twenty of the most critical years
of its chequered voyage. Taking the tiller at a time of distress, he
guided the bark into calmer waters; and if he himself did not live on
to weather a storm more prolonged and awful than that from which he
at first saved his people, yet even in the vortex of the Napoleonic
cyclone he was to show the dauntless bearing, the firm faith in the
cause of ordered freedom, the unshaken belief in the destinies of his
race, which became the son of Chatham and the typical Englishman of the
age.
CHAPTER I
EARLY YEARS
I am glad that I am not the eldest son, but that I can serve my
country in the House of Commons like papa.--PITT, May 1766.
Champions of the customs of primogeniture must have been disquieted
by observing how frequently the mental endowments of the parents were
withheld from their eldest son and showered upon his younger brother.
The first Earl of Chatham was a second son, and found his doughtiest
opponent in Henry Fox, Lord Holland, also a second son. By a singular
coincidence the extraordinary talents of their second sons carried them
in their turn to the head of their respective parties and engaged them
in the longest duel which the annals of Parliament record. And when
the ascendancy of William Pitt the Younger appeared to be unshakably
established, it was shattered by the genius of the second surviving son
of Charles Marie de Buonaparte.
The future defender of Great Britain was born on 28th May 1759, just
ten years before the great Corsican. His ancestry, no less than the
time of his birth, seemed to be propitious. The son of the Earl of
Chatham, he saw the light in the year when the brilliant victories
of Rodney, Boscawen, Hawke, and Wolfe lessened the French navy by
sixty-four sail of the line, and secured Canada for Britain. The almost
doting fondness which the father felt for the second son, “the hope and
comfort of my life,” may perhaps have been the outcome of the mental
ecstasy of those glorious months.
If William Pitt was fortunate in the time of his birth, he was still
more so in the character of his father. In the nature of “the Great
Commoner,” the strain of pride and vanity was commingled with feelings
of burning patriotism, and with a fixed determination to use all
honourable means for the exaltation of his country. Never since the
age of Elizabeth had Englishmen seen a man of personality so forceful,
of self-confidence so indomitable, of patriotism so pure and intense.
The effect produced by his hawk-like eye, his inspiring mien and
oratory was heightened by the consciousness that here at last was an
honest statesman. In an age when that great party manipulator, Walpole,
had reduced politics to a game of give and take, the scrupulous probity
of Chatham (who refused to touch a penny of the interest on the balance
at the War Ministry which all his predecessors had appropriated)
shone with redoubled lustre. His powers were such as to dazzle his
contemporaries. The wide sweep of his aims in 1756–61, his superb
confidence as to their realization, the power of his oratory, his
magnetic influence, which made brave officers feel the braver after an
interview with him--all this enabled him completely to dominate his
contemporaries.
In truth his personality was so dazzling as to elude the art of
portraiture. At ordinary times he might have been little more than a
replica of that statesman of the reign of Charles II whom Dryden has
immortalized:
A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind’s epitome.
But Chatham was fortunate in his times. He certainly owed very much to
the elevating force of a great idea. In the early part of his life,
when no uplifting influence was at work, his actions were often grossly
incongruous and at times petty and factious. Not until he felt the
inspiration of the idea of Empire did his genius wing its way aloft.
If it be true that the Great Commoner made the British Empire, it is
also true that the Empire made him what he was, the inspirer of heroic
deeds, the invigorator of his people.
In comparison with these qualities, which entitle him to figure in
English annals as Aristotle’s “magnificent man,” his defects were
venial. Nevertheless, as some of them lived on in a lesser degree in
his son, we must remember his arrogance, his melodramatic airs, his
over-weening self-will, and his strange inconsistencies. In no one
else would these vices and defects have been tolerated; that they
were overlooked in him is the highest tribute that can be paid to the
splendour of his services and the sterling worth of his nature.
If we look further back into the antecedents of the Pitt family, we
find it domiciled at or near Blandford in Dorset, where it had produced
one poet of quite average abilities, Christopher Pitt (1699–1748),
whose translation of Virgil had many admirers. The love of adventure
and romance, so often found in West Country families, had already
been seen in Thomas Pitt (1653–1726), who worked his way to the front
in India despite the regulations of the Company, became Governor of
Madras, and made his fortune by very questionable transactions.[37] His
great stroke of good fortune was the purchase of the famous diamond,
which he thereafter sold to the Regent of France for nearly six times
the price of purchase. He married a lady who traced her descent to
a natural son of James V of Scotland; and to this union of a daring
adventurer with the scion of a chivalrous race we may perhaps refer the
will-power and the mental endowments which shone so brightly in their
grandson, the first Earl of Chatham.
On his mother’s side the younger Pitt could claim a distinguished
descent. Her maiden name was Hester Grenville, and she was the daughter
of Richard Grenville and Hester, Countess Temple. The appended table
will show the relation of the Pitt and Grenville families:
RICHARD GRENVILLE m. HESTER (Countess Temple).
|
+-----------------------+------+--------------+
| | |
RICHARD GRENVILLE GEORGE GRENVILLE HESTER GRENVILLE (created
(Earl Temple), (1712–70) (m. Baroness Chatham in 1761) m.
(1711–79). Elizabeth Wyndham). William Pitt (created Earl
| of Chatham in 1766).
+--------------------+----------+ |
| | |
GEORGE GRENVILLE (2nd WILLIAM WYNDHAM |
EARL TEMPLE, AND MARQUIS GRENVILLE (Lord |
of Buckingham), d. 1813. Grenville), Foreign |
Minister in 1791–1801, |
and 1806–7. |
|
+-------------------+-----------+------------+---------+----+
| | | | |
HESTER (1755–80) JOHN (2nd HARRIET WILLIAM PITT JAMES CHARLES
m. Lord Mahon Earl of (1758–86) (the younger) (1761–79).
(3rd Earl Chatham) m. Mr. E. (1759–1806).
Stanhope). (1756–1835). Eliot.
|
+----+
|
LADY HESTER STANHOPE, etc.
The personality of Lady Chatham, if less remarkable, is more lovable
than that of her husband. In contrast to his theatrical, lordly,
and imperious ways, she shone by her simplicity and sweetness. His
junior by many years, she accepted his devotion with something of awe,
and probably felt his oft recurring attacks of gout, for which he
magniloquently apologized, to be a link between them; for the Jove of
the Senate became docile and human when he was racked with pain.[38]
Her tender care at these times, and at others her tactful acquiescence
in his moods and plans, ensured tranquillity and happiness in their
household. Not that she lacked firmness of character, when occasion
required; but we may ascribe her pliability to the personal ascendancy
of her lord, to the customs of the times, and to her perception of the
requisites for a peaceful existence. She carried her complaisance so
far as to leave to her consort the choice of the residence at Hayes,
near Bromley, in Kent, which he bought at the end of the year 1754. The
following are the almost Griselda-like terms in which she defers to his
opinion on the matter: “For the grand affair proposed by my dear love,
I have only to reply that I wish him to follow what he judges best, for
he can best judge what sort of economy suits with the different plans
which he may choose to make hereafter. Whatever you decide upon will be
secure of being approved by me.”[39]
When a woman renounces all claim to a voice in the selection of
her abode, we may be sure that she will neither interfere much in
her husband’s political career, nor seek to shine in a _salon_ of
blue-stockings. In fact, Lady Chatham’s influence on her children
was purely domestic. Her realm was the home. There is scarcely a
trace of any intellectual impress consciously exerted upon her gifted
son, William; but her loving care ensured his survival from the many
illnesses of his early years; and she dowered him with the gentler
traits for which we search in vain in the coldly glittering personality
of Chatham. As examples of her loving care for her children, I may cite
the following passages from her letters. In August 1794, when she felt
old age coming on apace, she wrote in this tender strain:
I feel that I cannot support the idea of leaving you, my beloved
sons, without saying unto ye how truly my fond affection has
increasingly ever attended ye both, and that my constant prayers
have been daily addresst to the Omnipotent Disposer of all events,
that you might be directed in all things by the blessing of
heavenly wisdom....
Or take this gentle chiding to William (25th April 1796):
I do not [hear] from you, my dear son, but I hear often of you in
a way that makes up to me in the best manner possible for your
silence. I cannot, however, help wishing that my pleasure was
increased by receiving now and then a few words from you, and
immediately comes almost a reflection that obliges me to unwish it
again, that I may not take up any part of the small leisure you
have to enjoy a little relaxation from your various calls.
The old lady long retained her vigour; for in the autumn of 1795 she
describes herself as “stout enough both in body and mind to wish the
wind to shift to the east so that the fleet might not be detained.”[40]
Indeed, in the even strength of her body, as in the constancy of her
mind, she far excelled her husband. We find Wilberforce, in the summer
of 1791, entering the following note in his diary: “Old Lady Chatham,
a noble antiquity--Lady Chatham asked about Fox’s speaking--is much
interested about politics--seventy-five years old, and a very active
mind.”[41]
[Illustration:
_Emery Walker Ph. sc._
_Hester Grenville, Countess of Chatham_
_from a painting in the possession of E. G. Pretyman Esq._
]
Doubtless, her pride in the triumphs of her second son explains the
singular buoyancy of her nature almost up to the time of her death. She
must have recognized him as pre-eminently her child. In appearance he
certainly favoured her. A comparison of the two noble Gainsboroughs of
mother and son preserved at Orwell Park shows William to have been more
a Grenville than a Pitt. His nose--that feature on which caricaturists
eagerly fastened, and on which he was said proudly to suspend the
House of Commons--had nothing in common with Chatham’s aquiline and
terrifying prow. So, too, the whole bearing of the son was less fiery
and less formidable than that of the father. In Chatham there lay the
potentialities of a great warrior; but in the son’s nature these powers
were wholly subordinate to the faculties that make for supremacy in
civil affairs, namely, patience, reasonableness, and aptitude for logic
and finance. Above all, there shone in the younger Pitt a harmony of
the faculties, in which the father was lacking.
There is ample proof of the devotion with which Pitt regarded his
parents. His letters to them were long and loving; but while he
addressed Chatham in the stilted terms which the Earl himself affected,
he wrote to his mother in a simple and direct style that tells of
complete sympathy. In one of his youthful letters to her he apologized
humbly for some little act of inattention; and in later years the busy
Prime Minister often begged her forgiveness for his long silence. In
all 363 letters to his mother have survived, and prove the tenderness
of his love. Clearly also he valued her advice; for at the crisis of
the early part of 1783 he asked her opinion whether or no he should
take office as Prime Minister.[42] For the most part the letters
contain little more than references to private affairs, which prove
the warmth of his family feelings; but sometimes, especially in the
later years when the overworked Prime Minister could rarely visit his
mother at her home, Burton Pynsent in Somerset, he gives reasons for
hoping that the progress of measures through Parliament, or the state
of the negotiations with France during the Revolutionary war, would
permit him to pay her a visit. The letters bear touching witness to
the hopefulness of spirit which buoyed him up; but sometimes they are
overclouded by disappointments in the political sphere, which were
all the keener because they held him to his post and prevented the
longed-for stay at Burton Pynsent in August or at Christmas. In such
cases Lady Chatham’s replies are restrained and dignified. I shall
sometimes draw on this correspondence, especially where it reveals
Pitt’s hopes for the work of the session or the conclusion of peace.
Ingenious pleaders from the time of Macaulay onwards have shown their
skill in comparing the achievements of father and son. The futility of
all such tight-rope performances must be obvious to those who remember
the world-wide difference between the cataclysmic forces and novel
problems of the revolutionary era and the comparatively simple tasks
of the age of Chatham. We shall have cause, later on, to insist on the
difference in efficiency between Frederick the Great and Frederick
William II as an ally; and not even the most fervent panegyrists of
Chatham will dare to assert that the ill-led and underfed armies of
Louis XV were foes as redoubtable as the enthusiastic hosts called into
being and marshalled by the French Revolution and Napoleon.
Nevertheless, there is one of these fallacious comparisons which
deserves a brief notice. Lady Chatham, on being asked by one of her
grandchildren which was the cleverer, the Earl of Chatham or Mr. Pitt,
replied: “Your grandpapa without doubt.”[43] The answer is remarkable.
No woman in modern times has been blessed with such prodigality of
power and talent both in husband and son; and we, with a knowledge
of the inner forces of the two periods which she could not possess,
may perhaps be inclined to ascribe her verdict to the triumph of the
early memories of the wife even over the promptings of maternal pride.
Explain it as we may, her judgement is certainly a signal instance
of self-effacement; for the gifts of tact, prudence, and consistency
whereby Pitt restored England to her rightful place in the years
1783–93 were precisely those which he derived from her.
It has often been remarked that great men have owed more to the
mother’s nature than to that of the father; and, while Chatham dowered
his second son with the qualities that make for versatility, display,
and domination, his mother certainly imparted to him forethought,
steadiness of purpose, and the gentler gifts that endeared him to a
select circle of friends. Here again, one might suggest a parallel
between Pitt and his great opponent, Napoleon, who owed to his father
characteristics not unlike those named above, but received from his
mother the steel-like powers of mind and body which made him so
terrible an opponent.
* * * * *
Enough has been said to indicate some of the influences of heredity
which helped to shape the career of Pitt. It is a topic on which only
sciolists would venture to dogmatize. Even in his early youth William
began to outshine his elder brother. In their boyhood, mostly spent
at Hayes, the difference of temperament between John and William made
itself felt to the disadvantage of the former. He was reserved, not
to say heavy and indolent, where William was bright and attractive.
“Eager” is the epithet applied to him by Lady Chatham in 1766. The
eldest son, having none of the intellectual gifts and graces of
Chatham, could not satisfy the imperious cravings of the father, with
the result that William received an undue share of admiration. He was
“the wonderful boy.” John was designed for the army, with results no
less unfortunate for England than a similar choice proved ultimately
to be for France in the case of Joseph Bonaparte. Well would it have
been for the United Kingdom had John Pitt allowed the glorious name
of Chatham to sink to comfortable mediocrity on the paternal estates
of Hayes or Burton Pynsent, and never to be associated with the Isle
of Walcheren. His colleagues in the Cabinet learnt to respect his
judgement as that of a safe man; but, as the sequel will show, he was
utterly lacking in energy and the power of inspiring others.
William, having alertness of mind and brightness of speech, was
designed for Parliament. Or rather, this was his choice at the age
of seven. In May 1766, on hearing that his father was raised to the
Peerage, he told his tutor, the Rev. Edward Wilson, in all seriousness,
that he was glad he was not the eldest son, but that he could serve
his country in the House of Commons like his papa.[44] The words have
often been misquoted, even by Earl Stanhope, the boy being reported
as saying, “I want to speak in the House of Commons like papa.” The
words, when correctly cited, are remarkable, not for childish conceit,
but for a grave and premature sense of responsibility. They show the
strength of that patriotic instinct which inspired every action of his
career, spurring him on to his early studies, and to the complex and
crushing duties of his youth and manhood. They sound the keynote of his
character and enable us to form some notion of the strength of that
life-long desire to serve his native land. This, his first recorded
utterance, links itself in noble unison with that last tragic gasp of
23rd January 1806--“My country. How I leave my country!”
* * * * *
The health of the little William was so precarious that he and his
brothers and sisters spent much time at the seaside resorts, Weymouth
and Lyme Regis, which were not far from Burton Pynsent, an estate
bequeathed by an admirer to the Earl of Chatham. Yet notwithstanding
all the care bestowed on him, the boy had but a frail hold on life.
Illness beset him during fully the half of his youth. At the age of
fourteen he was still short and thin and weighed only six stone,
two pounds.[45] Observers, however, agree that his spirits always
rose superior to weakness; and to this characteristic, as also to
his indomitable will, we may attribute his struggling on through an
exhausting career to the age of forty-seven. The life of Pitt is a
signal proof of the victory which mind can, for a time, win over matter.
Very naturally, his parents decided to have him trained at home rather
than at a public school. Chatham, while at Eton, formed the most
unfavourable impression of the public school system and summed it up
in his remark to Shelburne that he had “scarce observed a boy who was
not cowed for life at Eton; that a public school might suit a boy of a
turbulent, forward disposition, but would not do where there was any
gentleness.”[46]
The tutor chosen for this purpose was the Rev. Edward Wilson, of
Pembroke Hall (now College), Cambridge, who had charge of him from his
sixth to his fourteenth year. The mutual affection of tutor and pupil
is seen in a letter which the tutor wrote at Weymouth in September
1766, describing William as often standing by him while he read, and
making remarks that frequently lit up the subject and impressed it on
the memory. His ardour, he adds, could not be checked.[47] Wilson’s
training seems to have been highly efficient, as will appear when we
come to consider the phenomenal attainments of his pupil at the time of
his admission to the University of Cambridge.
It is perhaps significant that that later prodigy of learning and
oratorical power, Macaulay, was also not brought into contact with
our public school system. Both of these remarkable men may have owed
some of their originality to the thoroughness of the private tuition
which they received before entering the university. Had they passed
through the mill of a public school they would certainly have been less
angular, and would have gained in knowledge of men. Pitt especially
might have cast off that reserve and stiffness which often cost him
so dear. But both of them would assuredly have lost in individuality
what they might have gained in _bonhomie_. Still more certain is it
that those hotbeds of slang would have unfitted them for the free
expression of their thoughts in dignified and classical English. The
ease with which, from the time of his first entrance into Parliament,
Pitt wielded the manifold resources of his mother tongue may be
ascribed partly to hereditary genius but also to daily converse with
one of the greatest of orators. It was Chatham’s habit to read with his
favourite son passages from the Bible or from some other great classic.
We also know from one of the Earl’s private memoranda that he made
it a special study to clothe his thoughts in well-chosen words.[48]
Indeed, he never talked but always conversed. We may be sure, then,
that even the lighter efforts of the statesman must have been to the
boy at once an inspiration to great deeds, a melodious delight, and a
lesson in rhetoric. What youth possessed of genius would not have had
his faculties braced by learning English from such a tongue, by viewing
mankind through such a lens?
This education at home probably explains one of Pitt’s marked
characteristics, namely, his intense hopefulness. Brought up on the
best authors, imbued with the highest principles, and lacking all
knowledge of the seamy side of life, he cherished an invincible belief
in the triumph of those aims which he felt to be good and true. This
is an invaluable faculty; but it needs to be checked by acquaintance
with the conduct of the average man; and that experience Pitt scarcely
ever gained except by hearsay. Sir George Trevelyan has remarked that
the comparative seclusion of Macaulay in youth led to his habitual
over-estimate of the knowledge usually possessed by men. Certainly it
led to the creation of that singular figment, “Macaulay’s school-boy.”
A similar remark probably holds true of the quality of Pitt’s nature
noted above. Partly, no doubt, his hopefulness was the heritage
bequeathed by Chatham; but it was strengthened by Pitt’s bookish
outlook on life.
The surroundings of his childhood and early youth must also have
favoured the growth of that patrician virtue, confidence. Up to the
year 1774 he lived on his father’s estates at Hayes and Burton Pynsent,
amidst some of the choicest scenery in the south of England. The
land overflowed with prosperity, which was rightly ascribed in large
measure to the genius of Chatham. Until the shadow of the American War
of Independence fell on the youth, in his seventeenth year, he was
the favourite son of a father whom all men revered; and his lot was
cast in a land which seemed to be especially favoured. Thus pride of
family and pride of race must have helped to stiffen the mental fibre
of a youth on whom nature and art alike showered the gifts and graces
of a chivalrous order. In a coarse nature the result would have been
snobbishness. In William Pitt the outcome was devotion to the ideals of
his father and buoyant confidence as to their ultimate triumph.
In some respects there is truth in the statement of Windham that Pitt
never was young. Certainly for so delicate a plant the forcing process
was perilously early and prolonged. In the Pitt Papers (No. XI) I have
found a curious proof of the hold which the boy had over Latin at a
very early age. It is a letter written to his father, the general
correctness of which contrasts strangely with its large round letters
enclosed within lines. It is not dated, but probably belongs to 1766,
that is, to the seventh year of his age.
MI CHARISSIME PATER,
Gaudeo audire te rursum bene valere. Vidimus primates Mohecaunnuck
et Wappinger, Tribuum Indicorum a septentrioli America, qui veniunt
in Angliam supplicare regem ob quosdam agros. Gulielmus Johnson,
eques auratus, desiderabat auxilium eorum in bello, et illi omnes
abierunt ut pugnarent contra Gallos; sed, cum domum rediebant,
sentiebant Batavos arripuisse omnes suos agros. Vulgus apud
Portland illos parum commode tractabat.
Sum, mi charissime Pater,
tibi devinctissimus,
GULIELMUS PITT.
I have also found a curious proof of the stilted style in which the boy
wrote to his father, while on the very same day he wrote to his brother
almost in the terms which a boy of eleven would use. To the Earl of
Chatham he thus begins a letter of 31st July 1770:
From the weather we have had here I flatter myself that the
sun shone on your expedition, and that the views were enough
enlivened thereby to prevent the drowsy Morpheus from taking the
opportunity of the heat to diffuse his poppies upon the eyes of the
travellers.[49]
This almost rises to the pomposity of style with which Chatham
described to his son William the stinging of carriage-horses by wasps.
The insects figure as “an ambuscade of Pandours,” and the horses as
“these coursers of spirit not inferior to Xanthus and Podarges.”[50]
* * * * *
Here on the other hand is the boy’s letter to his brother:
Hayes, July 31 1770.
DEAR BROTHER,
I assure you that I am obliged to you beyond what is to be
expressed for your epistle or journal. The dialogue between you and
your host is very entertaining to those not interested in the want
of provision in the inn. But I fancy it was not so to you, as it
afforded little or no hope of dinner unless you could dine on the
small tithes. The 2 Masons are incomparable. I think the intended
candidate is to the full as likely as G. O. to succeed, and for
what I know deserves it better. As I have seen neither the statue
at Guilford nor that at South Carolina, I cannot judge which excels
in point of workmanship, but I know which of the two noble Persons
(in my opinion) is the superior. Your white mare I take to be more
of the species of an elephant than any other; and can carry houses
or castles on her back. Tho’, great as She is, Long Sutton might
perhaps keep her under her feet. These two mornings I have rode
out before breakfast. Your Greek was excellent, and (I think) with
practice you may become a Thucydides. Dapple is in good health; and
we have taken the liberty to desire him to honour us with following
the little chaise. I hope all stock is pure well.
I am, dear brother,
Affectionately yours,
WILLIAM PITT.[51]
The contrast between the two letters proves that Chatham’s influence
must have overwrought the boy’s brain and inflated his style. The
letter to John evinces a joy in life natural to a boy of eleven,
together with a wide range of interests and accomplishments.
That the writers of the period also did much to form the boy’s style
will appear from his first poem, “On the Genius of Poetry,” which bears
date May 1771.[52] It seems to be the joint product of Harriet and
William Pitt:
Ye sacred Imps of thund’ring Jove descend,
Immortal Nine, to me propitious, bend
Inclining downward from Parnassus’ brow;
To me, young Bard, some Heav’nly fire allow.
From Aganippe’s murmur strait repair,
Assist my labours and attend my pray’r.
Inspire my verse. Of Poetry it sings.
Thro’ _Her_, the deeds of Heroes and of Kings
Renown’d in arms, with fame immortal stand.
By _Her_ no less, are spread thro’ ev’ry land
Those patriot names, who in their country’s cause
Triumphant fall, for Liberty and Laws.
Exalted high, the Spartan Hero stands,
Encircled with his far-renowned bands.
Whoe’er devoted for their country die,
Thro’ _Her_ their fame ascends the starry sky.
_She_ too perpetuates each horrid deed;
When laws are trampled, when their guardians bleed,
That shall the Muse to infamy prolong
Example dread, and theme of tragic song.
Nor less immortal, than the Chiefs, resound
The Poets’ names, who spread their deeds around.
Homer shall flourish first in rolls of fame;
And still shall leave the Roman Virgil’s name;
With living bays is lofty Pindar crown’d;
In distant ages Horace stands renown’d.
These Bards, and more, fair Greece and Rome may boast,
And some may flourish on this British Coast.
Witness the man, on whom the Muse did smile,
Who sung our Parents’ fall and Satan’s guile,
A second Homer, favor’d by the Nine.
Sweet Spenser, Jonson, Shakspear the divine.
And He, fair Virtue’s Bard, who rapt doth sing
The praise of Freedom and Laconia’s King.
But high o’er Chiefs and Bards supremely great
Shall Publius shine, the Guardian of our state.
Him shall th’ immortal Nine themselves record,
With deathless fame his gen’rous toil reward,
Shall tune the harp to loftier sounding lays
And thro’ the world shall spread his ceaseless praise.
Their hands alone can match the Heav’nly strain
And with due fire his wond’rous glories sing.
The poem, which is in William’s handwriting, shows that by the age of
twelve he had acquired the trick--it was no more--of writing in the
style of Pope and Johnson. The lines remind us of the felicitous phrase
in which Cowper characterized the output of that school:
The click-clock tintinnabulum of rhyme.
But they show neatness of thought and phrase. In a word, they are good
Johnsonese.
The same quality of sonorous ponderosity is observable in Pitt’s
letters of 3rd June 1771 to his uncle the statesman, Earl Temple,
thanking him for a present, in which the names of Lyttelton and Coke
are invoked. In the following sentences the trend of the boy’s thoughts
is very marked: “I revere this gift the more, as I have heard Lyttelton
and Coke were props of the Constitution, which is a synonimous [_sic_]
term for just Liberty.” The “marvellous boy” ends by quoting part of a
line of Virgil, which still more powerfully inspired him:
avunculus excitat Hector.
The next year saw the production of a play, which he and his brothers
and sisters acted at Burton Pynsent on 30th May 1772. Here again the
motive is solely political: a King, Laurentius, on his way homeward,
after a successful war, suffers shipwreck, and is mourned as dead. The
news leads an ambitious counsellor, Gordinus, to plot the overthrow of
the regency of the Queen; but his advances are repelled by a faithful
minister, Pompilius--the character played by William Pitt--in the
following lines:
Our honoured Master’s steps may guide her on,
Whose inmost soul she knew; and surely she
Is fitted most to fill her husband’s throne,
She, whom maternal tenderness inspires,
Will watch incessant o’er her lovely son
And best pursue her dear Laurentius’ plans.
Pompilius warns the Queen of the plot of Gordinus, and persuades her
to entrust her son Florus to his care in a sylvan retreat. Thither
also Laurentius comes in disguise; for, after landing as a forlorn
survivor, he hears of dangerous novelties that had poisoned men’s
minds and seduced the army from allegiance to the Queen. Pompilius,
while visiting the royal heir, sees and recognizes Laurentius, brings
him to Florus, and prepares to overthrow the traitors. In due course
the King’s adherents defeat the forces of Gordinus, who is slain by
Laurentius himself, while Pompilius, his standard bearer, kills another
arch-conspirator. The King grants a general pardon in these lines:
Us it behoves, to whom by gracious Heav’n
The cares of nations and of States are giv’n--
Us it behoves with clemency to sway
That glorious sceptre which the gods bestow.
We are the shepherds sent to tend the flock,
Sent to protect from wrong, not to destroy.
Oh! Florus! When thou govern’st our domains,
Bear these thy father’s precepts in thy mind.
Thro’ love control thy subjects, not thro’ fear.
The people’s love the bulwark of thy throne.
Give not thy mind to passion or revenge,
But let fair Mercy ever sway thy soul.[53]
It is fairly certain that none of the children but William could have
written these lines; and the fact that the mainspring of the action is
political further stamps the play as his own. Some Spirit of the Future
seems to have hovered over him, for the mental derangement of George
III in 1788 brought to the front questions relating to a Regency not
very unlike those sketched by the boy playwright. The sense of loyalty
and devotion which informs the play was then also to guide Pitt’s
footsteps through a bewildering maze. Indeed this effusion seems almost
like a marionette’s version of the Regency affair: Laurentius is a more
romantic George III, Pompilius quite startlingly foreshadows Pitt the
Prime Minister, the Prince of Wales (an undutiful Florus) and Fox may
pass for the conspirators; and the _motif_ of the play twangs a mimic
prelude to the intrigues of Carlton House. In the acting of the play
the elder brother seems far to have surpassed William, who bore himself
stiffly and awkwardly. Such was the testimony of young Addington,
a lifelong friend, who saw the play acted on another occasion at
Hayes.[54] The criticism is valuable as showing how ingrained in Pitt’s
nature was the shyness and _gaucherie_ in public which were ever to
hamper his progress.
Juvenile authorship has its dangers for a delicate child; and we are
not surprised to find from notes left by his first tutor to Bishop
Tomline that the half of Pitt’s boyhood was beset by illnesses which
precluded all attempt at study. But nothing stopped the growth of his
mental powers, which Wilson summed up in the Platonic phrase, “Pitt
seemed never to learn but merely to recollect.” At the age of fourteen
and a half, then, he was ripe for Cambridge. It is true that youths
then entered the English Universities at an age fully as early as the
Scottish lads who went from the parish school, or manse, straight to
Edinburgh or Aberdeen. Charles James Fox, Gibbon, and the lad who
became Lord Eldon, entered Oxford at fifteen. Wilberforce, who at
seventeen went up from Hull to St. John’s College, Cambridge, was
probably the senior of most of the freshmen of his year; but the case
of Pitt was even then exceptional.
Cambridge on the whole enjoyed a better reputation than Oxford for
steady work; but this alone does not seem to have turned the thoughts
of the Earl of Chatham so far eastwards. He himself was an Oxford man,
and the distance of Cambridge from Burton Pynsent, the usual abode of
the family, would naturally have told in favour of Oxford.
The determining facts seem to have been that Wilson’s companionship
was deemed essential, and that he, as a graduate of Pembroke Hall,
Cambridge, turned the scale in favour of his own college. This appears
from Wilson’s letter of 2nd December 1772 to his wife:
I could not have acted with more prudence than I have done in
the affair of Pembroke Hall. Mr. Pitt is not the child his years
bespeak him to be. He has now all the understanding of a man,
and is, and will be, my steady friend thro’ life.... He will go
to Pembroke, not a weak boy to be made a property of, but to be
admir’d as a prodigy; not to hear lectures but to spread light.
His parts are most astonishing and universal. He will be fully
qualified for a wrangler _before he goes_, and be an accomplished
classick, mathematician, historian and poet.[55]
How often have similar prophecies led to disappointment. In the case
of the “wonderful boy,” they did but point the way to a career whose
meridian splendour has eclipsed the tender beauty of its dawn.
CHAPTER II
AT CAMBRIDGE
A man that is young in yeares may be old in houres, if he have lost
no time. But that happeneth rarely.--BACON.
On 26th April 1773 Pitt’s name was entered at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge;
and he commenced residence there on 8th October 1772. His health
being ever a matter of grave concern, Wilson stayed with him in order
to prevent any boyish imprudences and accompany him in riding. But
all precautions were in vain. Despite the invigorating influences of
sea-air at Lyme Regis, where William and his brother had stayed from
June up to 21st September, he soon fell ill at Cambridge, and remained
in bed for several weeks. Thanks to the medical skill of Drs. Addington
and Glynn (the former an old friend of Chatham), he gradually got
the better of the hereditary foe, gout; but the letters which passed
between Lady Chatham and Wilson attest the severity of the seizure. The
boy seems to have won the love of his medical attendants, as appears
from this sentence in her letter of 22nd November. “What a gift William
has to conciliate the love of those who are once acquainted with him.”
There is a story told to Thomas Moore by the Bishop of Bath and Wells,
that Pitt brought his nurse with him in the carriage to Cambridge,
and that she stayed to look after him. This strange assertion is made
in the poet’s diary for 13th February 1826; and the distrust which
that late date inspires is increased when we find that the Bishop had
the anecdote from Paley, who “was very near being his [Pitt’s] tutor,
instead of Pretyman, but Paley did not like it.”[56] As Paley was at
Christ’s, and there never was any question of Pitt entering at that
college or receiving from the outset regular instruction outside the
walls of Pembroke, the story lacks every element of credibility.
The facts are as follows: Mrs. Sparry, who was attendant or housekeeper
at Burton Pynsent, went to Cambridge to nurse the boy through his long
and serious illness, and finally brought him home. At last the invalid
was strong enough to bear the journey. Four days were taken up in
reaching London; and we find him writing thence to his mother on 6th
December that he had not been fatigued and felt strong enough to walk
all the way home; but, he added, Mrs. Sparry urged him not to write
much.[57] He did not return to Cambridge (“the evacuated seat of the
Muses” as Chatham styled it) until 13th July 1774. Then he informed
Lady Chatham that Cambridge was empty, that Dr. Glynn had called on him
and had inquired after Mrs. Sparry, who would be glad to hear that the
bed at his rooms had been well aired. These trifles enable us to reduce
the oft quoted nurse story to its proper insignificance.
Wilson seems to have done his best to amuse his charge in the dreary
vacation time of July–September 1774; for on 24th August Pitt described
to his mother a ride in which Wilson and he had lost their way among
lanes and fields and regained the track with some damage to hedges,
and after a chase of one of the steeds, but far too late to share
in college dinner. Again, on 1st September, he wrote to the Earl of
Chatham: “The ardour for celebrating this day is as great at Cambridge
as anywhere; and Mr. Wilson himself, catching a spark of it, signalized
himself by killing a crow on the wing after a walk of six hours.”[58]
The natural vivacity of disposition, which charmed all his friends,
must have played no small part in the recovery of his health. The
medical authorities of to-day would also probably assign more
importance to regular hours, exercise, and careful diet than to
the use of port wine, adopted in compliance with his physicians’
recommendation, on which some contemporary writers dwell with much
gusto. Certain it is that from the year 1774 onwards “his health became
progressively confirmed.”
This phrase occurs in the biography of Pitt written by his college
tutor, Dr. Pretyman, whose style it aptly characterizes. The book is
indeed one of the most ponderous ever published. As tutor, friend, and
adviser, the Rev. Dr. Pretyman had unique opportunities for giving
to the world a complete and life-like portrait. Pitt was entrusted
to his care and to that of his colleague, Dr. Turner, in 1773–4,
and thereafter to Pretyman alone. The undergraduate soon conceived
for him an affection which was strong and lasting. Their intercourse
suffered little interruption, not even from the ecclesiastical honours
which the young Prime Minister so freely bestowed on his old tutor.
The bishop, who in 1803 took the name of Tomline, continued to be
the friend and adviser of the Statesman up to the dreary days which
succeeded the death-blow of Austerlitz. Pitt died in his arms, and he
was his literary executor. Yet, despite the mass of materials put into
his hands (or was it because of their mass?)[59] he wrote one of the
dullest biographies in the English language.
The solution of the riddle may perhaps be found in the cast of his
mind, which was that of a mathematician and divine, while it lacked
the gifts of interest in men and affairs, of insight into character,
of delicate and instinctive sympathy, and of historic imagination,
which enliven, reveal, interpret, and illuminate personalities and
situations. Talleyrand, with a flash of almost diabolical wit, once
described language as a means of _concealing_ thought. Tomline, with
laboured conscientiousness, seems to have looked on biography as a
means of concealing character. Certainly he portrayed only those
features which are easily discernible in the tomes of the Parliamentary
History. An almost finnikin scrupulousness clogged him in the exercise
of the scanty powers of portraiture with which Nature had endowed
him. The biographer was continually being reined in by the literary
executor, the result being a progress, which, while meant to be
stately, succeeds only in being shambling. Here and there we catch
glimpses of Pitt under the senatorial robes with which his friend
adorned and concealed him, but they are tantalizingly brief. The Bishop
was beset by so many qualms concerning the propriety of mentioning this
or that incident as to “suppress many circumstances and anecdotes of
a more private nature,” and to postpone the compilation of a volume
on this more frivolous subject. Death supervened while the Bishop was
still revolving the question of the proprieties; and we shall therefore
never fully know Pitt as he appeared to his life-long counsellor.[60]
There must have been sterling qualities in the man whom the statesman
thus signally honoured. Dr. Pretyman’s learning was vast. Senior
Wrangler and Fellow of his College, he also became a Fellow of the
Royal Society; and his attainments in the classics enabled him to
command the respect of his pupil in a sphere where, according to
Wilson, Pitt had the Platonic gift, not of learning, but of instinctive
remembrance (ἀνάμνησις). Nevertheless, nearly all contemporaries seem
to have found in the tutor and Bishop a primness and austerity which
were far from attractive. Perhaps he lacked the vitality which might
have energized that mass of learning. Or else the consciousness that
he was a Senior Wrangler, together with the added load of tutorial and
episcopal responsibility, may have been too much for him. To Pitt,
nurtured amidst the magniloquence of Hayes and Burton Pynsent, the
seriousness and pedantry of Pretyman doubtless appeared natural and
pleasing. To outsiders they were tedious; and the general impression
of half-amused, half-bored wonderment is cleverly, though spitefully,
expressed in the lines of the _Rolliad_:
Prim preacher, prince of priests and prince’s priest,[61]
Pembroke’s pale pride, in Pitt’s _praecordia_ placed,
Thy merits all shall future ages scan,
And prince be lost in parson Pretyman.
Among the most interesting parts of the bishop’s biography of Pitt
are those in which he describes his attainments, and his studies at
Pembroke Hall. The tutor found him, as Wilson expected, exceedingly
well versed in the classics, so that he seldom met with any
difficulties. Chatham had prescribed a careful study of Thucydides and
Polybius; and the young undergraduate was often able, with little or no
preparation, to translate six or seven pages of the former historian,
without making more than one or two mistakes. This is very remarkable
in a youth of fifteen; but his sense of the meaning and fitness of
words seems to have been not less instinctive than his choice of
language, which was soon to arouse the wonder and admiration of the
most experienced debaters at Westminster.
As regards his mathematical attainments, Tomline states that he had
already read the first six books of Euclid, and had mastered the
elementary parts of Algebra, Trigonometry, and Natural Philosophy.
The bent of his mind was towards the Humanities; but he had a good
hold on mathematics, and became expert at the solution of problems.
Newton’s _Principia_ aroused his deepest admiration. Various notes on
mathematical and astronomical subjects extant in the Pitt Papers (too
fragmentary for reproduction here) show that he retained his interest
in the exact sciences.[62]
At Cambridge, above all, he deepened his knowledge of the classics.
The ease with which he deciphered so obscure a work as Lycophron’s
“Cassandra” astonished even those who were familiar with his
exceptional powers. Everything therefore conduced to give him an
exceedingly wide and thorough knowledge of the literatures of Greece
and Rome; for, fortunately for him, he had neither the need nor the
inclination to bestow much time on the art of versifying in those
languages, which absorbed, and still absorbs, so much of the energy of
the dwellers by the Cam. Accordingly the life, thought, and statecraft
of Athens and Rome became thoroughly familiar to him. His love for
their masterpieces of art and imagination was profound; and the many
comments in his handwriting on the margin of the chief authors suffice
to refute the gibe of certain small-minded opponents, that he kept
up his acquaintance with the classics in order to find tags for his
speeches.[63] To some extent, it is true, his studies were directed
towards his future vocation. At the wish of the Earl of Chatham, he
bestowed great attention on the oratory of the ancients; and he seems
to have bettered the precept by making critical notes on the speeches
which he read, and remarking how the various arguments were, or might
be, answered. Add to this a close and loving perusal of Shakespeare
and Milton, and it will be seen that Pitt’s studies at Cambridge were
such as invigorated the mind, cultivated his oratorical gift, and
thoroughly equipped him for the parliamentary arena.
From Tomline we glean a few details which enable us to picture the
young undergraduate in his surroundings. He states that his manners
even at that early age were formed and his behaviour manly, that he
mixed in conversation with unaffected vivacity and perfect ease. His
habits were most regular; he never failed to attend morning and evening
chapel except when prevented by ill health. Owing to his father’s habit
of reading aloud a chapter of the Bible every day, his knowledge of
the Holy Scripture was unusually good. Tomline mentions a circumstance
which will serve also to illustrate Pitt’s powers of memory and fine
sense of sound. On hearing his former tutor read portions of Scripture
in support of his “Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles,” the
statesman (it was in that anxious year, 1797) stopped him at one text
with the remark--“I do not recollect that passage in the Bible, and it
does not sound like Scripture.” He was right: the passage came from the
Apocrypha, which he had not read.
The singular correctness of Pitt’s life while at Cambridge exposed
him to the risk of becoming a bookworm and a prig. From this he was
saved by his good sense and his ill-health. “The wonderful boy” was
begged by his parents not to court the Muses too assiduously. Chatham’s
fatherly anxiety and his love of classical allusions led him to run
this metaphor to death; but the strained classicisms had the wished for
effect. Pitt rode regularly and far. In the Pitt Papers (No. 221) I
have found proof that, while at Cambridge, he was trained in the then
essential art of fencing. At a later date his old fencing-master, Peter
Renaud, sent to him a petition stating that he had “had the honour of
teaching you when you was at Pembroke College,” and that in consequence
of the decline in the habit of fencing, he was now in poverty, and
therefore begged for help from his illustrious pupil.
We clutch at these trifles which show the drift of Pitt’s early habits;
for the worthy Tomline, who had stacks, where we have only sheaves,
does not condescend to notice them. From the Pitt Papers we can,
however, in part reconstruct his Cambridge life. In his first term,
Pitt described Pembroke as “a sober, staid college, and nothing but
solid study there.” Fortunately, too, no exceptional privileges were
accorded to Chatham’s favourite son. The father in his letter to
the tutor had not claimed any, except those required on the score of
health. Consequently though Pitt had the right to don the gorgeous gown
of a “gentleman-commoner” (afterwards called “fellow commoner”), he did
not do so. In his first letter to his father he stated that his cap
was “to be stripped of its glories, in exchange for a plain loop and
button.”[64] It is further pleasing to know that his father wished him
not to make use of that tattered mediaeval privilege which allowed sons
of noblemen to receive the degree without sitting for examination; and
that persistent ill-health alone led him to resort unwillingly to this
miserable expedient.
We are here reminded of Wordsworth’s reference to the sense of social
equality to be found at Cambridge, even at a time when titled arrogance
and old-world subservience ramped and cringed unchecked and unrelieved
in most parts of the land. The lines are worthy of quotation because
they show that the spirit prevalent at Cambridge, at least at St.
John’s College, prepared the poet to sympathize with the French
democracy. He speaks of Cambridge as
A Republic, where all stood thus far
Upon equal ground, that we were brothers all
In honour, as in one community,
Scholars and gentlemen; where, furthermore,
Distinction open lay to all that came,
And wealth and titles were in less esteem
Than talents, worth, and prosperous industry.
We do not know whether Pitt’s feelings at this time were akin to those
of Wordsworth, who entered St. John’s in 1787. Pitt’s surroundings were
not such as to favour the infiltration of new ideas. In his first two
years he mixed scarcely at all with undergraduates, and even after 1776
his circle seems to have been limited, doubtless owing to his intense
shyness, ill-health, and constant association with Dr. Pretyman. On 4th
November 1776 he writes home that he had been spending a few days at
the house of Lord Granby (the future Duke of Rutland), and had returned
to the “sober hours and studies” of college; but he rarely refers to
pastimes and relaxations.
His letters also contain few references to study; but one of these is
worthy of notice. On 10th November 1776 he asked permission to attend
a month’s course of lectures on Civil Law for the fee of five guineas;
and later on he stated that they were “instructive and amusing,”
besides requiring little extra work. In that term he took his degree in
the manner aforesaid. Early in 1777 he moved to other rooms which were
small but perfectly sheltered from wind and weather. About that time,
too, he launched out more freely into social life, so we may judge from
the not infrequent requests for increased supplies. On 30th June 1777
he writes that he has exceeded his allowance by £60, the first sign of
that heedlessness in money matters which was to hamper him through life.
* * * * *
The chief feature of interest in these early letters is the frequent
references to the politics of the time, which show that he kept the
service of his country steadily in view. Thus, on 23rd March 1775
during vacation time at Hayes, he writes to his brother, begging him,
if he leaves his pillow before noon, to find out the fate of Mr.
Burke’s motion on behalf of conciliation with America. He signs the
letters on behalf of “the Society at Hayes,” possibly a reference
to a family debating club.[65] It is noteworthy that the struggle
of the American colonists with George III was the first political
event to arouse his interest, which must have been heightened by the
fervid speeches of Chatham on the subject. A little later a side eddy
must have set in, for his elder brother, Lord Pitt, on receiving
his commission in 1774, joined his regiment, which was quartered
successively at Quebec and Montreal. On 31st May 1775 William writes
from Cambridge that the papers are full of the bad news from Boston,
doubtless the fight at Lexington. Ten days later he requests Lady
Chatham to send, along with the “Ethics,” Davenant on “Peace, War, and
Alliance,” as it is not in any library in Cambridge. Clearly, then, the
youth was alive to the legal and international questions then at stake.
Probably these wider interests carried him more into society. His
friendship with Lord Granby, then an undergraduate, is more than once
referred to; and thus was formed that connection which furthered Pitt’s
career, and led to the sending of Lord Granby (after succeeding to the
Dukedom of Rutland) to the Viceregal Lodge at Dublin. The Duke, it may
be mentioned, bequeathed to Pitt the sum of £3,000.[66] Friendships
formed at the University counted for much in times when court and
governmental influence made or marred a man’s career. We may therefore
note that as Pitt’s health improved during the last years at Cambridge,
he also became friendly with the following: Lord Westmorland, Lord
Euston, Lowther (Lord Lonsdale), Pratt (Lord Camden), Pepper Arden,
Eliot, Bankes, Long, and St. John.
The name of him who was perhaps Pitt’s dearest friend is here
conspicuous by its absence. Wilberforce saw little of Pitt at
Cambridge, partly, perhaps, because he did not enter at St. John’s
College until 1776 and then became associated with a dissolute set; but
he made Pitt’s acquaintance towards the end of their time there, and
the youths were mutually attracted by their brilliant conversational
gifts and intellectual powers, which were to be sharpened by delightful
intercourse at London and Wimbledon. In a passage penned in 1821,
Wilberforce contrasts the comparative ill fortune of Pitt with the
good fortune of his rival, Charles James Fox, who at Oxford made the
acquaintance of a number of brilliant young men, Sheridan, Windham,
Erskine, Hare, General Fitzpatrick, and Lord John Townshend. Nearly
all of these, it is true, won distinction in public life; but it is
scarcely fair to say that Pitt’s Cambridge friends (to whose number
Wilberforce adds Lords Abercorn and Spencer) were deficient in parts.
Their gifts, if less brilliant, were more solid than those of Fox
and Sheridan. Lords Camden and Westmorland were to prove themselves
able administrators, and the future Duke of Rutland, though showy and
dissolute, displayed much ability as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Bankes
“the precise” (as the _Rolliad_ terms him) was a hard-hitter in debate;
while the gentler qualities of Eliot endeared him both to Pitt and to
his sister Harriet, whom he married in 1785.
Viewing the question more widely, we may surmise that Pitt’s career at
Cambridge would have been more fruitful had he gone up somewhat later
and mixed more with undergraduates, especially with good talkers. In
that case we can imagine that the Grenville stiffness in him would
almost have vanished. A _bon vivant_ like Fox or North he could never
have been; but the austerity of his life at Cambridge, save in its
closing months, did not tend to cure him of the awkward shyness which
Wilberforce noted as so prominent a trait in his character;[67] and
thus he went forth into the life of Westminster weighted with that
serious defect, an incapacity for making a wide circle of friends
or winning over enemies. In a sense it may be said that Pitt took
political life too seriously. He prepared for it from boyhood so
strenuously as partly to stunt his social faculties, and thereby
handicap himself for life. For in that age the political arena was the
close preserve of the nobles, gentry, and nabobs, with whom a statesman
could scarcely succeed unless he had the manners of the clubs and the
instincts of a sportsman. A compromise between Lord Chatham and Tony
Lumpkin would have made the ideal leader. As it was, there entered on
the scene a compromise between Chatham and Aristides.
Pitt’s chief relaxation from the “sober studies” at Pembroke Hall was
found in visits to the great debates at Westminster. The first of
these visits belongs to the month of January 1775, when his father was
pleading passionately for conciliation with America. Benjamin Franklin,
the champion of the colonists, was present; and the orator clearly
aimed at persuading our kinsmen beyond the seas that they had the
sympathy of very many British hearts. Those two orations echoed far and
wide amid the dales of New England and the rocks of the Alleghanies.
What, then, must have been the effect of the living voice and of that
superb presence, which trebled the power of every word, on a sensitive
youth whose being ever thrilled responsive to that of his father?
Language failed him to express his feelings. “Nothing prevented his
speech,” so he wrote to his mother, “from being the most forcible that
can be imagined, and [the] Administration fully felt it. The manner
and matter both were striking; far beyond what I can express. It was
everything which was superior; ... his first speech lasted above an
hour and the second half an hour--surely the two finest speeches
that ever were made, unless by himself.”[68] He heard also Chatham’s
great effort of 30th May 1777, and describes it as marked by “a flow
of eloquence and beauty of expression, animated and striking beyond
expression.”
For Pitt, indeed, the chief delights of the vacations centred in St.
Stephens. Never has there been a more eager listener to the debates;
and here his method of studying the orators of Greece and Rome enabled
him quickly to marshal the arguments of a speaker, assess them at their
real worth, and fashion a retort. During one of his visits to the House
of Lords he was introduced to Charles James Fox, already famous as
the readiest debater in the Lower House. The Whig leader afterwards
described the rapt attention with which the youth at his side listened
to the speeches of the peers, and frequently turned to him with the
remark: “But surely, Mr. Fox, that might be met thus,” or “Yes; but he
lays himself open to this retort.” Little can Fox have imagined that
these gifts, when whetted by maturity, were frequently to dash the
hopes of the Whigs.[69]
The nice balancing of arguments, and the study of words, together
with the art of voice production, may make a clever and persuasive
speaker; but a great orator is he to whom such things are but trifling
adornments, needful, indeed, for a complete equipment, but lost amidst
the grander endowments of Nature, imagination and learning. Pitt
excelled in the greater gifts no less than in the smaller graces.
He had the advantage of a distinguished presence, a kindling eye, a
sonorous voice; and to these excellences were added those of the mind,
which outshone all adventitious aids. And these intellectual powers,
which give weight to attack and cover a retreat, were cultivated with
a wholeheartedness and persistence unparalleled in our annals. The
pompous greetings of the Earl of Chatham to “the civilians and law of
nations tribe” at Pembroke Hall show the thoroughness of his son’s
application to law. It also seems probable that during the latter part
of his stay at Cambridge he widened his outlook on public affairs by
a study of Adam Smith’s great work, “The Wealth of Nations,” which
appeared in 1776. He afterwards avowed himself a disciple of Adam
Smith; and it is questionable whether he would have had time after
leaving Cambridge thoroughly to master that work.
Books which bore upon the rise and fall of States seem to have engaged
his attention, as was also the case with the young Napoleon--witness
his copious notes on changes of dynasty and revolutions. In truth,
those questions were then “in the air.” In 1748 Montesquieu had
published his “Spirit of Laws”; Rousseau had brought out in 1762 his
“Social Contract,” which Quinet has described as the seed of the French
Revolution. Whether Pitt perused these works is doubtful; but it is
clear that in his reading he had an eye for the causes that make or
mar the fortunes of nations. Witness the remark in his letter of 19th
March 1778, that nowhere in history could he find “any instance of a
Nation so miserably sacrificed as this has been.”[70] He shared the
general conviction that none but Chatham could steer the ship of State
into safe waters; and deep must have been his concern when the King
refused to hear of Chatham forming a new Ministry for the purpose of
conciliation. No consideration, not even the loss of his Crown (so he
wrote to Lord North) would induce him to “stoop to the Opposition.”[71]
Such conduct bordered on the insane now that France had made common
cause with the United States; but there was no means of forcing the
King’s hand. The majority in Parliament supported his Minister, Lord
North; and little could be expected from the Earl of Chatham in view of
his growing infirmities of mind and body. His haughty and exacting ways
no less than his inconsistencies of aim had scattered his following;
and it was but a shadow of a name that appeared in the House of Lords
on 7th April 1778. Encased in flannel, looking deadly pale, but with
something of the old gleam in his eyes, he entered, staying his
tottering frame on his sons, William and James. He spoke twice, urging
the House not to debase the monarchy by conceding full independence
to America, still less by giving way before France. “Shall this great
kingdom now fall prostrate before the House of Bourbon? If we must
fall, let us fall like men.” Much of the speech was inconsistent with
his former opinions; but the peers recked not of inconsistency; they
listened with bated breath to words which recalled the glorious days
of 1759--words which were to be prophetic both for himself and for his
son. A second oratorical effort was too much for his overwrought frame.
He pressed his hand to his heart and fell. The peers hard by caught him
in their arms; his sons hurried up and helped to bear him to a house in
Downing Street. Thence he was removed to Hayes, and there on 11th May
1778, in the midst of his family, he passed away.
For the greatest statesman and orator of his age there could be but one
place of sepulture. The House of Commons unanimously voted an address
for a public funeral and a monument in Westminster; and probably of
all Englishmen there was only one who regretted the decision. George
III had revealed the pettiness of his nature when, in a letter to Lord
North, he referred to Chatham’s breakdown in the House of Lords as his
“political exit.” He now stated that, unless the inscription on the
monument dwelt only on Chatham’s influence in “rouzing the nation at
the beginning of the last war,” the compliment paid to the deceased
statesman would be “rather an offensive measure” to him personally.[72]
“The Court do everything with an ill grace,” is William’s description
of the preparations for the funeral.[73] No one represented the
King at the funeral on 9th June, a fact which gave to the ceremony
the appearance of a great popular demonstration. It was the last of
Chatham’s triumphs.
Owing to the absence of the eldest son with his regiment, William
was the chief mourner. Few of the beholders had any knowledge of his
manifold gifts; and the crowds which gazed at the stately procession,
as at the burial of England’s glories and hopes, could not surmise
that the slim figure following the hearse was destined to retrieve the
disasters of the present and to link once more the name of Pitt with a
great work of national revival.
CHAPTER III
POLITICAL APPRENTICESHIP
I cannot approve of the requisition, in the studies of future
statesmen, of so much theoretical knowledge, by which young people
are often ruined before their time, both in mind and body. When
they enter into practical life, they possess indeed an immense
stock of philosophical and learned material; but in the narrow
circle of their calling this cannot be practically applied, and
will therefore be forgotten as useless. On the other hand what they
most needed they have lost: they are deficient in the necessary
mental and bodily energy, which is quite indispensable when one
would enter efficiently into practical life.--GOETHE.
The lives of English statesmen have very rarely, if ever, been
enervated by that excessive zeal for education which the great German
thinker discerned as a possible danger for his fellow countrymen.
Certainly to those who had drunk deep of the learning of Leipzig,
Heidelberg, or Göttingen, the transference to a Staats-secretariat
at Weimar, Cassel, or even at Berlin, must have been a life of sheer
drudgery. Doubtless, the _doctrinaire_ policy of many a Continental
State sprang from the persistent attempts of some Pegasus in harness
to rise again to the serene heights of his youthful contemplations.
In England our youths did not meditate on the science of politics.
Both Oxford and Cambridge displayed a maternal care lest the brains
of the rising generation should overtax the bodies; and never was the
unsullied spring of Helicon ruffled by draughts taken under compulsion.
Gibbon’s experience at Magdalen College in 1752–3, of the genial
indifference of his first tutor, and the unblushing neglect of his
successor, seems to have been quite normal; and it is clear that the
curriculum of that wealthy corporation had not the remotest connection
with any known form of activity outside its walls.
Pitt’s residence at Cambridge was more fruitful for the future. The
dons of Pembroke Hall seem to have taken their duties less lightly
than was the rule elsewhere; and Pitt’s lifelong gratitude to Dr.
Pretyman may have been partly due to the unusual advancement in
learning achieved under his watchful care. But even so, the regular
studies had no bearing on the life of a statesman other than that which
comes from an intelligent reading of the philosophers and historians of
Greece and Rome. Pitt’s choice of lectures on Civil Law was his own.
And, after taking his degree in the autumn of 1776, he seems largely
to have followed the bent of his mind, which, as we have seen, led him
to study the crises in national affairs, and the causes of welfare or
decay. It is significant that the young Napoleon Bonaparte approached
historical study in the same practical way.
Above all, Pitt haunted the precincts of Westminster, and there learnt
to view politics, not as a science, but a strife. For him, therefore,
there was little risk of being hampered by an ill-digested mass of
theoretical learning as he faced the ever shifting problems of the
Commonwealth; still less of undergoing the transition from the breezy
uplands of philosophy to the political mill of some petty principality.
It is the happy lot of Britain’s sons to come to ever widening spheres
of activity; and their minds, never “sicklied o’er” at the outset,
should possess the alertness and vigour which Goethe rightly praised as
a better equipment than the best elaborated theories and the richest
store of precedents. This natural course of development ought to
produce not _doctrinaires_, but statesmen.
* * * * *
The chief misfortunes of Pitt’s early life were his appalling
precocity, which the Earl of Chatham in no wise checked, and the
sense of responsibility thrust upon him all too soon by the terrible
bereavement described above. As the eldest son was then abroad with
his regiment, William was at once involved in a network of cares. The
finances of the family were in an embarrassed state. Chatham’s habits
had been so lavish, and his conduct in official life so honourably
scrupulous, that the estate was encumbered with debts. Parliament voted
the sum of £20,000 towards their payment; but, if we may judge from one
of the later letters of Lady Chatham, embarrassments at times continued
to beset her.[74] William also inherited property which was to yield
little more than an annual income of £250--a sum inadequate to meet
the demands of an ambitious youth in an age when money no less than
family standing served as the passport to a public career.
Nevertheless, the lack of resources seems to have stimulated energies
that were ever braced by difficulty. About five months after the
funeral of his father, we find him expressing to Lady Chatham his
resolve to take rooms at Lincoln’s Inn. In his view practice at the
Bar was invaluable as a training for that wider and grander service to
which he had early vowed himself.
In one important particular Pitt’s conduct showed singular foresight.
He did not, as might have been expected in days when travelling was
slow and expensive, give up his rooms at Pembroke Hall, but for nearly
two years he continued usually to reside there, even while keeping his
terms at Lincoln’s Inn. Extravagant though this arrangement seemed to
be, it was based on prudential motives. In the miserable condition
in which public affairs then were, he judged that a dissolution of
Parliament could not be long deferred; and the chance of winning a seat
at his University seemed to him, though still in his teens, greater
than at an ordinary constituency, where the deep pockets of grandees or
nabobs must mar his prospect.[75]
About Cambridge, then, his hopes fondly clustered, seeing that it
was “a seat of all others the most desirable, as being free from
expense, perfectly independent, and I think in every respect extremely
honourable.”[76] The words have the ring of manly determination which
marks all his public utterances.
The following letter of his to Mr. John (afterwards Lord) Townshend,
then one of the members for the University, marks the first official
announcement of his intentions:
Pembroke Hall, July 15 1779.
DEAR TOWNSHEND,
The very earnest and sincere wishes I expressed for your success
in the late contest for the University of Cambridge, might perhaps
lead you to imagine that I should take a similar part on every
future occasion. I was therefore very sorry that it was not in my
power to explain to you my situation when I had the pleasure of
seeing you here. But, having since finally determined to offer
myself a candidate for the University at the General Election, I
am desirous of giving you immediate notice of a circumstance of
which I imagine you will be glad to be apprised as soon as possible.
W. PITT.[77]
At the same time he informed his uncle, Earl Temple, of his resolve,
and received the following reply. The italicizing of the Christian name
speaks for itself:
Stowe, July 18 1779.
I cannot, my dear _William_, but interest myself most warmly in
whatever relates to your honour or interest; I therefore learn with
singular pleasure the hopes you conceive that the good old lady,
the alma mater of Cambridge, may be inclined to treat you as her
most favourite son. Such a testimony at your age from a learned
body cannot but be very flattering. As to your prospect of success,
I cannot form any opinion, being totally unacquainted with every
circumstance but that of your merit. You must therefore be [_sic_]
at present to receive from me nothing but sincere assurances of
my best good wishes and readiness to serve you as may be in my
power. How far it may be advisable for you before you have more
ripened in your profession to launch out into the great ocean of
politicks and expose yourself to the sweet music of those lovely
syrens, which have already seduced your cousin Thomas from the
destined and determined object of his life, is a matter of great
doubt, and the reflection that it is so may prove some consolation
to you should you not succeed. The memory of your father and the
great character you have attained speak forcibly in your favour,
but a dead minister, the most respectable that ever existed, weighs
very light in the scale against any living one, at least if I may
guess at your university by her good sister. All therefore I can
say further is to recommend to you very thoroughly to examine the
foundation of your hopes before you engage, not suffering your
conduct to be warped by your wishes; because, if from the event
this measure shall appear to be lightly taken up, such an outset
in life will diminish much of those high expectations which you
have so deservedly raised. Your young old friend and namesake
salutes you very kindly and gratefully, Hester and Catherine very
affectionately, without forgetting that antient spinster Mrs.
Stapleton. We shall be happy to receive you here, candidate or no
candidate....[78]
TEMPLE.
Despite this response, Pitt resolved to persevere, and that too, though
the political horizon had darkened owing to the declaration of war
by Spain. At first he avowed his deep concern at this event; but the
note of hopefulness, which is never long absent from his letters, soon
begins to reassert itself in the expression of a belief that this new
danger may “be productive of some good effects at home, and that there
may still be spirit and resources in the country sufficient to preserve
at least the remnant of a great empire.” This forecast was justified.
The struggle became one for national existence, waged against our
hereditary rivals, the monarchs of the House of Bourbon; and the
searchings of heart of England’s sons, at warring against their own
kith and kin, were in large measure stilled. The thrilling incidents
that accompanied the three years’ siege of Gibraltar by the Spaniards,
our successes in India, and the naval triumphs of the closing years of
the war showed the hardening of the nation’s fibre under the strain of
adversity and danger.
After residing at Burton Pynsent for some weeks in the autumn in order
to reassure Lady Chatham while the invasion-scare was at its height,
Pitt returned to Cambridge at the close of the year, and settled down
at Lincoln’s Inn in the early weeks of 1780. Thanks to the kindness of
his uncle, Earl Temple, he had been able to procure a lease of rooms on
the north side of the attic of staircase number 4 of Stone Buildings
(those nearest to Holborn). The sum of £1,100, which in November 1778
he had pronounced “frightful,” had been advanced on the property which
Pitt was to inherit when he came of age.
Concerning Pitt’s life at Lincoln’s Inn we know next to nothing. The
lack of official records of the Inns of Court, except unilluminating
entries of dates, thwarts all efforts at reconstructing the early life
of many famous men; and the denseness of the gloom which surrounds our
institutions, academic and legal, is apt to provoke the investigator
to unpatriotic reflections. Is there any French statesman of modern
times about whose early career the records of the institutions with
which he was associated are so scanty and uninteresting as are those of
Cambridge and Lincoln’s Inn concerning the life of the brilliant son of
Chatham?
As it is, the investigator at Lincoln’s Inn can discover little more
than that Pitt was called to the Bar on 12th June 1780, and that on the
next day a lease was taken out for his rooms for three “lives,” namely,
John, Earl of Chatham, aged 23, William Pitt, aged 21, and James
Charles Pitt, aged 18. The rent was £9 9_s._ 10_d._ per annum.[79]
The great preoccupation of Pitt, apart from the ever-pressing topic
of national danger, was the movement for Economic Reform. Originating
at York in December 1779, it gathered volume until the petitioners in
that county alone numbered more than 8,000 freeholders. East Anglia
responded to the call of Yorkshire; and Pitt hoped to see London rally
to the cause of purity and political freedom. If ever there was a
chance of sweeping away the network of sinecures whereby the King kept
his hold on the House of Commons, it was now, when the growth of debt
and taxation rendered economy in non-essentials the most urgent of
public duties.
In February 1780 Burke introduced his proposals for Economic Reform
in a speech of great ability. He sought, firstly, to abolish the
special jurisdictions in Wales and Cheshire and in the Duchies of
Lancaster and Cornwall, which formed petty and extravagant and corrupt
governments. The great orator, like a forensic _retiarius_, sought to
enfold his great enemy, Corruption, within the cloak of humour which
he thus deftly threw in front. Affecting the desire to free the royal
prerogative from irritating and absurd local restrictions, he proceeded
thus: “Cross a brook, and you lose the King of England, but you have
some comfort in coming again under His Majesty, though shorn of his
beams, and no more than Prince of Wales. Go to the north and you find
him dwindled to a Duke of Lancaster. Turn to the west of that north,
and he hops upon you in the humble character of the Earl of Chester.”
Equally difficult and important was Burke’s attempt to reduce the
Civil List and lessen the number of sinecures attached to the King’s
household. He sought to abolish the offices of Master of the Household,
Treasurer, Comptroller, Cofferer, Treasurer of the Chamber, the whole
Board of Green-Cloth, the Wardrobe and Jewel Offices, the Board of
Works, and the Keepers of stag-hounds, buck-hounds, fox-hounds,
and harriers, and other well-paid sinecures. With playful irony he
described the clatter of white-sticks and yellow-sticks about the head
of a reformer who would touch those offices, or sought to exclude
the King’s turnspit from Parliament. As regarded the Civil List, he
proposed to fix its amount immutably, to transfer to the general fund
accounts which had ceased properly to belong to the King’s private
purse, and to regulate the whole on business-like principles. He also
urged the suppression of useless offices in the general administration,
especially the newly created Secretaryship for the Colonies and the
Board of Trade, the latter of which then formed a desirable sinecure
for eight members of Parliament.[80] Most important of all, perhaps,
was the proposal, brought in by Sir Philip Clerk, to exclude from
Parliament contractors--a class which had been proved to have battened
on the funds, and to have urged the continuance of the war.
Had Burke’s proposals stood in need of further vindication, it would
have been supplied by the mysterious fate which befell them. Members
of Parliament with scarcely an exception loudly commended the measure,
and the eloquence and power with which Burke introduced it to the
House. About the same time Lord Shelburne brought forward in the Upper
House damning proofs of the greed of contractors and of the gross
carelessness with which accounts were kept at the Admiralty and War
Office.[81] The defence of ministers was strong only in personalities.
Argument there was none; and it seemed that the whole festering sudd of
corruption must be swept away by the flood of popular indignation.
From three of Pitt’s letters, those of 9th and 26th February and 14th
March 1780, we can imagine the high hopes of the young reformer as he
listened to the scathing attack on Ministers by Lord Shelburne, and
the comprehensive indictment framed by Burke. In the second letter he
notes with joy the drop of the ministerial majority to two; and in the
small hours of 14th March he was privileged to witness the stormy scene
which occurred when Burke by a majority of eight carried his motion for
abolishing the Board of Trade. And yet the sudd did not move. Despite
the success of reformers in the House, and the growing excitement among
their associations in the country, the clogging influences of the past
prevailed. Members who praised Burke for his lofty and statesmanlike
aims, voted in committee against the details of his scheme. Little by
little it disappeared; and, in face of the greed, cowardice, or apathy
of Parliament, Burke soon declared his indifference as to the fate of
the few remaining clauses of his measure. The bill for the exclusion
of contractors from Parliament passed the Commons, but was thrown out
by the Lords.
Another surprise was in store for the House and the country. On 6th
April Mr. Dunning brought forward a motion that “the influence of the
Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be lessened.” The
motion was made suddenly and on the day when numerous petitions were
laid on the table, signed by thousands of persons, on behalf of shorter
parliaments and a larger addition to the representatives of counties
who, as a rule, showed some independence. The proposal produced a
great sensation. Ministers seemed to be “stunned.” Pitt’s relative,
Thomas Pitt of Boccanoc, ably supported this daring motion. The Speaker
himself left the chair and spoke in support of it, and the resolution,
after a trifling change of form, was passed by a majority of eighteen.
But again the forces of obscurantism triumphed. Apparently Dunning owed
his success solely to the fear of the imminence of a general election,
and as that fear lessened, so also did the numbers of the popular
party in the House. North slowly but surely regained his hold on the
waverers, and succeeded in defeating a motion begging the King not to
dissolve or prorogue Parliament until steps had been taken to diminish
the influence of the Crown at elections (24th April).
For the present Pitt stifled his disappointment at this fiasco by
attendance at the opera and masquerades, so we may judge from his
letters; but he probably hardened his resolve to effect the Reform
of Parliament itself, which, as was now clear to all but Burke, must
precede any attempt to cleanse the Augean stables of the Court and the
Administration. That gifted thinker but somewhat erratic politician,
whose character will concern us later, had gone so far as to defend the
state of the representation and to urge reformers to concentrate their
efforts on the task of freeing Parliament from the corrupt influences
that were warping its character. To this belief he still clung, in
spite of the recent damning proof that a Parliament of place-hunters
and borough-mongers had refused to root out the canker of corruption,
even at a time of great national danger. Pitt, for his part, looked for
safety to that course of action which Chatham had so often taken; he
turned away from Parliament and fixed his hopes in the nation. Even the
oratory of Burke failed to satisfy him. He found in his great speech of
11th February not only “real beauties,” but “ridiculous affectations.”
He added, however, in his letter of 14th March: “I have heard two less
studied harangues from him since in reply that please me much more
than this does now that it is upon paper.” This criticism, coming from
the son of Chatham, is a little surprising; but it may be considered
symptomatic. As will appear later, there was something in Burke’s
temperament which jarred on the young statesman.
While disagreeing with Burke and the more academic wing of the
reformers, Pitt did not consort with the men on the extreme left who
now raised a great clamour through the country. He seems to have had no
dealings at this time with the Reform or “Œconomic” Associations; and
events now occurred which helped for a time to distract his attention
from politics. While he was expecting to be called to the Bar, London
fell a prey to the Lord George Gordon rioters (2nd to 9th June).
What must have been the disgust of the young patrician as he gazed at
the scenes of rapine and drunkenness which went on under the name of
Protestantism! The pretence of bigotry was soon flung aside, and then,
when the thin crust of civilization was removed, men saw appalled the
depths of villany that usually are hidden. For days the passions of
the mob raged unchecked by timorous magistrates and ministers. The
King alone was undismayed, and finally insisted on the use of vigorous
measures. Thanks to his staunchness, the wheels of government began to
move once more. Then the orgy quickly died down; but it left men with a
dread of the newly-revealed Caliban, and a heightened respect for the
one man whose firmness had ensured the vindication of law and order.
How much the popular cause then suffered can never be known. When,
in the course of the French Revolution, the Parisian mob carried the
King and Queen from Versailles to Paris and completed its triumph at
the harvest time of 1792, Englishmen viewed those events in the lurid
light thrown by the flames of the Lord George Gordon riots; and it is
probable that Pitt himself was no stranger to this feeling.
The cause of Parliamentary Reform in England also suffered untold harm.
Why talk about manhood suffrage, vote by ballot and annual Parliaments,
as the Westminster Committee had talked, when all around were proofs
of the savagery of the many-headed monster? The Duke of Richmond, who
then, along with Fox, advocated a programme of reform which was to
furnish the Chartists with their “six points,” confessed in a letter to
Shelburne that the riots “will tend to discredit any attempts of the
people to do themselves justice on any future occasion when the cause
may warrant it”;[82] and though Charles James Fox retained his faith
in the cause, yet he and all other democrats thenceforth found it a
hopeless task to roll the stone up to the point to which the enthusiasm
of the people carried it in the spring of 1780. After midsummer of that
year the various committees and associations preached to deaf ears. The
King had won.
To return to Pitt’s fortunes, we may note that Lincoln’s Inn had been
in no immediate danger from the rioters, though surrounded with flames
on all sides. In order to be ready for the worst, the benchers took
arms and formed a corps, in which Pitt had his first experience of
volunteering. The records of the Inn, however, show that it was also
defended by 800 men of the Northumberland Militia, the sum of £364
12_s._ 0_d._ being paid for provisions to them for the ten days during
which they were in garrison.[83]
The desire of the resident members of the Inn worthily to entertain
the officers of that corps led to the appointment of a committee for
that purpose, which included Pitt, Pepper Arden (afterwards Lord
Alvanley), Mitford (afterwards Lord Redesdale), Bland Burges, and three
others. The last named, in his reminiscences, tells how, when his turn
came, he invited Gibbon and Lord Carmarthen to meet four officers
and other company at dinner. The historian, as is well known, was a
most entertaining talker, flitting easily from one topic to another,
and lighting up all with sallies of wit which the listeners were
expected to receive with deferential applause and unquestioning mirth.
Judge then of his astonishment, when, after one of his best foreign
anecdotes, which touched on “the fashionable levities of political
doctrine then prevalent,” a deep but clear voice was heard from the
far end of the table calmly but civilly impugning the correctness of
the story and the propriety of its political connexion. The applause
ceased at once, and Gibbon turned his gaze petulantly on the slim youth
who had dared to challenge his unquestioned supremacy, and sat there
quietly eating grapes. As the interruption had been hailed with too
much approval to be ignored or dismissed with a frown, he endeavoured
to crush the youth by heavy artillery. A spirited fire came in return,
and a sharp duel of wits began, which the company followed with the
keenest interest. Finally the skill and vigour of the attack drove the
historian from one position after another and left him defenceless;
whereupon he left the room in high dudgeon. In vain did Bland Burges
seek in the anteroom to calm his feelings and persuade him to return.
“By no means,” replied Gibbon; “that young gentleman is, I have no
doubt, extremely ingenious and agreeable, but I must acknowledge that
his style of conversation is not exactly what I am accustomed to,
so you must positively excuse me.” Meanwhile Pitt continued to hold
forth on the topic in dispute, “which he discussed with such ability,
strength of argument, and eloquence, that his hearers were filled with
profound admiration.”[84]
Such was the first recorded triumph of Pitt. Would that we knew more
than the bare outlines of the discussion! But an unkind fate has
vouchsafed here, as at so many points, enough of information to whet
the appetite for more, enough to give us the merest glimpse of those
surprising powers which easily discomfited Gibbon at his prime.
We know little about the extent of Pitt’s legal attainments or his
skill as a pleader. His practice was to last but a short time. Three
days after the end of the riots he was called to the Bar and afterwards
went on the Western Circuit, of which he was a member. As to the
impression aroused by his pleading, I have found very few particulars
except the statement in an almost contemporary biography that his first
case, which must have been in London, was one concerning an East India
trade dispute, and that he attracted the notice of Lord Mansfield
on the Bench. He is said to have acted as junior counsel in several
cases at Dorchester and Exeter, and to have commanded attention by the
force of his reasoning rather than attracted it by playing upon the
emotions. His style, in short, was clear and argumentative rather than
“attractive and passionate.”[85] From Exeter he was recalled in haste
by news which was of far higher interest to him than the quarrels of
Wessex squires and traders. The King had dissolved Parliament and had
fixed 31st October for the date of assembly of its successor.
This action was what might have been expected from the most astute of
electioneering agents. Disgust at the excesses of the Gordon rioters
was still the dominant motive in the political world, and at such a
time men looked askance at Reform. Further, in order to ensure the
success of what he termed “my cause,” George III condescended to the
arts of the canvasser, entering the shop of a draper at Windsor, and
saying in his quick peremptory way--“The queen wants a gown, wants a
gown. No Keppel. No Keppel.” Windsor rejected Keppel; Burke failed to
keep his seat at Bristol; and Pitt made no impression whatever on the
Toryism of the University of Cambridge. In any case his election was
highly improbable. Dons and country clergymen are not wont to favour
the claims of a young and unknown candidate; but the trend of thought
at that time made his defeat certain.
He bore it with his usual serenity. “Mansfield and Townshend have
run away with the prize,” so he wrote on 16th September, “but my
struggle has not been dishonourable.” He now once more betook himself
to legal affairs at Lincoln’s Inn, but his thoughts still centred in
Westminster. Despite the stagnation which marked our public life after
the victory of the King and Lord North at the general election, the
fate of the commonwealth drew Pitt to St. Stephen’s for the earlier
half of every day. His regular attendance at the House was perhaps
instrumental in furthering his dearest hopes. The Duke of Rutland had
been on cordial terms with Pitt at Cambridge; and he now mentioned the
talents of his friend to Sir James Lowther. That magnate of Cumberland,
who could secure the return of eleven candidates, welcomed the
suggestion that Pitt should enter Parliament for one of his seats, and,
with a generosity none too common among owners of “pocket boroughs,”
offered him a seat at Appleby unconditionally, save that he (Pitt) was
to resign his seat if his political views should in the future become
opposed to those of his patron.[86]
To this condition even the proud son of Chatham could not demur; and,
though the connection with what was practically a pocket borough could
not be quite palatable to a reformer, yet he doubtless remembered that
his father first entered Parliament as member for Old Sarum.
While we smile at the vagaries of the old system, which enabled “the
great commoner” to begin his public career as representative of an
untenanted mound, and his son as member for a town which he did not
even visit, let us remember that occasionally it opened a door easily
for a man of genius. Gladstone, in his Tory years, eulogized the system
on these grounds;[87] and it is certainly remarkable that, besides the
two Pitts, many other famous men used these stepping-stones. Burke,
through most of his public life, was member for a pocket borough,
Wendover or Malton; and Canning entered Parliament as member for a
scarcely discoverable village, Newtown, in the Isle of Wight. Fox and
Peel also entered Parliament by similar means. However quaintly the old
order of things misrepresented the British people, it did now and then
help to bring brilliant men to the front with a speed that is no longer
possible. But it is noteworthy that young men of spirit took care to be
soon quit of pocket boroughs.[88]
Appleby having duly registered the decree of Sir James Lowther at the
close of 1780, Pitt took his seat in the House of Commons on 23rd
January 1781. From that time to the very same day in the year 1806 when
he breathed his last, he was to expend his life in strenuous efforts
throughout a quarter of a century which comprised such events as the
close of the American War, the new grouping of the Powers of Europe,
the French Revolution, and the rise of Napoleon.
CHAPTER IV
AT WESTMINSTER AND GOOSTREE’S
A series of undesigned changes brought the English Constitution to
such a condition that satisfaction and impatience, the two great
sources of political conduct, were both reasonably gratified by
it.--SIR HENRY MAINE.
In the present age, marked by peaceful relations between the different
parts of the Empire and by complete accord between the sovereign and
his people, it is difficult to realize the condition of public affairs
at the time when Pitt entered Parliament. The war with the United
States, France, Spain and Holland, threatened the ruin of the nation,
and it further brought to a climax a constitutional crisis of great
importance. That struggle had resulted in no small measure from the
personal methods of rule of George III; and, despite the disastrous
influence of that policy on the Empire, there was still the chance of
its winning at Westminster.
The reason for this paradox is to be found in the composition of the
House of Commons and in the character of the King. Ten years had
elapsed since the publication of Burke’s indictment, that, whereas in
the previous century the distempers of monarchy had been the chief
cause for fear, now the main apprehension centred in the distempers
of Parliament.[89] The facts given above, and those soon to be set
forth, will show that the danger was still acute. The rallying of
practically the whole of the Tory party to the King’s side, the
division of the Whigs into two chief groups, neither of which had any
definite programme, the enormous power which the monarch wielded over
the members of the Lower House by means of “influence,” and, last but
not least, the revival of his prestige owing to the Lord George Gordon
crisis, all served to strengthen his hand even against reformers who
struggled for peace abroad and economy and purity in the administration.
In fact, the disintegration of the party system and the corruption of
the House of Commons had provided George III with a most favourable
opportunity for realizing the ideals set forth in Bolingbroke’s
“Patriot King.” The old parties had for the time lost their _raison
d’être_. All but a few fossilized Tory squires had given up the cause
of the Stuarts. The Whigs could no longer claim to be defenders of
the House of Brunswick and the liberties of England. For more than a
century they had settled down comfortably on the spoils of office,
until the sight of their magnates affecting to slay the slain and
battening on the nation’s spoils aroused general resentment. Of this
feeling the King had made dexterous use. In the name of the nation he
claimed to set aside the parties and govern in the interests of the
whole. As generally happens in such cases, he called into being another
party, the King’s Friends, which, under the guise of acting for the
nation, gradually ensured the subservience of Parliament to the royal
will. By dint of honours, places, and money, the new policy won its
way, until, as we have seen, it could defy the efforts for Reform. To
the eye of alarmed patriots it seemed that the House of Commons would
soon be little more than a tool of the King, and that George III would
succeed in the enterprise which had cost Charles I his head.
There were some grounds for these fears. George III was on the whole
a more formidable opponent than the first Charles. While lacking the
personal charm of the Stuart sovereign and his power of calling forth
enthusiastic service, he far excelled him in common sense and the power
of adapting means to ends. Both men believed thoroughly in their cause,
struggled with obstinate persistence towards the goal, and yet showed
great finesse in the use to which they put men and events. Outwardly
and mentally, they had nothing in common. Yet the parallel between
them is closer than would at first sight appear. In a political sense
George III is a rather gross replica of Charles I. Even the highest
of Anglicans has never been tempted to canonize him; for, in truth,
he lived in a material age, and had too great a belief in material
interests ever to be in danger of “martyrdom.”
Here, perhaps, lay the real danger to the liberties of England in the
decade, 1770–80. They are more likely to be undermined by an appeal to
material interests than by an open attack. Charles was foolish enough
to assail both the consciences and the pockets of his subjects. George
left consciences alone, and made use of the pockets of the governing
classes to achieve his ends. This sapping process was more likely to
succeed than a hasty attack above ground. The policy of Charles I
braced men to resistance; that of George III drugged and enervated
them.[90] Early in the seventeenth century Parliament was the champion
of the nation’s liberties; now there was some fear that it might
degenerate into a King’s Council. Parliament is but the register of the
nation’s will; and torpor at St. Stephen’s bespoke political deadness
throughout the land. Here, perhaps, was the most threatening symptom of
all. The attempt to manipulate Parliament could come near to success
only in an age of high living and plain thinking. Even the disasters
of the American War did not awaken England at once. Her monitor was
sleeping the sleep of surfeit. What were defeats on the other side
of the Atlantic to the members for the pocket boroughs who virtually
controlled the House for the King’s cause? To what effect was it that
London and Westminster now and again chafed at the losses of the war,
when those cities returned only eight members, as against Cornwall’s
forty-four? Episodes like those connected with the names of Wilkes and
Lord George Gordon roused for a time storms of tropical violence; but
when they died down there ensued long and enervating lulls. All went
on once more as in a land of lotus-eaters, who scarcely heeded the dim
mutterings that came across the western ocean. Even the disaster at
Yorktown, which virtually ended the American War, did not thoroughly
arouse the nation. Two months after the receipt of that news, Romilly
wrote to a friend, “The nation seems fallen into a deep sleep.”[91]
The distributor of the soporific fruit seemed to be equal to every
emergency. Lord North was a coarse and heavy man, with a wide mouth,
thick lips, and puffy cheeks, which seemed typical of his policy. He
resembled Walpole in his knowledge of men’s foibles and contempt of
humanity. True, he excelled him in affability; but he signally fell
behind him in the sterner qualities which master men and beat down
obstacles. For eleven years he had been chief Minister of the Crown,
latterly much against his will; and for fourteen months more the
imperious monarch was to hold him to his post.
With Lord North were associated in the year 1781 men who were
fully contented with the task of supervising their own departments
and the patronage belonging to them. The most noteworthy of these
Ministers were Lord Thurlow, a man of low tastes and violent temper,
but considerable gifts for intrigue, who acted officially as Lord
Chancellor and unofficially as chief of “the King’s friends”; Earl
Bathurst, Lord President; Germain (Viscount Sackville), Secretary of
State for the Colonies; Lord Townshend, Master of the Ordnance; Mr.
Jenkinson (afterwards the Earl of Liverpool), Secretary at War; the
Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty; the Earl of Carlisle,
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; and Mr. William Eden (afterwards Lord
Auckland), Chief Secretary at Dublin Castle. The personality of some
of these men will appear more fitly in the sequel. Here we may note
that they resembled highly paid confidential clerks, working under
the general direction of the King, rather than responsible Ministers.
Of collective action and responsibility there was little under Lord
North.[92] George III acted on the principle that had guided the
Caesars, _Divide et impera_.
Such, in brief, was the system and such were the men who now had to
confront a world in arms. Apart from the interminable conflict in
America, the area of strife was spreading in Europe; for the Dutch,
incensed by our maritime policy, were on the point of declaring war. In
India Hyder Ali was ravaging the Carnatic; and Britons, looking forth
in fear from Madras, could see the clouds of smoke that told of his
devastations. In the Mediterranean Gibraltar still stoutly held out
against the Franco-Spanish forces, but our possession, Minorca, was
soon to fall. In the Baltic the League of the Armed Neutrality held
the sword dangling over Briton’s commerce, and was kept from striking
only by the skill of Sir James Harris, our envoy at St. Petersburg, in
playing on the foibles of Catharine II.
Yet against most of these difficulties British energy ultimately made
headway; and they did not at present disturb the course of events in
Parliament, with which we are here more especially concerned. The
Opposition was divided into two chief groups, which had not yet begun
to coalesce under the pressure of national calamity. The larger of
these was the official Whig party under the nominal leadership of the
Marquis of Rockingham, an affable and tactful man, with little strength
of character, formidable only from his connections with the great Whig
Houses. Among his followers two men stood forth, of powers so great and
varied as to claim our attention at once. These were Fox and Burke.
Charles James Fox (1749–1806), the second son of Lord Holland, was
now in the prime of his powers. Nature had dowered him with gifts
so rich and varied as not to have been seriously marred even by the
dissipations into which his father had encouraged him to plunge before
he left Eton. While at Hertford College, Oxford, he gave proofs of his
eager, vivacious, lovable temperament, and imbibed that passion for
the classics and for all great literature which was to be his solace
through life. Well would it have been for him had this been his only
passion; unfortunately he never shook off the vices contracted in
youth. His amour with Mrs. Armstead was notorious and avowed. Equally
harmful was his mania for gambling. Many a time he ruined his speeches
in the House by the fatigue or annoyance due to the losses of an
all-night sitting at Brooks’s. But whether he lost or won, whether
caressed by Ministers in Parliament or turned out of his rooms in St.
James’s Street by Jews and bailiffs,[93] he was ever beloved, even by
those whom he belaboured in the House.
His oratorical gifts were the outcome of a powerful mind, and they
were enhanced by a melodious voice and forcible action. Perhaps the
greatest charm of his speeches was their ease and naturalness. He spoke
as if without premeditation, and at times he indulged in repetitions
and digressions to an unpardonable extent. But all such faults and
occasional carelessness in the choice of words scarcely lessened the
effect of his efforts, which seemed to his hearers to be above all
art. The unfailing vigour of thought, the power with which he could
first recapitulate the arguments of his opponents and then tear them
in pieces, and the good humour, which rarely left him even in his most
scornful moods, served alike to convince and captivate the House. He
was the prince of debaters, surpassing even Chatham himself in ease,
wit, skill, and versatility, though lacking that awe-inspiring faculty
that swayed Parliament as with a Jove-like frown. The years 1780–82
saw him at the height of his powers. Grattan afterwards remarked that
no one could realize the force of Fox’s oratory who had not heard him
before his unnatural coalition with Lord North in 1783, after which
event he always seemed on the defensive: “the mouth still spoke great
things, but the swell of soul was no more.”[94] How great must have
been his blunders and indiscretions, both in public and private life,
to have blighted a career of so transcendent a promise.
The figure of Edmund Burke belongs rather to the sphere of literature
and political philosophy than to that of political action. Great in
thought and great in his powers of oratory, he yet failed to impress
the House of Commons, or the public at large; his speeches were too
ornate, too overburdened with learning and reasoning, to please an
audience that is plain, practical, and apt to be impressed more by the
speaker himself than by the fullness of his arguments or the beauty of
his style. In a word, Burke lacked the indefinable gift which Chatham,
Fox, and Mirabeau so abundantly possessed--that of personality. His
figure had not the forceful massiveness of that of Fox, and it wanted
the dignity of the younger Pitt. Moreover his voice was harsh, and his
action clumsy. His philosophic love of wedding facts to principles
often led him to soar to heights where the question at issue appeared
like a speck and votes a vulgar impertinence. Worst fault of all, his
speeches were far too long. The fullness and richness which delights us
to-day then had the effect of emptying the House. The result of it all
was the decline of his influence and the increase of his irritability,
Celtic vivacity leading him more than once shrilly to chide friends
who sought to pull him back to his seat. These failings, together with
the number of his impecunious relatives, probably explain why he never
attained to Cabinet rank. In a subordinate office in the year 1783
he showed signal want of tact and discernment. Thus, in contrasting
the effect produced by the perusal of his great orations with that
which gained him the nickname of the dinner-bell of the House, one is
reminded of the truth of the bitter line levelled at him by Goldsmith:
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
The other group, which rivalled the official Whigs in the zeal of
its opposition to Lord North, was that of the former followers of
Chatham. They had neither organization nor a programme; but in general
they inherited the imperial sentiments and non-partisan traditions of
that great leader. They were less eager than the Rockingham group for
parliamentary reform and the limiting of the royal prerogative; but,
like the Girondins of the French Revolution, the indefiniteness of
their aims left much liberty of action to their following; and Pitt,
who naturally attached himself to this group, rivalled Fox in his zeal
for Reform, both economic and parliamentary.
The leader of the Chathamites was the Earl of Shelburne, who had been
driven into opposition by the arbitrary conduct of the King at the
time of the Wilkes affair. The estimates of his character are very
diverse. Burke wrote of him privately in 1783 as “this wicked man, and
no less weak and stupid than false and hypocritical,” his chief crime
being that of breaking in pieces the Whig party. Few persons would
have gone so far as the vehement Irishman, who, on these lower levels,
allowed party passion to dull his eagle glance. Shelburne was one of
the _grands seigneurs_ and political thinkers of the time. Polite and
courtly, he dazzled men by the splendour of his hospitality. In his
library he shone as a scholar and philosopher, and his conversation was
the index of his keen and supple intellect. In public life he showed
that he never lacked courage. Yet there was always something wanting
about Shelburne. His speech and manner passed so quickly and easily
from the affable to the severe as to beget feelings of distrust. His
enemies accused him of duplicity and dubbed him Malagrida, a well-known
Portuguese Jesuit.[95]
We may note here that Pitt either shared or deferred to the general
feeling about Shelburne when he omitted him from his Cabinet in
December 1783.
Some of the specific charges against Shelburne (and most of them are
vague) have vanished now that the mists of passion, amidst which he
ever moved, have cleared away.[96] It is the lot of some men to arouse
undeserved dislike or distrust, owing to unfortunate mannerisms. Yet it
is certain that England owes much to the earl. He was one of the first
to espouse the Free Trade principles of Adam Smith; he was chiefly
responsible for the terms of peace of 1782–3; and the admiration of
Benjamin Franklin for him largely conduced to the signature of the
preliminaries with the United States. Posterity has therefore accorded
to him a far higher place than was allowed by the jealousy or pettiness
of his contemporaries. Such was the leader to whom Pitt attached
himself.
On 25th January 1781 Shelburne protested manfully against the
overbearing conduct of our Government in ordering the capture of
Dutch merchantmen before the outbreak of war, and inveighed against
the policy of the Ministry as fatal to liberty and to the welfare of
the Empire. Finally he declared that the tactics of Government had
proved that the conquest of the American colonies, if it could be
accomplished, would entail fatal results at home; that he would be
better pleased to see his country free, though curtailed in power and
wealth, than acquiring greatness, if greatness were to be purchased at
the expense of her constitution and liberty. The speech rang true to
the traditions of Chatham; and it awoke responsive echoes in the breast
of his son.[97]
Within the space of five weeks Pitt proved that his support was of the
highest value. In a maiden speech, which perhaps bears away the palm
from the first efforts of the greatest orators of all time, he gave
proof of those astonishing powers which nature seemed to have implanted
in a state of maturity. Practice and experience were to perfect them;
but they then left on all his hearers an impression of wonder as at
something almost supernatural in a youth of twenty-one years. This
feeling was all the more natural as the speech dealt with economic
subjects, which Wilberforce regarded as “of a low and vulgarizing
quality.”[98]
We must pause here to notice that the topic of economy was at that time
of burning interest. On the whole it excited more general attention
than the subject of parliamentary reform. In fact the latter was
insisted on by practical men mainly with the view of stopping the
frightful waste that resulted from sinecures, jobs, and other forms
of corruption in the public service. Rigid doctrinaires like Major
Cartwright might dilate on the heaven-born right of every man to have
a vote, or depict the beauty of an electoral system which enlisted
the virtuous energies of every citizen and called on him to renew
Parliament every year, that being the natural time of renewal of all
things.[99] A still stiffer theorist, Jebb, might go further and
insist on the election of a new Parliament for each session. Together
they might call for the ballot, equal electoral areas, and payment of
members. Yet their arguments would have fallen on deaf ears but for
the strain of war taxes, the dullness of trade, and the blunderings of
placemen high in office. When London, Bristol, and Yorkshire felt the
pinch of hard times, national expenditure became a matter of the most
urgent concern.
It was in support of Burke’s proposals for the better regulation of the
King’s Civil List and for abolishing several sinecures that Pitt made
his maiden speech in the House (26th February 1781). At once he lifted
the subject to a high level. The measure, he said, would have come with
more grace, and with more benefit to the public service, had it sprung
from the royal breast. Ministers ought themselves to have proposed
it, thereby showing that His Majesty desired to participate in the
suffering of the Empire.
They ought to consult the glory of their royal master, and seat
him in the hearts of his people, by abating from magnificence what
is due to necessity.... The abridgment of useless and unnecessary
expense can be no abatement of royalty. Magnificence and grandeur
are not inconsistent with retrenchment and economy, but, on the
contrary, in a time of necessity and of common exertion, solid
grandeur is dependent on the reduction of expense; and it is the
general sentiment and observation of the House that economy is at
this hour essentially necessary to national salvation.
He next ventured on an argument scarcely consistent with the assumption
of the royal graciousness and generosity touched on in his first period
by asserting that the most important object of the bill was
The reduction of the influence of the Crown--that influence which
the last Parliament, by an express resolution, had declared to be
increasing, and that it ought to be diminished--an influence which
was more to be dreaded, because more secret in its attacks, and
more concealed in its operations than the power of prerogative.
After referring briefly to this delicate subject, he held up to scorn
those who ridiculed the proposal on the ground that it would effect a
saving of only £200,000 a year; as if the calamities of the present
crisis were too great to be benefited by economy: as if, when millions
were being spent, there was no need to think of thousands! Finally he
declared that the Civil List had been granted by Parliament to His
Majesty, not for his personal gratification, but in order
to support the power and the interests of the Empire, to maintain
its grandeur, and pay the judges and the foreign ministers, and to
maintain justice.... The people, who granted that revenue, under
the circumstances of the occasion, were justified in resuming a
part of it under the pressing demand of an altered situation. They
clearly felt their right; but they exercised it with pain and
regret. They approached the throne with hearts afflicted at the
necessity of applying for retrenchment of the royal gratifications;
but the request was at once loyal and submissive. It was justified
by policy, and His Majesty’s compliance with the request was
inculcated by prudence as well as by affection.[100]
Admiration of the perfect manner in which the speech was delivered
seems to have blinded contemporaries to its importance as a political
pronouncement. Certainly in both respects it is remarkable. No speech
ever won more general and more immediate praise. Burke declared the
young orator to be not merely a chip of the old block but the old block
itself. Charles James Fox hurried up to offer his congratulations on
this oratorical triumph, and further showed his regard by proposing
Pitt as a member of Brooks’s club--a connection which he maintained
unbroken through life. Lord North described the oration as the best
first speech that he had ever heard; and another member of the House,
Storer, commenting on the self-possession of the young speaker, which
was far removed from “improper assurance,” remarked that there was
not a word or a look that one would have wished to correct.[101] In
an age when dignity of diction and grace of deportment were deemed
essential to the success of a speech--that was the time when Windham
used to spend hours beforehand in framing elegant _juncturae_ for
his periods--the verdicts quoted above imply in a young speaker the
possession of a profusion of gifts and graces no less remarkable than
the maturity of judgment which harmonized them.
Alas, the reader of to-day cannot fully realize the witchery of his
diction, instinct with the fervour of youth, but balanced by the
sagacity of manhood. The printed word can never reveal the nature
of the spell cast on listeners by a noble countenance, harmonious
gestures, musical cadences, and the free outpouring of inspiring
thoughts. No great speeches, except those of a pre-eminently literary
quality, such as shines in the stately rhetoric of Burke, can be
appreciated apart from the speakers. It is the man who gives life to
the words. A fervent admirer of Chatham’s oratory summed up his chief
impression in the suggestive remark that there was something in the
speaker finer than his words; “that the man was infinitely greater than
the orator.” This must be so, if the speaker is to keep attention on
tip-toe, ever on the look-out for new effects and charms. Hope is a
necessary element in all admiration. The hearer, to be enthralled, must
have been wafted up to that state of ecstasy wherein delight at present
beauties is intensified by the expectation of other charms yet to come.
Shakespeare has once for all time portrayed this mental bliss in the
young and eager love of Florizel for Perdita:
What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I’ld have you do it ever.
Some such wealth of gifts the Commons of Britain discerned in Pitt in
that springtide of hope. Theirs was to be a rich harvest of joy. Ours
is but a lean aftermath.
The reader, who naturally thinks more about the matter of this speech
than the manner of its delivery, will be most impressed by the boldness
of some of the arguments. That a new member should venture to remind
Parliament and the nation of the King’s control over the Civil List
being that of a steward, not of a proprietor, was daring enough; but it
is startling to find the future champion of the Crown asserting that
the nation could _resume_ at least a part of what it had granted. There
is no essential difference between this plea and the dictum of Rousseau
(used so effectively by the French Revolutionists against the King and
the Church) that the hypothetical contract once framed between prince
and people empowered the latter at any time to enter into possession of
property which was held merely in trust on their behalf. The sentiments
expressed in Pitt’s first speech enable us to gauge the astonishment
of the world when the young orator at the close of 1783 became first
Minister of the Crown.
His second speech, delivered on 31st May, was perhaps less effective
than the first, though it marks an advance in argumentative power
and the handling of details. Colonel Barré had proposed that the
commissioners who supervised the public accounts should be chosen from
the House of Commons. After a hostile speech from Lord North, Pitt rose
to support the motion. He pointed out how essential this proposal was
for the maintenance of the power of the Commons. He continued thus:
Every branch of the legislature has something peculiar to
distinguish and to characterize it; and that which at once gives
the character and elevation of the Commons House of Parliament is
that they hold the strings of the national purse, and are entrusted
with the great important power, first of granting the money, and
then of correcting the expenditure. To delegate this right, then,
is a violation of what gives them their chief consequence in the
legislature, and what, above all other privileges, they cannot
surrender or delegate without a violent breach of the constitution.
Tracking the Prime Minister into detail after detail, he finally begged
the House to pass the motion as necessary for the prosperity of the
land and as a pledge of further reforms.
But (said he) if the motion is rejected, and the old and vicious
system of government is in every point tenaciously adhered to, the
freedom of the people and the independence of this House must be
buried in the same grave with the power, the opulence and the glory
of the Empire.
Men so diverse in character as George Selwyn and the young reformer,
Wilberforce, were loud in praise of the speech. The latter, though
he regretfully voted against Pitt, declared him to be “a ready-made
orator”; while the old place-hunter and _roué_ found in it, “_du sel
et du piquant à pleines mains. Charles_ [Fox] _en fut enchanté_.”[102]
Horace Walpole praised the speech in these terms:
The young William Pitt has again displayed paternal oratory. The
other day, on the commission of accounts, he answered Lord North,
and tore him limb from limb. If Charles Fox could feel, one should
think such a rival, with an unspotted character, would rouse him.
What if a Pitt and Fox should again be rivals.... As young Pitt is
modest too, one would hope some genuine English may revive.
So far as we know, not a single vote was gained by this oration, for
the division list showed ninety-eight against Barré’s motion and only
forty-two for it. A Scottish member, Ferguson of Pitfour, a faithful
supporter of Henry Dundas, on one occasion confessed that he had only
once ventured to vote on his own conviction, and that was the worst
vote he ever gave. Many members, while lacking the courage and wit to
make the admission, acted with equal fidelity to their own interests;
and hence even the best speeches rarely won over votes. In the present
case no one answered, and no one could answer, Pitt’s arguments; yet
they had no effect on the docile flock which trooped into the lobby
at the heels of Lord North. By a majority of forty-three the Commons
decided that the King should not be requested to show his benevolence
and disinterestedness.
The third effort of the young orator had no more effect. It came
about, apparently without premeditation, in the course of a debate
on the motion of Fox for the conclusion of an immediate peace with
our American colonies (12th June). In the first part of his speech
Pitt warmly controverted two members who claimed that Chatham had
sympathized with the war; and, in his eagerness to clear his father’s
memory, he averred that his (Chatham’s) conduct on this subject had
been uniform and consistent. After this doubtful assertion he stated
his own views in a most trenchant style. Falling upon Lord Westcote,
who had declared the war to be a holy war, he uttered these remarkable
words:
I am persuaded, and will affirm, that it is a most accursed,
wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust, and diabolical war.
It was conceived in injustice; it was nurtured and brought forth
in folly;[103] its footsteps are marked with blood, slaughter,
persecution and devastation; in truth everything which goes to
constitute moral depravity and human turpitude are to be found
in it. It is pregnant with misery of every kind. The mischiefs,
however, recoil on the unhappy people of this country, who are made
the instruments by which the wicked purposes of its authors are
effected.
He continued in the same vehement strain, and seems to have impressed
the House less than before, Selwyn giving as his verdict that he was “a
promising young man.” The speech does, indeed, sound somewhat forced;
and its declamation seems too turgid to be effective. On this occasion
“the King’s cause” once more triumphed, by 172 votes to 99.
* * * * *
In the middle of July, after the close of the session, Pitt went on the
western circuit, but the notices of his speeches are very meagre. The
only reference that I have found to this episode in his life is in a
letter of 29th August 1781 to his Cambridge friend, Meeke:
I have this circuit amassed the immense sum of thirty guineas
without the least expense either of sense or knowledge.... I
shall return to town with the fullest intention of devoting
myself to Westminster Hall and getting as much money as I can,
notwithstanding such avocations as the House of Commons, and (which
is a much more dangerous one) Goostree’s itself. Adieu.
As a proof that Pitt did not merely play with the legal profession, I
may quote this sentence from his letter of June 1782 to Meeke:
I have for many reasons chosen to be only a friend, without being a
member, of Shelburne’s Administration, and am at least as likely to
continue a lawyer as you are to commence one.[104]
The second letter belongs to a time when the prospects of advancement
were unpromising, and when, therefore, Pitt devoted much of his time to
the select and charming club at Goostree’s. As there is a widespread
impression that he was a political automaton, who never unbent save
under the spell of Bacchus, it will be well to turn our attention to
his social life in London and at Wimbledon. It cannot be said that he
ever felt the full charm of London--
The quick forge and working-house of thought.
Brought up in the aristocratic seclusion of Hayes and Burton Pynsent,
and in Pretyman’s prim coterie at Cambridge, he had no experience of
the varied jostling life which the Londoner loves: and nature had
not dowered him with the adaptability that makes up for the defects
of training. Therefore he ever remained somewhat of a stranger in
London. He was at home in Downing Street, and still more so in his
own select club, or at Hayes, Wimbledon, or Holwood; but London never
laid her spell on him, and his life was the poorer for it. He reminds
us somewhat of that character in Dickens’s “Great Expectations,” who,
though naive and jovial, when he entered his suburban retreat in
Walworth Road and the mimic castle at the end of the garden, yet always
fixed his features in chilling reserve when he went forth citywards.
So, too, there were two Pitts, the austere man of affairs, and the
lovable, delightful friend. London alone could have mixed up the two
men and produced a sociable compound; but this was not to be.
Lincoln’s Inn and the law did little towards unbending him; though the
story, recounted in the previous chapter, of his intellectual duel with
Gibbon at a dinner in Lincoln’s Inn during the Gordon Riots shows that
even then he had the power of keen and witty repartee which gained him
the victory over an admitted autocrat of the table. Why these gifts did
not draw him into general society is hard to say. Probably his shyness
and awkwardness, on which Wilberforce lays so much stress, held him
aloof.
Certainly the temptations of the West End had for him only a passing
allurement. He felt no desire, besides having no means, to associate
with the gambling _cohue_ that played at Brooks’s or Almack’s. His
preference for bright and entertaining talkers naturally linked him
with those who had sufficient mental resources within themselves to
scorn the usually dull cliques whose interest in life begins and ends
with card tables. So far as opportunities had offered at Cambridge, he
had cultivated conversation as a fine art; and now in the West End he
found several of his University friends who welcomed him to a somewhat
wider circle. It included about twenty-five young men, of whom the
most noteworthy were Lords Althorpe, Apsley, G. Cavendish, Duncannon,
Euston, Graham, and Lennox; as well as the following who were to
become peers: Mr. Pratt (Marquis Camden), St. John (Lord St. John),
Bridgeman (Lord Bradford), Morris Robinson (Lord Rokeby), W. Grenville
(Lord Grenville), Pepper Arden (Lord Alvanley), and R. Smith (Lord
Carrington).
That was the age when the bestowal of titles was one of the means
of influence used by the Crown for the defence of its prerogatives.
Wilberforce late in life remarked that more than half of the Peers
had received their titles during his lifetime, and certainly, if we
look at the circle of Pitt’s friends in 1781, we find that only he and
seven others remained commoners. They were Bankes, Edwards (afterwards
Sir Gerard Noel), Marsham, T. Steele, General Smith, Wilberforce and
Windham, a friend of somewhat later date.
These and a few others, about thirty in all, formed what might be
termed Pitt’s Club. They met first at a house in Pall Mall, but
afterwards occupied rooms in the premises of a man named Goostree,
which later on were used as the Shakespeare Gallery.[105] Opposition to
Lord North’s Ministry was one of the shibboleths of this coterie; but
in pre-revolutionary days, when the merely political club was almost
unknown, conviviality held the first place at Goostree’s. One who was
in George Selwyn’s set evidently thought the ideals aimed at in Pitt’s
little society too good for London; for he wrote, at the close of 1781:
“Goostree’s is a small society of young men in Opposition, and they
are very nice in their admissions; as they discourage gaming as much
as possible, their club will not do any harm to Brooks’s, and probably
not subsist a great while.” In February 1782 Selwyn himself refers to
Pitt as having formed a “society of young ministers who are to fight
under his banner ... and they assemble at Goostree’s.” Clearly, then,
this club was political, at least in part. Pitt spent much of his time
there, supping at the club every night during the winter of 1780–81;
and there it was that he became intimate with William Wilberforce, the
most fascinating of his friends.
The young and brilliant member for Hull was a living proof of the
triumph which mind can win over physical disadvantages. In person he
was slight and bent, and he early suffered from that weakness of the
eyes which hampered him through life. Yet, “bodkin” though he was,
his quickness of mind, the silvery tones of his voice, the wit that
sparkled in his speech, and his uniform geniality and kindliness gained
for him a continuous round of social triumphs. His singing possessed
a natural charm which drew from the Prince of Wales the statement
that he would come at any time to hear Wilberforce sing. Equally
attractive was his power of mimicking any public character; but what
most of all endeared him to his friends was the genial raillery of his
conversation, his power of lively repartee, and the chivalry which
shone in all his words and deeds. Mme de Staël afterwards declared
him to be the best talker among all the Englishmen she had known; and
in that art of the _salons_ the exuberant Genevese was an exacting
connoisseur. She, however, could not know the warmth of feeling which
animated that slight frame, or the sensitiveness of conscience which
was to make him one of the chief uplifting forces of the age. Towards
the close of his life he expressed regret that in his youth he had made
intellectual conversation his all in all.[106] But regret was surely
needless, when that gift attracted to him the young statesman whose
life at some points he helped to inspire and elevate. Both of them,
indeed, were artists in words; and the free play of mind on mind must
have helped to strengthen those oratorical powers which were to be
devoted to the service of their country and of mankind.
From the pages of Wilberforce’s diary we catch a glimpse, tantalizingly
brief, alas, of Pitt as a boon companion, losing among his intimates
that shyness which outsiders mistook for pride.
He was the wittiest man I ever knew, and what was quite peculiar
to himself, had at all times his wit under entire control. Others
appeared struck by the unwonted association of brilliant images;
but every possible combination of ideas seemed always present to
his mind, and he could at once produce whatever he desired. I was
one of those who met to spend an evening in memory of Shakespeare
at the Boar’s Head, East Cheap. Many professed wits were present,
but Pitt was the most amusing of the party, and the readiest and
most apt in the required allusions. He entered with the same
energy into all our different amusements; we played a good deal at
Goostree’s, and I well remember the intense earnestness that he
displayed when joining in these games of chance. He perceived their
increasing fascination, and soon after suddenly abandoned them for
ever.
This passage, together with its context, is interesting in more
ways than one. Firstly it shows that the fashionable vice of the age
had crept into Goostree’s more than was known by outsiders; or else
Selwyn’s reference to the club belonged to a later period, when Pitt’s
resolve to have done with gambling, and the remorse of Wilberforce at
having suddenly won a large sum from impecunious friends, had availed
to curb the passion for it in their society. The difference of the
two friends in temperament is equally noteworthy. In Wilberforce the
resolve to break away from gambling was the first sign of awakening
of a sensitive conscience, which, though dulled by gaieties, was
thenceforth to assert itself more and more and finally to win over the
whole of his energies.
Pitt also felt the fascination of play in a manner which shows the
eagerness of his animal instincts; but the awakening in his case seems
to have been due to self-respect and also to a keen sense of what
he owed to the State. How could he, who had early vowed himself to
the service of his country, dull his powers and tarnish his name by
indulgence in an insidious and enslaving vice? The career of Charles
James Fox, we may believe, had already been a warning to the young
aspirant. In any case, by an exercise of that imperious will, which
controlled even his vehement impulses, he crushed at once and for ever
those entangling desires, and came forth fancy-free from that Circean
domain, saved by his ennobling resolve to serve England.
In another sense--a less important one, it is true--Pitt was the
most unfortunate man of his age. All his friends agreed that he was
a delightful talker and the most charming of companions. But there
their information ends. Not one of them had the Boswellian love of
detail which enables us to peer right into the heart of Johnson, and
discern the loves and hates, the prejudices and envyings, the whims
and fancies which swayed it. A man can never be known unless we have,
not merely his great speeches, but also his small talk. That of Pitt
must have been of singular charm, not only from the richness of his
mental gifts, but also from the width of the culture which informed
them. In learning he equalled the best of his compeers at Cambridge;
and we may imagine that his vivid knowledge of the life of Greece and
Rome lent to his comparisons and references a grace which could be
appreciated by few _raconteurs_ of to-day. I have already referred to
the stories circulated by those who set themselves to talk and write
him down to their own level, that he studied the classics merely in
order to provide elegant tags to his speeches. The theme has been
embroidered by certain admirers of Fox, who picture the Whig statesman
as the disinterested lover of Greece and Rome, and Pitt as a kind of
money-grubbing paramour. If these persons, instead of copying from the
many malicious stories of that time, would investigate for themselves,
they would see through the partisan spitefulness of all such tales.
Fortunately, Pitt’s copies of the classics preserved at Orwell Park
reveal signs, not only of his frequent perusal of them, but of the
pleasure which it brought, as evinced by marginal comments. Away, then,
with the Foxite myth of the classical tags!
The passage from Wilberforce’s Diary cited above also shows Pitt
to have been well primed with Shakespearean lore, and to have had
the mental agility and tact which could cull the right flower from
that rich garner. Ill though we could spare any of Pitt’s oratorical
efforts, I doubt whether we would not give up any one of his speeches
if we could have in return a full record of some of the evenings spent
by him and his friends at Goostree’s or the Boar’s Head.
Concerning his ordinary talk we only know that he delighted his family
by his gaiety, even amidst the heaviest cares of state. In that
terrible year 1793, when England and France had closed in the death
grapple, Lady Chatham refers to his “ease and gay spirits”; and she
speaks of him as not looking like a man on whom rested the destinies
of kingdoms. A further sentence explains the source of this buoyancy
of spirits: “The uprightness of his intentions and the strength of
his mind saved him from feeling any oppression from the weight upon
him.”[107]
Here we see the secret of that cheerfulness which charmed his friends.
His high spirits were in part, no doubt, bequeathed to him by the
ever confident Chatham; but their even flow was also the outcome of
his own conscious rectitude. Hence also there came the brightness and
sincerity which shone in Pitt’s conversation as also in his life.
Another characteristic on which Wilberforce insisted was his strict
truthfulness, which his friend attributed to his self-respect and to
the moral purity of his nature. Yet there was no taint of priggishness
about it. Wilberforce describes him as “remarkably cheerful and
pleasant, full of wit and playfulness, neither, like Mr. Fox, fond of
arguing a question, nor yet holding forth like some others [Windham is
here hinted at]. He was always ready to hear others as well as to talk
himself.”[108]
Obviously, then, Pitt’s conversation was free from some of the defects
which mar the efforts of professional talkers. He never used the
sledge-hammer methods by which Dr. Johnson too often won an unfair
advantage; he scorned to make use of feigned incidents or grossly
exaggerated accounts whereby many small wits gain a passing repute.
His speech, in private as in public, seems to have resembled a limpid
stream, the natural overflow of a mind richly stocked and a nature at
once lively and affectionate.
Sometimes the stream raced and danced along, as appears from an entry
in the diary of George Selwyn, in March 1782:
When I left the House, I left in one room a party of young men,
who made me, from their life and spirits, wish for one night to
be twenty. There was a tablefull of them drinking--young Pitt,
Lord Euston, Berkley, North, etc., singing and laughing _à gorge
déployée_: some of them sang very good catches; one Wilberforce, a
M. of P., sang the best.
This is only one of many signs that nature had bestowed on Pitt social
gifts and graces which under more favourable conditions would have made
him the centre of a devoted circle of friends. True, he was too shy and
modest to figure as a political Dr. Johnson; too natural to pose as
did the literary lion of Strawberry Hill; too prudent to vie with Fox
as the chief wit and gamester of a great club. But in his own way and
in his own sphere he might have carried on those honourable traditions
which have invested the life of St. Stephen’s with literary and social
charm, had not Chatham’s premature forcing of his powers devitalized
him before the start of a singularly early and exacting career. Here
was the ill fortune of Pitt. Like all precocious natures he needed
times of rest and recuperation before he reached his prime. He sought
them in vain either at Hayes, Cambridge, or Westminster. As we shall
see, the very unusual state of English politics down to 1789 would have
made the accession of Fox, the unofficial representative of the Prince
of Wales, a public misfortune; and soon afterwards there occurred in
quick succession the disputes with Spain, Russia, and France, which,
after two false alarms, ended in a tremendous war. In such a period
how could a delicate man rise to the height of his faculties, either
political or social? On both sides of his nature Pitt showed signs of
the most brilliant promise; but the premature and incessant strain of
public duty robbed him and his country of the full fruition.
CHAPTER V
THE PEACE WITH AMERICA
Since the accession of our most gracious sovereign to the throne,
we have seen a system of government, which may well be called a
reign of experiments.--JUNIUS, Letter to the Duke of Grafton, 8th
July 1769.
James I was contemptible, but he did not lose an America.
His eldest grandson sold us, his younger lost us--but we
kept ourselves. Now we have run to meet the ruin--and it is
coming.--HORACE WALPOLE, 27th November 1781.
In the autumn of the year 1781 occurred a series of events which
brought Pitt for a time into open opposition to the King. As we have
seen, he had not hesitated to invite George III to enter the path of
Economical Reform which was peculiarly odious to him. But now the
divergence of their convictions seemed hopeless. For if Pitt inherited
the firmness of the Pitts and Grenvilles, George III summed up in his
person the pertinacity characteristic of the Guelfs and the Stuarts.
The gift of firmness, the blending of which with foresight and
intelligence produces the greatest of characters, was united in George
III with narrowness of vision, absorption in the claims of self, and a
pedantic clinging to the old and traditional. Coming of a tough stock,
and being admittedly slow and backward, he needed an exceptionally good
education in order to give him width of outlook and some acquaintance
with the lessons of history. But unfortunately his training was of the
most superficial character. Lord Waldegrave, his governor, found him
at the age of fourteen “uncommonly full of prejudices, contracted in
the nursery, and improved by bedchamber women and pages of the back
stairs.”[109] From these cramping influences he was never to shake
himself free. The death of his father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, in
1751, left him under the influence of his mother, an ambitious and
intriguing woman, who instilled into him the desire to govern as well
as reign. That advice accorded with the leanings of his nature, which,
though torpid, was yet masterful.
As will appear in the sequel, George III possessed characteristics
which made him a formidable opponent. His lack of mental endowments
was partly made up by his insight into character, and still more by
his determined will. If he was dull, he was dogged--a quality dear to
the Britons of that age. His private virtues, his homely good sense, a
bearing that was generally genial, and a courage which never quailed,
made him in many ways a pattern king for a plain people in ordinary
times.
Unhappily for him and his people, the times were extraordinary. Like
his contemporary, Louis XVI of France, he needed an intellectual
equipment wider than that which goes to make a model country squire.
In a period remarkable beyond all others for the infiltration of new
ideas, neither of these unfortunate monarchs had the least skill
in reading the signs of the times. But, while the royal hunter of
Versailles was so conscious of his defects as frequently to lean too
much on advisers and therefore waver, his equally Boeotian brother
of Windsor had an absolute belief in his prognostications (save
sometimes on foreign affairs) and scorned to change his mind. This last
peculiarity appears in a letter which he wrote to Pitt on 2nd March
1797. After chiding his Prime Minister for complying too much with the
Opposition, he continues:
My nature is quite different. I never assent till I am convinced
what is proposed is right, and then I keep [_sic_]; then I never
allow that to be destroyed by afterthoughts, which on all subjects
tend to weaken, never to strengthen, the original proposal.[110]
This is doubtless sound advice, provided that the first decision
emanates from a statesmanlike brain. How ruinous the results can be if
that resolve be the outcome of a narrow, proud, and self-complacent
understanding, the fortunes of the British Empire in the years 1774–83
may testify. Those who love to dwell on the “might-have-beens” of
history, may imagine what would have happened if the mild and wavering
King of France had ruled Great Britain, and if our pertinacious
sovereign had been in the place of the hapless Bourbon whose
vacillations marred everything in the memorable spring of 1789.
In certain matters George III showed great ability. If he was not a
statesman, he was a skilled intriguer. Shelburne, himself no tyro
in that art, rated the King’s powers high, stating that “by the
familiarity of his intercourse he obtained your confidence, procured
from you your opinion of different public characters, and then availed
himself of this knowledge to sow dissension.”[111] Further, the
skill and pertinacity with which he pulled the wires at elections is
astonishing. No British monarch has equalled him in his knowledge of
the means by which classes and individuals could be “got at.” Some of
his letters on these subjects, especially that on the need of making
up for the “bad votes” cast for Fox in the famous Westminster Election
of 1784, tempt one to think that George III missed his vocation, which
should have been that of electioneering agent of the Tory party.
In truth he almost succeeded in making Windsor and St. James’s the
headquarters of that faction.[112]
Despite his private virtues, he rarely attached men to him by the ties
of affection and devotion--the mark of a narrow and selfish nature.
His relations to his sons were of the coolest; and all his Ministers,
except, perhaps, Addington, left him on terms that bordered on dislike
if not hostility. The signs of the royal displeasure (as Junius justly
observed to the Duke of Grafton) were generally in proportion to the
abilities and integrity of the Minister. This singular conduct may be
referred to the profound egotism of the King which led him to view
politics solely from his own standpoint, to treat government as the
art of manipulating men by means of titles, places, and money,[113]
and to regard his Ministers as confidential clerks, trustworthy only
when they distrusted one another. The union of the Machiavellian
traits with signal virtue and piety in private life is a riddle that
can be explained only by his narrow outlook, which regarded all means
as justifiable for the “right cause,” and believed all opponents to
be wicked or contemptible. In fact, the narrowing lens of his vision
alike stunted and distorted all opponents until they appeared an
indistinguishable mass. A curious instance of facility in jumbling
together even irreconcilable opposites appeared in his remark to Lord
Malmesbury in 1793 that the _Illuminés_ (the Jacobins of Germany) “were
a sect invented by the Jesuits to overthrow all governments and all
order.”[114] Such was the mental equipment of the monarch on whom now
rested the fate of the Empire.
On Sunday, 25th November 1781, news arrived in London which sealed
the doom of Lord North’s Ministry. Cornwallis, with rather less
than seven thousand men, had surrendered to the Franco-American
forces at Yorktown. The blow was not heavy enough to daunt a really
united kingdom. On the Britain of that year, weary of the struggle,
and doubtful alike of its justice and its utility, the effect was
decisive. Lord North, on hearing the news from his colleague, Lord
George Germain, received it “as he would have taken a bullet through
his breast.” He threw up his arms and paced up and down the room,
exclaimed wildly: “Oh, God! it is all over.” This, if we may believe
Wraxall,[115] was the ejaculation of the man who latterly had been
the unwilling tool of his sovereign in the coercion of the American
colonists.
While Lord North, the Parliament, and the nation were desirous of
ending the war, the King still held to his oft expressed opinion,
that it would be total ruin for Great Britain to give way in the
struggle, seeing that a great Power which begins to “moulder” must be
annihilated.[116] He therefore kept North to his post, and allowed the
King’s speech for the forthcoming autumn session to be only slightly
altered; the crucial sentence ran as follows:
No endeavours have been wanting on my part to extinguish that
spirit of rebellion which our enemies have found means to foment
and maintain in the colonies, & to restore to my deluded subjects
in America that happy and prosperous condition which they
formerly derived from a due obedience to the laws; but the late
misfortune in that quarter calls loudly for your firm concurrence
and assistance to frustrate the designs of our enemies, equally
prejudicial to the real interests of America and to those of Great
Britain.
The gauntlet thus defiantly flung down was taken up with spirit by Fox
and Burke, who even ventured to threaten with impeachment the Secretary
for the Colonies, Germain, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, the
Earl of Sandwich. This was unfair. They were little more than puppets
moved by the King; and he was responsible ultimately for the bad
condition of the army and navy, and was sole cause for the continuance
of the war. No one imagined (so Romilly wrote on 4th December 1781)
that the war would go on after the disaster at Yorktown.[117]
In the ensuing debates on the King’s speech, Pitt made an effective
attack on Ministers, upbraiding them with the inconsistency of their
statements and the obscurity in which they shrouded their plans. For
himself, with his profound conviction as to the need of promptly
terminating the war, he adjured them to state clearly what line of
conduct they meant to pursue. This last challenge went home because
the language of Ministers was openly inconsistent, that of the Lord
Advocate, Dundas, being hardly different from the views held by the
Opposition. In fact it was now said that there were three parties on
the Government benches--the King’s, Lord North’s, and that of Dundas,
shading off from war _à outrance_ to something like conciliation with
America.
Nevertheless, the House (as Fox wrote in his Journal) was “tenacious
of places and pensions,” and at first supported the Government by
substantial majorities; but a typical placeman like Selwyn wrote early
in December that if the measures and conduct of the Ministry were not
changed, they were completely undone. Nervousness about his sinecure
made the wit a true prophet. Not only was the majority breaking into
groups, but the Opposition was acting well together. This again was a
result of the Yorktown disaster. Only a few days previously, Shelburne,
the leader of the Chathamites, had in vain proposed to the official
chief of the Whigs, Rockingham, that they should unite their followers,
so that there should be but two parties, “that of the Crown and that of
the people.”
Now, however, as victory came in sight, the Opposition closed its
ranks, while the once serried phalanx of placemen opposite began to
split up from sheer panic. During this interesting time Pitt made
another speech, which won high encomiums from Horace Walpole for its
“amazing logical abilities.” Equally notable was the alertness which
fastened on a slight incident. In the midst of his tirade against the
inconsistencies of Ministers, North and Germain began to whisper
together, while that wary little placeman, Welbore Ellis, who was
between them, bent down his head to listen. At once Pitt exclaimed: “I
will wait until the unanimity is a little better restored. I will wait
until the Nestor of the Treasury has reconciled the difference between
the Agamemnon and the Achilles of the American War.”[118]
Little by little Lord North’s majority dwindled away. It sank to a
single vote on 22nd February 1782, when General Conway brought forward
a motion for the termination of the war. On the renewal of the motion
five days later, the House, amidst a scene of great excitement,
declared against North by 234 votes to 215. The Ministry, under
pressure from the King, held on for a few days, and, on 8th March, even
defeated a vote of censure by a majority of ten.
Pitt, who was one of the tellers for the minority, had startled
the House, in the course of a fighting speech, by the following
notable words: “For myself, I could not expect to form part of a new
administration; but, were my doing so more within my reach, I would
never accept a subordinate situation.” On the authority of Admiral
Keppel, his neighbour in the House, he is said to have repented
immediately of this declaration, and to have wished to rise and
explain or mitigate it. If so, the feeling must surely have been only
momentary. Pitt, as we have seen, was essentially methodical. His
feelings, his words, even his lightest jests, were always completely
under control. It is therefore impossible to regard so important a
statement as due to the whim of the moment, or to the exaggeration
of which a nervous or unskilful speaker is often guilty. Still less
can we believe that he seriously intended to explain away his words.
So weak an action would have been wholly repugnant to another of his
characteristics--pride. The declaration was probably the outcome of
his unwavering self-confidence and of a belief that any Ministry which
could be formed must be short lived.
If so, his conduct was well suited to bring him to the front at a time
more opportune than the present. It was inconceivable that a monarch so
masterful and skilled in intrigue as George III should long submit to
be controlled by the now victorious Whig families, whose overthrow had
been his chief aim. To foment the schisms in their ranks, and shelve
them at the first possible time was an alternative far preferable to
that of retiring to Hanover--a suggestion which he once more threw out
to Lord North. When the struggle between Crown and Commons had come to
its second phase, it would be time for a young member to take a leading
place.
A crisis became imminent forthwith, on the House passing a declaration
that it would “consider as enemies to His Majesty and to this country
all who should advise or by any means attempt the further prosecution
of offensive war on the continent of America.” By this Act the Commons
reasserted their undoubted right of controlling the prerogative of the
Crown even in the question of peace or war.[119] The declaration was a
preliminary to impeachment of Ministers in case they still persisted in
defying the House.
It also led the King, on 11th March, to send his champion, the
Chancellor, Lord Thurlow, to consult with Lord Rockingham. The leader
of the official Whigs knew that he had the game in his hands, and
sought to dictate the conditions on which alone he would form an
administration. They were as follows: “American Independence; no Veto;
Establishment Bill; great parts of Contractors Bill; Custom House and
Excise, etc., Bill; Peace in general, if possible; Economy in every
branch.”[120] The King demurred to these terms, and after eight days
the overture lapsed. Meanwhile Lord North’s position in the House was
becoming intolerable, and on 20th March he announced the resignation of
his Ministry. On going to take leave of the King, he was greeted by the
following characteristic words: “Remember, my Lord, that it is you who
desert me, not I you.”
Most sovereigns would now have accepted defeat. But George III was
no less dogged of will than ingenious in finding a way of escape. He
had one chance left. Beside the official Whig families, headed by
Rockingham, there were the Chathamites, led by Shelburne, who occupied
an intermediate position not easy to define. Like most political
groups which profess to be above party, they had succeeded in forming
another party. They differed from the Whigs in not desiring to see the
royal prerogative shorn of power, as it had been under the first two
Georges to the advantage of the old governing families. In foreign
and colonial affairs they aimed at the triumph of a truly national
policy, which, while furthering the cause of freedom, also made for
the greatness of the Empire. Even amidst his protests against the
continuance of the war, Shelburne raised his voice, as Chatham had
done, against a complete severance of the tie uniting the colonies to
the motherland.[121] These opinions seem to us now unpractical in view
of the existing state of things. Certainly, if we may judge by the
speeches of William Pitt, he had overshot the limits of the Chathamite
traditions which his chief still observed.
Nevertheless, the Chathamites, albeit a somewhat _doctrinaire_
group, indeed scarcely a party, might now be utilized as a buffer
between the throne and the Whig magnates. Accordingly, the King,
during an interview with Shelburne, in which he expressed his dislike
of Rockingham, proposed that Shelburne should form a Cabinet with
Rockingham as head, Shelburne being the intermediary between the
King and the Prime Minister. As Shelburne knew that he could not
stand without the support of the Whigs, the latter had their way at
nearly all points. The King most reluctantly consented not to veto
American Independence--a matter on which Rockingham stood firm. In
smaller and personal matters, on which George III set much store, he
partly succeeded. He refused to see Rockingham until the latter was
Prime Minister; he insisted on keeping his factotum, Lord Thurlow,
as Chancellor, and he fought hard to keep the gentlemen of the royal
household unchanged; but, as he wrote to Lord North, “the number I have
saved is incredibly few.” Among them was Lord Montagu, the governor
of the King’s son, whom Horace Walpole dubbed the King’s spy on the
Prince of Wales, and the only man in whom he (George III) had any
confidence. The same sharp critic noted that the King now used, with
some success, the only artifice in which he had ever succeeded, that
of sowing discord. He had openly shown that Shelburne and Thurlow were
his men in the Cabinet; and Fox, who became Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, said that the new Cabinet belonged partly to the King
and partly to the people. In the very limited sense in which the Whigs
were a popular party (for the official Whigs sought the support of the
people mainly in order to browbeat the King), the remark was correct.
However that may be, the King had certainly contrived largely to
nullify the victory of the Whigs by fomenting discords in the Cabinet.
So astute an intriguer as Shelburne was certain to chafe at the
ascendancy of Rockingham; and the King’s tactics, while humiliating the
Prime Minister, enabled Shelburne secretly to arrange matters according
to the royal behests. Shelburne held the secretaryship for Home
Affairs, which then carried with it a supervision of the executive at
Dublin Castle. He also brought in Dunning (now created Lord Ashburton
without the knowledge of Rockingham) as Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster; and it has been ascertained that he sought to include Pitt
in the Cabinet with some high office. Which office he was to have is
not clear; but Lady Chatham wrote to Shelburne on 28th March in terms
which implied an office of Cabinet rank. Here, however, Rockingham
protested with success; and as a result only the Vice-Treasurership of
Ireland was offered him, an office which by his previous declaration he
had bound himself to refuse.[122] His exclusion from the Cabinet by the
influence of the official Whigs served to alienate him from that party,
and brought him more in contact with men who were beginning to figure
as supporters of the royal prerogative.
As a private member, Pitt gave his support to the new Ministry; and
on 29th April he made a brief but telling appeal for unanimity,
“from which the salvation of the nation could alone be hoped for.”
Certainly the Ministry needed the help of all patriots. The prestige
of Britain was at the lowest ebb. Beaten alike in the New World and
in the Mediterranean, where Minorca had recently been recovered by
the Spaniards, she seemed at the end of her resources. Ireland was
in a state of veiled rebellion. The Parliament at Dublin unanimously
demanded the repeal of Poynings Act and that of the year 1720, which
assured its dependence on the British Government; and some 100,000
Volunteers were ready to take the field to make good the claim. In
vain did the new Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Portland, seek to gain
time. Grattan, whom the Earl of Mornington styled “the most upright
and temperate demagogue that ever appeared in any country,” had
Ireland at his back. He refused to wait; and in the month of May the
British Parliament gave effect to his demands by unanimously conceding
legislative independence to the Dublin Parliament.[123] Pitt did not
speak on the subject, but he probably agreed with the change, which in
the circumstances was inevitable. The news aroused in Ireland a storm
of enthusiasm, and the Dublin Parliament voted the sum of £100,000 for
raising 20,000 seamen. For the present, then, the Irish question was
shelved, but at the cost of many difficulties in the future.
About the same time, the cloud which had hung so ominously over
Britain’s navy cleared away. News arrived of the victory which Rodney
gained over the French fleet under Count de Grasse near Dominica
on 12th April 1782,[124] which saved the West Indian colonies and
restored Britain’s supremacy on the ocean. Equally fortunate was
Eliott’s repulse of a determined attack on Gibraltar by the French and
Spaniards, which brought about the relief of the garrison and ensured
the total failure of the prolonged and desperate efforts of France and
Spain to seize the key of the Mediterranean.
The spirit of the nation rose with these successes; and Shelburne
brought forward a Bill for arming the people. The motion came to
little, probably because of the fear which the Lord George Gordon riots
had aroused;[125] but, as the sequel will show, it took effect in some
quarters and provided the basis for the far more important Volunteer
Movement of the Great French War.
It is remarkable, as showing the strong bent of Pitt’s nature towards
civil affairs, that he spoke, not on these topics, but solely on the
cause of Parliamentary Reform. His insistence on this topic at a time
of national peril can be paralleled by the action of another statesman
a century later; and it is significant that, when Mr. Gladstone
introduced his Franchise Bill in 1884, he was warmly reproached by
Lord Randolph Churchill for bringing forward this topic amidst the
conflicts or complications in which we were involved in Egypt, the
Sudan, Afghanistan, and South Africa. But the Liberal leader claimed
that by conferring the franchise on some two million of citizens, the
people would be arrayed “in one solid compacted mass around the ancient
throne which it has loved so well and round a constitution now to be
more than ever powerful and more than ever free.” The plea has been
justified by events; and we can now gauge at its true value the politic
daring of the two statesmen who sought to meet dangers from without by
strengthening the fabric of the Empire at its base.
In the year 1782 the gravity of the crisis was far greater than that of
the year 1884; for the storms were beating on an edifice dangerously
narrow at the ground. Realizing that the subject of the representation
was too complicated to be handled except after an official
investigation, Pitt for the present proposed merely the formation of a
Committee of Inquiry which should report on the best means of carrying
out “a moderate and substantial reform.” His proposals, and still more
the fame of his eloquence, aroused great interest; so that on the
morning of 7th May a crowd endeavoured to gain access to Westminster
Hall. Many of the “news-writers” were excluded, with results harmful to
the printed reports of the speech.[126] Pitt prefaced his remarks by
acknowledging most thankfully that they had now to do with a Ministry
which desired such a measure, and not with one that “laboured to
exert the corrupt influence of the Crown in support of an inadequate
representation of the people.” He assumed it as proven that the House
of Commons had received an improper and dangerous bias, which impaired
the constitution.
That beautiful frame of government which has made us the envy and
admiration of mankind, in which the people are entitled to hold so
distinguished a share, is so far dwindled, and has so far departed
from its original purity, as that the representatives have ceased,
in a great degree, to be connected with the people. It is of the
essence of the constitution that the people should have a share in
the government by the means of representation; and its excellence
and permanency is calculated to consist in this representation,
having been designed to be equal, easy, practicable, and complete.
When it ceases to be so; when the representative ceases to have
connection with the constituent, and is either dependent on
the Crown or the aristocracy, there is a defect in the frame
of representation, and it is not innovation but recovery of
constitution, to repair it.
He then pointed out some of the worst anomalies of the existing system.
There were some boroughs wholly controlled, or absolutely possessed,
by the Treasury. In others its influence was contested solely by a
great landowner, but never by the inhabitants in their own right. Some
few boroughs [Old Sarum is the classical instance] had only one or two
voters. Other towns,
in the lofty possession of English freedom, claim to themselves
the right to bring their votes to market. They have no other
market, no other property, and no other stake in the country, than
the property and price which they procure for their votes. Such
boroughs are the most dangerous of all. So far from consulting the
interests of their country in the choice which they make, they hold
out their borough to the best purchaser.... It is a fact pretty
well known that the Nabob of Arcot had no less than seven or eight
members in that House. May not a foreign State in enmity with this
country, by means of these boroughs, procure a party of men to act
for them under the mask and character of members of that House?
Pitt then warned the Commons that the forces of corruption might
soon be found to be as strong as ever. Though they had grown with
our growth, they had not decayed with our decay. For years they had
maintained in power a Ministry which had worked ruin to the Empire.
Finally, he referred to the opinion of his father on this great subject
and besought members to satisfy the longings now widely expressed
throughout the kingdom, which must carry the matter to a triumphant
issue. His speech was loudly cheered. The able orations of Fox and
Sheridan also seemed to carry the House with them; but, as in former
cases, the undercurrent of self-interest worked potently against
Reform, and ensured the rejection of Pitt’s proposal by 161 votes to
141. The country gentlemen were alarmed at his motion, the opposition
of Pitt’s relative, Thomas Pitt, being especially strong.
Probably it was a tactical mistake for Pitt, a private member, to bring
forward such a motion. If he had waited until the Ministry had so far
prevailed over its external difficulties and internal dissensions as
to be able to take up the question, his support might have ensured the
triumph of the Government proposals. As it was, the misgivings of the
cautious, the vested interests of nominee members, the embarrassments
of the Ministry, and the opposition of the old Whig families, doomed
to failure his second effort in this direction. Not for the space of
forty-eight years was so favourable an opportunity to recur; and then
it was a new Industrial England which burst through the trammels of an
old-world representation.
Undaunted by this rebuff, he spoke on 17th May in favour of the motion
of a veteran reformer, Alderman Sawbridge, for shortening the duration
of Parliaments. Only one of his arguments has come down to us, namely
his contention that the Septennial Act placed undue influence in the
hands of Ministers, as appeared from the strenuous opposition which the
enemies of political purity had always offered to the repeal of that
measure. Fox spoke for the motion; but Burke, who had been persuaded
to absent himself from the earlier debate, now let loose the vials of
his wrath against a Reform of Parliament in whatever shape it came.
Sheridan describes him as attacking Pitt “in a scream of passion,” with
the assertion that Parliament was just what it ought to be, and that
all change would be fatal to the welfare of the nation.
Burke’s diatribe prepares us for the part which he played during the
French Revolution. The man who discerned perfection in a Parliamentary
system, in which Scotland had only 4,000 voters and 45 members,
while 19 Cornish villages returned 38 members; in which the Duke of
Norfolk could put in 11 members, and the Nabob of Arcot 7 or 8, while
Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and Birmingham remained politically
dumb--such a man might well regard the French revolutionists as “the
ablest architects of ruin” that the world had ever seen. His tirade
against short Parliaments carried the House with him, the motion being
rejected by a majority of 88.
It is interesting to find Pitt taking part at a meeting of friends
of Reform at the Thatched House Tavern (18th May 1782), which seems
to have been held under the auspices of Major Cartwright’s “Society
for Promoting Constitutional Information.” The Duke of Richmond, Lord
Mahon, Sir Cecil Wray, and the Lord Mayor were present. A motion was
passed urging the need of petitioning Parliament for “a substantial
reformation of the Commons House of Parliament”; and the minutes of
the meeting were in Pitt’s handwriting. He was then in correspondence
with John Frost, an attorney of Percy Street, who was secretary for
the Middlesex Reform Committee; and in the second letter the young
statesman refers to some honour which that committee proposed to confer
on him for his efforts on their behalf. These facts and Pitt’s letters
to Frost were produced by Erskine during his defence of Frost against
a charge of sedition early in the Hilary Term 1793.[127] The episode
was highly effective and probably ensured the mitigation of Frost’s
sentence. The whole incident is noteworthy, as it points the contrast
between the earlier and later phases of Pitt’s career which was to be
produced by the French Revolution.
Pitt did not speak during the debates on two other measures which alone
of all the reformers’ programme passed through Parliament in 1782.
They were the Contractors Bill, which, by excluding all contractors
from Parliament and disfranchising all revenue officers, dealt a blow
at some forms of political corruption.[128] By the other Act several
sinecures, with salaries of about £70,000 a year, were swept away.
The King exerted his influence against both measures, his man, Lord
Thurlow, striving by every means to defeat the former of them in the
Lords; while the Economy Bill was shorn of some of its more drastic
clauses by the action of Shelburne and Thurlow in Cabinet Councils.
The difficulty of common action was seen during the discussion of a
Bill for the repression of bribery at elections (19th June). Pitt spoke
in favour of the motion, but, strange to say, Fox opposed it. This was
the first occasion on which they voted in opposite lobbies, though
there had been no friendship or close intercourse between them. The
motion was of course lost.
* * * * *
Their relations were destined quickly to alter, owing to an event
which opened another phase of the long struggle between the King and
the hostile Whig “phalanx.” On 1st July 1782 the Marquis of Rockingham
died. Of small ability, he yet held a conspicuous place in the
affairs of State, owing to his vast landed estates, the strength of
his political and family connections, and to his high character. At
once the King and the “phalanx” girded themselves for the conflict.
On the very next day George III offered the Premiership to the Earl
of Shelburne, now more than ever inclining to the King’s side. With
an openness which did not always characterize him, that Minister
at once referred the proposal to his colleagues, only to have it
rejected by the official Whigs. Four of Rockingham’s most decided
friends in the Cabinet--Fox, the Duke of Richmond, Lord John Cavendish,
and Admiral Keppel--demanded that the Duke of Portland should be
Prime Minister.[129] Such a proposal was doubly objectionable;
first, because the Duke, as then appeared from his conduct at Dublin
Castle, had little insight and no strength of character; secondly,
because the proposal itself was scarcely constitutional; for the
King had, as he still has, the right to select his Prime Minister.
Nevertheless, Shelburne consented to refer the proposal to George III,
who emphatically rejected it. Thereupon Fox and Lord John Cavendish
resigned; Shelburne undertook to form an Administration and offered the
Chancellorship of the Exchequer, vacated by Lord John Cavendish, to
William Pitt. He at once accepted it.
The other chief changes were that Thomas Townshend (soon to become Lord
Sydney) took the Secretaryship of State held by Shelburne, while Fox
was succeeded as Secretary for Foreign Affairs by Lord Grantham, and
the Duke of Portland, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, by Earl Temple. Burke
and Sheridan marked their attachment to the Whigs by resigning their
subordinate offices. It was in face of able, eloquent, and exasperated
men like these that Pitt took up the burden of office, along with the
virtual leadership of the House of Commons, at the age of twenty-three.
The conduct of Fox and his friends in resigning office was hotly
arraigned. A debate on their action in voting a pension of £3,200 a
year to Colonel Barré turned mainly on the larger question (9th July).
Fox, conscious that Barré’s pension was a blot on Ministers who had
posed as champions of economy, retorted fiercely on his critics,
declaring Shelburne and his followers to be heedless alike “of promises
which they had made, of engagements into which they had entered, of
principles which they had maintained, of the system on which they had
set out.... They would abandon fifty principles for the sake of power,
and forget fifty promises when they were no longer requisite to their
ends; ... and he expected to see that, in a very short time, they would
be joined by those men whom that House had precipitated from their
seats.”[130]
Had Fox been satisfied with defending his own resignation on the ground
of disagreement with Shelburne on details of policy, his relations to
the Chathamites might have remained cordial. But the attack on Pitt’s
chief was so violent as to provoke sharp rejoinders. General Conway
defended Shelburne from the charge of apostasy, and stated that it
was he who had convinced George III of the need of recognizing the
independence of the American colonies; also that the differences
between Shelburne and Fox on that point were merely differing shades of
opinion.[131] Pitt expressed his regret at the resignation of Fox, but
attributed it in the main to a dislike of Shelburne rather than of his
policy. For himself, he said, he completely trusted the noble earl, and
if he were called upon to serve under him (his appointment was not yet
confirmed) he would do so cheerfully in any capacity and to the utmost
of his power. The strictures of Fox were further discounted by the fact
that Richmond and Keppel did not resign their seats in the Cabinet.
On reviewing the action of Fox after this lapse of time it seems
impossible to acquit him of the charge of acting with haste and bad
temper. His charges against the sincerity of Shelburne respecting the
details of the negotiation then begun with France and America have been
refuted, or at least minimized, by an eminent authority.[132] Fox must
have known as well as Conway that Shelburne had induced George III
to recognize the independence of the American colonies--a political
service of the highest order; and if on matters of detail he sharply
differed from him, and thought him insincere, meddlesome, and too
friendly to the King, it was his duty to remain in office with his
Whig friends so as to curb those tendencies. It is by no means certain
(as Mr. Lecky asserted) that he would have been always, or generally,
outvoted;[133] and his presence in the Cabinet would have strengthened
his party in the Commons. It may be granted that he believed he was
taking the only straightforward course; but his vehement nature
often led him to unwise conclusions. True, his colleagues nearly
always forgave him; for it was a signal proof of the warmth of his
disposition that his friends loved him even when he offended them; but
they came by degrees to distrust his judgement, and to see that other
gifts than courage, eloquence, and personal charm were needed in a
leader. Certain it is that public opinion condemned his resignation as
hasty, ill-timed, and compromising to the cause of Reform.
His action was especially unfortunate in this last respect. In April he
had written that, if the Rockingham Cabinet could stay in office long
enough to deal “a good stout blow to the influence of the Crown,” it
would not matter if the Ministry broke up. But the blow had not been
dealt; the passing of the Economy Bill and the exclusion of contractors
from Parliament and revenue officers from the franchise had only
scotched the snake of corruption, not killed it. Yet the party which
alone could deal the final blow was now weakened by the action of the
most ardent of reformers. The worst result of all, perhaps, remains to
be noticed. When Fox maliciously taunted Shelburne with being about to
unite with Lord North in order to keep in office, no one could have
imagined that the speaker would soon have recourse to that despicable
manœuvre; but the curse, flung out in heedless wrath, was destined to
come home to roost.
Pitt now came to office by a path which necessitated a sharp divergence
from Fox--a divergence, be it noted, due to party tactics and not
to the inner convictions of the men themselves. After the foregoing
account of the session of 1782--it ended on 11th July--the reader will
be in a position to judge for himself whether up to that time Pitt or
Fox was to blame for a split which seems unnatural and blameworthy.
In the month of August Pitt moved into the “vast awkward house” in
Downing Street which was to be his official residence. Dissensions soon
arose in the Cabinet; and in addition there were the dangers resulting
from the war and the urgent need of concluding peace. Accordingly
Pitt was able to spend but very few days out of town at his beloved
Hayes, even in the heat of summer, still less to go on circuit as
he had intended. The Shelburne Ministry contrived to simplify the
diplomatic situation by offering to recognize the independence of the
United States (27th September). The frankness with which this was
done, at a time when Vergennes, the French Foreign Minister, showed a
keen desire to shut those growing communities out from the valley of
the Mississippi,[134] served somewhat to allay the anti-British fury
kindled by the War. The Americans saw, what had long been discerned at
Westminster, that the Bourbons were using them as pawns in their game
for the overthrow of the British Empire; and their envoys resolved to
break loose from their engagement not to treat separately for a peace
with England. The preliminaries of peace, signed on 30th November,
accorded to the young Commonwealth the Mississippi as its boundary on
the west, and the larger part of the great lakes on the north, together
with fishery rights off Newfoundland. All these terms, including that
of the independence of the States, were provisional, taking effect
whenever peace should be settled with France and Spain.
The negotiations with France and Spain were rendered easier by the
ill-will now existing between the Bourbon Powers and the United
States. The relief of the garrison of Gibraltar by Lord Howe further
disposed them to abate their terms. On the other hand, they knew of
the difficulties of the British Cabinet, and the general desire of the
nation for peace. Matters were therefore in a complicated state at the
end of the year 1782; and we learn from a statement of Shelburne that
during November he refrained from summoning Cabinet Councils in order
to preserve unanimity.[135] Ministers had indeed differed sharply,
firstly, on the question whether Gibraltar should be handed back to
Spain, and secondly, on that of the indemnity. The King and Shelburne
wished to have Porto Rico and West Florida in exchange for Gibraltar;
Grafton preferred Porto Rico and Trinidad; while Richmond, Keppel
(probably also Pitt) objected to the cession of the great fortress
which had been so stoutly held against a three years’ siege.[136]
Such was the state of affairs when, on 5th December, Parliament
reassembled. On the next day Pitt committed a mistake which exposed him
to a reprimand from the King through Shelburne. Fox pressed Ministers
to declare that the acknowledgement of American independence was
unconditional. The senior Minister in the House, Townshend, replied
that that condition of peace would take effect only on the conclusion
of a general peace. Pitt, however, added that “the clear indisputable
meaning of the provisional agreements made with the American
commissioners was the unqualified recognition of their independence”;
and it would form part of the treaty with the belligerent powers.[137]
Here he overshot the mark. That recognition depended on the conclusion
of treaties with France and Spain. The King, therefore, sent him a
rebuke through Shelburne, adding, however, “It is no wonder that so
young a man should have made a slip.”--We cannot regret the occurrence,
for it shows how anxious Pitt was to have that great question settled.
In the ensuing debates Pitt sharply retorted on Burke, who, quoting
from “Hudibras,” had accused Ministers of making the King speak--
As if hypocrisy and nonsense
Had got the advowson of his conscience.
The son of Chatham showed something of his father’s fire, reprobating
the unseemly jeer of the speaker and declaring that he repelled the
further charge of hypocrisy “with scorn and contempt.” A retort
courteous, or humorous, would have been more in place after Burke’s
raillery; but Pitt, though witty in private, rarely used this gift in
the House, probably because he wished to be taken seriously. In this
he succeeded. In all but name he was leader of the House of Commons.
The task of keeping together a majority was extremely difficult; for,
according to Gibbon, the Ministry could command only 140 votes, while
as many as 120 voted with Lord North, 90 with Fox, the rest drifted
about as marketable flotsam. The situation became worse still late in
the year, when rumours began to fly about that Fox and Lord North were
about to join their discordant forces for the overthrow of the Ministry.
In these circumstances the Shelburne Cabinet rendered the greatest
possible service by holding on to office, while they pressed through
the negotiations with France, Spain, and Holland. Ultimately, the
preliminaries of peace were signed on 20th January 1783. They brought
no disgrace on a Power which had latterly been warring against half
the world. The chief loss in the West Indies was Tobago, a small but
wealthy island, in which British merchants had large interests. It
was surrendered to the French, who recovered their former possession,
St. Lucia. On the other hand, they gave back to Britain Dominica,
Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat. The cession of
the islands of Miquelon and St. Pierre enabled France to gain a firmer
footing in the Newfoundland fisheries. In Africa we gave back Senegal
and Goree to France; while her stations in India, conquered by us, were
likewise restored. Spain gained more largely than France. She retained
her recent conquests, West Florida and Minorca, and she acquired East
Florida, while recognizing the reconquest of the Bahamas by England.
The Dutch ceded Negapatam but recovered Trincomalee. These conditions
were ultimately ratified by the Treaty of Versailles (3rd September
1783).
Terms so favourable could not have been secured had not the Court of
Versailles felt the need of peace in order to repair its shattered
finances. It was the shadow of the oncoming eclipse of 1789 which
warned Louis XVI and Vergennes to agree with their adversary while they
were in the way with him. Nevertheless, the Shelburne Ministry deserves
the highest credit for making head against internal difficulties, and
for gaining terms which were far less burdensome than those imposed on
France by the Seven Years’ War.
This is the light in which they are regarded now. In that age, when the
spoils of office rather than patriotism prompted the words and votes
of members, the details of the peace afforded a welcome opportunity
for undermining the Ministry. Already it seemed to be in difficulties.
The waverers inside the Cabinet, or those who were chafed by the
overbearing ways and personal diplomacy of Shelburne, began to leave
the labouring ship. Keppel threw up the Admiralty, the Duke of Richmond
absented himself from the Cabinet Councils, and Grafton and Conway
seemed on the point of retiring.[138] Pitt remained faithful, but urged
the need of strengthening the Ministry by alliance with Fox and his
followers. Shelburne at first inclined to a compact with Lord North’s
party; though both he and Pitt objected strongly to the inclusion of
North himself in the Cabinet. As “the lord in the blue ribbon” had his
party well in hand, it was impossible to bring them in without him. It
remained, then, to seek help from the Foxites. Here the bitter personal
feud between Shelburne and Fox complicated the situation fatally both
for Shelburne, Fox, and Pitt. But before the fight began in Parliament
on the burning topic of the hour, Pitt made an attempt to bring in Fox
(11th February). He acted with the consent of Shelburne and with the
knowledge, and probably the grudging permission, of the King.
Few private interviews have been more important. On it depended the
fortunes of the Ministry, and to some extent, of the Empire. If it
succeeded, the terms of peace were certain to pass through Parliament.
An alliance would also be formed between two political groups which had
almost the same aims and were held apart only by the personal pique
of their leaders. A union of the best elements of the Whigs and the
Chathamites would tend to curb the power of the King, maintain the
honour of the flag, and secure the passage of much-needed reforms.
The defeat, or at least the postponement, of these salutary aims must
necessarily result from persistence in the miserable feud. For the
two men themselves that interview was fraught with grave issues. The
repulse of the natural affinities was certain to doom one of them to an
unnatural alliance or to helpless opposition.
It must have been with a keen sense of the importance of the crisis
that these able men faced one another. The interview was soon over.
Pitt stated to Fox the object of his visit; whereupon the Whig leader
asked whether it was proposed that Lord Shelburne should remain
First Lord of the Treasury. On Pitt answering in the affirmative,
Fox remarked that it was impossible for him to form part of any
Administration of which Lord Shelburne was the head. Pitt at once drew
himself up (so Dundas afterwards declared), and the proud movement of
his head, the significance of which many an opponent was destined to
feel, ended the interview. According to Bishop Tomline, he broke off
the conversation with the words: “I did not come here to betray Lord
Shelburne.” The breach was irreparable.[139]
Three days later, Dundas (soon to be a firm supporter of Pitt) made a
despairing effort to win over Lord North, who coolly repulsed him. On
that same day Fox offered his alliance to the man whom for thirteen
years he had railed at as the instrument of corruption and tyranny.
They agreed
that nothing more was required to be done in reducing the influence
of the Crown by economical reform, and that on parliamentary reform
every man should follow his own opinion. Mr. Fox having urged
that the King should not be suffered to be his own Minister, Lord
North replied: “If you mean there should not be a government by
departments, I agree with you. I think it a very bad system. There
should be one man, or a Cabinet, to govern the whole and direct
every measure. Government by departments was not brought in by me.
I found it so, and had not vigour and resolution to put an end
to it. The King ought to be treated with all sort of respect and
attention, but the appearance of power is all that a King of this
country can have.”[140]
They then began to consider the question of the distribution of
offices, and finally decided to oppose the forthcoming address to the
King expressing thankfulness at the peace.
Thus was formed the famous, or infamous, Coalition of 1783. With the
policy of reducing the governing power of the King, it is impossible
not to feel much sympathy. George III had hitherto governed England
without much let or hindrance, except from Chatham and Rockingham. His
narrowness and obstinacy were the chief causes of the American War;
and we now know that during four years he had kept Lord North to that
work, despite his remonstrances. But nothing could reconcile the new
alliance to the public. A shiver of disgust ran through the nation when
it transpired that Fox had plighted troth with the man whom he had
threatened to impeach; and that impression was never to die away.
Further, it is doubtful whether enthusiasm for Reform was the chief
motive that prompted Fox’s action.[141] As we have seen, he gave up
Economic Reform; and his stipulation respecting Parliamentary Reform
was so half-hearted as to doom that question to failure. How could that
cause thrive when it would have the effect of sending the chiefs of
the future Ministry into opposite lobbies? Fox must have known enough
of Parliament to see that his present conduct hopelessly impaired the
strength of the reformers, in what was at all times an uphill fight. In
truth, the whole incident brings into sharp relief the defects of his
character, which, while rich in enthusiasms, ever lacked balance, and
so frequently led him to a reckless use of most questionable means for
the compassing of ends in themselves desirable.
In this instance his recklessness was to blast his whole career. He
seems not to have considered the general impression certain to be
created by his facile union with a long-loathed opponent. But the
public, always prone to harsh judgements on political inconsistencies,
at once inferred that he joined North, partly in order to be revenged
on Shelburne for some personal slights, but mainly with the view of
snatching at the sweets of office which he had of late so unaccountably
cast aside. His conduct seemed oddly to blend all that was foolish in
wayward boyhood with the cunning of an unscrupulous politician. The
cynical majority argued that such extremes as Fox and North could meet
only under the overmastering pressure of greed; and to idealists or
patriots the Coalition of 1783 seemed to plunge England back into the
old slough of selfishness from which the noble pride of Chatham had
raised her.
The name of Chatham reminds us of the Coalition which in 1757 he
framed with his former opponent, the Duke of Newcastle. The two cases
have indeed been compared; but they have very little in common. Then
the very existence of England was at stake. She was in the midst of a
war which was being grossly mismanaged; and the union of the one able
statesman of the age with the manipulator of patronage, was practically
the only means of avoiding a national disaster. Now, in February 1783,
hostilities were at an end; the terms of peace were arranged, and were
certain to take effect, if the new Coalition allowed it. The action
of the elder Pitt in 1757 was inspired by patriotism and crowned by
deserved triumph. That of Fox and North rested, in part, on more sordid
motives, jeopardized the conclusion of peace, threw the political world
into utter confusion, and ended in disaster.
The fruits of the new Coalition were soon to appear. On Monday 17th
February, the debates opened on the address to the King relative to
the peace. In the Lords the opposition of Keppel and Richmond to their
late colleagues was an ominous sign; but still more so was the combined
attack of Foxites and Northites in the Lower House. North spoke with
something of the restraint which became a man so largely responsible
for the present humiliations. He fastened on the worst parts of the
treaty--the cession of Minorca and the Floridas to Spain, and the
absence of any guarantees for the American Loyalists. Where he trod
with measured steps, Sheridan and Fox rushed in with frothy violence.
Sheridan declared that the treaty “relinquished completely everything
that was glorious and great in the country”; and his chief branded it
as “the most disastrous and disgraceful peace that ever this country
had made.” Then adverting to the understanding with North, which was
generally known, Fox defended it by quoting the phrase, “Amicitiae
sempiternae, inimicitiae placabiles.”[142]
Pitt’s speech, in reply to Fox, was not one of his happiest efforts,
and Ministers were left in a minority of sixteen. He excelled himself,
however, four days later during the debate on a vote of censure
brought against the Administration by his former colleague, Lord John
Cavendish. The attack was ingeniously made under cover of a series of
resolutions, affirming that the House of Commons accepted the peace,
while believing the concessions made to our enemies to be excessive,
and demanding better terms for the American Loyalists. Fox spoke with
his usual ardour in favour of these mutually destructive resolutions.
After declaring that all who looked at the terms of peace must “blush
for the ignominy of the national character,” he proceeded to defend his
alliance with Lord North. The times, he said, were now changed; they
had to deal with a Prime Minister, Shelburne, who was “in his nature,
habitudes, and principles, an enemy to the privileges of the people.”
They must therefore form “the strongest Coalition which may re-instate
the people in their rights, privileges, and possessions.”[143]
We do not know whether Pitt was aware that the orator had just bartered
away the cause of Parliamentary Reform; but he certainly suspected it;
and the surmise must have kindled a fire of indignation before which
his bodily weakness vanished. During the long speech of his opponent
he suffered from fits of vomiting which compelled him at times to hold
open a small door behind him, called Solomon’s porch. But when, at one
o’clock in the morning, he rose to reply, all his weakness vanished.
In a speech of three hours he traversed the whole ground of the treaty
and reviewed the situation brought about by the recent monstrous
Coalition. He fought hard for the Peace, which the present resolutions
imperilled, and still more so for the maintenance of the honourable
traditions of public life.
After briefly adverting to the strange part now played by Fox, he
continued in terms which showed that he appealed more to the nation
than to Parliament.
The triumphs of party, Sir, with which this self-appointed Minister
seems so highly elate, shall never seduce me to any inconsistency
which the busiest suspicion shall presume to glance at. I will
never engage in political enmities without a public cause. I
will never forego such enmities without the public approbation;
nor will I be questioned and cast off in the face of this House
by one virtuous and dissatisfied friend.[144] These, Sir, the
sober and durable triumphs of reason over the weak and profligate
inconsistencies of party violence; these, Sir, the steady
triumphs of virtue over success itself, shall be mine, not only
in my present situation but through every future condition of my
life--triumphs which no length of time shall diminish, which no
change of principle shall sully.
He then showed that a continuance of war would be full of peril and
might lead to national bankruptcy; that Ministers were not, as at the
end of the Seven Years’ War, able to dictate terms of peace, and that
those now proposed were as favourable as could be expected. If we had
ceded Florida, we had regained the Bahamas and Providence. While losing
Tobago and St. Lucia, we recovered Grenada, Dominica, St. Kitts, Nevis,
and Montserrat. In Africa we should once more hold Senegambia, the best
and healthiest settlement. The loss of Minorca was bearable, for the
island was expensive in peace and never tenable in war. Then, adverting
to the alleged betrayal of the American Loyalists, he appealed warmly
for reconciliation with the United States, and still more warmly
deprecated the suspicion that Congress would be guilty of the base
injustice of doing nothing for those sufferers. His words have the ring
of sincere conviction; but it is painful to have to add that these
magnanimous hopes were doomed to disappointment.[145]
Descending to the lower levels of party strife, he declared that
his opponents were aiming their shafts, not at the Treaty, but at
the Earl of Shelburne. Their unnatural coalition was brought about
by personal spite; and, he added with thrilling emphasis: “If this
ill-omened marriage is not already solemnized, I know a just and lawful
impediment, and, in the name of the public safety, I here forbid the
banns.” Finally, in what seemed a farewell to the cares of office,
he vindicated his conduct, as inspired by the traditions of Chatham,
and he appealed to the House and to the nation at large in this noble
peroration:
You may take from me, Sir, the privileges and emoluments of place,
but you cannot, and you shall not, take from me those habitual and
warm regards for the prosperity of Great Britain, which constitute
the honour, the happiness, the pride of my life, and which I trust
death alone can extinguish. And, with this consolation, the loss of
power, Sir, and the loss of fortune, though I affect not to despise
them, I hope I soon shall be able to forget:
Laudo manentem. Si celeres quatit
Pennas, resigno quae dedit
... probamque
Pauperiem sine dote quaero.[146]
A member of the House relates that when he came to the words--“et mea
virtute me involvo”--he paused for a moment, drew his handkerchief
across his lips, and then, as if recovering from a slight
embarrassment, gave the final words with thrilling effect.[147]
The whole speech aroused an interest and emotion unequalled since
the time of Chatham’s mighty orations. North complimented the young
Chancellor on his amazing eloquence, which had so deeply affected every
member of the House, and stated that, though he himself was the object
of his thunder, he had listened to that thunder with astonishment and
delight. He then asserted that better terms might have been gained,
especially from the Americans, and declared his belief that the new
Coalition would greatly benefit the country. The House by a majority of
seventeen decided for North and against Pitt.
In the Lords, Shelburne had a majority of thirteen; but the victory of
North and Fox in the Commons led him to offer to resign office on 24th
February 1783. In this honourable manner ended Pitt’s first tenure of
office.
CHAPTER VI
THE COALITION
Of all the public characters of this devoted country (Mr. Pitt
alone excepted) there is not a man who has, or who deserves, the
nation’s confidence.--ROMILLY _21st March 1783_.
In politics, as in war, victories sometimes prove to be more disastrous
than defeats. When triumph lures a leader on into ever increasing
difficulties, he may well rue his seeming good fortune; while,
on the other hand, the retreat of his opponents may lessen their
responsibilities, and, by enabling them to concentrate, double the
strength of their next blow.
Such was the case with Fox and Pitt. Fox’s triumph over the former was
seen by discerning friends to be of the Pyrrhic kind. He owed it to an
unprincipled alliance, and for it he threw away the support of public
opinion. Pitt, on the other hand, fell gloriously, fighting strenuously
for terms of peace which, in the nature of things, his successors could
not sensibly ameliorate. Accordingly, events worked for him and against
the victors. Only a well organized party can resist the wear and tear
of parliamentary strife; and it lay in the nature of things that greed
of place and pension--to say nothing of political differences--should
sunder these hungry and unprincipled groups.
But while the voice of prudence counselled delay, missives from Windsor
urgently requested Pitt to assume the supreme command of the beaten
host. Well might the King be insistent. In the young statesman, and
in him alone, could he discern a possible saviour from the two-headed
monster of the Coalition. As usual, he viewed the crisis from a purely
personal point of view. In a characteristic letter to Shelburne he
said nothing on the wider issues that were at stake, still less did he
vouchsafe a word of thanks for his valuable services; but he deplored
his own lot in having to reign in a most profligate age, and declared
once more that he would never submit to the Coalition.
It seems probable that the credit of advising the choice of Pitt as the
new Prime Minister rests with Shelburne. Certainly the idea did not
originate with Henry Dundas, as he afterwards claimed; for on Monday
morning, 24th February 1783, Dundas wrote to Shelburne as follows:
MY DEAR LORD,
I cannot refrain from troubling your Lordship with a few lines
upon a subject of the most serious importance; and the particular
ground of my addressing you arises from the words which dropped
from you yesterday morning relative to Mr. Pitt. I did not pay
much attention to them when you uttered them, but I have revolved
them seriously and candidly in the course of the day yesterday,
and I completely satisfied my own mind that, young as he is, the
appointment of him to the Government of the country is the only
step that can be taken in the present moment attended with the most
distant chance of rearing up the Government of this country....
He is perfectly new ground, against whom no opposition can arise
except what may be expected from the desperation of that lately
allied faction, which I am satisfied will likewise gradually
decline till at last it will consist only of that insolent
aristocratical band who assume to themselves the prerogative of
appointing the rulers of the kingdom. I repeat it again that I am
certain the experiment will succeed if His Majesty will try it.[148]
HENRY DUNDAS.
The King warmly welcomed Shelburne’s suggestion, sent for Pitt, and
urged him to form a Ministry on his own terms. The young statesman,
far from succumbing to the glamour of the moment, at once foresaw
the difficulties of the proposal, and requested time for reflection.
Dundas sat up with him through that night, going through the names of
members of the House, and calculating the chances of adequate support.
In a letter which Pitt wrote to his mother on the 25th, he speaks of
the question as turning on that of numbers in the House. On the next
day and the morning of the 27th he seemed ready to accept the King’s
offer, on the strength of an assurance given by Dundas that Lord North
would not actively oppose him. But on the afternoon of that day he laid
before the King his reasons for declining the proposal.
The interview was long and earnest. It marked the beginning of that
contest of wills which only ceased with life itself. The King strove
hard to gain for his service the only man of note who stood between him
and the new Coalition. He plied the young Minister with every possible
argument.
Nothing [so the King wrote to Shelburne on that day] could get
him to depart from the ground he took, that nothing less than a
moral certainty of a majority in the House of Commons could make
him undertake the task; for that it would be dishonourable not to
succeed, if attempted; all I could obtain was that he should again
try, but as fixed a declaration that, if he cannot meet with what
he thinks certainty, he shall decline.[149]
We could wish to know more about this interview and to follow the
mental wrestling of the Sovereign with the young barrister. Rarely,
except perhaps from Chatham, had George III met with so firm a resolve
not to accept office; and we may reasonably infer that the reluctance
which baffled the arts of the King sprang from a deep fund of pride.
Pitt scorned to be Minister by sufferance of North--a man whom he
loathed. Further, why should he take up that burden at the bidding
of the Sovereign whom he knew to be the chief cause of the present
difficulties? Was it not better that George III and his former tool
should unravel the tangle of their own making? As North and Fox for the
present commanded the House of Commons, they must govern, as long as
they could hold together. Reasons of varied kinds, therefore, must have
led Pitt to hold back; and though he promised the King to consider the
matter, we may be sure that his resolve was virtually formed.
Other names were then mooted, including those of Thomas Pitt and Earl
Temple; but, as George III bitterly complained, not one of them had
spirit enough to stand forth. All his efforts to escape the meshes of
the Coalition were in vain. Meanwhile, public affairs went from bad
to worse. “Our internal regulations (so William Grenville wrote to
Temple), our loan, our commerce, our army, everything is at a stand
... we have no money, and our troops and seamen are in mutiny.”[150]
But, for a whole month, nothing bent the King’s purpose. It was clear
that he was seeking to sow discord among his opponents.[151] In this
he failed. Finally the Coalition succeeded in imposing its nominee,
the Duke of Portland, on the King; but, as George insisted that his
“friend,” Lord Thurlow, should continue to be Lord Chancellor, the duke
and his backers broke off the negotiations (18th to 20th March). At
once the King sent for Pitt in the following curt note--the first in
his long correspondence with him.[152]
Queen’s House, _March 20, 1783_.
Mr. Pitt, I desire you will come here immediately.
G. R.
Once more, then, the King made his offer to the young statesman. For
five days he sought to bend that stubborn will, urging the needs of
the public service and his own resolve never to admit the Duke of
Portland and North after their treatment of him. But on 25th March Pitt
politely, but most firmly, declined, on the same grounds as before.
The King thereupon declared himself much hurt at his refusal to stand
forth against “the most daring and unprincipled faction that the annals
of this kingdom ever produced.”[153] Once more he talked of retiring
to Hanover and leaving to the Coalition the task of governing Great
Britain. But on mentioning this scheme to his hard-headed counsellor,
Lord Thurlow, he is said to have received the illuminating advice
that the journey to Hanover was easy enough; but the example of
James II’s travels abroad warranted the conclusion that the return
journey was more difficult.[154] The story is _ben trovato_; but we
may doubt whether even Thurlow’s assurance was equal to this ironical
dissuasiveness, and whether George III would ask advice on a step
never meant to be taken, and threatened merely in petulance. Equally
unconvincing is the story of the King bursting into tears in the
presence of the hated Duke of Portland. If the age was lachrymose,[155]
George III was not.
In any case, the Coalition had conquered. They dictated their terms.
George bent before the parliamentary storm, perhaps taking heart from
Thurlow’s words, that time and patience would cure the present evils.
On the last day of March, Pitt, with the relic of Shelburne’s Ministry,
resigned office; and on the 2nd of April the new Ministers kissed
hands. One who saw that function declared that he foresaw the fate of
the Coalition Ministry; for when Fox came up for that ceremony, “George
III turned back his ears and eyes just like the horse at Astley’s when
the tailor he had determined to throw was getting on him.”[156]
The observer augured well. Fox’s eagerness to mount the saddle, and
Pitt’s determination to stand aloof largely determined their future
careers and the course of history. Success comes to the man who knows,
not only when to strike swiftly and hard, but also how to bide his
time. The examples of Pericles and Epaminondas; of Fabius Maximus,
Caesar and Caesar Augustus in ancient history; of Louis XI, Elizabeth,
Cromwell, William of Orange, Talleyrand, and even of Napoleon, might
be cited as proofs of the power inherent in far-seeing patience. With
Pitt’s refusal of power in the spring of 1783 we may compare Napoleon’s
prudent reserve in the French political game of the years 1797–8, based
as it was on his declaration to Talleyrand in October 1797: “It is only
with prudence, wisdom and great dexterity that obstacles are surmounted
and important ends attained.... I see no impossibility in attaining,
in the course of a few years, those splendid results of which the
heated and enthusiastic imagination catches a glimpse, but which the
extremely cool, persevering and positive man alone can grasp.” Pitt’s
great speech of 21st February 1783 showed him to possess imaginative
gifts and ambition of a high order; his refusal of office, owing to
the stubborn facts of arithmetic, was the outcome of those cool and
calculating instincts without which aspiring genius is a balloon devoid
of ballast.
The reception accorded by the public to the Coalition Ministry was
far from flattering. No sooner were the names of Ministers known,
on 2nd April 1783, than indignation ran high. The Duke of Portland,
as First Lord of the Treasury, was seen to be an ornamental figure,
easily controllable by Fox. The two Secretaries of State were North
and Fox, the latter leading the House of Commons; and this close
official union of two men who had spent their lives in vilifying each
other was generally reprobated.[157] Fox, formerly the bitterest of
North’s revilers, was held to have betrayed his Whig principles; and
his once enthusiastic constituents at Westminster, at his re-election
refused him a hearing, shouting him down several times. The conduct of
North, the reviled, seemed incredibly base and unmanly. For the rest,
Lord John Cavendish (dubbed by Selwyn “the learned canary-bird”) took
Pitt’s place at the Exchequer; Lord Stormont became President of the
Council, the Earl of Carlisle, Lord Privy Seal; and Keppel returned to
the Admiralty. The foregoing formed the Cabinet. As the King was forced
to part with his man, Thurlow, the Lord Chancellor’s seal was put in
commission, Lord Loughborough (formerly Mr. Wedderburn, a man apt at
betrayal) becoming first commissioner. Burke and Sheridan were rewarded
with the subordinate posts of Paymaster of the Forces and Secretary
to the Treasury. Thus the Whig members were in the ascendant, though
North’s party predominated in the House of Commons. Temple resigned the
Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, which went, after an embarrassing delay,
to one of Fox’s boon companions at Brooks’s, Lord Northington.[158]
Wilberforce, with his usual power of hitting off a situation, declared
that the Fox-North Coalition inherited the defects of its progenitors,
the violence of Fox and the corruption of North. This was the general
opinion. As for George III, he raged against this unnatural union.
He could not mention the subject without falling into the flurried
incoherent kind of talk which afterwards marked the on-coming of
attacks of lunacy. Private hatred of Fox, as the man who led astray
the Prince of Wales into the equally odious paths of gambling and
political opposition, fed the King’s animosity against the Whig orator
as the foe of the constitution. But the vials of his wrath were poured
forth on North, for his betrayal of the royal confidence lavished on
him for a decade. On 1st April, George III informed Temple that he
hoped the nation’s eyes would soon be opened, and that the Pitts and
Grenvilles would deliver him from the thraldom of the Coalition. For
the present, he would certainly refuse to grant any honours asked for
by the new Ministry.[159] As the greed of the Coalition was notorious,
the situation thus became piquant in the extreme. Amusement at the
irony of the situation must have helped, in Pitt’s case, to lighten
the disappointment of retiring from office. Certainly he was never
downcast. Wilberforce’s journal shows him to have been a frequent and a
joyous visitor to Wimbledon. This was the time of the spring-sowing of
the flower-beds of Lauriston House with the fragments of Ryder’s opera
hat. (See Chapter XII.)
Other and more practical fruits of his hopefulness were his efforts
for Parliamentary Reform, clouded over though that cause was by the
alliance of Whigs and the former “King’s Friends.” Acting not as a
partisan (for, just before resigning office, he informed the House
that he belonged to no party), he introduced a motion on 7th May for
the Reform of Parliament. On this occasion London and Kent seemed to
take an interest in the motion, and the approaches to St. Stephen’s as
well as the galleries were thronged by petitioners in favour of Reform.
The freeholders of Kent, the householders of the Tower Hamlets, and
the electors of Westminster (the last headed by Fox!), came in great
numbers to give weight to their petitions. Horace Walpole noted that
Kent and Essex had joined the Quintuple Alliance (_i.e._, of counties)
in favour of Reform.[160]
In due course Pitt rose to bring in his motion. He claimed that the
disasters of the past years had at length caused the people “to turn
their eyes inward on themselves” to find out the cause of the evil.
No one could now doubt that the radical fault in the constitution was
the secret influence of the Crown as exerted on the House of Commons.
For the redress of this evil three plans had been proposed, first, the
extension of the franchise to every man--a proposal which he scouted as
both impracticable and even undesirable, seeing that the minority must
then hold themselves to be slaves to the majority. (It is difficult to
follow Pitt here; for every electoral system implies a majority and
minority; and hardship arises only when the majority is subservient to
the minority--as was the case in 1783.) Their forefathers, he added,
had never contemplated giving a vote to every man, and the scheme was
“a mere speculative proposition that may be good in theory but which
it would be absurd and chimerical to endeavour to reduce to practice.”
These words should be noted. For they refute the slander that Pitt
“ratted” from the cause of Reform in and after 1790, when it was based
on the Jacobin theory of universal suffrage, which he had always
repudiated.
Pitt’s second proposal of Reform was to abolish the “rotten boroughs.”
He confessed that they were “deformities” in our system, but he felt
that they could not be removed without endangering the whole pile.
The third proposal seemed to him far better, namely, to add a number
of members for the counties and the metropolis. He summed up his
contentions in three Resolutions: (1) for the prevention of bribery and
undue expense at elections; (2) the disfranchisement of boroughs where
corruption was proven; (3) an addition to members of counties and of
the metropolis. The details of these proposals were to be specified in
a Bill, if the Resolutions were carried. They met with support from
Fox, while their very limited character, which Sheridan ridiculed,
commended them to Dundas and Thomas Pitt, who previously had opposed
Reform.[161] As a pledge of his sincerity, Thomas Pitt offered to
surrender his rights over the parliamentary borough of Old Sarum.
All was of no avail. North, Colonel Luttrell, Lord Mulgrave, and others
declaimed against any change in the glorious constitution. The House
by a majority of one hundred and forty-four reprobated the dangerous
spirit of innovation which was abroad. Doubtless the demoralization of
the Whigs made defeat inevitable. Pitt himself spoke with less than
his usual effectiveness; and the absence of petitions from the new
manufacturing towns showed that the country at large cared little for
the question. This apathy seems to us unaccountable until we remember
that Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax tamely suffered Richard Cromwell to
annul the act of enfranchisement which the great Oliver had bestowed
upon them. Evidently the age-long torpor still lay upon the land.
In the rest of the session, Pitt brought in measures for effecting
retrenchment in the public offices. He commented on such abuses as the
following: that the chief clerk of the navy office received a salary
of £250 a year, but ten times that amount in gifts, and other clerks in
the same proportion. The Secretary of the Post Office raised his salary
of £500 to a total of £3,000 by a 2½ per cent. charge on all packets--a
curiously cumbrous method of redress. The expense of stationery at the
office of Lord North during his term at the Treasury was £1,300 a year,
one item being £340 for whip-cord! By careful economies Pitt hoped to
save the nation £40,000 a year. The debate was rendered remarkable by
a speech from Burke. The great man was smarting under the censure of
the House for reinstating two dishonest officials, and had betrayed the
Celtic sensitiveness of his nature by drearily ranting until Fox and
Sheridan fairly pulled him to his seat. He now rallied Pitt on “prying
into the little perquisites of little men in little offices, while he
suffered the greatest abuses to exist in the offices under his eye.
He seemed to have that nice olfactory nerve which could smell a ball
of horsedung a thousand miles off, but which was not affected by the
stench of a dunghill under his very window.” Burke, however, failed
to substantiate the latter part of his malodorous simile. The measure
passed the Commons, only to perish in the Lords. Keppel denied that
there were any abuses at the Admiralty; the Duke of Portland opined
that Pitt’s reforms would cost as much as they saved; and Stormont
declared that they would be highly inconvenient.[162] The same fate
befell a measure, which Pitt warmly supported, for lessening expenses
at elections.
In his speech on Lord John Cavendish’s Budget, Pitt showed a practical
knowledge of finance which enabled him trenchantly to expose the weak
points of his successor’s proposals; and he further pointed out the
best means for launching a loan on the most favourable terms. His
reputation gained in solidity during the session; and if his speeches,
after the great effort of 21st February, lacked brilliance, they
exhibited his capacity and his grasp of affairs.
Ministers, on the other hand, lost ground, owing to their own blunders
and the widening of the gulf between their discordant sections. A case
in point was their treatment of the question of the allowance for the
Prince of Wales. As will appear later more in detail, the relations
between the King and the Prince were already so strained that the
Ministry--“my son’s Ministry,” the King sometimes called it--must
have known the question to be thorny. The tastes of George III being
as frugal as those of his son were extravagant, a clear understanding
with the King seemed the first essential to a settlement. Yet Fox
and his supporters in the Cabinet prevailed on the other Ministers,
rather reluctantly, to allot the sum of £100,000 a year to the Prince,
and that, too, without consulting the King. According to Horace
Walpole, the proposal came to light during a casual conversation
between the King and the Duke of Portland on 11th June. The account
given in the “Fox Memorials” seems, however, to convict George III
of inconsistency.[163] In any case, he angrily declaimed against the
proposal, as showing that Ministers, despite their professions of
economy, “were ready to sacrifice the public interests to the wishes
of _an ill-advised young man_”; he declared his readiness to allow the
Prince £50,000 a year from the Civil List, so as not to burden the
public. This was the sum which he himself had received as Prince of
Wales; and he held strong ground in proposing to support his bachelor
son on a similar allowance.
This was the mine sprung upon the Ministry on 16th June. It promised
to end their existence; and Fox believed that the King would seize
the opportunity to dismiss Ministers, dissolve Parliament, and appeal
to the country on the cry of economy, paternal authority, and no
mischief-making between father and son. Doubtless he would have done
so but for the very speedy compliance of the Prince of Wales with
his expressed wishes--an act of submission due less to the filial
devotion of the Prince than to his desire to save his favourite from
a crushing defeat at the polls. Ultimately, on 23rd June, the House
agreed to vote the sum of £60,000 for the present needs of the Prince,
as regards debts and the furnishing of Carlton House, and £50,000
a year out of the Civil List. The incident led to some regrettable
complications. Fox seems to have attributed the King’s sudden anger to
an intrigue of Pitt, whom he dubbed “an unscrupulous opposer.”[164]
Further, the Prince thenceforth more than ever looked on his father
and the opponents of Fox as his own personal enemies, in that they
bound him down to an insufficient allowance, which he felt no scruple
in exceeding. The wretched business of the Prince of Wales’s debts, and
even that of the Regency, resulted in no small measure from the bad
blood engendered in the strife of June 1783.
The King, also, as we can now see by the new light which the Dropmore
Papers have thrown on events, watched the course of affairs more
closely than ever in order to pave the way to office for the Pitts and
Grenvilles. But his rancour did not blunt his prudence. He was resolved
not to exchange one set of masters for another. If Pitt came in, it
must be on terms favourable to the Crown. George saw Temple after his
abandonment of the cares of State at Dublin Castle, and soon began to
sound him and Pitt as to their ideas on a future Ministry.[165]
There was one grave objection to Pitt, namely, his zeal for Reform.
Seeing that the Coalition Ministry was lukewarm on this subject,
the King strove to ensure similar complaisance on the part of its
successor. He therefore commissioned his secret bargainer, Thurlow, to
see Pitt and clear up this question. The ex-Lord Chancellor invited his
former colleague to dinner on 19th July, five days after the end of
the session. He was very wary in his overtures, and Pitt complained to
Grenville that he had a very good meal, but little information. Thurlow
was profuse in hints and innuendos, which Pitt gauged at their real
value. First he depicted the situation as by no means unfavourable to
the King, who had gone through the worst when he admitted the Foxites
to office. On Pitt suggesting that perhaps he would become reconciled
to them, Thurlow hastened to add that that was impossible, especially
after the affair of the Prince’s allowance. The “King’s friend” then
turned the conversation to the subject of Parliamentary Reform and the
influence of the Crown.
His object (so Pitt wrote to Earl Temple) was to insinuate that
a change was not so necessary to the King; and to endeavour to
make it (if it should take place) rather our act than his; and
on that ground to try whether terms might not be imposed that
could not otherwise. This is so totally contrary to every idea we
both entertain that I thought it necessary to take full care to
counteract it. I stated in general that if the King’s feelings
did not point strongly to a change, it was not what we sought.
But that if they did, and we could form a permanent system,
consistent with our principles, and on public ground, we should not
decline it. I reminded him how much I was personally pledged to
Parliamentary Reform on the principles I had publicly explained,
which I should support on every seasonable occasion. I treated as
out of the question any idea of measures being taken to extend
[Crown] influence, though such means as are fairly in the hands
of Ministers would undoubtedly be to be exerted. And I said that
I wished those with whom I might act, and the King (if he called
upon me) to be fully apprized of the grounds on which I should
necessarily proceed....[166]
This is a declaration of the highest importance. If Thurlow was not
very explicit, Pitt certainly was; and it is clear that he fathomed
the intentions of George III. They were, in brief, to use the present
unsatisfactory state of things as an inducement to a patriotic and
ambitious young man to come forward as a “King’s friend,” taking up the
place which North’s defection had left vacant. Shelving the problem of
Parliamentary Reform, Pitt was to govern for the King and by means of
his influence. The young statesman saw the snare, skilfully evaded it,
and let it be understood that, if he took office, he would come in on
his own terms, not on those of the King. Firm in the alliance of the
Grenvilles, and all who detested the Coalition Ministry, he needed not
to supplicate the royal favour. Once more he would bide his time, until
the King sued for his support. Temple in his reply warmly commended his
sound sense and honourable conduct, acknowledging that Pitt was pledged
to Reform, so long as there was any chance of success.
A time of skilful balancing now ensued. The King, disappointed at
Pitt’s independent attitude, took Temple’s advice, and decided to
leave to his Ministers the odium of concluding peace, and of bringing
in proposals of Reform which would certainly disappoint some and
exasperate others of their following. It is clear, however, that, after
his annoyance at the question of the Prince of Wales’s allowance,
George resolved to dismiss his Ministers as soon as their popularity
waned, and to recur to personal rule, if he could find a serviceable
instrument. It was generally known by the end of the session that
Pitt might play that part as soon as he chose. George hinted as much
to Thurlow, who passed it on to the political world. The news was
well known when Pitt went down to Brighthelmstone for sea-bathing in
August.[167]
Other causes, however, besides the aloofness of Pitt, concurred to
postpone the crisis. The Cabinet, feeling its position insecure, was
in no haste to sign the definitive treaties of peace, feeling the
interval of uncertainty to be some guarantee of continuance in office.
There was also some hope that the Czarina, Catharine II, intent as she
was on plans against Turkey, would court our alliance and thus end our
isolation.[168] Thus the state of party affairs in England, as well as
the changing ambitions of the Czarina, helped to postpone the final
settlement; but ultimately the treaties were signed on 3rd September
at Versailles. They varied very slightly from the preliminaries which
Ministers, when in opposition, had so violently attacked. Apart from
a stipulation for the safeguarding of British property in the ceded
island of Tobago, and the better definition of our rights in the gum
trade, there was no material change. The American Loyalists, for
whom Fox and Burke had so passionately pleaded, were left in the
same position as in the preliminary treaty. The Coalition Ministry
in five months of bargaining secured no better terms from France and
Spain than Shelburne had arranged. Fox and North, who had blamed
their predecessors for failing to make a commercial agreement with
the United States, now had to confess their own failure. Finally, the
Preliminaries with Holland, signed on 2nd September, showed that Fox,
who, with Sheridan, had declaimed against the expected retrocession of
Trincomalee to the Dutch, now consented to it. Negapatam, a far less
commanding post, was retained.
These actions exposed Ministers to the charge of gross inconsistency
in ratifying conditions of peace against which they had inveighed in
unmeasured terms. On 11th November Pitt rallied them on this topic, and
then, soaring from the low levels of partisan warfare, to the heights
of statesmanlike survey, he uttered these words:
The nation has a right to expect that, without delay, a complete
commercial system, suited to the novelty of our situation, will
be laid before Parliament. I am acquainted with the difficulty
of the business and will not attribute the delay hitherto to any
neglect on the part of Ministers. I am willing to ascribe it to the
nature of the negotiation; but I expect that the business will soon
be brought forward, not by piece-meal, but that one grand system
of commerce, built upon the circumstances of the times, will be
submitted to the House for their consideration.[169]
This is the first sign of Pitt’s resolve to give effect to the
teachings of Adam Smith, and to aid in founding on the ruins of our old
colonial system a fabric far sounder and more beneficent. It is further
significant, as showing the absence of factiousness in the Opposition,
that the address to the King of thanks for the peace was carried
unanimously.
* * * * *
We have looked ahead in order to glance at Pitt’s conduct respecting
the treaties of peace concluded on 3rd September; let us turn to his
movements during the vacation. First he ran down to Brighthelmstone
to take some dips in the sea; and then struck away westwards towards
Somerset for a flying visit to Lady Chatham at Burton Pynsent. Next,
after a short stay at Kingston Hall, Bankes’s country house in Dorset,
in company with Wilberforce and Eliot, he returned to town on 7th
September in order to look into the political situation. He found that
the Ministry was losing favour mainly because the King refused to grant
any peerages at their request. Apart from this, however, there was no
sign of a collapse. That stormy petrel of politics, Lord Thurlow, was
abroad; and Pitt probably considered it tactful not to linger about
town, but to visit the Continent. Before setting out, he attended the
_levée_ at St. James’s on 10th September; and the King inquired the
time of his return “in a rather significant manner.”[170]
On the next day he met Wilberforce and Eliot at Canterbury, and on
the 12th they crossed to Calais. He found the journey to Reims more
comfortable, and the appearance of the people more prosperous, than he
had expected; but “the face of the country the dullest I ever saw.”
The reception of the party at Reims, where they proposed to improve
their French before proceeding to Paris, had a spice of novelty.
Each of the three friends had trusted to the others to provide the
needful introductions. As a result they were able only to obtain one
introduction, through the London banker, Thellusson, and this proved
to be to a grocer, whom they found behind his counter selling figs and
raisins. Somewhat crestfallen, the three _milords anglais_ returned to
their inn. Not for ten days did they gain an _entrée_ to the intendant
of Reims, and through him to the Archbishop. His Grace was by no means
an awe-inspiring personage; he figures in Wilberforce’s letters as a
jolly fellow, about forty years of age, who played billiards like other
people. The three friends also met an Abbé de Lageard, “a fellow of
infinite humour,” who used to entertain them by visits of five or six
hours at a stretch. To him, early in their acquaintance, Pitt mooted a
grievance, that there, in the middle of Champagne, they could get no
wine that was even tolerable. The abbé thereupon entertained them at
his house with the best wine of the province, and with five hours of
breezy talk.
Pitt, so we learn from Wilberforce, was the most fluent of the visitors
on these occasions. His ear, “quick for every sound but music,”
readily caught the intonations of the language, and he soon conversed
with ease and fair accuracy. Some few of his _mots_ are preserved
by Wilberforce. In answer to the abbé’s inquiry about his opinion
of French institutions, Pitt replied: “Sir, you have no political
liberty, but as for liberty in civil affairs, you have more than you
think.” His opinion on the durability of the English constitution is
even more surprising. “The part of our constitution which will first
perish is the prerogative of the King and the authority of the House
of Peers.”[171] None of Pitt’s sayings is more remarkable than this,
uttered as it was long before the storms of the French Revolution, and
after the British monarchy had easily weathered the Atlantic gale.
Possibly the conviction here recorded helps to explain why, at the
close of the year, Pitt undertook to support the monarchy, in order to
maintain that balance of the English constitution which all thinkers
(especially Montesquieu) had praised as its peculiar excellence.
The third of the _mots_ mentioned by Wilberforce illustrates the
generosity of Pitt’s character, a trait in which his opponents, judging
from his generally cold exterior, believed him to be deficient. On the
abbé expressing surprise at so moral a country as England allowing
itself to be governed by Fox, a man signally deficient in private
character, Pitt replied: “Ah! you have not been under the wand of the
magician.” Out of the varied scintillations of wit and gaiety with
which Pitt brightened this five weeks’ sojourn in France, we catch
a glimpse of these three sparks alone. Doubtless the weakness of
Wilberforce’s eyes at that time accounts for the tantalizingly meagre
entries in his diary; but, seeing how elusive a figure Pitt is, we must
be thankful even for these slight jottings.
We are therefore left wondering about the intercourse between the
three Englishmen and Talleyrand, who was then staying with his uncle,
the Archbishop of Reims. Of their brilliant conversations--for where
Talleyrand was dullness could not dwell--we know nothing. Talleyrand
and Pitt, we are told, instructed one another in their mother tongues
and exchanged ideas, especially on literature and the advantages
of Free Trade.[172] What a subject for Landor, this interchange of
thoughts between the ablest young men of the age, who agreed on all
the essentials of politics and yet were soon to be forced by destiny
into bitter conflict! How different the future might have been had
Talleyrand had enough strength and straightforwardness to become chief
of the French Republic!
The stay of the three friends at Reims ended on 9th October, owing to
Pitt’s desire to reach Paris in time to see George Rose, a Secretary
of the Treasury, who had been travelling on the Continent with Lord
Thurlow. There can be little doubt that Pitt hoped to hear from him
news respecting the situation in London; for they had confidential
converse, in which Pitt gained over Rose completely to his side.[173]
At Paris he had intercourse with Lafayette, Benjamin Franklin, and
many other celebrities. By special invitation they shared in the
gala festivities of the Court at Fontainebleau, and there saw not
only the French Ministers and chief nobles, but also the King and
Queen (15th-19th October). That was the heyday of Louis XVI and Marie
Antoinette. The conclusion of the Peace of Versailles with England
seemed to place France without question at the head of the political
world. She had sundered the Empire of her rival, and with ordinary
wisdom she might hope to keep the lead as a commercial and colonizing
power. Strong in the alliance of Austria and Spain, with her friendship
courted by the United States, Prussia, Sweden, and Holland--at times
by the Czarina Catharine--France seemed to be high above the reach of
adverse fortune. The prestige of the monarchy was as yet undimmed by
the affair of the Diamond Necklace. The factious opposition of the
Parlements had scarcely begun; and the days of hunting and festivity
at Fontainebleau must have realized those visions of charm and beauty
in which Burke has enshrined Marie Antoinette, “glittering like the
morning star, full of life and splendour and joy.”
By her side at Court and in the hunting field was that strange
opposite, her husband. What the friends thought of Louis XVI in
hunting attire is shown by Wilberforce’s note--“clumsy strange figure
in immense boots.” Whether the King spoke to them is doubtful, for
his words were ever few, and etiquette forbade his conversing much
with foreigners.[174] But the Queen, with her usual vivacity and wit,
rallied them upon their friend, the grocer, at Reims. The courtiers
often crowded round Pitt (so Wilberforce recalls), “and he behaved
with great spirit, though he was sometimes a little bored when they
talked to him about Parliamentary Reform.” At Fontainebleau Pitt met
Lafayette at dinner in company with the American Minister, Franklin.
Again we long to know of the converse of these representative men. Only
one scrap survives, namely, that Pitt informed the Frenchman, whom his
admirers termed “the hero of both worlds,” that his principles were too
democratic for him.[175] When the tempest burst upon Western Europe,
this soon became apparent.
Necker, the Minister who in 1789 aspired to ride on the winds and
control the storm, was desirous of allying his family with that of
Pitt. The ex-Controller-General of French Finances and his ambitious
consort sought to strengthen their claims on the Government for a
return to office, by an alliance with a powerful family. What alliance
could be so brilliant for these Genevese Protestants as with the son
of Chatham? We now know for certain that Necker and his wife urgently
wished for this union; for a year later the mother, when seriously ill,
wrote to her daughter (the future Mme. de Staël) in these terms:
I did desire that you should marry Mr. Pitt. I wished to confide
you to the care of a husband who had made for himself a great
name; I also could have wished for a son-in-law to whose care I
could commend your poor father, and who would feel the full weight
of his charge. You were not disposed to give me this satisfaction.
Well! All is now forgiven.[176]
Clearly the match was to have been of an eleemosynary character; and
all who rejoice in the eager exuberance of the life of Mme. de Staël
cannot be surprised at her refusal, even when a young girl, to become
a testamentary asset in the life of her father. Whether her repugnance
at the idea was further increased by seeing Pitt in one of his “bored”
moods, we do not know. Indeed it is uncertain whether they ever met. If
we may judge from the sketch of Pitt written by Wilberforce in 1821,
the affair was mooted in the frigid bargaining manner usual with French
parents. Horace Walpole, a close friend of M. Necker, remarked to Lord
Camden, who thereupon passed it on to Pitt, that the Neckers had so
much respect for him that, if he claimed the hand of their daughter,
he would not be refused--by the parents. What would have happened when
Mlle. Necker came to be asked must be left to the imagination.[177]
* * * * *
From the charms of the French Court and the meshes of matrimonial
schemes Pitt was suddenly called away. A special messenger bade him
return at once to London. What he had all along hoped now came to
pass. The King’s dislike of his Ministers had overcome all other
feelings, and he now appealed to Pitt to free him from the toils of
the Coalition. The friends spent twenty-four hours in a carriage, then
suffered the usual miseries of a Channel passage, and reached London on
24th October.
The situation was serious. Though delivered from fear of war, the
country was beset by many perils. Consols were on the decline.
The state of Ireland was alarming. The Associations of Volunteers
overshadowed the Government at Dublin, and seemed about to dictate
terms to that at Westminster. Their attitude aroused keen resentment,
seeing that the legislative independence of Ireland had been proclaimed
to be the cure for all her evils. “What! (exclaimed Horace Walpole)
Would they throw off our Parliament and yet amend it.” Worst of all,
perhaps, was the almost complete indifference of Britons to the
political situation. The same rather cynical observer had already noted
that no one, except interested politicians, really cared who was in, or
out of, office. His words deserve quotation:
Our levity is unlike that of the French. They turn everything into
a jest, an epigram, or a ballad. We are not pleasant but violent,
and yet remember nothing for a moment. This was not our character
formerly.... Can the people be much attached to any man if they
think well of none? Can they hate any man superlatively if they
think ill of all? In my own opinion we have no positive character
at present at all. We are not so bad as most great nations
have been when sinking. We have no excessive vices, no raging
animosities.[178]
The passage is interesting in more ways than one. Milton dubbed us
fickle and alleged our insular situation as the cause.[179] Addison
in one of his essays repeated the charge, which was perfectly natural
early in the eighteenth century. Further, Horace Walpole’s criticism is
remarkable as that of a shrewd observer during what he termed a time
of “comfortable calm.” He saw the two leading nations, as it were,
drifting sluggishly in a Sargasso Sea of politics after one storm;
and they and he never suspected the approach of a far more terrible
tempest. Neither in London nor Paris had any inspiring personality come
to the front. Pitt had not fully emerged. Robespierre was intent on
his briefs at Arras; the Corsican, who was to quicken the pulse of all
peoples, still studied under the monks of Brienne; and Horace Walpole
could therefore complain of the pettiness of politics, the aimless
brawlings of Westminster, the lighter vagaries of Versailles, and the
dullness of the world.
At London all was soon to change. Though Fox and North kept their
majority solid on the question of the peace, yet they came to grief
over a measure of almost equal importance. On 18th November, amidst
scenes of unequalled excitement, Fox brought forward his India Bill;
and on a question where vast patronage was at stake passions rose
to fever heat. Indian affairs will be treated more fully in another
chapter; and it must suffice to state here that the East India
Company was in a deplorable condition, mainly owing to the war with
Hyder Ali and the insubordination and rapacity of the Company’s
servants, which led to abuses degrading to Britain and oppressive to
the natives of India. According to the terms of North’s Regulating
Act of 1773, Parliament had the right of intervention in all matters
of high policy; but in one important question the Company had set its
behests at naught. In April 1782 a vote of censure was passed on the
Governor-General, Warren Hastings, and the Company was requested to
recall him. The Court of Directors issued an order to this effect; but
the Court of Proprietors reversed their decision, and Hastings was left
in a position ambiguous and irritating to all parties. Consequently
dictates of policy and the interests of the nation compelled Parliament
to assert its paramount authority.
But the manner of the intervention and the act itself were alike
extraordinary. The new India Bill was the joint work of Fox and Burke
with some aid from the law-officers of the Crown. It has often been
said, on the scantiest of evidence, to have been framed mainly by
Burke; but the clauses which abrograted the Charter of the East India
Company and vested the control of Indian affairs chiefly in Parliament,
bear the imprint of the mind of Fox rather than of the more cautious
and conservative statesman.[180] In strict propriety the measure
ought to have originated with Lord North. He privately expressed his
approval, and then, alleging indisposition, stayed away from Parliament
on the day of its introduction.[181]
Fox opened his case in a speech of great power. He dilated on the
ills resulting from the disorders in the Company’s service, and, in
particular, from the ambition of Warren Hastings. He then showed the
tendency of the parliamentary reports on Indian affairs, and claimed
that, in the virtual bankruptcy of the Company (which could not
discharge its debts to the Crown), Parliament had the right to take the
supreme control of its territories. We may pause here to notice that
the Directors of the Company stoutly denied the assertion as to their
bankruptcy, and claimed that, when its expenses were reduced to a peace
footing, the Company’s creditors would be in a better position than
any creditors in Europe.[182] Their printed report of 23rd January
1784 laid stress on the heavy charge involved by conquests in India
“which the wisdom of the nation has given up for equivalents in other
parts of the world.” It also claimed the payment of £260,687, the
charge incurred by the Company for the maintenance of French prisoners
in the Seven Years’ War. The Directors further stated that, if
Government would check the very extensive smuggling in tea (an article
which formed the most valuable of the monopolies of the Company),
more than double the amount would be sold by legitimate means. These
facts should be borne in mind, as the Company succeeded in spreading a
conviction that the attack of Fox was unjust.
In the rest of his speech Fox detailed his proposals for effecting
drastic changes in India, and explained the reasons for separating
administrative affairs from purely mercantile affairs. Many authorities
claimed that the territories of the Company belonged in reality to the
Crown; others denied this claim. On one point all must agree, that the
Crown could not possibly deal with “a remote and difficult trade.”
Accordingly he sought to form “a mixed system of government, adapted
to the mixed complexion of our interests in India.” For administrative
work he proposed to establish a Board of seven commissioners, nominated
by Parliament, for three or five years--four years was the term
finally suggested--having full power to appoint and dismiss officers
in India, and complete control over its government. The Board was to
sit in London, “under the very eye of Parliament,” and the minutes
of its meetings were to be open to inspection by Parliament. If this
experiment succeeded, he proposed that in future the King should
nominate the seven commissioners, and he was to fill up vacancies that
might occur in the meantime. As for the mercantile interests of the
Company, they were to be managed by a subordinate Board or Council,
consisting of eight members chosen by Parliament from among the larger
proprietors.
He further proposed to remedy the worst abuses in India in a second
Bill which would abolish the holding of monopolies, such as that for
opium, which had been jobbed away to the son of a former chairman of
the Company. Security of tenure would be granted to the Zamindars, or
native landlords, and the acceptance of presents by the Company’s
servants in India--a fertile source of corruption and oppression--would
be strictly forbidden. Fox admitted that the private influence of the
Crown, even in its worst days, was nothing compared with that of the
East India Company, and wisely abstained for the present from naming
the seven commissioners whom he proposed to appoint.[183]
Here was the weak point of an otherwise excellent measure; and Pitt,
towards whom all eyes were directed, fastened upon it. While admitting
the urgent need of reform, he deprecated the abrogation of all the
charters and privileges of an ancient Company under the plea of
necessity. “Is not necessity,” he said, “the plea of every illegal
exertion of power? Is not necessity the pretence of every usurpation?
Necessity is the argument of tyrants: it is the creed of slaves.”
Further, what evils must result if that formidable political weapon,
the patronage of the Company, were transferred to the Ministers then in
power, and finally to the Crown? On the one side it would tend to the
grossest corruption, on the other, to despotism.[184]
Pitt, it will be seen, opposed the measure owing to the indirect but
inevitable consequences which it would entail in the vitiated state of
affairs then existing in Parliament, where an unwholesome Coalition
held together only with the aim of enjoying the spoils of office and
even richer booty in the future.[185] The possession of the enormous
patronage of the India Company opened up golden vistas that fired the
imaginations even of the dull squires who trooped after Lord North. As
for the far livelier followers of Fox, they were jubilant at prospects
which promised not only places in the East, but a long lease of power
at St. Stephen’s. Their opponents were alike depressed and indignant.
A former friend of Fox, Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, commented on the
“spirit of ambition, rapacity and confiscation” that characterized his
proposals; and the bad impression caused by the patronage section of
his Bill was intensified when it appeared that four of the seven new
commissioners were to be declared Foxites, better known at Brooks’s
Club than at the India House, namely, Lord Fitzwilliam, Frederick
Montagu, Sir Henry Fletcher, and Robert Gregory. In Lord North’s
interest there were his son, Colonel North, Viscount Lewisham, and Sir
Gilbert Elliot.
The appointment of seven pronounced partisans to these posts of
almost unbounded responsibility wrecked the measure. In itself the
Bill contained many excellent features. The transference of governing
power from the Company to Parliament in conjunction with the Crown,
on terms ultimately favourable to the latter, was a bold step; but
much could be said for it, and Pitt certainly overshot the limits of
fair criticism in his first speech. If Fox and North had chosen the
seven commissioners fairly from among all three parties, the mouths
of gainsayers would have been stopped. Now, however, the partisan
corollary to the measure justified the most vehement strictures. A
flood of satire was poured on the Bill. Two caricatures in particular
had a very wide circulation, probably at the expense of the threatened
Company. One represented Fox as Samson carrying off the ruins of the
East India House; the second, by Sayer, who soon became Pitt’s man and
received a small post from him, showed Fox as Carlo Khan riding into
Delhi on an elephant having the face of Lord North, and preceded by
Burke as trumpeter.
Pitt wrote privately to the Governor of the Company suggesting that
its prestige would be enhanced if a meeting of its creditors could be
arranged and a declaration could be procured that they would allow
ample time for the discharge of their claims.[186] But caricatures,
suggestions, and petitions were needless. The same facts which
discredited the Bill in the country whetted the eagerness of the
ministerial majority in Parliament. At the second reading Pitt briskly
renewed his attacks; and he now had the support of William Grenville in
a statesmanlike speech, which lacked “the commanding tone, the majesty,
and all the captivating rotundity and splendour of Pitt’s eloquence,”
but equalled it in argumentative power.[187] Dundas, Jenkinson, and
Scott (the future Lord Eldon), reinforced the assault: but all was in
vain. Burke, in a majestic oration, proclaimed that the Bill would
save India from manifold evils which he depicted with righteous
indignation.[188] But material interests told more than eloquence and
morality. The influence of Ministers and the hopes of their followers
ensured the speedy passing of this complex and far-reaching measure
through the Commons by a final majority of 208 votes to 102 (3rd
December).
This was a heavy blow to the Opposition, especially to Pitt, who had
said that he would fight the whole Bill, clause by clause. Horace
Walpole wrote two days later that Pitt had slunk from the contest,
but that the check would do him good, dazzled as he had been by his
premature fame. Walpole also remarked that, while excelling Chatham in
logical power, the son had much less firmness and perseverance. Readers
of those charming letters will note with some amusement that in the
middle of the next month, Walpole wrote that nothing but obstinacy
prevented Pitt resigning his post as Prime Minister. After that Walpole
gave up the rôle of political prophet.
For now there occurred a series of events which taught modesty to
wiseacres. The King intervened in a surprising manner. In the House of
Lords influence from above was suddenly pitted against the interests of
the nether world. George III had long been awaiting a fit opportunity
for tripping up the hated Ministry. A few weeks before, he had covered
Fox and North with ridicule in front of the whole Court. Acting on
the first rumour of the death of Sir Eyre Coote in India, they had
proffered a request that his ribbon of the Order of the Bath should go
to a friend, and believed that they had secured the granted assent of
the Sovereign. The aspirant therefore appeared at the next levée at St.
James’s Palace with the officers of the Order; but the King, affecting
great surprise at the unseemly haste of his ministers in acting on
unofficial information, refused to confer the ribbon, repulsed their
entreaties, and postponed the ceremony.[189]
George was now to taste the sweets of revenge in a matter more than
ceremonial. His coadjutor was Earl Temple, who had advised him to wait
until the times were ripe; and from a MS. preserved at Chevening we
learn that the King hastily sent for the Earl on the night of 11th
December. Thurlow also had an interview with him and pointed out in
unmeasured terms the humiliations which he would suffer from Fox’s
India Bill, namely, that it would transfer to the present Ministers
“more than half the royal power.” Always jealous of his patronage, the
King at once determined to ward off so insidious an attack. But he and
his advisers acted with characteristic caution. They considered--and
this is an interesting point in our constitutional history--that the
exercise of the royal veto on the Bill, if it should pass both Houses,
would be a “violent” step.[190] They preferred to act secretly and
indirectly through the Lords.
In order to exert pressure in the most drastic way possible, a card was
written (probably in the King’s hand) stating “That His Majesty allowed
Earl Temple to say that whoever voted for the India Bill was not only
not his friend, but would be considered by him as an enemy; and if
these words were not strong enough, Earl Temple might use whatever
words he might deem stronger and more to the purpose.”[191] Armed with
this card, Temple set to work to whittle down the Fox-North majority.
His success was startling and complete. The golden glint of the spoils
of the Indies paled under the thunder-cloud of the royal displeasure.
The fear of losing all chance of advancement at home, whether titular
or material, sent place-hunters and trimmers trooping over to the
Opposition; and a measure, the success of which seemed assured, was
thrown out on 17th December by a majority of nineteen. On the next day
the King ordered Lord North and Fox to send in their Seals of office by
their Under-Secretaries, “as a personal interview on the occasion would
be disagreeable to him.” He entrusted the Seals at once to Temple, who
on the day following signified to the other Ministers their dismissal
from office. On the same day, 19th December, the King sent for Pitt
and appointed him First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the
Exchequer.
* * * * *
Thus it was that Pitt became Prime Minister before he attained his
twenty-fifth year. His acceptance of office after the recent use of
the royal prerogative is an action that stands in need of defence.
There can be no doubt that George III abused his power by seeking in
an underhand way to influence the votes of the Peers. The assertion
of Earl Stanhope that his action did not involve the infraction of
any specific rule of the constitution will not pass muster. As was
ably pointed out in the debate in the Commons on 17th December, the
three parts of the constitution, King, Lords, and Commons, exist
independently; and, just as the interference of one branch of the
Legislature in the debates and actions of the other is most properly
resented, so too the intervention of the Crown during the debates
is undoubtedly an infraction of the liberties of Parliament. While
not forbidden by any specific rule of the constitution, such action
contravenes the spirit of the ninth clause of the Bill of Rights, which
stipulates for complete freedom of debate and speech in Parliament.
The attitude of Pitt towards this question during the debate of 17th
December in the Commons is noteworthy. He did not attempt to defend
such a use of the royal prerogative as was then first reported: he
asserted, no doubt with perfect sincerity, that the report was an idle
rumour, of which the House could take no cognizance. The House did not
share his opinion. Swayed by a vehement speech of Fox, who declaimed
against the “infernal spirit of intrigue” ever present in the King’s
counsels, and charged Pitt with an underhand attempt to gain power,
members decided by a majority of nearly two to one that to report the
opinion, or pretended opinion, of the King on any Bill under discussion
in Parliament, was a high crime and misdemeanour, subversive of the
constitution.[192]
It was in face of these resolutions that Pitt, on 19th December, took
office. If he looked solely to Parliament, his position was hopeless.
Confronting him was a hostile majority, smarting under a great
disappointment, and threatening him, and still more his relative, Earl
Temple, with the penalties of the constitution. On hearing the news
of his acceptance of office, the members of the Coalition burst into
loud laughter, and gleefully trooped over to the Opposition benches.
Scarcely could they conceal their mirth during the ensuing debates;
and on 22nd December the House resolved itself into a Committee to
consider the state of the nation. Certainly Pitt’s position was trying
enough; for his triumph seemed to be the result of a backstairs
intrigue, unworthy of the son of Chatham, and fatal to the influence
of Parliament. He figured as the King’s Minister, carried to office by
the votes of nineteen Peers, against the will of the Commons. One can
therefore understand the persistence of the Whig tradition, in which
his action appeared the great betrayal of the liberties of Parliament.
Nevertheless, if we carry the question to the highest Court of Appeal,
the action of Pitt is justifiable. The prerogatives of Parliament
are subservient to the interests of the nation. And when the majority
of the House of Commons acts in a way strongly reprobated by public
opinion, its authority undergoes an immediate eclipse. In a not
dissimilar case, Chatham dared to appeal from a discredited House to
the people at large; and his son was justified in taking a step which
involved a reference to the people’s will at the first favourable
opportunity. Pitt always looked on the Coalition as an unprincipled
intrigue, in which the forms of the constitution were used in order to
violate its spirit. He knew that the country condemned what Romilly
termed “that scandalous alliance.” The original crime of the Coalition
seemed more than ever heinous when Ministers appointed solely their own
nominees to regulate Indian affairs. This very fact damned the India
Bill in the eyes of the public, which cared not a jot for parliamentary
majorities held together by hopes of booty. Men who had formerly
inveighed against George III now began to revise their judgements and
to pronounce even his last device justifiable when directed against
Ministers who were about to perpetrate the most gigantic job of the
century. In looking away from the votes of a corrupt Parliament to the
will of the nation, Pitt was but following in the footsteps of his
father, who had more than once made a similar appeal, and never in vain.
Finally we must remember that Pitt did not take office as a “King’s
Friend.” He had consistently refused to bind himself down to the
conditions which George III sought to impose. The King knew full well
that he had to deal with a man of sternly independent nature. He had
failed to bend Pitt’s will in the summer, when conditions favoured his
own “cause.” Now, when he was accused of violating the constitution,
and a hostile majority in the Commons held most threatening language,
he could not but uphold a Minister who stood forth in his defence. If
in July Pitt refused to bow before the royal behests, surely he might
expect to dictate his own terms in December. The King’s difficulty
was Pitt’s opportunity; and, as events were to prove, George III had,
at least for a time, to give up his attempts at personal rule and to
acquiesce in the rule of a Prime Minister who gave unity and strength
to the administration. While freeing himself from the loathed yoke of
the Whig oligarchy, the King unwittingly accepted the control of a man
who personified the nation.
The importance of the events of 17th-22nd December 1783 can scarcely be
overrated. In a personal sense they exerted an incalculable influence
on the fortunes of George III, Pitt, Fox, Burke, and many lesser men.
In constitutional history, as will afterwards appear, they brought
about the development of the Cabinet and the reconstruction of the
two chief political parties in their modern forms. The happy ending
of the crisis enabled the ship of State to reach smoother waters and
make harbour, though many of her crew and all foreign beholders looked
on her as wellnigh a castaway. All this, and more, depended on Pitt’s
action in those days. He knew the serious nature of the emergency; and
at such a time it behoves the one able steersman to take the helm,
regardless of all cries as to his youth and his forwardness. Pitt had
the proud confidence of Chatham, that he and he alone could save the
kingdom, and the verdict of mankind has applauded the resolve of the
father in the crisis of 1756, and the determination of his youthful son
in the equally dark days at the close of 1783. Conduct, which in a weak
and pliable man would have been a crime, is one of the many titles to
fame of William Pitt the Younger.
CHAPTER VII
THE STRUGGLE WITH FOX
Let me lament,
With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,
That thou, my brother, my competitor
In top of all design, my mate in empire,
Friend and companion in the front of war,
The arm of mine own body, and the heart
Where mine his thoughts did kindle--that our stars,
Unreconciliable, should divide
Our equalness to this.
SHAKESPEARE, _Antony and Cleopatra_.
The first difficulty which confronted the young Prime Minister was of
a personal nature. On or about 23rd December, his cousin, Earl Temple,
threw up the Seals and forthwith retired to his domain of Stowe in
Buckinghamshire. This event seemed to presage the death of the infant
administration, which the action of the Earl had largely helped to
call to being. So assured was Fox of victory that he ascribed Temple’s
resignation to cowardice, and expressed regret at it because the
inevitable fall of the new Ministry would be explained away by the
action of the Earl.[193] Undoubtedly it was a severe blow to Pitt.
Bishop Tomline states that, on visiting him early on the next morning,
he found he had not had a moment’s sleep, an occurrence without
parallel in time of health.[194] For Pitt, like Napoleon, Wellington,
and other hard workers, enjoyed the priceless boon of sound and restful
slumber.
The reasons for Temple’s retirement cannot fully be fathomed owing to
the loss of his letters in these important weeks; but we know from the
Buckingham Papers that he was disgusted with political life and had
claimed the award of some honour as a sign of the King’s approval of
his services in Ireland, after his abrupt dismissal by Fox and North.
The proud and sensitive nobleman doubtless entered into the plan for
the overthrow of those enemies, in the hope of benefiting the State and
setting the crown on his own career. Rumour had already assigned to him
the Dukedom of Buckingham, and in this case that lying jade truthfully
voiced his desires.[195]
The prominent part which he had played in the late intrigue doubtless
led him to insist on some high honour. As to the nature of the claim
and its reception by Pitt we know nothing; for he loyally maintained
silence as to the cause of the rupture; but the Earl’s letter of 29th
December to Pitt breathes suppressed resentment in every line. It is
the peevish outpouring of a disappointed man, who saw his _protégés_ in
Ireland neglected, and his own wishes slighted.[196]
The question arises--why did not Pitt press the claims of his cousin?
His services in Ireland had been valuable; and to him the Prime
Minister very largely owed his present position. The answer would seem
to be that Pitt soon found out the truth as to his objectionable use of
the King’s name. At first he rejected the rumour to that effect, and
it is consonant with his character to suppose that, after probing the
matter to the bottom, he declined to press on the King Earl Temple’s
claims. The rupture was sharp and sudden. It is even possible that high
words passed between them. In any case, it is certain that Pitt did not
raise the question of a reward for the Earl’s services until ten months
later. Good taste may also have determined his conduct in this matter.
How could he at once confer a high dignity on the very man whose
politic whisperings had helped to raise him to power? Time must elapse
before Temple could gain the reward for his services in Ireland; and
it was not until early in October 1784 that Pitt mooted the question
of the Marquisate of Buckingham or the Order of the Garter.[197]
The following new letter from Pitt to his cousin, preserved in the
Chevening archives, contains the official notification of the former
of these honours.
Downing St.
_Nov. 23, 1784._
MY DEAR LORD,
Your Lordship will receive from Lord Sydney the official
notification of His Majesty’s having given orders for preparing
a Patent giving your Lordship the rank of Marquis. In addition
to this mark of His Majesty’s favour, I have great satisfaction
in being authorized to assure your Lordship that, if His Majesty
should depart from His present determination, of not giving the
rank of Duke out of His Royal Family, it is His gracious intention
to include your Lordship in any such promotion. I need not add how
happy I am in obeying H.M.’s commands on this occasion, nor how
truly I am at all times,
My dear Lord,
Your most affectionate and faithful servant,
W. PITT.
Turning from this personal matter, which brought friction for a
time between the Pitt and Grenville families, we notice other
difficulties confronting the young Premier, which might have daunted an
experienced statesman. The frivolous looked on with amusement at his
efforts.--“Well, Mr. Pitt may do what he likes during the holidays;
but it will only be a mince-pie administration, depend upon it.” So
spake that truest of true blues, Mrs. Crewe, to Wilberforce on 22nd
December; and she voiced the general opinion. Yet Pitt never faltered.
On the next day Wilberforce noted in his journal: “Pitt nobly firm.
Evening [at] Pitt’s. Cabinet formed.” On one topic alone did the young
chief show any anxiety. “What am I to do,” he asked, “if they stop the
supplies?” “They will not stop them,” replied his brother-in-law, Lord
Mahon, “it is the very thing they will not venture to do.”[198] The
surmise of this vivacious young nobleman (afterwards Earl Stanhope) was
for a time correct; but Pitt had rightly foreseen the chief difficulty
in his path. For the present, on the receipt of a message from the
King that no dissolution or prorogation would take place, Parliament
separated quietly for the vacation (26th December).
For Pitt that Christmastide brought little but disappointment and
anxiety. His cares were not lessened by the conduct which he found it
desirable to pursue towards the Earl of Shelburne, long the official
leader of the Chathamites. He did not include him in his Ministry,
partly, perhaps, from a feeling of delicacy at asking his former chief
to serve under him, but mainly from a conviction that his unpopularity
would needlessly burden the labouring ship of State. To Orde he
expressed his deep obligations to the Earl, but lamented his inability
to leave out of count “the absolute influence of prejudice” against
him. He did not even consult Shelburne as to the choice of coadjutors;
and the Earl let it be known that he would have no connection with
the new men, “lest he should injure them.”[199] Pitt also sustained
several direct rebuffs. Though, on 19th December, he sent an obsequious
request to the Duke of Grafton to strengthen his hands by accepting
the Privy Seal, that nobleman declined.[200] Camden was equally coy;
and, strangest of all, his own brother-in-law, Mahon, would not come
forward. We can detect a note of anxiety in the following letter of
Pitt to Lord Sackville, formerly Germain, which I have discovered in
the Pitt Papers (No. 102):
_Dec. 29, 1783._
MY LORD,
In the arduous situation in which His Majesty has condescended to
command my services at this important juncture, I am necessarily
anxious to obtain the honor of a support and assistance so
important as your Lordship’s. I flatter myself Mr. Herbert will
have had the goodness to express my sense of the honor your
Lordship did me by your obliging expressions towards me. Permit
me to add how much mortification I received in being disappointed
of his assistance at the Board of the Admiralty, which I took the
liberty of proposing to him, in consequence of the conversation
Lord Temple had had with your Lordship. I should sincerely lament
if any change of arrangements produced by Lord Temple’s resignation
should deprive the King and country in any degree of a support
which the present crisis renders so highly material to both. If
your Lordship would still allow us to hope that you might be
induced to mark by Mr. Herbert’s acceptance your disposition in
favour of the King’s Government, the opening may be made with the
greatest ease at any moment, and Your Lordship’s commands on the
subject would give me particular satisfaction.
From Wraxall’s Memoirs[201] we learn that the writer undertook to pave
the way for the receipt of Pitt’s letter; but all was in vain. Lord
Sackville refused to take office, though he promised a general support.
The most serious refusal was that of the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland
by Earl Cornwallis. George III highly approved of Pitt’s proposal
of that nobleman, whose tact and forbearance would have proved of
infinite service in so troublous a time.[202] Who knows whether the
rebellion and savage reprisals of 1798 might not have been averted
by the adoption of wiser methods at Dublin Castle in the eighties?
As it was, the most difficult administrative duty in the Empire was
soon to devolve upon a young nobleman, the Duke of Rutland, whose
chief qualifications seem to have been his showy parts, his splendid
hospitality, and his early patronage of Pitt.
The Cabinet as finally formed comprised the following seven members:
Pitt, First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer;
the Marquis of Carmarthen (son of the Duke of Leeds), an amiable
but unenterprising Secretary for Foreign Affairs; Lord Sydney (T.
Townshend), Home Secretary; Earl Gower, President of the Council (up to
December 1784, when Earl Camden succeeded him); the Duke of Rutland,
Lord Privy Seal (up to November 1784, when Earl Gower succeeded him,
the Duke taking the Viceroyalty of Ireland); Lord Howe, First Lord of
the Admiralty; Lord Thurlow, Lord Chancellor. In debating power this
Cabinet was deficient. Apart from Pitt and Thurlow, not one of the
Ministers could make a tolerable speech, or possessed the strength of
character which makes up for oratorical deficiencies.
Thurlow might have been a tower of strength in the Lords, but for his
duplicity, bad temper, and domineering ways. For the present, Pitt had
to put up with him as a disagreeable necessity. There was something
so threatening in his aspect as to elicit Thelwall’s picturesque
description of him as a man with the Norman Conquest in his eyebrow
and the Feudal System in every feature of his face. Add to these
formidable gifts a sonorous voice, his powers of crushing retort, above
all, his secret connection with George III, and his influence in the
Upper House can be imagined. Yet his reputation rested on a slight
basis; his knowledge of law was narrow, his culture slight, and his
private character contemptible. He was known to bully his mistress and
his illegitimate daughters, just as he browbeat juries and Whigs.[203]
On the whole his reputation is hard to explain save on the ground that
the majority of mankind is apt to be imposed on by externals, and is
too uncritical or too lazy to sound the depths of character.
For the present Pitt tolerated Thurlow just as the commander of an
untried warship might tolerate the presence of an imposing gun of
uncertain power, in the midst of light weapons. The boom of his voice
was worth something to a Ministry in which the posts not of Cabinet
rank were filled as follows: The Duke of Richmond, Master-General
of the Ordnance;[204] Kenyon, Attorney-General; Pepper Arden,
Solicitor-General; William Grenville (afterwards Lord Grenville) and
Lord Mulgrave, joint Paymasters of the Forces; Henry Dundas (afterwards
Lord Melville), Treasurer of the Navy; Sir George Yonge, Secretary at
War; George Rose and Thomas Steele, Secretaries of the Treasury; Thomas
Orde, Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Of these the Duke
of Richmond had great private influence, but was personally unpopular.
Grenville and Rose were useful, hard-working men, but uninteresting
in personality and speech. Their characters and that of Dundas will
concern us in Chapter XII. Here we may note that the bold and jovial
nature of Dundas made him popular as a man; but his defection from
Lord North, and his capacity for intrigue impaired his influence in
the House. Nevertheless his fighting powers, his legal training, his
knowledge of men and affairs, and his skill in parrying the blows
of the Opposition made him an effective lieutenant in the House. By
degrees, as we shall see, he acquired great influence over Pitt; and
after his entry to the Cabinet as Home Secretary in 1791, he, together
with Grenville, came to form around Pitt what may almost be termed
an inner Cabinet. For the present, however, the distrust with which
the “Caledonian thane” was regarded permitted him to be no more than
the chief among Pitt’s subordinates; and the ingenious poetaster of
the “Rolliad” maliciously aimed these lines at his weakest point, his
inconsistency:
His ready tongue with sophistries at will
Can say, unsay, and be consistent still;
This day can censure, and the next retract,
In speech extol, and stigmatize in act.
The other subordinates claim only the briefest notice. Sir George
Yonge was a nonentity, under whom the British army sank to the nadir
of efficiency. Kenyon and Pepper Arden were very young men; the latter
was one of Pitt’s Cambridge friends, lively and amiable, but having
little influence in debate. The House could not take Pepper seriously.
On the whole the Ministry aroused little confidence among friends and
much derision among opponents. The general opinion was expressed by Sir
Gilbert Elliot (first Earl of Minto) that Pitt’s colleagues were “a set
of children playing at Ministers, and must be sent back to school, and
in a few days all will have returned to its former course.”[205] On the
other hand Daniel Pulteney, writing to the Duke of Rutland, said that
people approved the appointments and were glad that Pitt, in showing
attention to existing interests, proved himself to be not “too virtuous
and speculative for a Minister.”[206]
Such were the predictions concerning a premiership which was to last
nearly eighteen years. In one respect the mediocrity of his colleagues
made Pitt’s task easier. His commanding temper would never have brooked
the superior airs of the earls, Temple and Shelburne. From the outset
he could carry out his plan of moulding the Cabinet to his will and
enforcing its discipline, without hindrance except from Thurlow;
and the final ejection of that cross-grained egoist marked not only
the triumph of Pitt, but also the consolidation of the Cabinet in
what seems to be its permanent form, a body moulded by, and largely
responsible to, the Prime Minister.
All this was hidden from the gaze of the most discerning amidst the
gloom and uncertainties of the first days of the year 1784. Shortly
before Parliament re-assembled events occurred which helped to
strengthen a confessedly weak administration. At the request of Pitt,
George III created four new peerages. Thomas Pitt received the title of
Lord Camelford; Edward Eliot (father of Pitt’s brother-in-law) became
Lord Eliot; Henry Thynne was created Lord Carteret; and a barony was
conferred on the second son of the Duke of Northumberland. Thus the
sources of nobility, which had remained hermetically sealed during
the previous administration, were now opened with a highly suggestive
readiness.
Another incident, which it is more pleasing to relate, concerned
Pitt alone. On 11th January the Clerkship of the Pells, a sinecure
worth £3,000 a year for life, fell vacant by the death of Sir Edward
Walpole, a younger son of the Whig statesman. According to precedent,
it would have been not only justifiable, but usual for Pitt to take
this post. Despite the advice of his friends to this effect, Pitt
refused to increase his very slender private income at the public
expense, and prevailed on Colonel Barré to accept the sinecure in
place of the pension of £3,200 a year generously voted to him by the
economical Rockingham. This most unexpected conduct, which of course
saved the public funds the amount of that pension, was loudly praised
by Barré himself and by all who were not inveterate partisans. These
last decried Pitt’s action as resulting either from love of applause
or from priggishness. The taunt has been echoed in later times, even
by those who laud to the skies Chatham’s self-abnegation in the matter
of official perquisites. Nothing better illustrates the malice which
has dogged the footsteps of the son than that sneers should be his
reward for an action similar in all respects to that which has elicited
praise for his father. Both of them, surely, desired at the outset to
emphasize their resolve to put down financial jobbery in the public
service. Their actions were prompted solely by patriotism.
On 12th January, when Parliament met, Pitt had to bear the brunt of
reiterated attacks from Fox, Erskine, and General Conway, under cover
of motions for resuming a Committee to consider the state of the
nation. The young Minister parried their blows by stating his resolve
to bring in very soon an India Bill. Then, flinging back their taunts,
that he had crept into office by the backstairs, he uttered these
memorable words: “The integrity of my own heart and the probity of the
public, as well as my private principles, shall always be my sources
of action. I will never condescend to be the instrument of any secret
advisers whatever; nor in any one instance, while I have the honour to
act as Minister of the Crown in this House, will I be responsible for
measures not my own, or at least in which my heart and judgement do not
cordially acquiesce.” The glance of contempt which he flung at Lord
North (the unwilling tool of George III in the American War) gave point
to this declaration. In truth, it sounded the keynote of Pitt’s career.
He came into office to save the country from the Coalition, but he came
in untrammelled by royal control; and his action in resigning in 1801
evinced the proud consistency of his convictions.
Beaten in the first division in the House of Commons by a majority of
thirty-nine, and on the next day by even larger numbers, he held on
his way unmoved.[207] In consonance with the traditions of Chatham, he
cared little for Parliament provided that the country was with him; and
of this there were unmistakable proofs. The East India Company, acting
through a sub-committee which sat permanently for the defence of its
interests, was arousing all the chartered bodies of the land against a
policy that seemed to threaten other vested interests. “Our property
and charter are forcibly invaded: look to your own.” This was the
battle-cry, unscrupulous but effective, which made aldermen, freemen,
wardens, and liverymen of venerable companies bestir themselves. A
little later the City of London sent an address of thanks to the King
for his action in saving the country from the evils of Fox’s India Bill.
* * * * *
Thus Pitt, wafted onwards by the breath of popular favour, could
confidently expose his India Bill to the contrary gusts that eddied
in the House of Commons (14th January 1784). The methods used in its
preparation were in signal contrast to those employed by Fox. The Whig
leader, far from consulting the East India Company, had drawn up his
Bill in concert with Burke and others hostile to its interests and
ill-informed as to its working. Pitt, on the contrary, took care to
find out the views entertained in Leadenhall Street. The Pitt Papers
show that the Company manifested a desire to meet him more than half
way, and that their representative officials conferred with him on
5th January 1784. Indeed, his Bill was in large measure the outcome
of resolutions which seem to have been framed at that conference and
which gained the assent of five-sixths of those present at a General
Court of the Company held on 10th January. The resolutions were to
this effect:--That the Company, confiding in the justice of Government
for the relief of some of its most pressing claims, consented that the
following powers should be vested in the Crown: (1) All despatches to
or from India to be communicated to one of the King’s Ministers, and
the Directors must conform to the King’s pleasure. The controlling
power to be vested in the Minister and other responsible persons
delegated to attend to the affairs of the Company. (2) Despatches
relating to commercial affairs must likewise be submitted to the
Minister, who may negative them if they bear on civil or military
Government, or on the revenues of the Company. In case of dispute, the
decision of His Majesty in Council shall be final. (3) The General
Court of the Company shall be restrained from rescinding any act of
the Court of Directors only after the King’s pleasure shall have been
signified on the same. (4) The Government in India to be carried on in
the name of the Company by a Governor and three councillors in each of
the Presidencies, the Governor and the Commander-in-Chief (who shall be
next in Council to the Governor) being appointed and recalled by the
Crown, while the Company appointed the two other councillors, subject
to His Majesty’s approbation. They could be recalled either by the
Crown or by the Company.[208]
When the Company agreed to sacrifice so much of its powers, the battle
was half won; but, for the present, the chief difficulty lay in the
House of Commons. In introducing his India Bill on 14th January, Pitt
sought to forestall the criticisms of the hostile majority by reminding
the House that the government of territories so remote and so different
from our own must be in a sense irrational--“inconvenient to the mother
and supreme power, oppressive and inadequate to the necessities of the
governed.” In such a case any scheme of government must be a choice
between inconveniences. He then stated the principles on which he
based his proposals. Firstly, the Indian dominion must not be in the
hands of the Company of merchants in Leadenhall Street. Nevertheless,
any change should be made not violently, but with the concurrence of
that Company, its commercial affairs being left as far as possible to
its supervision, wherever they were not mixed up with questions of
policy and revenue. Where these questions were involved, obviously
Government must have a voice.
Having laid down these guiding principles, he proceeded to fill in
details. He claimed that his proposals were such as not to interfere
arbitrarily with the privileges of the Company; and that his new Board
of Control would be found to be, not the organ of a party, but an
adjunct of the governmental machinery. It was to consist of at least
two of the Ministers of the Crown, namely, the Secretary for Home
Affairs and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, along with a certain
number of Privy Councillors named by the King. These last were to
attend regularly, and were not to be paid. All the despatches of the
Company, except those of a completely commercial nature, were to be
submitted to the new India Board and countersigned by it. While not
controlling the patronage of the Company, the Board would have the
right to negative their chief appointments. The three Presidencies were
henceforth to be administered, each by a Governor (a Governor-General
in the case of Bengal), a Commander-in-Chief, and a Council. The
Crown would appoint these three Commanders-in-Chief, and would have
the right of recalling the Governors and their councillors--a clause
calculated to prevent such a fiasco as that of the attempted recall of
Warren Hastings. Finally, in order to curb the abuses in the Company’s
service, Pitt proposed to institute at Westminster a tribunal for the
trial of offences committed in India, and he suggested that parts of
the second India Bill of Fox might be adopted for the prevention of
abuses in India.
There can be no doubt that this measure excelled that of Fox in many
respects. It left the actual details of administration to Governors
and councillors who were on the spot and could act therefore with
promptitude; but, by subjecting them in all matters other than
commercial to what was in effect a special committee of the Privy
Council, it associated the Government of India with the British
constitution in a way that answered the needs of the time and the
developments of the future.
But the House of Commons was in no mood to gauge the excellences of
the scheme. It was swayed rather by the vehement criticisms of Fox,
who declared that the Bill gave far too much influence to the Crown,
and that, if passed, it must inevitably lead to the loss of India. The
Fox-North Coalition still voted solidly for their chiefs, and on 23rd
January the measure was thrown out on the second reading by 222 votes
to 214.
Scenes of great excitement ensued. Fox and his followers loudly called
on the Ministry to resign. Pitt sat still, vouchsafing no reply to the
clamour, except when General Conway accused him of sending agents over
the land to corrupt the voters. Then he started to his feet, defying
Conway to substantiate the charge, but, for the rest, declaring his
indifference to the slanders of opponents, and his determination to
work for the welfare of the State.
Three days later, when Fox charged him with acting as the
unconstitutional Minister of the Crown and overriding the powers of
Parliament, he replied that such was not his act and intention. His
conduct was unusual because the occasion was unprecedented. To have
resigned after the recent vote would have brought to power Ministers
who, he believed, had not the confidence of the nation; and he further
pointed to the recent diminution of the votes of the Opposition. The
argument was telling, for the hostile majority had dwindled from one
hundred and six on 3rd December, to thirty-nine on 12th January, and
now to eight. These facts clinched his contention that the feeling of
the House was inclining to the favourable verdict which the country had
begun to declare. A shrewd observer like Wraxall came to see that Pitt
was vindicating the constitution even in his seeming breach of it.[209]
Nevertheless, everything was at hazard. Though the majority against
him lessened, it was still a clear majority; and to appeal from an
indisputable fact to what was at most a surmise, seemed a defiance of
the House. As such it met with severe handling at the hands of Fox and
his sturdy henchman, Coke of Norfolk. They, however, finally agreed
to adjourn the whole question for three days. Why Fox did not at once
press his advantage to the utmost is hard to say. Perhaps he feared
to let loose the passions of the House upon the country at large when
Consols were down at 54 and national ruin seemed imminent. He may have
desired to gain time in order to watch the trend of public opinion, and
to appear as a peace-restoring Neptune rather than an inconsiderate
Aeolus.
An influential minority of the House longed for calm. On that very
day fifty-three of its members met privately at the St. Albans Tavern
to urge a union of parties on a more natural and less unpopular basis
than the Fox-North Coalition. Appointing a committee of five, they
besought the Duke of Portland to use his influence to bring about a
connection between Fox and Pitt. As we have seen, the hostility of
these statesmen had arisen, not from difference of principles, but from
the divergent interests of party groups. It had, however, been inflamed
by Pitt’s acceptance of office in circumstances that were especially
odious to Fox; and the Whig leader, in his speech of 26th January,
pointedly declared that, while admitting the urgent need of union and
conciliation, he must insist on the vindication of the honour of the
House by the resignation of the present unconstitutional Ministry. A
similar declaration was sent on the same day by the Duke of Portland to
the committee of the St. Albans Tavern meeting.
Such a beginning was far from promising. Clearly an understanding
existed between the nominal and real chiefs of the Whig party with a
view to forcing on a dissolution. This implied that the conciliators
were appealing to party-leaders to act as arbiters, and that they
at once passed judgement against the Pitt Ministry. Matters were
not improved during a debate in the House on the need of forming an
extended Administration (2nd February). Fox, while disclaiming any
personal hostility to Pitt, insisted on the resignation of Ministers
as the first step towards the formation of a wider Administration.
On his side Pitt once more declared that any union between them must
be formed in an honourable way, and that it would be paltry for him
to resign merely in order to treat for re-admission to office. The
original motion having passed unanimously, a hostile resolution was
then brought forward substantiating Fox’s declaration. Whereupon Pitt,
nettled by these insidious tactics, declared that he would never change
his armour and beg to be received as a volunteer among the forces of
the enemy. Never, he exclaimed, would he consent to resign before the
terms of such a union were arranged. If the House desired to drive the
Ministry from office there were two ways open--either to petition the
King for their removal, or to impeach them. At present their remaining
in office was not unconstitutional. The hostile motion, however, passed
by a majority of nineteen; and by a slightly larger majority the House
resolved to lay its decision before the King.
That day was perhaps the most critical of Pitt’s parliamentary career.
The feeling of the House seemed to be turning against him; and the
negotiations at the St. Albans Tavern (which went on intermittently
until 1st March) were far from favourable to his interests. Both sides
agreed as to the goal to be reached, but each threw on the other the
responsibility of taking the first step, which that other declined
on points of honour. At the outset the Duke of Portland declined to
see Pitt with respect to a union until he had resigned. Then, on 31st
January, he hinted, obscurely enough, that the Minister might find a
middle way; and when Pitt requested an explanation, he referred him to
recent precedents, which were in effect resignations.
The good sense which rarely deserts the House of Commons for long
reappeared on 11th February. Fox then professed not only his readiness
to serve with Pitt, when he had complied with the terms of the
constitution, but also his desire to meet him half-way as to the
details of a new India Bill of which he had given notice. Pitt replied
in a similar spirit, but declared that there were some men with whom he
could not serve. Thereupon Lord North, at whom this shaft was levelled,
declared his willingness to stand aside if the voice of the country
demanded it. No act in his career did him more credit, and the incident
aroused a general hope that Pitt would now feel himself able with
honour to resign.
He refused, however, to take that step, probably because of the
continued obduracy of the Duke of Portland. The St. Albans Tavern
Committee had besought the King to intervene in order to facilitate
an interview between Pitt and the Duke. Accordingly on Sunday, 16th
February, the King rather reluctantly urged the Duke to meet the Prime
Minister, but signified privately to Pitt his resolve never to apply
to His Grace again if he still declined.[210] Nevertheless the Duke
refused to unbend.
The last stage of the negotiations illustrates the niggling methods
of partisanship prevalent in those times. In answer to a final appeal
from the committee, Pitt and his colleagues urged the King to make
one more effort to bring the Duke of Portland to an accommodation.
The reply of the King on 26th February shows that, in spite of his
strong objections, he made that effort, but with the stipulation that
the Duke should have “no right to anything above an equal share to
others in the new administration, not to be the head of it, whatever
employment he may hold.” Pitt amplified this statement by declaring
that the new Ministry would be formed “on a wide basis, and on fair
and equal terms.” Obviously this implied the entry of the followers
of Portland and Fox on equal terms with those of Pitt; but the Duke,
while approving the word “fair,” required to know the meaning of the
word “equal”; and when Pitt replied that this could be best explained
in their interview, the Duke refused to come unless the meaning of the
word were first made clear.[211] This straining at gnats put an end to
the negotiations. It is now abundantly clear that Pitt went as far as
could be expected, and that the continuation of the deadlock resulted
from the captiousness of the Duke of Portland.
Ten years were to elapse before the Portland Whigs came in to
strengthen Pitt’s hands, and their accession amid the storms of the
French Revolution involved the break up of the Whig party. In February
1784 there was a chance that the whole party would form a working
alliance with Pitt and the Chathamites. Such a union would have formed
a phalanx strong enough to renovate the life of Great Britain and to
prepare her better to stand the strain of the coming crises. It was not
to be. Obviously no union could be lasting where the party knocking for
admission insisted on dictating its terms and gaining admission to the
citadel.
There is, indeed, an air of unreality about these negotiations,
probably due to the fact that each party was intent on the state of
public opinion and the chances of a dissolution. The same fact probably
explains the action of Fox in the House. Time after time he carried
motions of censure against Pitt, though by wavering majorities. He and
his followers hindered the apportionment of the supplies, threatened
to block the annual Mutiny Bill, and went so far as to hold the menace
of impeachment over the heads of Ministers. When the Lords by a large
majority reprobated the actions of the Commons and begged the King to
continue his Ministers in office, the intervention of the Upper House
was strongly resented by the Coalition majority.[212]
Yet Fox never pressed his attacks home. The threats of impeachment
remained mere stage thunder, probably because he doubted his power to
launch the bolt. There was, indeed, much truth in Pitt’s description of
him as “the champion of a small majority of this House against the loud
and decided voice of this people.” Hatred of the unnatural Coalition,
far from declining, was intensified by Pitt’s manly and consistent
conduct. The popular imagination thrilled at the sight of the young
Premier braving the clamour of Foxites and Northites in reliance upon
the final verdict of the nation. According to all the constitutional
text-books, the Whig leader spoke sound doctrine when he declaimed
against Pitt’s tenure of office in the teeth of the repeated censures
of the House; but men discerned the weakness of the Opposition; they
weighed it rather than counted heads; and in the balances of common
sense the Fox-North majority kicked the beam. Westminster and Banbury,
the very places which had returned Fox and North, now sent up addresses
of thanks to the King for dismissing them from office. Middlesex,
Edinburgh, York, Worcester, Exeter, and Southwark, besides many smaller
places, sent in addresses to the same effect, thereby in some cases
dishonouring the parliamentary drafts of their members. The City of
London, the home of blatant Whiggism at the time of the Wilkes affair,
now thanked Pitt for his services and voted him its freedom, with the
accompaniment of a gold box. His ride into the city on 28th February
to receive this honour resembled a royal progress, and Wilkes was the
man who welcomed him to the Hall of the Grocers’ Company, where he was
entertained at a great banquet.
Nor was his popularity lessened by an incident that attended his
return to his brother’s residence in Berkeley Square. His carriage,
drawn along by a cheering crowd, was passing the chief social centre
of the Foxites, Brooks’s Club, when a sudden rush was made at it by a
body of stalwart ruffians armed with sticks and the broken poles of
sedan-chairs. So fierce was the onset that the carriage doors crashed
in, and Lord Chatham with difficulty parried the blows aimed at his
brother. For some moments they were in serious danger, but, aided by
their partisans, they succeeded in escaping to White’s Club, hard by.
Fox was loudly accused of being the author of this outrage. But, of
course, it would be foolish to lay this brutal attack to his charge.
It seems probable, however, that hangers-on of the party paid some
scoundrels to incapacitate Pitt for the rest of the parliamentary
strifes. He, and he alone, could make headway against the storm; and
his removal even for a week would have led to the triumph of Fox and
North. We may note here that Pitt did not resign his membership of
Brooks’s Club on account of this outrage--a proof that he was far above
all thoughts of revenge or rancour.
The prospects of the Opposition were somewhat marred by the events
of 28th February. Everything tended to hamper the actions of that
ill-assorted couple, North and Fox. True, on 1st March they carried by
twelve votes an address to the King for the removal of Ministers; but
George III acted not only with firmness but with dignity. He replied,
as he had before replied to a similar address, that he deplored the
failure of the efforts to form an extended Administration on _fair
and equal terms_, but saw in that failure no reason for dismissing
Ministers who appeared to have the confidence of the country, and
against whom no specific charges were urged. These skilful retorts
struck home; and a long and reproachful representation to the King,
said to have been drawn up by Burke, was carried by a majority of only
one. Pitt looked on this as tantamount to a triumph; for two days later
he wrote to the Duke of Rutland that he was “tired to death even with
victory; for I think our present state is entitled to that name.”[213]
His forecast was correct. In face of these dwindling numbers, Fox and
North did not venture to oppose the passing of the Mutiny Bill, which,
since the beginning of William III’s reign, has year by year legalized
the existence of a standing army.[214]
To allow this measure to pass, after threatening to obstruct the work
of Government, was a virtual confession of failure; and not only the
House but the country took it as such. The inner weakness of the
Coalition now became daily more evident. Discontents that were hidden
during the months of seeming triumph broke forth as the prospect of
defeat loomed large ahead. The tension of the past two months now gave
way to a strange slackness, resulting doubtless from the uncertainties
of the situation. Fox relapsed into silence. Pitt rarely spoke and
scarcely vouchsafed a reply to the smaller men who kept up the aimless
strife. In truth, the heavy-laden air at St. Stephen’s gave premonitory
signs of that portent in nature when songsters become mute and animals
creep about with anxious restlessness under the shadow of an oncoming
eclipse.
* * * * *
The nation was now to give its verdict. On 24th March the King
dissolved Parliament. The Great Seal disappeared from the house of the
Lord Chancellor on that very morning; but by great efforts another was
ready by noon of the 25th. For some weeks the land had simmered with
suspense. “Even ladies,” wrote Horace Walpole on 12th March, “talk of
nothing but politics.” In truth, a time of new political fashions was
at hand. The old having been discarded, very much depended on a decided
lead given by some of the leading constituencies.
For various reasons men looked eagerly to the example set by Yorkshire
and Westminster. Both had recently led the way in the agitation
for Economic and Parliamentary Reform and were strongholds of
Whiggism; yet both the county and the city had recently acclaimed
the conduct of Pitt. Canon Mason, a well-known poet of those days,
who, with the reforming parson, Wyvill, had fathered the Yorkshire
Reform Association, was now working hard on behalf of George III and
Pitt--a fact which spoke volumes. Yet, despite the strength of the
Association, and the ardent Toryism of most of the clothing towns of
the West Riding, the influence of the great Whig Houses, especially
the Cavendishes in Wharfedale, the Fitzwilliams at Wentworth, and the
Earl of Carlisle at Castle Howard, was so strong as to make the issue
doubtful.
The feeling of the county was tested first at a great meeting of its
freeholders held in the yard of the Castle at York on Lady Day. Despite
driving hail-storms and a bitter wind, thousands of sturdy yeomen,
together with throngs of clothiers from the towns of the West Riding,
poured into that historic space. Then came the magnates of the county,
driving up in their coaches-and-six. In good old English style the
two sides of the case were set forth on the hustings in fair and open
rivalry by the best speakers of both parties. The large towns and the
yeomen evidently favoured the royal prerogative upheld by Pitt, while
the claims of the Whigs and of North’s followers were championed by
the great lords and their tenantry, by sticklers for constitutional
precedents, and all who hoped to benefit by a change of Ministry.
The issues at stake being as obscure as the cleavage between parties
was zigzag, the speeches for the most part fell ineffectively. What
with the sleet and the confusion of parties the meeting seemed about
to break up in disorder, when there appeared on the daïs a figure
so slim and weak as to quail before the blasts. But the first few
sentences of that silvery voice penetrated the storm and dominated the
swaying crowd. It was the voice of Wilberforce, who once more showed
the influence of clearness of thought and beauty of utterance over a
confused throng. Boswell, describing the whole incident to Dundas,
said: “I saw what seemed a mere shrimp mount upon the table; but, as I
listened he grew and grew until the shrimp became a whale.”
The victory of mind over matter was decisive. His arraignment of the
Coalition and defence of Pitt carried the meeting with him; and a great
shout arose: “We’ll have this man as our county member.” The instinct
of the meeting was sound. The tact of Wilberforce in uniting all Whigs
and Tories who were not committed to the Coalition or bound by the
magnates greatly furthered his cause; so that finally an election which
had of late always been decided by the three great Houses named above,
resulted in the triumphant return of Wilberforce and Duncombe. The show
of hands was so overwhelmingly in their favour that the Whigs accepted
the verdict and did not demand a poll. The victory was not only a
severe blow to the county families and an assertion of the growing
independence of the middle classes and yeomen; it was also a gain for
the cause of purity, the total expenses of the successful candidates
being less than £5,000.
The example set in Yorkshire was followed in most parts of Great
Britain. The supporters of the Coalition were smitten hip and thigh;
as many as 160 members of the Opposition were thrown out, and by a
very obvious joke they were termed Fox’s Martyrs, the details of their
deaths being recorded with tragi-comic solemnity.[215] The strength
and universality of the popular impulse surprised even Pitt.[216]
He was carried in triumphantly by 334 votes for the University of
Cambridge, his friend, Lord Euston, gaining 288, while their opponents,
Townshend and Mansfield, polled only 267 and 181 respectively.[217]
Wilkes swept Middlesex by a large majority--for the Crown. Skilful
speakers like Erskine, county magnates like Earl Verney and Thomas
Grenville, were thrust aside for the crime of supporting the Coalition;
and in certain boroughs, where no one had been sent down to oppose
that hated union, travellers who declaimed against it were forcibly
detained and returned as members of Parliament. Never, we are assured
by Wraxall, was there less bribery used in the interests of the
Crown; for, as he naively asserts, “corruption for once became almost
unnecessary.”[218]
The reasons of this extraordinary overthrow of the Coalition are not
far to seek. Tories felt far more regard for the royal prerogative
than for Lord North, now that he had gone over to the King’s enemies;
and independent Whigs refused to follow Fox in his ex-centric march
towards the Northites. Thus the Coalition was in reality defeated
by--the Coalition. That jaundiced old Whig, Horace Walpole, might
abjure his friendship with Mason for heading “the pert and ignorant
cabal at York”; he might declare that the nation must be intoxicated to
applaud the use of the royal prerogative against “the Palladium of the
people” (the House of Commons). “Junius” might raise his once dreaded
voice to assure his countrymen that the victory of Pitt would put an
end to their boasted liberties. It was useless. The nation’s instinct
bade it break with the past and start afresh on a path that promised
steady progress. That instinct now swept aside the old party lines and
organizations in a way that had not been seen since the advent of the
Georges.
Only at one place was the rout of the Whigs stayed; and the doubtful
issue of the conflict at Westminster attested the wondrous personal
powers of Fox. A union of strength with geniality, of eloquence with
frankness, which appeals to Englishmen, was seen in him in all its
potency. The “magician” (to use Pitt’s phrase about his rival) waved
his wand with startling effect. A few days of platform speaking
sufficed to restore his earlier popularity. Despite the utmost efforts
of the Court and Government on behalf of their candidates, Admiral
Hood and Sir Cecil Wray, the Whig totals crept up day by day, so as to
threaten the seat of the latter, which at one time seemed assured.[219]
George III followed the course of the Westminster election with an
eager interest that reveals his hatred of the Whig leader. This is
seen in his suggestion on 13th April to Pitt that bad votes should be
fabricated at Westminster to counterbalance those which must have been
trumped up for Fox; or again (1st May) that the _Quackers_ [_sic_]
might perhaps be induced to come to the poll in the interests of the
Government.
All was of no avail. The arts of Windsor were foiled by the charms
of Devonshire House. Georgiana, the beauteous duchess, used her
allurements to rally voters to the Whig cause, and is said to have
carried her complaisance so far as to kiss a butcher for a promise
of his vote. Certain it is that she and her sister, the Viscountess
Duncannon, conveyed artisans from the outlying districts to the poll
in their own chariots. The Countesses of Carlisle and Derby, Lady
Beauchamp, and Mrs. Crewe, also used their charms on behalf of the Whig
cause, so that a favouring rhymester could write:
Sure Heaven approves of Fox’s cause
(Though slaves at Court abhor him),
To vote for Fox, then, who can pause
Since _Angels_ canvass for him?[220]
In vain did the Court put forward the Countess of Salisbury to keep
waverers steadfast. The Countess possessed beauty, but tempered by
age and discretion. Thanks to the exertions of Georgiana, and to the
influence of the Prince of Wales and of the Dukes of Portland and
Devonshire, Fox, at the end of an exciting contest of forty days,
headed Sir Cecil Wray by 236 votes, though he still fell 460 votes
below Lord Hood. The Prince of Wales celebrated this triumph by a great
reception in the grounds of Carlton House at the very time when the
King was passing outside to open Parliament.
But the local success of the Whigs was not yet complete. Many
suspicious facts during the election seemed to discredit the result;
and when Sir Cecil Wray demanded a scrutiny, the High Bailiff of
Westminster not only granted the request, but refused to make any
return for Westminster, thus invalidating the election of Fox and even
of Hood until an inquiry was held.[221] Fox entered Parliament, but it
was through the kindness and foresight of Sir Thomas Dundas, who had
procured his election for the Orkney and Shetland Islands. At once he
attacked the High Bailiff as well as the Government, which he accused
of influencing the action of that official. The matter is too involved
and technical to enter upon here. Its chief interest lies in the manly
and massive oration which Fox flung against Pitt on 8th June. The Prime
Minister evaded the missile with much dexterity; and a large majority
insisted on the scrutiny. After nine months of inquiry the position
of the candidates was virtually unchanged. The Government’s following
strongly desired to end this expensive and fruitless inquiry; but Pitt
opposed the motions to this effect, and early in the session of 1785
found himself abandoned by his majority.
The motives which prompted his action on this affair will be considered
in Chapter XII; but we may here note that it certainly lessened his
personal influence in the critical session of 1785. His own position
had hitherto been so well assured that generous behaviour towards
one of the most affable and open-handed men of his time would have
been both natural and becoming. As it was, many of his friends were
disgusted, and some thought his conduct would fatally prejudice his
future. Thus, on 10th February 1785 Daniel Pulteney wrote as follows:
“Contrary to the wish of all his real friends, and only supported by
Dundas, Lord Mulgrave, and Bearcroft, Pitt persevered in this cursed
business.... The consequence of this will be trifling if Pitt will
_now_ recede and agree to order the return, but ... many will form a
very different idea of the Administration if such an odious business is
forced down by a small majority.”[222] Fortunately Pitt’s own friends
abandoned him before matters went too far. The affair unsteadied his
followers for a time; and the impression was spread abroad that he had
all the qualifications for winning a decisive victory, but none of the
graces that add lustre to its laurels. Apart from this personal detail,
which influenced public opinion more than far wider questions, Pitt’s
triumph in and after 1784 was so complete as to usher in a new era in
British politics. We may therefore pause to review both its causes and
its significance.
* * * * *
Besides the irremediable blunder committed by Fox in framing the
Coalition with Lord North, he made several mistakes during the early
weeks of 1784. It was in the highest degree unwise to stake everything
on the cohesion of his majority in the Commons, and to seek to avert a
dissolution. Judging by his motions in the House, it was the worst of
crimes for Pitt to advise the King to appeal to the nation. But surely
that was the natural and almost inevitable step, seeing that Parliament
had sat for four years, and the opponents were very nearly matched.
Yet, while hindering the course of public business by the postponement
of votes for the public service, Fox claimed to be acting with a single
eye to the public welfare. Such conduct evinced no insight into the
essentials of the problem before him. For surely, if Ministers were
acting as illegally as he averred, it was his duty to impeach them. If
their offence was more venial, the verdict of the people would suffice.
The question could be decided only in one of two ways--either by an
impeachment or a dissolution. He decided in neither way, but allowed
the tangle to grow worse, until men came to believe that his sole aims
were to shirk any appeal, either to the laws of England or to the
hustings, and to force his way once more to power along with Lord North
by means of their large but unstable majority. This was the suspicion
which thinned their following at St. Stephen’s and ruined them at the
polls.
Pitt, on the other hand, showed great tactical skill in working his way
out from an apparently hopeless position. Admitting that his tenure
of office was irregular, he justified it by the unanswerable retort
that the Opposition could not govern. Accepting their decision, that
supplies should be postponed so as to prevent a dissolution, he made it
clear whose was the responsibility for the resulting disorganization.
Finally, when the inability of his opponents to block the Mutiny Bill
had set free the administrative machine, he appealed to the country.
Men were quick to see which side had best consulted the interests of
the State. Over against the impotently factious conduct of Fox stood
the patriotic good sense of his rival in disregarding the wavering
censures of a discredited House in order on the fitting occasion to
consult the will of the nation.
So soon as the essential facts of that unparalleled situation are
fully grasped, the diatribes against Pitt for making an illegal use
of the royal prerogative for selfish purposes are seen to be mere
verbiage. Equally futile is it to inquire, with Lord John Russell, why
the constitution was not afterwards altered in favour of the Crown,
and why the Court did not gain more advantage by its triumph in the
General Election of 1784.[223] The fact is that Pitt had never intended
to govern as a Court minion, or to subject the constitution to the
royal will. It was not merely that his pride revolted against any such
degradation; but his principles, no less than the tough consistency of
his nature, forbade it. Because he insisted on maintaining the King’s
prerogative at one point, namely, that Ministers were dismissed by him
and not by the House of Commons, he was far from supporting it at all
points. Even in that particular, he admitted that Government could not
be carried on by Ministers who had not the confidence of the House of
Commons, but he asserted, and triumphantly proved, that that House had
not the confidence of the nation. For the long delay in putting the
matter to the test, Fox, not he, was responsible.
In reality, then, there was no violation of the constitution, and
no change in Pitt’s relations to the Crown. True, he had sought to
reconcile its prerogatives with the functions of Parliament; but his
attitude towards George III was still marked by a proud independence,
which often caused annoyance.[224] He brought forward measures which
the King disapproved; and in all important matters he had his way
down to the spring of 1801, when George III demurred on conscientious
grounds. The shelving of the cause of Parliamentary Reform by Pitt
after the year 1785 resulted from the utter indifference of the nation,
not from any bargain that he had corruptly struck with the King.
But if the memorable contest of 1784 has not the significance sometimes
ascribed to it in partisan narratives, it is of great moment in
regard to the monarchy, the Cabinet, and the course of events at St.
Stephen’s. George III came forth victorious from his long struggle with
the Whig Houses; but the magnitude of the peril had taught him prudence
and self-restraint; and, while keeping a tight hand on patronage, he
was thenceforth content, in the more important sphere of legislation,
to leave a free hand to the Minister who had saved him from the
open conflict with the Commons which Fox had sought to precipitate.
The relations between the King and Prime Minister therefore came to
resemble those which had subsisted between the first two Georges and
Walpole.
Consequently, the growth in the powers of the Cabinet, which had been
interrupted since the fall of that Minister, now proceeded normally.
During the seventeen years of Pitt’s supremacy the principle became
firmly established that the chief Minister of the Crown was the centre
of authority, and that, while holding that authority nominally from
the King, he exercised it by virtue of a mandate from the people.
George, therefore, had escaped from the thraldom of the Coalition only
in order to bow before an authority which was at once constitutional
and irresistible. He no longer had to do with the nominee of a dozen
great families, but with a man who had the clearly expressed confidence
of the nation. The same fact tended to make the Cabinet of the future
more and more a homogeneous and well disciplined Council, obeying the
impulsion of the first Minister, and adding force to his declarations
of policy. No longer was it possible, as in Lord North’s decade of
office, for the Ministers to act singly and at the behests of the
sovereign. George III’s policy of _divide et impera_ might succeed with
North; it could not but fail before the iron resolution of Pitt. The
King’s acquiescence in the new order of things enabled him to regain
much of the ground which he had earlier lost by his masterful efforts
to govern as well as reign. Well was it for the British monarchy that
those disputes were settled before the storms of the French Revolution
beat upon that ancient fabric.
Finally, we may note that Pitt was far more than a second Walpole. The
sturdy Norfolk squire wielded power, as a nominee of the Whig Houses;
but Pitt was established in office by a wider and grander mandate. The
General Election of 1784 ended the existing party system and shattered
the rule of the Whig families who had hitherto dominated the Georgian
Era. The somnolent acquiescence of the populace in that headship now
gave way to a more critical spirit, to a sense that the traditional
parties must readjust themselves under a new leader. Chatham’s
conception of a union which should absorb the best elements of both
Whigs and Tories received a startlingly complete fulfilment; for the
greatest of the results of the election of 1784 was the emergence of a
party which may be termed national.
CHAPTER VIII
RETRENCHMENT
In the arithmetic of the customs, two and two, instead of making
four, make sometimes only one.--DEAN SWIFT.
When the sixteenth Parliament of Great Britain met on 18th May 1784
the arrears of legislation and accumulation of debt were as serious
as at any time in our history; for, owing to fierce party strifes and
the distractions of war, very few remedial measures had been passed
in recent years. The “Economic Reform” passed by Lord Rockingham’s
Government is the only oasis in an otherwise arid waste, strewn with
the wrecks of partisan warfare. The condition of affairs was therefore
becoming most serious; and a collapse could be averted only by the
utmost skill and care. The three per cent. government stocks told a
tale of waning confidence. Even after the peace they steadily declined,
from an average of 65 in January 1783 to 56 at the close of that year.
They were as low as 53⅞ in part of January 1784; and it is a striking
tribute to the confidence which Pitt inspired that, on the results of
the elections of the spring of 1784 being known, they rose to more
than 58. That first essential to a revival of national credit, a firm
Government, was now assured, and patriots looked anxiously for the
measures whereby the young Minister might stave off disaster.
The King’s Speech laid stress on two topics, finance and the East India
Company. Within the limits of a short session Pitt could not possibly
hope to pass other large measures; and he urged Alderman Sawbridge
not to persevere with his annual motion in favour of Parliamentary
Reform, promising to bring it forward himself in the session of 1785.
When the Alderman pressed the matter to a division, he was defeated by
a majority of seventy-four--a result damaging to the cause which he
sought to serve.[225]
The way being thus left clear for the two great questions that would
admit of no delay, Pitt sought to lay the ghost of national bankruptcy.
The imminence of the danger can scarcely be realized. In that decade
we link together the thought of bankruptcy with that of France; but
if those years closed with the Revolution in France and prosperity
in England, the result may be ascribed very largely to the wasteful
financial system pursued at Versailles and to the wise husbanding of
Britain’s resources by Pitt. According to the French statesman, Necker,
the National Debts of the two countries were almost exactly equal.[226]
The pamphlet literature of the years 1783–84 reveals a state of things
wellnigh as serious in England as that which brought about the crash
in France. One of the closest students of finance, Dr. Price, in a
pamphlet of the early part of 1783, stated that the Fox-North Ministry
openly avowed its inability to pay off any of the public debts; and he
asserted that such helpless conduct must carry us fast to the brink of
disaster. Another writer urged that, in order to abolish the National
Debt, tithes must be swept away, the revenues of the Church reformed,
and all citizens must submit to the payment of one-sixth part of their
incomes. The National Debt, which amounted to £215,717,709 in January
1783, was denounced in language whose extravagance would cause a mild
surprise to a generation that placidly bears a burden nearly four times
as great; but, to a kingdom which with the utmost difficulty raised
£25,000,000 in revenue, this burden seemed overwhelming. Dr. Price
summed up a widespread conviction in his statement that the growth of
debt brought about increased subservience to the Crown, prosperity to
stock-jobbers, and depression to all honest traders.[227]
The war which ended in 1783 had been carried on in a singularly
wasteful manner. Price computed that the increase to the National Debt
owing to the war had been £115,654,000 up to January 1783, when all the
accounts had not yet come in; he also reckoned that the last four years
of that struggle had cost £80,016,000 as against £60,835,000 for the
last four years of the Seven Years’ War. This increase resulted largely
from the reckless way in which North had issued loans, so that bankers
and subscribers, and, it is said, the Ministers themselves, reaped
large profits, while the nation suffered. According to Price, loans
which cost the nation £85,857,691, actually brought to the exchequer
only £57,500,000.[228] This resulted partly from corrupt practices,
but also from North’s endeavour to keep down the rate of interest to
three or four per cent.; the outcome being that, in the impaired state
of public credit of the year 1781 he had to allot £150 of stock in the
three per cents and £25 in the four per cents for every £100 actually
borrowed. Thus, the raising of a sum of £12,000,000 on these terms
actually cost the nation £21,000,000; and interest had to be paid on
£9,000,000 which never came into the exchequer. Obviously he would have
done better to raise £100 for £100 stock, even had he given 6 or 7 per
cent. interest; for the experience of the past showed that in time of
peace and prosperity the rate of interest could be reduced without much
difficulty. Nevertheless, the advisers of the Crown always preferred to
keep to a low rate of interest, even at the cost of tempting lenders by
allotting £175 of Government stock for every £100 of cash.
Such was the state of affairs when Pitt introduced his Budget (30th
June 1784). It will be convenient to set forth and explain his
proposals singly and in connection with the facts which he had to
face. The first was the appallingly large deficit, constantly swollen
by the coming in of bills for war expenses. The champion of peace and
retrenchment had to confess that, despite all his efforts to balance
income and expenditure, he must raise a loan of £6,000,000. Obviously,
as Consols still stood as low as 58, he could borrow only on exorbitant
terms; but it is regrettable that he now fell back on North’s plan
of borrowing at a low rate of interest and of burdening the funds
with a vast amount of fictitious debt. He proposed to allot to every
subscriber of £100 no less an amount of stock than £100 of three per
cents, £50 of four per cents, and 5_s._ 6_d._ of long annuities,
besides three fifths of a lottery ticket in a lottery of 36,000
tickets.[229] He computed that the terms and chances now offered were
actually worth £103 14_s._ 4½_d._, and that lenders would therefore be
tempted to lend.[230] This was so. But, for the reasons stated above,
the burdens bequeathed to posterity were crushing, though less than
those entailed by North’s loan of 1781.
As regards Pitt’s personal dealings with financiers, his conduct shone
radiantly clear when contrasted with those of Lord North. It had been
the custom for that guardian of the public purse to arrange the price
of the loan with a few favoured supporters in the City, and then allot
scrip on scandalously low terms to his friends in Parliament, who
could thereafter sell at a handsome profit. Pitt now threw open to
public competition all tenders for his loan; and the proposals sent in
were formally opened at the Bank in a way which precluded jobbery and
safeguarded the nation’s interests.
Scarcely less serious was the problem of the huge floating, or
unfunded, debt, that is, that portion of the National Debt for which
no provision whatever had been made by Parliament. In the main it
consisted of unpaid bills, which had been increased by about one
quarter or even one third of their original amount. It now stood at
about £14,000,000. Pitt ardently desired to fund the whole of it, but
he found that so great an effort would cause too much disturbance
in the money market. He therefore proposed to fund at present only
£6,600,000, forming it into stock bearing 5 per cent. interest and
issued at 93. He defended this high rate of interest on the ground that
such a stock could in the future be redeemed on more favourable terms
than a three per cent. stock which might be worth a comparatively small
sum when capitalized. The argument was surely just as applicable to the
former loan of £6,000,000.[231]
* * * * *
It still remains to notice the worst ills that beset the fiscal and
commercial life of our land. Indeed, we shall not understand the
daring nature of Pitt’s experiment of the year 1784 unless we take
a comprehensive view of the losses, both material and moral, which
resulted from the extraordinary prevalence of smuggling. Never had
contraband trade been so active as of late. How should it be otherwise,
when the customs dues were tangled and burdensome; when the Navigation
Laws, especially respecting the coasting trade in Scotland, were so
annoyingly complex that the papers which a vessel needed for crossing
the Firth of Forth involved nearly as much expense and delay as if she
were bound for Canada.[232] In such a state of things illicit trade was
ever gaining recruits from the ranks of honest merchants and seamen.
For monopoly, too, depressed their calling and exalted that of the
smuggler. By far the most important article subject to monopoly was
tea. That expensive luxury of the days of Queen Anne, a “dish of tea,”
was now fast becoming a comfort of the many. Indeed, Arthur Young
found that the use of tea had spread into the homes of cottagers; and
he classed as extravagant those villages which owed their refreshment
to China, and commended the frugality of those which adhered to
home-brewed ale.[233] The increased use of Bohea was certainly not
due to the East India Company or to the State; for the former sold
the “drug” at the high prices warranted by its monopoly of trade with
China; and on the arrival of the precious chests at our shores, an _ad
valorem_ duty of 119 per cent. had to be met. The increase of habits
which Arthur Young deprecated and temperance reformers now applaud
was due to smugglers. We learn from Adam Smith that Dutch, French,
and Swedish merchants imported tea largely;[234] and from their ports
enterprising skippers conveyed it to our shores, there to be eagerly
welcomed by a populace which found the cheating of Government far
more attractive and gainful than agriculture. The annals of the time
show how deeply the coast population was infected. The large barns
which the tourist admires in many an East Anglian coast village, more
often held contraband than corn. Thomas Hardy has shown how the dull
life of a Wessex village kindled at the news of a successful “run
in,” and how all classes helped to defeat the “King’s men.” The poet
Crabbe, with his keen eye for the stern realities of life in his parish
of Aldborough, tells of his grief at finding there, not the simple
home-loving life of an old English village,
But a bold, artful, surly savage race.
Their sport was not cricket or wrestling on the village green, but
smuggling.
Beneath yon cliff they stand
To show the freighted pinnace where to land,
To load the ready steed with guilty haste,
To fly with terror o’er the pathless waste,
Or, when detected in their straggling course,
To foil their foes by cunning or by force,
Or yielding part (which equal knaves demand)
To gain a lawless passport through the land.
These are the words of a moralist. To the easy-going many the smuggler
was merely a plucky fellow who cheated the common foe of all, the
Government, and helped poor folks to get spirits, tea, and tobacco at
cheap prices. As for showing any reluctance to buy smuggled goods, this
seemed “a pedantic piece of hypocrisy.”[235] It must also be admitted
that Government had sinned against light; for the great reduction of
the tea duty by Pelham in 1745 had almost put an end to smuggling in
that article; but unfortunately his successors, when confronted with
the results of war, re-imposed the old duties and thereby gave new life
to the smuggler’s calling.[236]
The excess of an evil sometimes works its cure. It was the stupidity
of the fiscal regulations in France which helped to turn the attention
of her most original thinkers to the subject of national finance;
whence it came about that Political Economy had its first beginnings in
the land where waste and want were rampant. So, too, it was reserved
for the son of a Kirkcaldy customs officer to note early in life the
follies of our system; and, when further enlightened by contact with
men and affairs, especially with the French _Economistes_, he was
able to give to the world that illuminating survey of a subject where
tradition and prejudice had previously reigned supreme. Finally, it was
in the very darkest hour of Britain’s commercial and financial annals
that remedial measures were set on foot by the young statesman who had
laid to heart the teachings of the “Wealth of Nations.”
It is not easy to say whether Pitt owed more to Adam Smith or to Earl
Shelburne. Probably the influence of the Scottish thinker on the young
statesman at this time has been exaggerated; for it seems certain that
the later editions of the “Wealth of Nations” were modified so as to
bring them into line with some of Pitt’s enactments.[237] Further,
Pitt made no public acknowledgement of his debt to Adam Smith until
his Budget speech of 1792, when he expressed the belief that the
philosopher, then deceased, had given to the world the best solution to
all commercial and economic questions. It may be, then, that Pitt in
1784 owed less to Adam Smith than to his first chief, Shelburne, and
to other men of affairs, including his own brother-in-law, that able
though eccentric nobleman, Lord Mahon. Shelburne was the depository of
the enlightened aims of that age; and, as Price pointed out, he and
Pitt in the year 1782 were about to make reforms in the public service
which would have saved the revenue some half a million a year.[238]
Now, with a freer hand, he took up the task which the Coalition of
Fox and North had interrupted; and in a measure which supplemented
his Budget, he proposed to cut the ground from under the smuggler
by reducing the duty on tea from an average of 119 per cent. to 12½
per cent. on the cheaper varieties, though on the finer kinds of tea
(Suchong, Singlo, and Hyson) he imposed a higher scale of duties.[239]
Even so, he expected that the produce of the tea duty would sink at
first from £800,000 to £169,000, though he must have hoped soon to
recoup a large part of this sum. As there was a large deficit on the
past year, it was necessary to devise a tax which would help to make up
the temporary loss with no risk of leakage.
Such a source of revenue Pitt found in an increase of the window-tax.
Every house with seven windows was now to pay, not four shillings, but
seven shillings a year. On a house with eight windows eight shillings
were paid, and so on, except that houses with more than ten windows
paid half-a-crown per window. He reckoned the increase from this source
at about £700,000. Whatever objections might be urged against the tax
on the score of health, it certainly fell mainly on the middle and
wealthy classes; for as many as 300,000 of the poorest houses went
duty free. The impost may therefore be considered as a first rough
attempt at taxation according to income. The change was beneficial in
another way. The old customs duty on tea violated the canon of taxation
laid down by Adam Smith--that a tax should take from the pockets of
the people as little as possible over and above what it brings into
the treasury of the State. The 119 per cent. duty seemed to challenge
evasion, and the attempt to enforce it probably cost the country more
than the tax yielded. The window tax belonged to the class of excise
duties the expenses of which amounted only to about 5½ per cent. of the
total yield; and the new impost could not possibly be evaded except by
the heroic remedy of blocking up windows.
Thus, both in regard to economic doctrine and common sense (the
former is but the latter systematized) Pitt’s experiment ushered in
a new era in British finance and therefore in British commerce. The
City of London welcomed the change, which promised to lead to the
employment of twenty more clipper ships for the China tea-trade and to
the destruction of the contraband tea-trade to these shores carried
on hitherto by the French and Dutch East India Companies. Indeed, no
sooner did this Commutation Bill (as it was called) gain general assent
than the Dutch Company offered to sell to us its cargoes of tea at a
loss of 40 per cent. on prime cost and expenses. This fact alone ought
to have stilled all opposition to the measure; but Fox continued to
oppose it with a vehemence worthy of a better cause; he was ultimately
beaten by 143 votes to 40 (10th August 1784).[240]
We may note here that by further regulations of the year 1784 and by
what was called the “Manifest Act” of 1786, frauds on the revenue were
made far more difficult. Thus to Pitt belongs the credit of having done
more than any minister (for he succeeded where Walpole largely failed)
to stop a material loss and a grave moral evil.
It would be incorrect to claim that Pitt was the first to light on the
idea of substituting lower and effective duties for the exorbitant
and ineffective duty on tea. William Eden (the future Lord Auckland)
declared that very many persons had advocated some such change, and
he attributed to Lord John Cavendish the formation of the revenue
committee, the results of whose inquiries were now utilized by the
Prime Minister. Pitt, on the other hand, gave the credit of the measure
to his relative, Lord Mahon. The mention of that nobleman reminds us
of an incident which enlivened the debate. While sawing the air in
order to emphasize his hearty approval of the death blow now dealt to
smuggling, he gave Pitt a smart knock on the head, to the unbounded
amusement of the House.
The details of the Budget itself do not imply a very firm belief in
the principles of what is called Free Trade. As has been shown, the
difficulties in Pitt’s way were enormous. The new loan, the funding
operation, and the interest on the unfunded debt altogether entailed an
added charge of £910,000 a year. This sum he proposed to raise by means
that may be termed old-fashioned. Looking round the domain of industry,
he singled out for taxation the few articles that were duty-free or
were only lightly burdened. Men’s hats were now to pay a toll of two
shillings a-piece (felt hats only sixpence), and thus bring £150,000
to the nation’s purse; female finery (ribbons and gauzes) was mulcted
to the extent of £120,000. He also estimated that a duty of three
shillings on every chaldron of coals (not only in London as heretofore,
but throughout Great Britain) would bring in about £150,000; but he
proposed to free from its operations all manufacturers who met with
sharp foreign competition. Further, he imposed a tax on all horses
used for riding or for pleasure, which he estimated at £100,000; and
he eked out the remainder of the sum by duties on printed linens and
calicoes, candles, hackney coaches, bricks and tiles, paper, licences
for shooting, and licences for traders in excisable goods.
Most of these proposals were received with resignation, but several
members urgently protested against the impost on coals as likely to be
ruinous to industry, and ultimately Pitt withdrew it. This, however,
led him to impose a tax on race-horses (especially winners), to raise
the licence for shooting from one guinea to two guineas, to increase
the postage for letters, and to curtail the privileges of franking
letters by Members of Parliament. This had been disgracefully abused.
Every member of both Houses had the right both of sending and of
receiving letters free. As if this were not sufficient, in days when a
shilling was an ordinary charge for the receiver of a letter, several
members were known to sell envelopes which they had franked; and a
large firm is said to have paid a member £300 a year for franking their
correspondence. Pitt struck at these abuses by requiring that franked
letters must bear the name of the member, the date, and the post town
from which the letter was to be sent. By this and other restrictions
a leakage which had amounted to nearly £200,000 a year was stopped,
at least in part. The notion that every Member of Parliament ought
to enjoy privileges which were withheld from the many was so deeply
rooted that the abuses of “franking” persisted up to the time of the
complete abolition of the privilege in 1840, when penny postage became
the law of the land. Thus in January 1802 we find a distinguished
diplomatist, Sir George Jackson, commiserating his sister on the
scarcity of noblemen in Bath, which implied “a dearth of _frank-men_ to
fly to.”
The effort to curb the abuses of that hateful class privilege forms
the best feature of Pitt’s Budget of 1784. In other respects it is
not remarkable. The new imposts have none of the merits attending his
Commutation Act for the repression of smuggling. What is surprising is
that he did not try the experiment of increasing the House Duty, an
impost which fell mainly upon the rich, was easy to collect, and could
be made very remunerative.[241] It was actually tried by North in 1778,
apparently because it had borne good results in Holland.[242] Thus, the
machinery was at hand, and only needed to be more strenuously worked.
I have failed to find in the Pitt Papers the reason why the statesman
did not try this expedient; still less why he imposed the niggling and
irritating little taxes named above. He estimated the yield of the
duties on bricks, paper, and hackney coaches at no more than £50,000,
£18,000, and £12,000 respectively. Further, the tax on candles, though
only of one halfpenny the pound, was certainly burdensome to the poor.
On the whole, it is not surprising that a rhymester thus set forth the
condition of John Bull:
One would think there’s not room one new impost to put
From the crown of the head to the sole of the foot.
Like Job, thus John Bull his condition deplores,
Very patient, indeed, and all covered with sores.
Other persons of a quasi-scientific turn sought comfort in the
reflection that taxation ought, like the air, to press on the
individual at all points in order not to be felt.
In truth, Pitt’s financial genius matured slowly. Possibly he thought
the situation too serious to admit of doubtful experiments. Certainly
he went step by step, as is seen by reference to his next Budget. Its
most significant feature was the endeavour to simplify the collection
of taxes. Hitherto there had been much overlapping and consequent waste
of effort, owing to the existence of three Boards or Committees. The
Excise Department managed the taxes on carriages, wagons, carts, and
male-servants; the new taxes on horses and race-horses were under the
Commissioners of Stamps; while separate Commissioners administered the
imposts on houses and windows. In place of this complex, expensive,
and inefficient machinery, Pitt instituted a single “Board for Taxes,”
which supervised affairs more cheaply and left few loopholes for
evasion. The imposts named above were thenceforth termed “the assessed
taxes.”[243] In that year he also imposed taxes on female servants,
shops, and attorneys. Here again his fiscal policy distinctly belonged
to the old order of things, when men, despairing of finding any
widespread and very lucrative tax, grumblingly submitted to duties
on every article of consumption and every important action of life.
The days of a few simple and highly productive taxes had not fully
dawned.[244] The sequel will show that, only under the intolerable
pressure of the long war with France, did Pitt work his way to the
Income Tax; and the terms in which he replied to the Lord Provost of
Glasgow, who in March 1798 recommended that impost, show that, while
always favouring it on theoretical grounds, he doubted the possibility
of collecting it systematically.
In 1785 we are still in the age of youthful hopes and experiments.
We find Pitt writing to Wilberforce on the last day of September:
“The produce of our revenues is glorious, and I am half mad with a
project which will give our supplies the effect almost of magic in
the reduction of debt.”[245] Equally hopeful is his letter to Lord
Buckingham on 8th November, in which he speaks of the rise of stocks
being fully justified by the splendid surplus of “£800,000 per annum at
least. The little that is wanting to make good the complete million may
be had with ease.”[246] Both references are to the plan of a Sinking
Fund which was to work wonders with the National Debt, blotting it out
in two or three generations by the alchemy of compound interest.
* * * * *
The plan of a Sinking Fund was not wholly his, although it came to
bear Pitt’s name. Walpole, early in his career, had started a scheme
whereby a certain sum was annually set apart for forming a fund which
would accumulate by compound interest and finally be available for the
extinction of the National Debt. This plan came to grief, because in
1732 Walpole began to draw on his own fund rather than increase the
Land Tax and annoy country gentlemen. This, we may note, is one of
the perils of a Sinking Fund that, guard it as its founder may, some
thriftless Chancellor of the Exchequer will insist on filching from it.
That was the fate of Walpole’s fund. The scheme, however, survived,
and received a new impulse in 1772, when Dr. Price, a Nonconformist
minister, called public attention to it by a pamphlet on the National
Debt. In this he proved by irrefutable arithmetic that a Sinking Fund,
if honestly worked, must ultimately wipe out the largest debt that can
be conceived. For, as he hopefully pointed out, a single seed, if its
produce could be entirely set apart for sowing, would in course of time
multiply so vastly as to fill all the lands where it could grow. This
is true; but the simile implies singular powers of self-control in the
sowers, especially if they are beset by hunger before that glorious
climax is attained. Descending to the more practical domain of the
money market, Price proved that a sum of £200,000, set apart annually,
together with its compound interest, would in eighty-six years be worth
£258,000,000. Whether the nation were at peace or at war, said Dr.
Price, the stipulated sum must be set aside, even if it were borrowed
at a high rate of interest; for the nation borrowed at simple interest
in order to gain the advantages of compound interest. While admitting
the folly of such conduct for a private individual, he maintained with
equal _naïveté_ that a State must benefit by it, even if there were no
surplus of revenue and if money were dear.[247]
Such was the scheme which fired Pitt with hope; but it is very
questionable whether he accepted all its details. Certainly he did not
act precipitately. On 11th April 1785 he felt the pulse of the House
of Commons by stating his confident hope of having a surplus of one
million available for the present plan, and his determination next
year to found “a real Sinking Fund” on a basis which would absolutely
preclude pilfering in the future. It is also noteworthy that he
resolved to raise that million by taxation, not by borrowing. This
is a fact which has been ignored by Hamilton, McCulloch, Lecky, and
other critics of Pitt’s experiment; but the debate just referred to and
those soon to be considered place it beyond possibility of denial. Mr.
Dempster urged him to begin at once, even if he had to borrow, seeing
that France had started a Sinking Fund which “would enable her in a few
years to get rid of the greatest part of her National Debt.” But the
Prime Minister declined to be hurried, especially if he had to borrow
at a high rate of interest.[248] Clearly, then, Pitt did not share the
extravagant hopes of Price.
His relations to Price cannot be wholly cleared up. Early in January
1786 he wrote to him in the following terms:
The situation of the revenue certainly makes this the time to
establish an effectual Sinking Fund. The general idea of converting
the 3 per cents with a fund bearing a higher rate of interest,
with a view to facilitate redemption, you have on many occasions
suggested, and particularly in the papers you were so good as to
send me last year. The rise of the stocks has made a material
change since that period, and I am inclined to think something
like the plan I now send you may be more adapted to the present
circumstances.[249] There may be, I believe, some inaccuracies in
the calculations, but not such as to be very material. Before I
form any decisive opinion, I wish to learn your sentiments upon it,
and shall think myself obliged to you for any improvement you can
suggest if you think the principle a right one, or for any other
proposal which from your knowledge of the subject you may think
preferable.
With his reply Price sent the three alternative plans which the curious
may peruse in his “Memoir and Works.” Unfortunately the ten volumes
consecrated to his fame by his nephew, William Morgan, are instinct
with so bitter a prejudice against Pitt as to be worthless on all
questions affecting him. Morgan does not print Pitt’s proposal, but
brushes it aside as puerile, and gives the impression that Price did
so; he gives no account of the interview which Pitt had with Price in
the middle of January, but asserts that the Minister threw aside his
own proposals, adopted the third and least efficient of Price’s plans,
mangled it in the process, and never acknowledged his debt to his
benefactor.[250] The first of these charges can be refuted by Price’s
reply to Pitt’s letter given above. He pronounced the Prime Minister’s
proposals “very just,” but pointed out some defects, especially the
proviso which placed the Sinking Fund at the disposal of Parliament
when the interest on it amounted to £4,000,000, as he expected it would
by the year 1812.[251] Morgan’s unfairness is further revealed by his
statement that Pitt did not choose to increase the taxes in 1786 so as
to provide the million surplus which ought to have been forthcoming.
Whereas the fact is that in the Budget of 1785 the Minister imposed
taxes for that very purpose; and when these proved scarcely sufficient,
he imposed others on 29th March 1786.[252]
False and acrid charges such as these do not surprise us in the
partisan biographies of that age. What is surprising is that McCulloch
and Lecky should have endorsed some of Morgan’s statements, especially
respecting Pitt’s omission of his acknowledgements to Price.[253] On
this I must observe, firstly, that it is not proven that Pitt owed
to Price everything that was good in his Sinking Fund, and spoiled
the plan by his own alterations of it; for the omission of Pitt’s
proposal by Morgan leaves us without means of comparing the original
proposals of the two men; secondly, that the official reports of the
three debates of the spring of 1786 on this subject are so meagre as to
furnish no decisive evidence on what was, after all, a minor detail.
Further, it is probable that Price’s influence on Pitt’s proposal was
less than has been supposed. In the Pitt Papers is a letter of Pulteney
to Pitt dated 18th April 1786, in which he urges him carefully to
reconsider Price’s third plan before finally adopting it. He states
that Sir John Sinclair, Sir Edward Ferguson, Mr. Beaufoy, and Mr.
Dempster had yesterday met Dr. Price at Bath House in order to discuss
the merits of Price’s plan, and also one by Mr. Gale. The discussion
left Pulteney with the conviction that Gale’s plan was “infinitely
preferable to any of the three produced by Dr. Price,” and he begged
Pitt to add it to his Bill as an alternative.[254] I have not found
a copy of Gale’s plan or any evidence as to its adoption in part by
Pitt; but the statesman certainly repudiated the notion of borrowing
in order to pay off debt, on which Price had laid stress. And yet by
a strange irony of fate, this expedient, to which the statesman had
temporary recourse only under the strain of war, is that which has been
pronounced by nearly all critics the characteristic part of his scheme.
The chief features of Pitt’s proposals were his efforts to raise the
whole of the annual million from revenue, and to safeguard this fund
from the depredations of wasteful financiers in the future.[255] He
therefore placed it under the control of six responsible persons, among
whom were the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank
of England. The disposal by Parliament of the fund when the yearly
income arising from it should amount to four millions, may be termed a
concession of the financier to the parliamentary spirit.
The scheme met merely with indirect criticism, the debates turning
on general policy, or on the question whether there was a surplus of
a million, or any surplus at all. These were the issues to which the
eager partisanship of Fox and Sheridan sought to divert the attention
of the House. Let them beware, exclaimed Fox, of tying up a sum of a
million a year, when they might want all their available resources for
a war. As for Sheridan, he sought to ridicule the experiment, not on
financial grounds, but because it was the height of folly to add to the
present enormous burdens when “we had but one foe, and that the whole
world.”
There seems to have been in these debates no reference to Dr. Price’s
schemes, though they then enjoyed considerable notoriety. Mention was
made of the writings of Baron Maseres on the efficacy of Compound
Interest; but the Opposition confined itself almost entirely to
complaints about the taxes, and gloomy prophecies about the advent of
another war. Surely some member of that angry and disappointed group
would have accused Pitt of filching his scheme wholesale from that of
Price, if the charge had been possible. We can imagine that Sheridan,
instead of croaking over the impending coalition of Europe against
England, would in that case have declaimed against Pitt as the thief
of the magic wand of the real Prospero of finance. Would not Fox also
have brought his sound and sturdy sense to the congenial task of
exposing the fallacies of Price and the imposture of Pitt? The darling
of Brooks’s Club, who well knew the perils of borrowing in order to
pay off old debts, would have fastened on the folly of borrowing at
high rates in order to gain the advantage of Compound Interest. We
can picture him asking how a plan, which was admittedly foolish for
an individual, could be profitable for a nation, and where the taxes
could be raised that would make good the interest on the sums set apart
every year for the wonder-working fund. Surely the Opposition was not
so ignorant of finance and of Price’s proposals as not to detect the
weakness of the Prime Minister’s plan, had it been modelled solely on
them.[256]
The debates in which the Commons dealt with this great and complex
subject seem to have been fruitful only in personalities. At the final
stage of the Bill, however, Fox moved an amendment with the aim of
lightening the burdens on the nation in time of war. He proposed that,
whenever a new loan should be raised, the Minister should be pledged to
raise moneys sufficient to pay the interest on the loan, and also to
make good to the Sinking Fund what might be taken from it. He stated as
a concrete example that, if a new loan of £6,000,000 were required in
time of war, and if £1,000,000 were in the hands of the Commissioners
of the National Debt, that sum should be transferred to the account of
the loan; for this, he claimed, would save the public the expense of
raising that million through bankers and the Stock Exchange, and the
Sinking Fund would not be injured if the million temporarily borrowed
from it were made good by taxation. His speech contained one statement
of personal interest, namely, that he had shown his proposal to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, who approved of it. This, then, was one
of the few occasions on which Pitt conferred with Fox. He now accepted
Fox’s amendment, because (to take the supposed case), apart from the
saving of commission on the million, Government would be able to raise
the five millions on better terms than the six millions. Pitt also
expressed the hope that the addition of the amendment to his Bill would
do away with all temptation to a Minister to rob the Sinking Fund.[257]
This last argument cut both ways. As Earl Stanhope (formerly Lord
Mahon) pointed out to the Lords, when he introduced a rival scheme a
few days later, it would be absurd to lessen the temptation to commit
an offence which he (Pitt) had declared to be thenceforth impossible.
In fact, the permission to transfer the yearly million to another fund
rather tended to strengthen the argument for alienation in any other
case where expediency might be urged. Stanhope’s plan for rendering the
Sinking Fund permanent is too complex to be discussed here; the debates
on it were closed by the royal assent being given to Pitt’s measure on
26th May.[258]
If we examine carefully the many criticisms that have been levelled
against Pitt’s Sinking Fund, they apply only to his handling of the
fund during the Great War with France. Every sciolist in finance can
now see the folly of borrowing money at a high rate of interest in
order to provide the fund with its quarterly supply.[259] It is clearly
a case of feeding a dog on his own tail. But such a proceeding, though
lauded by Price, was quite contrary to Pitt’s original intention, which
was the thoroughly sound one of paying off debt by a steady application
of the annual surplus. He departed from this only under stress of
circumstances which he looked on as exceptional and temporary.
Strange to say, even the officials of the Treasury seem to have
overlooked the fact that the nation was thereby increasing its debt
in a cumbrous attempt to lessen it. In 1799, when the pinch caused by
the withdrawal of a million a year was severely felt, George Rose,
the Secretary of the Treasury, praised the Sinking Fund as an example
of integrity and economy which must in the highest degree promote the
prosperity of the nation. And Lord Henry Petty, who succeeded Pitt as
Chancellor of the Exchequer, stated in his first Budget Speech in March
1806 that “it was owing to the institution of the Sinking Fund that the
country was not charged with a much larger amount of debt. It was an
advantage gained by nothing.” This extraordinary statement, coming from
a political opponent, shows how that generation was mesmerized by the
potency of Compound Interest.
Yet, delusive as the scheme came to be, it conferred two benefits on
Great Britain. Firstly, it tended to the reduction of the National Debt
during the time of peace. Nearly eleven millions were written off in
the years 1784–1792;[260] and the country felt no inconvenience until
the million had to be borrowed at ruinous rates. But, far more than
this, faith in the Sinking Fund buoyed up British credit at a time
when confidence was the first essential of the public safety. In the
dark days of 1797 and 1805 Britons were nerved by the spirit of their
leader, who never quailed even in face of mutiny, disaster, and the
near approach of bankruptcy. There are times when unjustifiable trust
is better than the most searching scrutiny. Finally, it is the barest
justice to the memory of Pitt to remember that his whole financial
policy in the early part of the Great War rested on the assumption that
France would soon be overborne; and, as we shall see, that assumption
was justified by the experience of the past and by every outward sign
in her present life. It was the incalculable element in the French
Revolution, from the _levée en masse_ of 1793 down to Austerlitz in
1805, which baffled Pitt and metamorphosed his Sinking Fund into a load
of lead.
CHAPTER IX
REFORM
Unblest by Virtue, Government a league
Becomes, a circling junto of the great
To rob by law; Religion mild, a yoke
To tame the stooping soul, a trick of State
To mask their rapine, and to share their prey.
THOMSON, _Liberty_.
The distempers of monarchy were the great subjects of apprehension
and redress in the last century; in this, the distempers of
Parliament.--BURKE, _Thoughts on the present Discontents_.
The experience of statesmen has generally led them to link together the
question of retrenchment with that of Reform. The connection between
these two topics indeed lies in the nature of things. The brunt of
taxation has in the past fallen on the middle and artisan classes; and
where they have only a small share in the government, the spending
departments are apt to run riot. Under an oligarchy or plutocracy
the Government is likely to become a close preserve for the benefit
of landless younger sons, the preservation of great estates being
thus assured by means which lower the public services to the level
of eleemosynary institutions. Whenever the mass of taxpayers gains
political power, it will insist on efficiency and economy; or, at the
worst, it will claim that the unprivileged shall also have an entry
into the domain of Government. In either case, the result will be not
unlike that which happens in a household where the husband sleepily
pays and the wife lavishly spends. When the rude awakening comes, the
spending department will probably yield to the power that holds the
purse. The _ultima ratio_ of husbands and Parliaments is, after all,
much the same. On the other hand, if the House of Commons represents
little more than the rent-receiving classes, what hope is there that
it will draw the purse strings? Whence it comes about that economists
have for the most part pleaded for a truly representative system.
As we have seen, Pitt had twice brought forward the question of the
Reform of Parliament, and had twice suffered defeat. The need of
caution was obvious; and this explains his conduct in begging that
veteran reformer, Alderman Sawbridge, not to press his motion on this
subject in the short session of May–August 1784. The Prime Minister,
however, promised to bring it before the House of Commons early in the
following session.[261] Some surprise was therefore felt on the opening
day, 25th January 1785, when the King’s Speech contained no promise
more definite than that he would concur in every measure which would
“secure the true principles of the constitution.”[262] Pitt himself,
while admitting that the King’s Speech might in that House be assumed
to be the speech of the chief Minister, stated that it was impossible
to include in it a reference to that topic. The inference was obvious,
that the King objected to its inclusion in the speech.
For Pitt’s interest in the subject certainly had not cooled. In the
spring of 1784 he had assured the Rev. Christopher Wyvill and the
Yorkshire Association of his devotion to the cause in the following as
yet unpublished letter.
London, March 11, 1784.[263]
GENTLEMEN,
I consider myself greatly obliged to you for the favour of your
letter, which I received upon the 6th instant. I beg leave to
assure you that my zeal for Reform in Parliament is by no means
abated, and that I will ever exert my best endeavours to accomplish
that important object.
(Signed) W. PITT.
Further, on 27th December 1784 he stated to Wyvill his intention to
bring forward a Reform Bill as early as possible in the next session,
and that he would “exert his whole power and credit _as a man, and as
a minister, honestly and boldly_, to carry such a meliorated system of
representation as may place the constitution on a footing of permanent
security.”[264] This at least was the version of his words which Wyvill
at once circulated to Reform Committees throughout the country. With
a belated access of prudence, he added a postscript, urging that it
must in no case be published; but some foolish friend or wise opponent
bruited it abroad, with the result that members of the House now
contrasted his eagerness for Reform with his inability to secure any
mention of it in the King’s Speech. He might declare that the subject
was the nearest to his heart, and that nothing but its complexity
prevented him sketching an outline of his proposal; but members drew
their own conclusions. North made a skilful use of Wyvill’s letter, but
elicited from Pitt no definite disclaimer of the words quoted from it.
Indeed Pitt afterwards assured Wyvill that those words well expressed
his thoughts.[265]
Pitt judged that it would be best to proceed circumspectly in the
matter of Reform, perhaps because he wished the affair of Wyvill’s
letter to blow over, or because he had obstacles to face in his
Cabinet. Owing to these or other causes he decided to give precedence
to his resolutions for according greater freedom of trade to Ireland,
which will be dealt with in another chapter; and not until 18 April
1785 did he bring before Parliament the subject of parliamentary
Reform. The delay was unfortunate, for the trading classes were by this
time ruffled by proposals which promised to bring in the products of
Irish cheap labour.
Meanwhile Pitt drew up a draft scheme of Reform and sent it to Wyvill
for his perusal. He proposed to set aside a sum of somewhat more than
£1,000,000 in order to indemnify electors in nomination boroughs,
provided that two-thirds of their total number should agree to forego
their right of sending members to Parliament. In that case the borough
should be disfranchised, the electors receiving compensation by a
Parliamentary Committee after due examination of their claims. The
seats thus vacated were to be added to counties or to districts of the
larger counties. Pitt also hinted at the enfranchisement of certain
suburban areas of London, and suggested that notoriously corrupt
boroughs (such as Shoreham and Cricklade) should be disfranchised
without compensation, their electoral powers being transferred to
counties. He further proposed to widen the county franchise by
admitting copyholders of 40 shillings a year and leaseholders whose
leases had a certain term yet to run.[266]
These suggestions strike us as strangely cramped, except in the matter
of copyholds, which were dealt with more generously than in Earl Grey’s
Bill of 1831. The proposals for disfranchising the pocket boroughs
resemble a political auction, Pitt dangling a million before the
potwallers of Gatton, Grampound, Castle Rising, etc., as the sole means
of endowing the great counties with political power, and of enabling
Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and Sheffield to find articulate
utterance. Wyvill in 1797 noted that these towns formed a part of
Pitt’s scheme of enfranchisement; but the Prime Minister does not seem
in 1785 to have ventured distinctly to formulate so revolutionary a
proposal. In the draft of a preamble to his Bill he suggested the
advisability of enlarging the electorate in the case of several towns
such as Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Winchester, where the Corporation or
the Guild Merchant alone returned the members of Parliament.
These draft proposals reveal the caution, not to say nervousness, with
which Pitt approached this great subject; and the same characteristics
appear in the speech of 18th April 1785 in which he introduced his
measure. While lacking glow and enthusiasm, it was instinct with
moderation and persuasiveness. He started with the assumption that
the House of Commons ought to be “an Assembly freely elected, between
whom and the mass of the people there was the closest union and most
perfect sympathy”; but he proceeded to allay the fears of those who,
like Burke, saw in any change a death-blow to the constitution, by
disclaiming “vague and unlimited notions.” He desired, he said,
“a sober and practicable scheme which should have for its basis
the original principle of representation.” He then showed how that
principle had been warped by time and Court intrigues. Sometimes method
was discoverable, and he cited a case that occurred shortly after
the Restoration when, after the disfranchisement of 72 boroughs, 36
of them regained their rights on petition, but the 36 others, having
decreased in size, remained without representatives. Therefore, by
the discretionary powers of the Crown to grant, or to withhold,
representation, there was a clear recognition of the principle that
the chief towns, not the decayed towns, should return members to
Parliament. Who, he asked, was the truer supporter of the constitution?
He who sought to preserve the mere form of it, or he who preferred its
substance and essence to the empty shell? Coming next to the outlines
of his scheme, he declared that he would change neither the proportion
of Scottish to English members, as settled by the Act of Union of 1707,
nor the numbers of the House. All that he aimed at for the present was
to disenfranchise 36 decayed boroughs and to assign their 72 members
to the counties which most needed a larger representation, as also to
London and Westminster.
Moderation such as this implies timidity. Moreover this was not
all. As we have seen, Pitt did not intend to carry out this reform
by compulsion; and he now declared that, recognizing as he did the
monetary value of the franchises of these decayed boroughs, he proposed
to form a fund whence they might gain compensation for this undoubted
loss. Very skilfully he introduced this novel proposal by deprecating
the “squeamish and maiden coyness” which members affected in speaking
there on a topic which they frankly discussed outside the House. For
himself he faced the fact that the right of returning two members to
Parliament had a certain monetary value, and he therefore offered a
due indemnity. Further, if in the future any other decayed borough
should wish to surrender its franchise “on an adequate consideration,”
he proposed to facilitate such a surrender, and to allot the two
seats to any district or town that seemed most to need the franchise.
Finally he desired to widen the electorate in the counties by including
copyholders, whose property was as secure as, sometimes more secure
than, that of the freeholders.[267]
Such were the proposals. They were brought forward at a time when Pitt
had suffered in the opinion of the House, first by his obstinacy in
persevering with the Westminster election scrutiny, and, secondly,
by the Irish Commercial Resolutions. Members were therefore in an
unsettled state of mind, and an eye-witness describes them as listening
to the Prime Minister “with that sort of civil attention which people
give to a person who has a good claim to be heard, but with whom the
hearers are determined to disagree.” The same witness, Daniel Pulteney,
found that most of Pitt’s friends “lamented that he would not keep
clear of this absurd business--this Yorkshire system of Reform.”[268]
Despite this chilling reception, Pitt set forth his proposals “with the
attractions of a most seductive eloquence.” Such is the testimony of
Wraxall, which by itself would tend to refute the venomous assertion
that Pitt was not in earnest. The contrary is proved by his words and
deeds. At Christmastide 1784 he begged Wilberforce to return from the
south of France in order to work in the cause of Reform; and on 12th
January 1785 he wrote to the Duke of Rutland in these terms: “I really
think that I see more than ever the chance of effecting a safe and
temperate plan [of Reform], and I think its success as essential to the
credit, if not to the stability, of the present administration, as it
is to the good government of the country hereafter.”[269] Further, it
is certain that those ardent reformers, Robert Smith (afterwards Lord
Carrington) and Wyvill, had no doubt of his earnestness. The latter
stated in his letters that Pitt was striving his hardest to arouse
interest in the Reform of Parliament.[270]
There is also ground for thinking that the King had privately assured
him that, though he regretted his advocacy of Reform, no word of his
should influence any one against that measure. Wraxall, who voted
against Pitt, admits that his plan of Reform was highly attractive in
theory--a phrase which leaves us wondering what would have been the
practical scheme of reform after which this earth-born soul was dimly
groping.[271] Even Burke, who saw mortal danger to the body politic in
the removal of the smallest rag of antiquity, complimented the Minister
on the skill with which he had sought to make the change palateable to
all parties. None the less did that fervid Celt consider the whole plan
an _ignis fatuus_, calculated to mislead and bewilder. Herein Burke for
once voiced the feelings of the country gentry who thought the fate of
the constitution bound up with the maintenance of the rotten boroughs.
The speeches of Duncombe and Wilberforce in support of the measure
were poor and rambling. Dundas, an unwilling convert to Reform, had
nothing better to say than that he highly approved the principle of
compensation.
The chief arguments against the measure were those of North, Fox, and
Bankes. The first declared that the country cared not a jot for Reform.
Birmingham had not petitioned for it. One of the members for Suffolk,
who sought advice from his constituents, had received no instructions
from them. The effort to get up a Reform meeting in London had resulted
in the attendance of only three hundred persons; and the outcome of
similar efforts in the provinces might be summed up in the line from
“The Rehearsal”:
What horrid sound of _silence_ doth assail mine ear?
As for Fox, though he voted with Pitt, he did his best to defeat the
measure. He wittily explained the silence of the people by their alarm
at Pitt’s Irish Resolutions; for when on the point of emigrating
from a land on the brink of ruin, why should they trouble about
its constitution? Further, he stoutly objected to the award of any
indemnity to the owners of pocket boroughs. The same point was shrewdly
pressed by Bankes. The measure, he said, was absurd on the face of
it. For why declare against the whole principle of the traffic in
such boroughs, and yet proceed to allow liberal compensation to the
traffickers? The argument was more clever than sound, as appeared in
1834 when Parliament awarded £20,000,000 to slave-owners. The taunt
also came with an ill grace from the owner and representative of Corfe
Castle; but it cut Pitt to the quick. He immediately arose and avowed
that the remark wounded him deeply on account of his long friendship
with the speaker; the point touched was a tender one; but the evil
was such that it must be cured, and it could be cured in no other way
than the present. And so, in this mood of “Et tu, Brute,” Pitt and
his friends withdrew into the lobby, and soon learned that his third
attempt to redress the glaring ills of the representation had been
defeated by 248 votes to 174.
The blow was crushing and final as regards Parliamentary Reform in that
age. The storms of the French Revolution and the mightier subterranean
forces of the Industrial Revolution were to work upon the old order
of things before the governing classes of England were brought to see
the need of renovation; and when the change came in 1832, it was not
until the nation had drawn near to the verge of civil war. In 1785 the
transition would have been peaceful and progressive. Pitt was content
to work by permissive methods, and to leave open the decision as to
which of the rising industrial towns should gain the franchise as it
was sold by the decaying boroughs. Such a mode of advance seems to us
that of a snail, and marked by a trail of slime. But we must remember
that the brains of that generation worked very slowly on political
questions; for in truth they had to do with a society which was to
ours almost as a lake is to a torrent. Further, it is noteworthy that
the offer to buy out the pocket boroughs was the chief recommendation
of Pitt’s measure to the House of Commons. Burke praised him for thus
gilding his pill; and Dundas’s chief plea for the measure was that
it did not outrage “the sacred inheritance of property.” Alone among
Pitt’s supporters Bankes reprobated these bartering methods. The
attitude of the House should be remembered, as it bears on the question
how far Pitt was justified in buying off the opposition of the Irish
borough-holders and others who suffered by the Act of Union of 1800.
Could Pitt have taken any further steps to ensure the passing of his
Reform Bill? Mr. Lecky, followed in this by lesser historians, has
maintained the affirmative. He avers that, by making it a ministerial
measure, Pitt could have brought to bear on it all the influence of
party discipline.[272] To this it may be replied that Pitt’s majority,
though large, was very independent. As will appear in the next chapter,
we find him writing that he could not then count on the support of many
of his followers from one day to another. They had floated together
from the wreckage of the Fox and North parties, and had as yet gained
no distinct cohesion, except such as arose from admiration of him.
Further, he strained this feeling too severely in the session of 1785
by his harsh treatment of Fox over the Westminster election, and by
pressing on three unpopular measures, namely, the Irish Resolutions
(22nd February), the fortification of Portsmouth and Plymouth (14th
March), and Parliamentary Reform (18th April). Sooner or later he
suffered defeat on all these proposals. Yet it is clear that his
followers did not intend to drive him from office, but merely to teach
him caution. In this they succeeded only too well. Thereafter he acted
far more warily; and, except in the Warren Hastings’ case, and in the
French Commercial Treaty, he for some time showed little of that power
of initiative which marked the early part of the session of 1785. The
fact is to be regretted; but the need of caution is manifest when we
remember that a single irretrievable blunder would have entailed a
Fox-North Ministry with all the discords and confusion that must have
come in its train. Even zealous reformers, while regretting that Pitt
did not persevere with Reform, continued to prefer him to Fox and
North. This appears in a letter written by Major Cartwright at the
close of the year 1788. On the news of the mental derangement of George
III, that veteran reformer wrote to Wilberforce: “I very much fear that
the King’s present derangement is likely to produce other derangements
not for the public benefit. I hope we are not to be sold to the
Coalition faction. Mr. Fox is, I see, arrived, and cabal, I doubt not,
is labouring with redoubled zeal under his direction to overturn the
present Government.”[273] The distrust felt for Fox after his union
with North survived in full force even in 1788. Their accession to
power, and the triumph of the Prince of Wales, were looked on as the
worst of all political evils. This, I repeat, explains and justifies
the determination of Pitt to continue in office.
But other reasons must also have influenced his decision to shelve
the question of Reform at least for the present. His Cabinet was too
divided on it to warrant his risking its existence on a proposal which
had always been rejected. The marvel was that a Prime Minister should
bring it forward. Further, if we may judge from George III’s letter
of 20th March, the active though secret opposition of the King was
averted only by Pitt giving an unmistakable hint that he would resign
if it were used against the measure.[274] Having secured the King’s
neutrality, Pitt could hardly go further and leave his sovereign in the
lurch by breaking up his Cabinet on a question on which he alone of the
executive Government felt strongly.
Another possible alternative was that he himself should resign.
But this again would almost certainly have involved the fall of an
Administration of which he was the keystone. It is also noteworthy
that the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, whether collective
or personal, had not then been definitely established. Cabinets and
individual Ministers resigned on points of honour, or when they held
that the Government could no longer be satisfactorily carried on.
But neither of these cases had arisen. The Government of the country
obviously could go on as well as before. True, a legislative proposal
of great importance had been rejected; but it cannot be too clearly
stated that in that century the chief work of Government was to govern,
not to pass new laws. Far on in the next century the main business of a
Cabinet came to be the proposing and carrying through of new measures;
but this idea was foreign to that more stationary age; and probably
everyone would have accused Pitt of deserting his post had he resigned
owing to his inability to carry a legislative enactment of a very
debatable character. Walpole has not been blamed because he held to
office despite his failure to carry his very important Excise Bill.
Again, why should Pitt have persevered with the cause of Reform?
Despite all the efforts of Wyvill and the Associations, only eight
petitions had been sent up to the House in favour of it. The taunts
of North as to the apathy of the country were unanswerable. No voice
was heard in protest against the rejection of the measure; and the
judgement of Wilberforce was that of practically all reformers, that,
after Pitt’s failure, Reform was hopeless.[275] Wyvill himself, in
a pamphlet written amidst the excitements of 1793, admitted that
Pitt’s measure received little attention in 1785, and soon fell into
oblivion--a fact which he explained by the complete satisfaction which
the nation then felt with its new Ministry. Here we have the true
explanation, furnished by the man who had his hand on the nation’s
pulse. Wyvill saw that the practical character of the reforms already
carried by Pitt had reconciled the people even to rotten boroughs.
He also stated that the proposals of 1785 did not go far enough to
satisfy many reformers, but that they aroused the bitter hostility of
the boroughmongers. There, indeed, was the gist of the difficulty. The
boroughmongers carried the House with them; and it was impossible at
that period to stir up a national enthusiasm which would brush aside
the fears of the timid and the sophistries of the corrupt. Only under
the overpowering impulse of 1832 could the House be brought to pass
sentence against itself. Because Grey and Russell carried a Reform Bill
nearly half a century later, is Pitt to be blamed for abandoning, after
the third attempt, a measure which aroused invincible opposition in
Parliament, and only the most languid interest in the nation at large?
Further, be it noted that the conduct of Fox had irretrievably damaged
the cause of Reform. His union with Lord North had split in twain
the party of progress; and we have the testimony of an ardent young
reformer, Francis Place, that that unprincipled union dealt a death
blow to the London Society for promoting Constitutional Information,
the last expiring effort of which was to publish a volume of political
tracts in the year 1784.[276] Not until the year 1791 was this useful
society revived, and then owing to the impulses set in motion by French
democracy.
Finally, it is noteworthy that Pitt gave his support to a smaller
measure of Reform brought forward in the session of 1786 by Earl
Stanhope. That nobleman had persuaded Wilberforce to widen the scope
of a proposal which the member for Yorkshire had first designed for
that county alone. It provided for the registration of all freeholders
and the holding of the poll in several places at the same time. Pitt
spoke warmly for the Bill as tending to remedy the chief defects in
the county representation, and he expressed the hope that at some
future time the whole of the representation would undergo the same
improvements (15th May). Despite the opposition of Grenville and Powys,
leave was granted to bring in the measure by 98 votes to 22. Though
Stanhope emphatically declared in the Lords that the summary rejection
of a Bill affecting the Commons would be an act of “unutterable
indecency,” the Peers rejected the measure by 38 votes to 15.[277]
This was the last effort made by Pitt’s friends and supporters to
improve the old system. For the present, Reform had come to an
_impasse_. Even practical little proposals which passed the Commons
were doomed to failure in the Lords; and it was clear that nothing
short of a convulsion would open up a passage. The events that followed
tended to discredit the cause of progress. As will appear in Chapter
XIV, the violence of the Dutch democrats threatened to wreck their
constitution, to degrade the position of the Prince of Orange, and to
make their country a footstool of the French monarchy. Pitt perforce
took the side of the Prince; and this question, together with the
torpor of the populace, served by degrees to detach the young statesman
from uncompromising reformers like Stanhope and Wyvill.
* * * * *
The defection or apathy of many of his friends in the session of 1785
was undoubtedly a severe blow to Pitt. It sounded the death-knell of
his earlier idealism, and led him on, somewhat dazed, to a time marked
by compromise and a tendency to rely upon “influence.” Daniel Pulteney
noted, when he saw him in the park on the day following the rebuff,
that he was in deep sorrow.[278] That was natural in a man who had
hoped to arouse the nation to a vivid interest in good government, and
suddenly found himself headed back to the old paths. The shock must
have been the greater as he had been guided by what I have termed his
bookish outlook on life.
Pulteney, as a man of the world, pointed out to his patron, the Duke
of Rutland, this defect in the young Prime Minister: “This system of
Pitt’s, to act upon general ideas of the propriety or wisdom of a
measure, without attending enough to the means by which it can be best
and most happily introduced--I mean, knowing the general opinion of the
House at the time--must, I foresee, involve him in time in one or other
of these difficulties,” namely, the rash introduction of a measure,
or its abandonment through a sudden access of distrust. Again he says
that Pitt is very much “fettered in his conduct on great affairs. From
a very partial and confined knowledge of the world, he is too full
of caution and suspicions where there does not exist the shadow of a
pretext for them; and, from having no immediate intercourse with the
generality of the House of Commons here, he is as ignorant of their
opinions on particular questions as if he was Minister of another
country.” He then states that, when Pitt suddenly came to see the facts
of the case, he was apt to be unduly despondent and to bring forward
only those questions on which he was sure of a majority. He concludes
that this habit of “acting only on abstract principles” would greatly
embarrass him; but that he might expect long to continue in power,
because “whenever he was to quit, I think no Ministry, not founded on
corruption, could stand against him.”[279]
This estimate, by a practical politician, though marked by a desire
to depreciate Pitt and exalt the Duke of Rutland, goes far towards
explaining the symptoms of change which are thereafter noticeable
in Pitt’s career. It shows us Pitt, not a superb parliamentarian
dominating men and affairs from the outset, but rather an idealist,
almost a _doctrinaire_, who hoped to lead his majority at his will
by the inspiring power of lofty principles, but now and again found
that he had to do, not with Humanity, but with humdrum men. We see
him in the midst of his upward gazings, disconcerted by the force of
material interests, and driven thenceforth to pay more attention to the
prejudices of his party.
First in importance among the expedients to which he was driven after
the spring of 1785 was the use of “influence.” As was shown in the
Introduction, that word, when used in a political sense, denoted the
system of rewards or coercion whereby the King and his Prime Minister
assured the triumph of their policy. Peerages, bishoprics, judgeships,
magistracies, sinecures and gaugerships, were the dainties held out
by every Ministry in order to keep their sleek following close to
heel and thin the ranks of the lean and hungry Opposition. Peerages
alone counted for much; for we find Pitt writing, during the Fox-North
Ministry of 1783, that the King’s determination not to create a single
peer during their term of office must sooner or later be fatal to
them. Government by rewards and exclusions was looked upon as the
natural order of things; but up to the session of 1785 Pitt used
“influence” sparingly. At a later date Wilberforce ventured on the
very questionable assertion that Pitt’s command over Parliament after
the General Election of 1784 was so great that he might have governed
by “principle” and have dispensed with “influence.” He expressed,
however, his admiration of him for refusing to associate with trading
politicians, a connection which, even in the hours of recreation, was
certain to bring defilement.[280]
Pitt, as we have seen, never stooped to associate with jobbers, but
he seems to have decided, after the severe rebuffs of February–April
1785, to use “influence” more and more. We notice in his letters to the
Duke of Rutland and Orde several injunctions as to the management of
members in the Irish Parliament; and he sought to conciliate waverers
by other means, such as the abandonment of those clauses of the Irish
Resolutions which were most obnoxious to British traders, and an almost
lavish use of honours and places. This last expedient he adopted
unwillingly; for on 19th July 1785 he wrote to the Duke of Rutland
that circumstances compelled him to recommend a larger addition to
the British peerage than he liked, and that he was very desirous not
to increase it farther than was absolutely necessary.[281] This shows
that his hand was forced either by his colleagues or by the exigencies
of the time. Possibly the promises of peerages had to be made in order
to secure the passing of the Irish Resolutions even in their modified
form. It is humiliating to reflect that this descent from a higher to a
lower level of policy thenceforth secured him a majority which followed
his lead, except on the isolated questions of the fortification of
Portsmouth and Plymouth, and of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, the
latter of which he left entirely open.
* * * * *
It will be convenient to consider here the question of the
fortification of the chief national dockyards, as it shows the
determination of the Prime Minister to secure economy and efficiency in
the public services. As we have seen, his great aim was to carry out
a work of revival in every sphere of the nation’s life. When thwarted
in one direction he did not relax his energies, but turned them into
new channels. On the rejection of the Irish Resolutions, he urged the
Duke of Rutland to seek out the most practicable means of healing the
discontent in that island. Above all he suggested an alleviation in the
matter of tithe (then the most flagrant of all material grievances), if
possible, with the assent of the (Protestant) Established Church.[282]
Similarly in the cause of Free Trade, when foiled by Anglo-Irish
jealousies, he turned towards France; and, after discovering the
impossibility of carrying out his aim for the regeneration of
Parliament, he vindicated the claims of morality in the administration
of India. Finally, it is a crowning proof of the many-sidedness and
practical character of his efforts that, amidst all his strivings to
reduce the National Debt, he sought to strengthen the nation’s defences.
Despite the many distractions of the years 1785–1786, he devoted much
care and thought to the navy. Already, in 1784, he had instituted a
Parliamentary inquiry into the state of the fleet and the dockyards,
which brought to light many defects and pointed the way to remedies.
His anxiety respecting the first line of defence also led him to keep
the number of seamen at 18,000, a higher total than ever was known
in time of peace; and he allotted the large sum of £2,400,000 for
the building of warships by contract. Further, he sought to stop the
corruption which was rife in the dockyards and the naval service.
The letter which Sir Charles Middleton (afterwards Lord Barham) wrote
to him on 24th August 1786 reveals an astounding state of affairs. From
his official knowledge he declared--
The principle of our dockyards at present is a total disregard to
public œconomy in all its branches; and it is so rooted in the
professional officers that they cannot divest themselves of it
when brought into higher stations. They have so many relatives
and dependants, too, in the dockyards, that can only be served by
countenancing and promoting improper expences, that they never lose
an opportunity of supporting them when in their power, and on this
account ought to have as small a voice as possible in creating
them.[283]
In this and other letters to Pitt, Middleton expressed his belief
that much might be done to check these evils by the help of a firm
and upright Minister. Probably this appeal from a patriotic and
hard-working official sharpened the attention which Pitt bestowed on
naval affairs. We know from the notes of Sir T. Byam Martin that Pitt
frequently visited the Navy Office in order to discuss business details
with the Comptroller, and by his commanding ability left the impression
that he might have been all his life engaged on naval affairs. In
particular he used to inspect the reports of the building and repairing
of the ships-of-the-line.--“He also (wrote Martin) desired to have a
periodical statement from the Comptroller of the state of the fleet,
wisely holding that officer responsible personally to him without any
regard to the Board.” The results of this impulse given by one master
mind were speedily seen. More work was got out of the dockyards, and
twenty-four new sail-of-the-line were forthcoming from private yards
in the years 1783–1790. Thus, by the time of the Spanish war-scare in
1790, ninety-three line-of-battle ships were ready for commission.[284]
The crises of the years 1786–1788 had also been so serious that they
might speedily have led to war had not Britain’s first line of defence
been invincible.
In regard to the proposal to strengthen the defences of Portsmouth and
Plymouth, Pitt was less fortunate. The proposal really came from the
Duke of Richmond, Master of the Ordnance, who was far from popular--a
fact which perhaps influenced the votes of members. Though Pitt and
other Ministers adduced excellent reasons for not leaving those vital
points in their present weak state, he did not carry the House of
Commons with him. After an exciting debate, which lasted till 7 a.m. of
28th February 1786, the numbers on a division were found to be exactly
equal. Then there arose a shout such as had not been heard since the
memorable vote which wrecked Lord North’s Ministry. At once all eyes
turned to the Speaker, Cornwall. He declared that he was too exhausted
to give his reasons for his vote, but he would merely declare that the
“Noes” had it. Wraxall states that the sense of the House was against
Pitt, the country gentlemen especially disliking the addition of
£700,000 to the next year’s expenses.[285] One of the arguments of the
Opposition seems to us curious. It was urged that the fortification of
the two towns in question might be the beginning of a despotic system
which would undermine the liberties of Englishmen. While treating
this argument with the contempt it deserved, Pitt declared that he
bowed before the feeling of the House. The commencement of huge works
at Cherbourg later in the year must have caused qualms even to the
watch-dogs of the constitution.
Some of the more eager Whigs called out for him to resign, it being
the third time in twenty-two months that he had failed to carry an
important measure. We may, however, point out that the proposal
emanated from the Duke of Richmond; and there is the curious fact that
Courtenay during the debate of 20th March 1789 asserted that the plan
was merely the Duke’s, and had not come from the Royal Engineers. He
was also not contradicted.[286] Further, it should be noticed that
though Pitt made the proposal his own, Dundas and others of his Cabinet
were known to dislike it. There is the final consideration already
dwelt on, that the custom which requires a Ministry to resign on the
rejection of any important measure, had not yet crystallized into a
rule.
This was the last severe check which Pitt sustained in Parliament for
many years. The fact that he suffered as many as three in twenty-two
months with little or no diminution of prestige shows that his majority
really trusted him and had no desire to put Fox and North in power.
That alternative was out of the question, as Fox knew, even when he
twitted his rival with being kept in office solely by the royal favour.
Nevertheless in the years following 1785 we notice a distinct weakening
in Pitt’s progressive tendencies. Whig though he was in his inmost
convictions, he drifted slowly but surely towards the Tory position.
Fortunately for him, the folly of his rivals in the year 1784, and
again in the Regency crisis of 1788–9, enabled him to link the cause of
the King with that of the nation. But these occasions were exceptional.
It is never safe to owe a triumph to the mistakes of opponents amidst
unusual conditions. For mistakes will be made good; and in the whirl of
life circumstances will arise which range men and parties according to
elemental principles.
* * * * *
Even before the French Revolution tested the strength of Pitt’s
reforming convictions, there came a question which acted as a
touchstone. This was the proposal to repeal the Corporation and Test
Acts of the reign of Charles II. Those measures had excluded from
office in Corporations, or under Government, all who would not receive
the Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. By this
ban a large body of intelligent and loyal citizens were thrust out of
the pale of political and civic preferment; and though the Toleration
Act and Annual Acts of Indemnity screened them from actual persecution,
their position was yet one of hardship. Certain bodies had not
scrupled to make money out of their conscientious objections. As is
well known, the Corporation of the City of London hit upon the plan of
augmenting the building fund of their new Mansion House by passing a
by-law in 1748 fining any Londoner who refused to serve when presented
for nomination as Sheriff, and then proposing rich Nonconformists
for that office. Not until 1767 did the able pronouncement of Lord
Mansfield in the Upper House secure the rejection of this odious
device. Thenceforth Nonconformists secured immunity from fines for
refusing to serve in offices that were barred by the test of the
Sacrament.
Nevertheless their position was far from enviable. By the freaks
of insular logic Protestant Dissenters were allowed to vote in
parliamentary elections and even to sit in the House of Commons; but
though they had a share in the making and amending of laws, they could
hold no office in a Corporation, or any of the great London Companies;
commissions in the army, navy, and offices in other public services
were also legally closed to them. Severe penalties hung over the head
of any one who, in reliance on the annual Act of Indemnity, ventured
to infringe any of these singular enactments. Public opinion approved
this exclusiveness; and an anecdote told of that humorous mass of
intolerance, Dr. Johnson, shows that prejudice was still keen in the
circles which he frequented. He, Sir Robert Chambers, and John Scott
(the future Lord Eldon), were walking in the gardens of New Inn Hall
at Oxford, when Chambers began picking up snails and throwing them
into the next garden. Johnson sharply rebuked him for this boorish
act, until there came the soothing explanation that the neighbour was
a Dissenter.--“Oh,” said the Doctor, “if so, Chambers, toss away, toss
away as hard as you can.”[287]
The choice blend of Anglicanism and culture discernible in Chambers and
Johnson, might be seen elsewhere than in the seat of learning on the
Isis. It was the rule in the rural districts, except among the sturdy
yeomen of the Eastern Counties, where the spirit that fought at Naseby
had so far survived as to render snail-throwing a pastime of doubtful
expediency. The same remark applies to London, where the tactics of
the city fathers had signally failed to suppress Dissent. Very many
churchmen were ashamed of these petty attempts at persecution, and the
progress of the Evangelical revival aroused a feeling of uneasiness at
seeing the most sacred rite of the Church degraded into a political
shibboleth. Comprehension within the bosom of Mother Church was highly
desirable; but clearly it might be too dearly purchased by Erastian
laws which enabled a lax Nonconformist to buy his way into the Customs
or Excise by presenting himself at the altar of the nearest church
along with convinced communicants.
Accordingly Nonconformists had a strong body of opinion on their
side in the session of 1787, when they asked for the repeal of those
exclusive statutes. A staunch churchman, Mr. Beaufoy, championed their
cause in a very powerful and eloquent speech, which won the admiration
of Wraxall.[288] Beaufoy dwelt on the anomaly of retaining this
old-world exclusiveness, which would expose to the penalties of the
law the illustrious John Howard, if ever he returned to this country.
He showed that no danger need be apprehended for the Established
Church, especially as the Act of Supremacy would continue to exclude
from office all Roman Catholics, as well as Quakers. Further, the
loyalty of the Protestant Dissenters had been sufficiently shown in
the election of 1784, when they voted with Pitt on behalf of the
prerogatives of the Crown. He then inveighed against the continuance
of enactments which “degraded the altar into a qualification-desk for
tax-gatherers and public extortioners.” Fox followed with a strong plea
for religious toleration, quoting Locke and other writers who denounced
the imposition of religious tests in political matters. The Church of
England, said the Whig leader, was disgraced by the present state of
things; and, seeing that it represented the majority of the English
people, it could not be endangered by the proposed change.
On the other hand North, now quite blind, came into the House leaning
on his son, Colonel North, in order to oppose the motion. Speaking with
much earnestness, he declared that the Test and Corporation Acts were
the bulwarks of our Constitution. Pitt must have felt some surprise
at speaking on the same side as North; but he now asserted that those
Acts did not impose any stigma or penalty on Nonconformists, for whom,
indeed, he had a great respect. There must be a Church Establishment,
and it of necessity implied some restrictions on those outside its
pale. The constitution of Society involved limitations of individual
rights; and he averred that the laws in question were justified by that
consideration. Further, there were no means whereby moderate Dissenters
could be admitted to these privileges while the more violent were
excluded. If all were admitted, they might overthrow the outworks of
the Establishment. These arguments carried the day by one hundred and
seventy-six votes to ninety-eight (28th March 1787).[289]
Bishop Watson, of Llandaff, in his “Reminiscences,” explains Pitt’s
conduct on this occasion. He declares that the Chancellor of the
Exchequer had no strong feelings of his own on the subject, and had
therefore referred the matter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The
Primate had assembled his colleagues at Lambeth, and by ten votes to
two they had decided to uphold the Caroline enactments. If this be
correct, Pitt’s action was weak. Certainly his speech was half-hearted,
and utterly different in tone from his orations on Reform, the
Regency, Slavery, and other topics which moved him deeply. Moreover,
the referring a matter of this kind to the bench of bishops was about
as reasonable as taking the opinion of country squires on a proposed
mitigation of the Game Laws, or of college dons on a reform of their
university. A Prime Minister abdicates his functions when he defers to
the opinions of a class respecting a proposal which will trench on its
prerogatives.
CHAPTER X
INDIA
“We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territory
by the same obligations of duty which bind us to all our other
subjects.”--(Proclamation of Queen Victoria, 1st November 1858.)
Montaigne once uttered a protest against those historians who “chew
the mouthfuls for us,” and spoil all in the process. He coupled with
it, however, another vice which is really far more serious, namely,
their habit of laying down rules for judging, and “for bending history
to their fancy.” As for the presenting history in mouthfuls, it is
probably the only way of making it digestible except for those mighty
intellects which seize facts and figures with avidity, and assimilate
them as if by magic.
Further, the modern historian may urge in defence of the topical method
that it is the only practicable way of dealing with the infinity of
topics of the last two centuries, ranging over parliamentary debates
and wars, finance and social gossip, mean intrigues and philanthropic
movements, industrial changes and empire-building, the efforts of
great men and the impersonal forces that mould and move great nations,
together with the denuding agencies that weather away the old surface
and the resistless powers that thrust up a new world. How shall a
finite intellect grasp at once all the moving details of this varied
life? The mind craves to consider at any one time only one part of the
majestic procession, just as it demands that the facts of Nature shall
be grasped under different sciences. Human life is one as Nature is
one; but the division in each case is necessitated by the increasing
width of man’s outlook. All that is essential in the sorting-out
process is that it shall honestly set forth all the important facts,
and here and there open out vistas revealing the connection with
other fields of human activity. In short, history can no longer be
a detailed panorama of life, but it can and ought to be a series of
companion pictures, informed by the personality of the artist and
devoid of conscious prejudice.
Among the diverse subjects which confront us in the many-sided
career of Pitt, none stands more apart than that of his relations
to India. Of his Herculean labours we may, perhaps, term this one
the cleansing of the Augean stables. The corruption that clung about
the Indian Government, the baffling remoteness of its duties, the
singular relations of the East India Company to the Crown, and of its
own officials to it, above all, the storms of passion which had been
aroused by the masterful dealings of Warren Hastings and the furious
invectives of Burke, presented a problem which could not be solved
save by the exercise of insight, patience, and wise forcefulness. It
would greatly overburden this narrative to recount the signal services,
albeit marred by deeds of severity and injustice, whereby Hastings
grappled with the Mahratta War and the incursion of Hyder Ali into
the Carnatic. All that need be remembered here is that Parliament had
censured some of his actions and demanded his recall, that the Court of
Directors of the Company had endorsed that demand, but that the Court
of Proprietors had annulled it. Hastings therefore remained at his
post, mainly, it would appear, from a conviction that he alone could
safeguard British supremacy.
Accordingly, on this all-important question there was division in the
executive powers at Calcutta, and in the East India Company itself;
while the insubordination of very many of the Company’s servants in
India further revealed the insufficiency of Lord North’s Regulating Act
of 1773. Fortunately, however, the finances of the Company were in such
disorder as to make it amenable to pressure from Westminster. It owed
a very large sum to the Home Government for duties on its imports into
Great Britain; and Parliament was thus the better able to assert the
supremacy of the nation.
It was high time to make good this claim. The India Bills of Fox and
of Pitt had been thrown out; and thus, despite an infinity of talk,
the whole situation remained unchanged, except that nearly every one
now agreed that it must be changed. On questions of detail opinions
differed widely. Some of the proprietors and Directors of the Company
protested against any interference whatsoever with chartered rights
which they were perfectly able to uphold and vindicate. The opposite
extreme was touched by Fox during a preliminary debate on the affairs
of the Company, when he declared that body to be a sink of corruption
and iniquity, a mere conduit for bringing home the wealth acquired by
its servants in India. If, said he, the patronage of the India service
must be vested either in the Directors or in the Crown, let the Crown
take that influence from hands which had so shamefully abused it.
Pitt’s position, it soon appeared, was intermediate between these
extremes. Four days later, on 6th July 1784, he introduced his second
India Bill in a speech marked by great circumspection. He started from
the same principles which had fashioned the outlines of his former
measure (see chapter vii), that, though a charter ought not to override
the needs of the State, yet nothing but absolute necessity could
justify its abrogation. The affairs of the Company, he claimed, did
not warrant so extreme a measure. His aim would be, not to abolish,
but improve on, the existing plan of government for India. There were
two essentials to be aimed at, namely, a due share of activity and
resourcefulness in the Indian Government and obedience to the measures
dictated by Parliament. The former of these requisites could be
attained only by according to the Indian Government a certain degree of
power, and from the latter it resulted that that power must be subject
to the control of a regulating Board at home.
Pitt therefore recurred to his former plan. He left to the Governments
of the Presidencies, above all, to the Governor-General, enough
authority to enable them to cope with emergencies; but he also
proposed to subject them to a Board consisting of members chosen by
the Crown from the Privy Council. To this special committee of the
Privy Council would be entrusted the power of devising legislation
for India, of controlling Indian policy, and of recalling any of the
Company’s officials. It was not, however, to have a voice in those
questions of patronage which might deflect it from the path of duty and
impartiality. The proceedings of the Board might be open to perusal by
the Directors of the Company; but its behests would be final. In case
of flagrant disobedience, or of other grave offences, the officials and
servants of the Company were to be tried by a Commission consisting of
members of the two Houses of Parliament chosen by ballot shortly before
the trial.
Such were the chief proposals. As for the spirit which informed the
measures, it may be divined from that part of the speech in which
the Prime Minister set forth the fundamental principles of our
Indian policy. They were in brief these, the avoidance of war and of
alliances that might lead to war, and the use of such conciliatory
methods as would further the aim which we had chiefly in view--pacific
commerce.[290]
Neither the spirit of enlightened patriotism, which pervaded the
speech, nor the practical nature of the proposals screened the measure
from fierce opposition. That acrid opponent of Warren Hastings, Mr.
Francis, taunted Pitt with leaving to the Directors of the Company
the mere shadow of authority, but he prophesied that the large
powers vested in the Governor-General and in the Governments of the
Presidencies would be abused as flagrantly as ever they had been in the
past. Fox expanded these objections with his usual force, asserting
that far too large powers were given to the Crown, and that the
proposed Board would be quite as partisan a body as the Commissioners
to whom he in his India Bill had entrusted the regulating power. He
further insisted that to leave appointments to the Company, while
depriving it of authority, was a miserably weak expedient which must
sap the base of government. On their side, the Directors of the Company
complained that the present Bill at several points trenched on their
trading rights, which they had always expressly reserved to themselves;
and they urged that they must retain in their own hands the right of
recalling their own servants. As for the proposed tribunal for the
trial of disobedient officials, it seemed to them an unsatisfactory
experiment, seeing that both trial by jury and impeachment were ill
adapted to the complex questions of Indian administration.[291]
Nevertheless, the Company had to give way at nearly all points.
The powers of the Court of Proprietors almost entirely lapsed (to
the satisfaction of all but themselves); and a clause was passed,
compelling the Company’s officials to state on oath the amount of
their fortunes at the end of their service, Pitt himself suggesting
that private gains up to £2,000 a year after the first five years of
service should not be deemed culpable. Though the Bill prohibited the
receiving of “presents” from natives, it was clear that officials
would use other equally objectionable means in order to arrive at that
unobjectionable sum.
On the whole, however, the principle of controlling Indian affairs from
Westminster, which Lord North had rather haltingly asserted eleven
years earlier, now became the dominant fact of the situation. This will
be clear if we review the constitution and powers of the new Board of
Control. It was to consist of six members of the Privy Council chosen
by the King; the Chancellor of the Exchequer and one of the Secretaries
of State being always included. In the absence of these two, the senior
member of the remaining four was to preside; and finally the conduct
of the Board’s affairs came to rest virtually with him, so that he
became, in all but name, Secretary of State for India. For the present,
however, as appears from a letter of Dundas to Cornwallis of 29th July
1787, Pitt attended the Board regularly and thoroughly mastered its
business.
To this Board were submitted all letters and despatches between the
Company and its officials in India, except those which referred solely
to trade. Every proceeding and resolution of the Court of Directors
must come to it; and from it there issued orders which the Directors
were bound to enforce. Further, at the second reading Pitt amended his
Bill so as to allow the Board in urgent cases to frame and transmit
their commands to India without communicating them to the Directors.
Finally, if the Company appealed against the Board’s decisions, the
ultimate judgement lay with the King in Council, that is, with a body
largely the same as that from which it appealed.[292] While, therefore,
Pitt instituted what was called a system of dual control, that control,
save in the lower sphere of commerce, was really exercised by the Home
Government. In the long series of changes which transformed the venture
of a company of London merchants into an Empire administered by the
British people, no step is more important than that taken by him in
this, his first great constructive effort.
But this was not all. Various circumstances in the next eighteen months
showed the need of still further strengthening the Indian executive.
Certain ominous moves of the French caused anxiety. In the spring of
1785 their East India Company was revived on an imposing scale; and
the close relations subsisting between France and the Dutch Republic
augured ill for the British dominions in the Orient. Everything,
therefore, tended to emphasize the need of strong Government at
Calcutta; and the attention directed to Indian affairs, consequent on
the charges brought against Warren Hastings early in the year 1786,
further convinced many competent judges of the need of strengthening
the Indian executive. These considerations furnish the reasons which
led Pitt to bring in an Amending Act.
If we may judge from Pitt’s speeches of 17th and 22nd March of
that year, he had been much impressed by the sagacity of the
Governor-General in seeking to frame an alliance with the Great Mogul
for the purpose of counterbalancing the offensive league of Tippoo
Sahib with the French. The action of Hastings’ Council in frustrating
this statesmanlike plan, because it contravened the instructions of the
Company, showed the unwisdom of doubly tying the hands of a competent
governor, first by instructions drawn up in Leadenhall Street, and
secondly by a Council in which pedantry or personal spite could
paralyze great enterprises. Obviously what was required was to choose
the right man as Governor-General, then to grant him powers large
enough to meet serious crises, and to place him in such a relation to
the Home Government that those powers would not be abused. None of
these conditions could be satisfied so long as the Company appointed
the supreme officials and prescribed their functions.
But Pitt’s Bill of 1784 had changed all this. As we have seen, the
British Government was now the driving force of the Indian machinery,
the Company acting merely as an intermediate wheel. The responsibility
of the Governor-General to the new India Board and to Parliament having
been decisively asserted, his powers could now safely be increased.
This formed the _raison d’être_ of Pitt’s Amending Act of March 1786.
Though introduced by Dundas--a graceful compliment to his exertions
in Indian matters in time past--it emanated from the Prime Minister.
It applied the principles of the India Bill of 1784 to the servants
of the Company in Great Britain. But, what was far more important, it
enabled the Governor-General to override the opinions of his Council
at Calcutta, the members thenceforth merely recording in writing their
protests or the grounds of their opposition. The like powers were
also conferred on the Governors of Madras and Bombay. Finally, the
Governor-General was empowered to fill up any vacancy in the Council
occasioned by death, and was also to act as Commander-in-Chief.
These far-reaching proposals caused Burke’s spleen to overflow. He
burst forth into a violent diatribe against this “raw-head and bloody
bones Bill.” Pitt’s first India Bill, he declared, was an abortion of
tyranny, an imperfect foetus in a bottle, to be handed about as a show,
but hypocrisy had nursed it till now the full-grown monster was before
them.
And at his heels,
Leash’d in like hounds, shall famine, sword, and fire
Crouch for employment.
It was absurd, he said, to expect energy and despatch from a despotism
like that about to be set up in India. Democracy owed most of its
triumphs to the openness and strength of its operations. The joint
experience of many must prevail over the fallible judgements even
of the best mind on earth. After this outburst, which Burke must
have regretfully recalled when he undertook his crusade against
French democracy, Fox emptied the vials of his wrath on the measure,
especially taunting Pitt with robbing the Council at Calcutta of all
administrative functions. This was not surprising, he said, as the
Minister so obviously preferred speech to action. His speeches were
splendid, his actions presented a long record of failure. “Let others
act, the honourable gentleman desired only to argue.” Pitt wisely
declined to notice heated personalities, and limited his speech to
the task of proving that the Bill cured several of the weaknesses
of the Indian Government, and met the needs of the situation. This
reply, quiet, dignified, and practical, carried the House with him by
a majority of eighty-nine. The Bill passed the third reading without a
division on 27th March. Such was Pitt’s retort to the windy declamation
of his opponents.
Thus was completed the fabric begun two years before. Thenceforth the
Governor-General wielded a concentrated power such as India had not
known since the decline of the Moguls. No longer could he be thwarted
by the members of his own Council as Warren Hastings had often been by
the intrigues of Monson and Francis. In truth the Viceroyalty was now
an autocracy such as orientals could understand and respect. But this
autocracy was, after all, local and conditional--a fact which Burke
overlooked or ignored. While wielding despotic authority in India, the
new Viceroy was but an adjunct of the British constitutional machine.
It is perhaps the highest of Pitt’s achievements that he saw how to
combine two ideals of Government, the oriental and the occidental, in
a way that conduced to vigour of action in Bengal, and did not impair
popular progress at home. While investing the real ruler of India
with powers far greater than those wielded by Warren Hastings, he
subordinated them to the will of King and Parliament.
It has been asserted that Pitt was weak as a legislator.[293] It will
be well to notice this charge at the close of these volumes. But
surely, when judged by all conceivable standards, his India Bills must
take rank amongst the greatest of legislative achievements. For by
those measures, Pitt subordinated the most powerful of all Companies
to the British Parliament. By it, as we have seen, he harmonized the
claims of a viceregal autocracy in the Orient with those of popular
government at home; and he thereby saved the British Empire from the
fate which befell that of Rome. Historians of the Roman Republic agree
that the favourites of the Senate of the type of Verres who were
let loose on the provinces beyond the sea, not only proved the most
frightful scourge to the subject peoples, but also undermined popular
liberty at home by the unscrupulous use of their plundered hoards. The
same system palsied the limbs of that Empire and drugged its brain.
Whether the “nabobs” who rolled off from India and settled down in
England would finally have exerted this doubly baleful influence, it
is futile to inquire; but, had they gorged and bribed for several
generations, the results must have been serious among a people that
look on politics from a very practical standpoint.
On the other hand, to have run amok at that class, like Burke, might
have yielded them the ultimate victory. Pitt observed the golden mean.
For the present, the Company hailed him as its champion. But, while
saving it from the Quixotic crusader, he bound it and its servants by
strong ties, which it was found easy to tighten at every renewal of
the Charter. Above all he strengthened the hands of the Viceroy even
while binding him more closely to the Home Government. Has any other
statesman succeeded in the task of linking an oriental autocracy with
the ancient parliamentary system of a Teutonic race?
The first of the parliamentary Governors-General was the man whom
Pitt early in 1784 designed for the equally difficult post of Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland. In the summer of that year, as also early
in 1785, he urged Earl Cornwallis to combine the functions of
Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief of India; but the earl at that
time declined, partly because the powers of the Commander-in-Chief
were unduly restricted.[294] The high hopes which Dundas had long
entertained of the abilities of Cornwallis, shown by his desire to
offer to him the Viceroyalty in 1782, now led the Ministry to meet his
objections by introducing the Amending Act for extending the powers of
the Governor-General in cases of emergency.[295] Cornwallis accordingly
accepted office; and in the seven years of his Viceroyalty (1786–1793)
British rule was so far strengthened as to withstand the attacks of the
Mahrattas and the far-reaching combinations of Bonaparte.
* * * * *
The same year which saw the dawn of a new era for India, witnessed also
the impeachment of Warren Hastings. We are not concerned here with the
series of events which provided material for that longest and most
famous of our State trials. What does concern us is the behaviour of
Pitt in what was perhaps the most complex problem confronted in his
early manhood. Seeing that he was chiefly responsible for the vote in
the House of Commons which made impeachment inevitable, this part of
the question cannot be passed by. Difficult though it is to separate
one of the charges brought by Burke and Fox against Hastings from the
others, yet limits of space compel us to restrict our survey to that
one which induced Pitt to vote for the impeachment. It related to
Hastings’ treatment of Cheyt Singh, the Zamindar (not quite correctly
termed the Rajah) of Benares.
The reader is doubtless aware that Hastings’ tenure of the Governorship
of Bengal in and after the year 1772 coincided with a period of
exceptional difficulty, which was enhanced by the acrid and often
underhand opposition of Francis, Clavering, and Monson in the Governing
Council at Calcutta. Further, the East India Company was often on
the verge of bankruptcy. Undoubtedly the perpetual want of money led
Hastings to the most questionable of his enterprises, the letting
out of the Company’s troops to the Rajah of Oude for the purpose of
driving out or subjecting the Rohillas, a race of freebooters on his
north-western borders. But difficulties thickened with the outbreak
of the war with the Mahrattas and the French. The climax came in 1780
when Hyder Ali, the usurper of Mysore, let loose his hordes upon the
Carnatic, and threatened to sweep the British into the sea. Then it was
that the genius of Hastings awoke to full strength. He strained every
nerve to send from the Hooghly a large force of troops to the relief
of the despairing settlement at Madras; and, money being an essential,
he cast about for all means of finding it without wholly depleting the
exchequer of the embarrassed Company. Among other devices he pressed
one of his feudatories, Cheyt Singh, Zamindar of Benares, for a sum of
£50,000 in addition to the annual tribute. Seeing that the British held
the paramountcy in India, and therefore enjoyed the right of calling
on the vassal princes for help in time of emergency, the claim was
reasonable, especially as Cheyt Singh’s father owed his position to the
East India Company. After giving extra assistance in each of the years
1778–80, Cheyt Singh began to grow restive in 1780 when the demand was
renewed, and showed signs of disloyalty. Hastings thereupon imposed a
fine of £500,000. More than this, he went to Benares in person, hoping
to browbeat the Zamindar; but, his following being scanty, the troops
of the latter rose against him, and cooped him up in his residence.
With the splendid coolness which never deserted him, he manfully faced
the danger. Secretly he sent warning to some of the Company’s forces
not far distant, and British valour rescued him from his desperate
plight. An Englishman in resolution, Hastings was an oriental in his
methods of punishment and revenge. Forthwith he deposed Cheyt Singh,
and set in his place another Zamindar with a much enhanced tribute
(September 1781).
The same plea of overmastering necessity impelled him to interfere in
the affairs of Oude, an episode which, when tricked out in the gorgeous
rhetoric of Burke and Sheridan, shocked the conscience of the British
people. Sheridan’s oration on “The Spoliation of the Begums of Oude”
is perhaps the most thrilling Philippic of the modern world; but its
force is sensibly lessened when we know that Burke derived his version
of facts from a poisoned source. Francis, the bitter enemy of Warren
Hastings, had been worsted by that master-mind in the Council-chamber
at Calcutta; and, on challenging him to a duel, had been wounded in
fair fight. It was this man, beaten twice over, who in 1781 returned
to England to brood over means of revenge, and found them incarnate in
Burke.
The genius which enabled that great Irishman to pour out serene and
soul-satisfying judgements on the affairs of nations was allied with
a more than feminine sensitiveness that often left him at the mercy
of first impressions and Quixotic impulses. On all points of honour,
whether personal or national, his chivalrous nature carried him to
extremes bordering on the fantastic. The two incidents recounted above
kindled in him a passion of indignation, which cooled but slowly, even
when hatred of the French Revolution obsessed him. All attempts to
ascribe Burke’s crusade against Hastings to partisanship or personal
spite have egregiously failed. As Macaulay has shown in his brilliant
but untrustworthy essay on Warren Hastings, Burke’s opposition to
Hastings began in 1781, survived the kaleidoscopic changes of the
next decade, and lived on into the new world of the Revolutionary
Era. Clearly it resulted from a profound difference of view on Indian
affairs. Even to-day, when the justificatory facts of Hastings’ career
are well known, his actions are wholly condemned by men of a similar
bent of mind. On the other hand his policy appears statesmanlike to
those who look first at the wealth of benefits conferred on India by
the British Raj and pay little heed to miscarriages of justice which
they regard as incidental to an alien administration. The Hastings
episode will ever range in hostile groups men of strongly marked
dispositions; while the judicial minority will feel themselves drawn
perplexingly first to the sentimental side and then to the practical
side as new facts and considerations emerge from the welter of evidence.
From midsummer 1785, when Hastings landed at Plymouth and repaired to
the Court at Windsor, England was rent asunder by these prepossessions.
The King, as might be expected, received him with marked favour;
but it caused some surprise that Queen Charlotte, who was propriety
personified, should affably receive his wife, the _divorcée_ of a
complaisant Baron Imhoff. For a time it seemed that Hastings could
afford to scorn the efforts of his opponents. Burke had given
notice of a hostile motion in the House of Commons; but, in the then
discredited state of the Opposition, it was unlikely to pass. Ministers
for the most part approved the conduct of Hastings. Pitt also is said
to have been favourably impressed by an interview which they had
towards the end of June. Unfortunately no account survives of what must
have been a memorable meeting. Hastings was then fifty-two years of
age, exactly double the span of life passed by the Prime Minister. But
the young statesman had by instinct the same faculty of controlling his
feelings under a calm exterior which the Governor-General had perfected
during years of vindictive opposition at Calcutta. The countenance of
each was thin and worn by the workings of a too active brain, reminding
the beholder of the noble lines of Milton:
Deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat and public care;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone
Majestic.
Undoubtedly they were then the ablest men of action of our race; and,
despite envious surmises to the contrary, we may be sure that Pitt
looked with admiration on the placid intellectual features of the man
whose gigantic toil had saved British India. Both of them had the
power of throwing off the cares of state and of indulging in playful
intercourse with friends;[296] and charm of manner and conversation
must have enlivened the interview.
Yet each was closely on his guard. The opposition of Dundas to Hastings
(for he it was who moved the vote of censure on him in May 1782) must
have coloured Pitt’s feelings; and Hastings, as we know, believed that
the India Bill of 1784 was a veiled attack upon himself. The interview
certainly did not reassure him; for he thenceforth informed his friends
that he could not depend on the support of Pitt.[297] The doubts were
strengthened by the omission of the honours that so distinguished a man
might have expected; but this fact was attributable to the motion of
censure of which Burke had given notice in the House.
Thus Pitt maintained a cautious reserve. To say that he was waiting
to see which way the wind would blow is manifestly unjust. He was
awaiting further information in what was a most complicated case. We
know that he sent to Hastings for an explanation of the terms of a
zamindar’s tenure of office, evidently in order to clear up some of
the questions respecting the Zamindar of Benares.[298] Thus, while
Lansdowne, Mansfield, and Thurlow loudly proclaimed their confidence in
Hastings; while the King continued to converse with him most affably at
the _levées_, and Queen Charlotte accepted a splendid ivory bedstead
presented by his wife, Pitt remained guardedly neutral.
Many members of the Opposition wished to let the motion of censure
drop, and urged this at a private meeting held at the Duke of
Portland’s residence shortly before the meeting of Parliament in
January 1786. But the zeal of Burke and Fox had not cooled with time.
Further, on the first day of the session they were pointedly challenged
by Major Scott, the accredited agent of Hastings in the House. At best
Scott was a poor champion. Verbose, tedious, and ever harping on the
same theme, he wearied the House with the wrongs of Hastings before
they came officially before it; and on the first day of the great trial
Fanny Burney remarked: “What a pity that Mr. Hastings should have
trusted his cause to so frivolous an agent! I believe--and indeed it is
the general belief, both of friends and foes--that to his officious and
injudicious zeal the present prosecution is wholly owing.”[299]
Yet Scott would scarcely have flung down the gauntlet without the
knowledge and consent of his patron. Indeed on all grounds it is
probable that Hastings, with his customary daring, preferred that the
question should come to the clear light of a trial rather than swell
with the accretions of gossip and dark innuendoes.[300] We must also
remember that until the vote of censure of 28th May 1782 was removed
from the journals of the House his name was under a cloud; and now that
the accusations of Burke and Francis hurtled more thickly through the
air, the whole matter was bound to come to the arbitrament of the law
or of pistols.
On Hastings and Scott, then, rests the responsibility for renewing
the strife. While they thus rashly opened the game, Burke replied on
17th February 1786 by a move of unusual skill. He requested that the
Clerk of the House should read Dundas’s resolutions of censure of May
1782, and then ironically suggested that that gentleman, formerly
the president of the special committee of the House, was the man who
now ought to take action against the ex-Viceroy. He himself was but
a humble member of that committee, and he now looked, but in vain,
to those in power to give effect to the earlier resolutions. “But I
perceive,” he said, with his eyes on Pitt, “that any operations by
which the three per cents may be raised in value affect Ministers more
deeply than the violated rights of millions of the human race.”[301]
Dundas, never an effective speaker, failed to wriggle away from the
charge of inconsistency thus pointedly driven home. The attitude of
Pitt was calm and dignified. In the course of the adjourned debate
he professed his neutrality on the question. While commending Burke
for the moderation with which he then urged his demands, he admitted
that the charges brought against Hastings ought to be investigated
and his guilt or innocence proved by incontestable evidence. “I am,”
he said, “neither a determined friend nor foe of Mr. Hastings, but I
will support the principles of justice and equity. I recommend a calm
dispassionate investigation, leaving every man to follow the impulse of
his own mind.”[302]
This declaration of neutrality, the import of which will appear in
the sequel, did not imply that there was to be no investigation.
The challenge having been thrown down, the tournament was bound to
proceed. Thenceforth Pitt confined himself to the functions of arbiter.
Burke now enlarged his motion so as to include all the official
correspondence respecting Oude, whereupon the Minister urged him always
to state his reasons for the production of documents, and not to expect
those which revealed any secret policy. Burke said he was ready to
specify his charges, and he did so. He further said that he was in
possession of abundant evidence to make good those charges. On his
applying for certain confidential papers, Pitt opposed the motion; but
he agreed to sixteen other motions for papers. In face of these facts,
how can the panegyrists of Warren Hastings claim that Pitt objected
to Burke’s procedure and carried a motion against it?[303] Burke’s
motions were agreed to without a division, the Prime Minister having
merely given an obviously necessary veto in the case of confidential
documents.
In view of the charges of gross inconsistency that have been brought
against Pitt on the Hastings trial, it will be well to look into
details somewhat closely. On 3rd March 1786 Burke returned to the
charge by pressing for the communication of papers respecting the
recent peace with the Mahrattas and cognate subjects. At once Dundas
and Pitt objected, on the ground that very many of those documents were
of the most confidential character, revealing, as they did, the secret
means whereby the Mahratta confederacy was dissolved. In the course
of his speech Pitt declared that Hastings had made that peace “with
an address and ingenuity that did him immortal honour.” But he added
that other charges against him might be substantiated. In vain did Fox
and Burke protest against the withholding of documents bearing on the
present topic. The sense of the House was against them. Wilberforce
applauded the caution of Ministers, as did eighty-seven members against
forty-four on a division. A similar motion by the accusers for the
production of papers relative to Delhi met with the same fate three
days later.
On Fox renewing his demand for the Delhi papers (17th March), Pitt took
occasion to state his views clearly. If State papers were called for in
order to set on foot a criminal prosecution, he required the mover to
“show a probable ground of guilt,” and secondly, that the papers were
necessary to substantiate that guilt; the third condition was that the
public service would not suffer by publication.[304] He then proceeded
to prove that the action of Hastings in seeking to form an alliance
with the Great Mogul (despite the orders of the Company) was timely and
statesmanlike, as it promised to thwart the alluring offers of Tippoo
Sahib and the French to that potentate. Finally he asserted that, if he
could reveal the Delhi correspondence to the House, all members would
see how improper its publication would be. For his own ease and for
the reputation of Hastings, which would be enhanced by such a step, he
could wish to give it to the world, especially as all the documents
hitherto granted were hostile to the ex-Viceroy; but in the interests
of the country he must oppose the demand of the prosecutors for the
Delhi papers. In spite of the slap-dash assertions of Sheridan that the
contents of those papers were perfectly well known, the House upheld
Pitt’s decision by 140 votes to 73.[305]
The next move of the prosecutors was to demand the presence of certain
witnesses at the bar of the House. The Master of the Rolls objected
on points of form, and also protested against the appearance of
pamphlets hostile to Hastings which had been industriously circulated
among the members of both Houses. Burke then admitted that most of
the State Papers asked for had been granted, though some had been
denied, but acridly complained that Ministers were now trying to
quash the prosecution. Pitt did not speak.[306] On 26th April Burke
brought forward two more charges, whereupon Pitt remarked that they
contained much criminal matter, but he had formed no opinion as to
their correctness; he hoped that it would appear otherwise, but the
House must examine them with the utmost impartiality. Fox having
taunted him with pretending to see no guilt where he saw too much,
Pitt deprecated such outbursts. Later in the debate he demurred to the
examination of witnesses called by the prosecutors before Hastings
himself had been heard at the bar. Justice, he said, demanded that the
accused should have a hearing before the accusers substantiated their
case. He also declared that he would not consent to the examination of
witnesses, still less to vote the impeachment of Hastings, on the vague
and indefinite charges as yet before the House. Wilberforce expressed
the hope that the Minister would persevere in the steady path he had
pursued and would not be driven from it by the intemperate attacks of
opponents. Burke inveighed against Pitt’s decision; but the latter
carried the day by 139 votes to 80.
It was therefore by Pitt’s action that Hastings procured a hearing
in the House--an opportunity which, if tactfully used, might have
disconcerted his accusers. But the opportunity was lost. Instead of
making a telling speech, Hastings proceeded to read a long and laboured
reply, which occupied all the sittings of 1st and 2nd May, and emptied
the House. Members accustomed to the faultless oratory of Pitt and
the debating vigour of Fox, yawned at the dreary recital of remote
events of which they knew little and cared less. Accordingly, it was
with enhanced hope of success that Burke, after a month of careful
preparation, brought forward his charges respecting the Rohilla War.
On 13th June he introduced them. On the former of them Grenville
defended the conduct of Hastings on the ground that the Rohillas
had by their raids provoked the war, and that it was well to remove
them. Dundas censured the Rohilla War, but maintained that, while the
Governor-General should have been recalled for it twelve years ago,
there was no ground for impeaching him for it now, especially as in
the interval Parliament had three times named him Governor-General.
Wilberforce, whose opinion weighed much with Pitt, took the same view.
The most significant speech of the defence was that of Wilbraham
who, on behalf of Hastings’ honour, urged the House to refer the
charges to the House of Lords, where alone a full acquittal could be
pronounced.[307] Pitt spoke only on a small technical point, but voted
with Grenville and Dundas. Despite a long and powerful speech by Fox,
the House sided with what seemed to be the ministerial view, and at
half-past seven in the morning of 3rd June rejected Burke’s motion by
119 votes to 67.
Undaunted by this further rebuff, Fox, on 13th June, very ably brought
up the charge relating to the treatment of Cheyt Singh, Zamindar of
Benares.[308] He allowed that the continuance of Hastings in power
twelve years after the Rohilla War seemed to imply that Parliament had
condoned that offence; but this plea could not be urged respecting
the Benares affair of 1781. He showed that the Company had agreed to
respect the independence of the Zamindar of Benares, and that Hastings
had pressed on him remorselessly for aids in money and cavalry, and
had finally mulcted the exhausted prince of half a million sterling.
The fate of Bengal, he claimed, depended on their condemnation of so
tyrannical a proceeding.
All eyes were turned on Pitt as he rose to state his views on this
question; and Wraxall avers that never did the range of his faculties
appear greater, his marshalling of facts more lucid, or his elocution
more easy and graceful. This is the more remarkable as the young
Minister avowed his desire on personal grounds to absent himself from
the discussion of so complex and remote a problem. We also know from
his letter of 10th June to Eden, that he had “hardly hours enough
to read all the papers on that voluminous article” (the Benares
charge).[309] It is therefore clear that he formed his judgement within
a very short time of his speech. In this, however, he soon showed
that he had probed the intricacies of the question. Setting forth in
detail the terms of a zamindar’s tenure, he disproved Fox’s contention
that the Company had no right to exact an “aid” from an “independent
rajah.” He demurred to the epithet “independent,” at least as regarded
the supreme power in India. The suzerain power has as good a right in
time of crisis to exact “aids” from its feudatories as any Suzerain in
Europe from his feudal dependents. Next he crushed Francis by citing
his own written opinion that extraordinary demands might be exacted
from such feudatories. Having set forth the question in its true light,
and exposed the inconsistency and malice of Francis, he approached
the crux of the whole problem, whether the fine ultimately exacted
from Cheyt Singh was not excessive. Here he objected to the drawing
of precedents solely from the days of the Indian Emperors. It was the
duty of every British administrator to behave according to the rules of
justice and liberty; and, said he, “On this ground I feel it impossible
to acquit Mr. Hastings of the whole of the charge brought against him;
for I feel in my conscience that he has pushed the exercise of that
arbitrary discretion which, from the nature of the Eastern Government,
was intrusted to him to a greater length than he was warranted to do by
the necessity of the service.” While justified in imposing a penalty,
he continued, Hastings had not proportioned the punishment to the
guilt. In fining Cheyt Singh £500,000 for a mere delay to pay £50,000
(which £50,000 in the last instance was actually paid) Hastings had
“proceeded in an arbitrary tyrannical manner.” As to the restoration of
Cheyt Singh to his possessions, it was beset by certain difficulties,
and he preferred for the present to withhold his opinion.
That speech led to the impeachment of Warren Hastings; for though
Grenville, Lord Mulgrave, and the Attorney-General (Pepper Arden) spoke
against the Prime Minister, the judgement of the last named prevailed;
the House endorsed it by 119 votes to 79, or about the same numbers as
had rejected the previous charge. The conduct of Pitt on this occasion
has been vehemently assailed. Wraxall, writing many years later,
maintained that it was a sudden and unaccountable change of front; and
he further suggested that the jealousy which was said to be felt by
Dundas for the superior abilities of Hastings might have influenced
Pitt’s action.
As the insinuation has been endlessly repeated, I may be pardoned for
dwelling on it somewhat fully. The story has been tricked out with a
wealth of details. It is asserted that Pitt issued a Treasury circular
calling for the attendance of his supporters on the 13th of June, as
if it were for the defence of Hastings. No proof of this statement has
ever been given; and there are good grounds for disbelieving it. In
the first place it should be remembered that attendance at the House
had been greatly thinned by the Whitsuntide holidays. The vacation was
just over; and, as everyone acquainted with Parliament ought to know, a
full House was hardly to be expected at the first sitting afterwards.
Pitt’s letter of 10th June to Eden contains the following sentence.
After stating that there had recently been a short and languid debate,
and a division of seventy-one to thirty-three, he continues: “We
shall probably have some attendance next Tuesday when Mr. Fox moves
the charge respecting Benares; and after that our chief difficulty
will be to get a House for the next fortnight. In the meantime I have
hardly hours enough to read all the papers necessary on that voluminous
article.”[310]
These are not the words of a man who is about to perform an act of
treachery. It is clear that Pitt found great difficulty in getting
through the evidence on that charge before the debate came on; and
further, that he was doing his duty as leader of the House in trying
to assure as good an attendance as the holiday season permitted on
a charge of this importance. Wraxall, who here opposed Pitt, makes
no mention of any ministerial “whip” in favour of Hastings, as he
would certainly have done if he could thereby have strengthened his
case against him. The fact that neither he nor Tomline refers to the
calumny proves the lateness of its origin. Further, if a special “whip”
had been sent out for the support of Hastings, would not some of the
ex-Viceroy’s friends, especially Major Scott, have exposed the fraud?
But no reference to it is to be found in the report of that debate.
Are we also to suppose that the forty or fifty members who changed
sides with Pitt, would have gone over to the accusers if he had been
guilty of such duplicity? Finally, it is clear from the remarks of
Grenville, Mulgrave, and Pepper Arden, that even the colleagues of Pitt
felt perfectly free to vote as they chose. Mulgrave declared that the
Prime Minister would not be fit to remain in office a single day if he
expected his friends and associates to give up their opinions on this
subject. Pitt, as we have seen, had at the outset called on members
to exercise their impartiality; and he now assented to Mulgrave’s
statement.[311] The story that Pitt sent round a “whip” for the support
of Hastings, and then drove his followers like sheep into the opposite
lobby, may therefore be dismissed as a malicious fiction, at variance
with all the known facts of the case.
Then again it is stated by Lord Campbell in his sketch of the life
of Lord Eldon,[312] that Pitt mysteriously abandoned Hastings,
“and--contrary to the wish of Lord Thurlow who had a scheme for making
Hastings a peer, perhaps a Minister--gave him up to impeachment.” The
charge is made in a very loose way; but on it the detractors of Pitt
have built a theory that Dundas and he feared the advent of Hastings
to the India Board, or to the Ministry, or to the House of Lords. This
story has been varied and amplified, so that in one version George III
appears as desirous of forcing him into the Cabinet, or granting him a
peerage on the sole recommendation of Thurlow. But the letter which the
King wrote to Pitt on 14th June shows that, while regretting his action
concerning Hastings, he respected his conscientiousness, and harboured
no thought of breaking with him.[313] That Thurlow had boasted of his
power to further the interests of Hastings is likely enough; but it is
certain that the King never thought of thrusting the ex-Viceroy into
the Cabinet, or the India Board of Control, or of raising him to the
House of Lords without the approval of his Prime Minister. The King’s
letters to Pitt[314] show that his chief desire then was to meet the
large and growing expenses of his family; and Pitt’s economic policy
made his continuance in power at that time especially desirable. Royal
condescension towards Hastings set all tongues wagging; and they have
wagged ever since on the malignant jealousy of Dundas, and the gross
inconsistency of Pitt; but the proofs adduced are of the flimsiest
character. Wraxall and Bland Burges, who later on jotted down their
impressions of parliamentary life, asserted that Dundas had somehow
become convinced that the King intended to eject him from the India
Board of Control and put Hastings in his place. But neither of them
gave any proof. Wraxall merely stated that “the public believed” that
Dundas feared such a change.[315] Bland Burges averred that Dundas had
“by some means” come to know the secret intention of the King, and
therefore “sedulously fanned Mr. Pitt’s jealousy and uneasiness and so
alarmed his mind that he hurried him on to a decision before he had
time to satisfy himself as to its justice or expediency.”[316]
Equally unconvincing is the story, which Hastings himself told some
thirty years later, that on the morning of 13th June Dundas called on
Pitt, remained closeted with him for some hours, and convinced him that
they must abandon the ex-Viceroy. The insinuation conveyed in this
belated anecdote is that Pitt was then and there won over by Dundas,
and owing to the mean motives mentioned above. The ingrained tendency
of men to seek for petty personal pretexts rather than larger, more
generous, and more obvious causes, seems to be the _raison d’être_
of the story and of its perpetuation. There are also some natures so
warped by partisanship that they naturally refer actions of political
opponents to discreditable motives; and it is a sign of the bias which
detracts from the value of Macaulay’s “Warren Hastings,” that he did
not mention the late date at which the story was started, while he
gives it as an historic fact that Pitt’s change of front was “the
result of this conference.”
No statement of what went on at this alleged interview has ever been
forthcoming; but, fortunately, on the all important question of motive,
we have the clear testimony of one who knew Pitt most intimately,
and whose political differences never distorted his imagination.
Wilberforce, who had followed Pitt’s actions closely throughout the
case, afterwards declared that justice had not been done to Pitt:--
People [he said] were asking what could make Pitt support him
[Hastings] on this point and on that, as if he was acting from
political motives; whereas he was always weighing in every
particular whether Hastings had exceeded the discretionary power
lodged in him. I well remember (I could swear to it now) Pitt
listening most attentively to some facts which were coming out
either in the first or second case. He beckoned me over, and went
with me behind the chair, and said: “Does not this look very ill
to you?” “Very bad indeed.” He then returned to his place and made
his speech, giving up Hastings’ case. He paid as much impartial
attention to it as if he were a juryman.[317]
Here we have evidence at first hand, though belonging to Wilberforce’s
later years. Clearly it must refer to the events of 13th June; and
it shows that if any one person was responsible for Pitt’s change of
front that person was Wilberforce. Late in life the philanthropist
declared that Pitt’s regard for truth was exceptionally keen, springing
as it did “from a moral purity which appeared to be a part of his
nature.” He also added that the want of simplicity and frankness
sometimes observable in his answers really sprang from this scrupulous
veracity.[318]
To quote the opinion of another experienced politician. William
Pulteney wrote to Pitt the following hitherto unpublished letter:
LONDON, 15th June 1786.
I cannot abstain from congratulating you on the line you took on
Tuesday. It will do you great credit everywhere, but, what you
will always think of more importance, I am convinced it will have
the most salutary effects in every part of this great Empire,
and particularly in India. Such is the powerful influence of
strict honour and justice in those who govern kingdoms that it
pervades every mind and in a great degree regulates the conduct of
individuals. On the other hand, the wilfully permitting persons in
high and responsible situations to go unpunished and uncensured,
when guilty of important offences, is sufficient to foster the bad
and corrupt principles in all other minds and to lay a foundation
for similar and greater offences. You have my hearty thanks, and I
am sure will have the thanks of all who understand the importance
of your conduct.
I am, etc.
W. PULTENEY.[319]
Few persons did understand his conduct, and sensitive pride kept his
lips sealed. Nevertheless to all unprejudiced minds his conduct needed
no defence. On that higher plane where truth and justice are alone
considered (for justice is applied truth), Pitt did not swerve from
the principles which he at first laid down. From the beginning of the
Hastings case he had sought to hold the balances even. He left it open
to his colleagues to differ from him. He refused the publication of
papers favourable to Hastings where they compromised the welfare of the
State or the characters of our Indian feudatories. He insisted that
the charges against Hastings should be clearly drawn up, and that he
should be allowed to answer those charges in person. On the topic of
the Rohilla War he did not speak, doubtless because his mind was not
made up. The fact that Parliament had three times re-appointed Hastings
after that very censurable event, did in a technical sense screen him
from prosecution now. But on the Benares affair, no such plea could be
urged. It was a question on which the present Parliament alone had to
decide.
The enormous vogue enjoyed by Macaulay’s Essays compels me once more
to notice his treatment of Pitt respecting the Benares charge. A man
of philosophic temperament once expressed a wish that he was as sure
about anything, as the great Whig historian was about everything. This
assertiveness peeps through the veil of diffidence which Macaulay
donned before delivering the verdict, that any man with a tenth part of
Pitt’s abilities ought to have convicted Hastings on the Rohilla charge
and acquitted him on the Benares charge.[320] In order to establish
this assertion Macaulay passed by the technical plea above named,
which must have weighed with Pitt, and then used his powers of special
pleading to whittle down Pitt’s arguments on the Benares case, so that
they seem to turn ultimately on the trumpery question whether the fine
inflicted on the Zamindar was rather too large or not. But we may ask,
firstly, was it a small affair to exact half a million sterling from a
prince who during three years had been hard pressed, and as a matter of
fact had paid up the arrears for which that fine was imposed? Did it
concern the Zamindar alone? Did it not concern all the subjects from
whom that half million must ultimately be wrung?
Not only did the conduct of Hastings far exceed the limits required by
justice; it was also bound up with a question on which the stability of
our Indian Empire has ever rested. So long as the feudatories of the
British Raj feel confidence in his sense of justice, India is safe.
Whenever they have cause to believe that injustice and oppression are
the characteristics of his rule, the foundations of the Indian Empire
are shaken to their base. Not without reason did Fox declare that the
decision on the Benares affair was vital to the preservation of our
ascendancy in Bengal. The statesmanlike eye of Pitt, we may be sure,
discerned the same truth. Besides, there was an additional reason why
he should now more than ever resolve to engrave the names of Justice
and Mercy on the newly formed arch of the Indian Government. As has
been shown, the recent India Bill placed greatly increased powers in
the hands of the Governor-General. Burke and Fox had taunted Pitt
with setting up a despotism from which endless suffering must flow.
The charge was hollow; but, adorned as it was by splendid rhetoric,
it created a deep impression. Was it not well, then, to show by a
concrete example that any Viceroy who violated the principles of
justice would meet with condign punishment at Westminster? A statesman
has to consider, not merely the principles of justice, as applied to
an individual; he must also think of the results of his actions on
the millions whom they will affect; and we may reasonably infer that
among the motives which led Pitt to break with many of his friends
not the least was a heartfelt desire to safeguard the relations of
the feudatories to the Suzerain Power, and to protect the myriads of
Hindoos who had no protection save in the dimly known court of appeal
at Westminster.
On the charge respecting the spoliation of the Begums of Oude, Pitt
also cast his vote against Hastings; and again a majority followed him.
It is questionable whether even the sensationally brilliant oration of
Sheridan on this affecting topic moved the House so much as the silent
but scornful disapproval expressed in Pitt’s vote.[321] The impeachment
was thenceforth inevitable.
With the forensic pageant that ensued we are not here concerned.
Thenceforth the case belonged strictly to the legal domain. Its
duration throughout the years 1788–95 was certainly discreditable to
British law. Hastings out of his never affluent fortunes spent some
£71,000 in the vindication of his actions,[322] and at last secured an
acquittal. But though men in Europe forgot the case amidst the potent
distractions of the French Revolution, the effect of it was not lost
upon the Orient. The comparative calm which settled benignly on India
for twelve years may be attributed largely to a renewal of confidence
in the sense of justice of our people. After the events of the year
1786 princes and peasants alike felt assured that the most transcendent
services, if smirched with acts of injustice, would never screen a
Viceroy from the censure of the British Parliament.
CHAPTER XI
THE IRISH PROBLEM
(1785)
We have the satisfaction of having proposed a system which will
not be discredited even by its failure, and we must wait times and
seasons for carrying it into effect.--PITT TO THE DUKE OF RUTLAND,
17th August 1785.
There is a story, uncertain as to date and origin, which picturesquely
describes Pitt’s indebtedness to the author of “The Wealth of
Nations.”[323] Adam Smith had been invited to meet the young
Prime Minister at dinner; but some mischance delayed his arrival.
Nevertheless, the guests patiently waited for him, and on his entrance
Pitt exclaimed, “Nay, we will stand until you are seated; for we are
all your scholars.” The compliment came with none the less graciousness
because the father of Political Economy had in his work incautiously
defined a statesman as “that insidious and crafty animal.” Pitt was
now to give a new connotation to the word. Almost alone among the
politicians of the eighteenth century, he had set himself to gain a
store of knowledge which would enable him to cope with the increasingly
complex problems of his craft; and thus, in an age when a university
degree, the grand tour, and London club-life were held to be a
sufficient preparation for a political career, he came forth like a
Minerva fully armed at all points.
Among the practical questions to which the Scottish thinker turned
the attention of his age, none was more important than those dealing
with the relations between England and her American colonies, the
desirability of an unfettered trade with France, and the need of a
close union with Ireland. The first of these questions had been
disposed of by war, and the second will engage our attention in a later
chapter. On the Irish question Adam Smith strongly advocated union
with Great Britain as conferring on the smaller island the boons which
had breathed new life into Scotland, namely, freedom of trade and
deliverance from an oppressive dominant caste.
These contentions must have secured the approval of Pitt; for the
outlines of his policy both towards Ireland and France bear a striking
resemblance to those sketched in “The Wealth of Nations,” with
this important difference, that after the gain of independence by
the Irish Legislature in 1782 the union of the two Parliaments was
clearly impossible for the present. We therefore find Pitt turning his
attention to the two topics which then chiefly agitated public opinion
in Ireland, viz., the reform of Parliament and the fiscal relations to
Great Britain. In order to understand Pitt’s handling of these problems
it is necessary briefly to review the course of Anglo-Irish affairs.
The story of the dealings of England with the sister isle in the years
1688–1778 is one that it is painful to contemplate. The efforts to
dragoon the Catholic Irish out of their creed, or to grind them into
the lowest stratum of society, produced a race hatred of which we
are still reaping the dire harvest. The Celt broods over the past;
and his memory clings round the days when Papists were excluded
from Parliament, from the possession of freehold estates, from the
professions and from juries; when they might not act as guardians
or possess a horse worth more than £5; and when their Protestant
neighbours on tendering £5 could take any horse that pleased them.
All this and far more may be read in the pages of Lecky. As for the
ruffianly enactments of the Irish penal code, many of them were so
monstrous as to bring their own cure. In the latter half of the
eighteenth century even the arrogant Protestant squirearchy of Ireland
found it impossible or undesirable to enforce them.
The growth of principles of toleration and enlightenment which marked
the years 1760–80 had some effect even on the nominees of Protestant
landlords and borough-mongers who formed the bulk of the Irish
Parliament. It is a curious fact that even the narrowest and most
bigoted of governing castes cannot wholly resist the tendencies of
the times; and the Dublin Parliament, representing only a part even
of the Protestant minority of Irishmen, was no more able to keep
out new ideas than the members of the pocket boroughs of Britain
could withstand the Reform movement of 1830–32. The infiltration
of novel principles into the Irish Legislature was slower and more
partial, inasmuch as that body misrepresented even more ludicrously
the opinions of the mass of Irishmen.[324] It had long been swayed by
a clique of politicians who were termed “Undertakers,” because they
undertook its manipulation, ostensibly in the interests of the British
Government, but really in their own. The traditions of the past and
the determination of the members of the Protestant Established Church
to keep the Government in their own hands, formed a massive barrier
against change. Yet the dissolving touch of the Time-Spirit and the
shocks of war were at work upon that barrier; and when the war with
the American colonies and France strained the resources of Great
Britain and Ireland past endurance, it showed signs of giving way on
two questions, the one religious, the other fiscal. In the year 1778,
Catholics who took the oath of allegiance were allowed to become in
effect owners of land, that is, they might hold land on lease for
999 years. Further, the odious temptations formerly held out to sons
of Catholics to abjure their creed were also abrogated. That year
therefore seemed to be the beginning of an epoch of toleration, which
it was the ardent desire of Pitt to crown with an act of justice too
long delayed.
At present, however, we are concerned mainly with his attempt to reform
the fiscal relations between the two islands. Until the year 1778
Irishmen were still in the state of economic vassalage to England which
the Parliaments of William III had forcibly imposed. In some respects,
especially in regard to the woollen industry, they were now worse
off than in that time of humiliation. The enactment of 1699, which
absolutely forbade the export of her woollen goods, hopelessly crippled
an otherwise promising industry. Nor was this all. Her staple product,
wool, might not be sent to foreign lands lest their manufacturers
might benefit, and become rivals to ours. That fear was not wholly
groundless in the case of France; for French weavers found that Irish
wool supplied the qualities lacking in their own wool. The result was
the rise of an extensive smuggling trade in that article from Ireland
to France, which the Government utterly failed to stop.
The outbreak of war with the American colonies, as I have said,
brought all these questions to an acute phase; and in 1776 the British
Government so far relaxed the prohibitions on export as to allow Irish
woollens to be exported for the clothing of the Irish troops serving
away from their own country. At the same time Irish fishermen were
admitted to a share in the Newfoundland and other fisheries from which
they had been excluded.
Nothing, however, was done for the most important of Irish
manufactures. The linen industry had not been severely hampered by the
British Government. While prohibiting the export of fine linens, and
of sail-cloth, in the supposed interests of British manufacturers,
the British Government granted bounties on the coarse linens exported
from Ireland; and up to the year 1771 that industry had greatly
prospered. Thereafter it underwent a serious decline. So alarming
was the shrinkage of trade and the rise of Ireland’s debt, that in
1778 Lord North’s Ministry was fain to propose the abolition of many
of the fiscal disabilities which sapped her strength. She was to be
allowed to send her products to the British colonies and to receive
theirs directly in return; but, in order to allay the fears of British
manufacturers, the old restrictions on the Irish woollen trade remained
in force. Nothing, however, could allay those fears. At once loud
complaints were raised from Aberdeen to Plymouth, so that North gave
up nearly all his proposals; and Ireland gained little or nothing from
his well meant efforts, except that ships built in Ireland thenceforth
counted as British-built, and could receive bounties granted for the
fisheries.[325]
Where reason and statesmanship had failed, force was to succeed. The
utter inability of the British Government to defend Ireland against
threatened French invasions furnished the pretext for the formation
of powerful Volunteer corps, consisting solely of Protestants, and
therefore especially strong in Ulster. The Presbyterians of that
province, smarting under the civic disabilities imposed by the old
Test Act, and under an equally archaic system of commerce, demanded
redress of these grievances, in the latter of which the more lethargic
Romanists gave them increasing support. Religious antipathies were
forgotten in the face of Ireland’s urgent needs. The governing coterie
at Dublin Castle failed either to check the movement or to revive the
old schisms. It seemed that the intolerable burdens of the British
fiscal system were about to mould the jarring elements of Irish society
into the unity that marks a nation.
Though they failed to reach that far-off goal, they for the present
won a noteworthy success. By combining to refrain from the purchase of
British goods they dealt a severe blow at the system thrust upon them.
Nor did they abstain from threats of force. The Volunteers paraded the
streets of Dublin with cannon bearing the motto, “Free Trade--or this.”
In face of an overwhelming opposition, the Lord-Lieutenant, the Earl of
Carlisle, advised the British Government to give way; and at the close
of the year 1779, and early in 1780, a series of enactments was passed
at Westminster withdrawing the prohibitions on the export of woollen
goods and glass from Ireland. Commerce with the British colonies was
now also provisionally thrown open to Irish merchants, and they were
admitted to a share in the Levant trade.
At the same time the cause of religious toleration gained an equally
signal triumph. The strength of the Ulster Volunteers and the abatement
of religious bigotry brought the Irish Parliament to pass a measure for
relieving the Protestant Dissenters of that land from the sacramental
test which had been looked on as one of the bulwarks of the Established
Church; and in the spring of 1780 the British Parliament gave its
grudging assent to that boon for Ireland which for nearly half a
century longer it persisted in withholding from Nonconformists in
England and Wales. As was stated in Chapter V of this work, the Irish
Volunteers in the year 1782 gained another most important concession,
namely, the recognition of the legislative independence of the Irish
Parliament. Fortunately the British Government on this occasion acted
with grace and dignity. The Rockingham Ministry advocated the change,
which passed both Houses with but a single adverse vote, that of Lord
Loughborough. The disagreeable fact, that this last boon, like the
others, was extorted by force, was thus tactfully glozed over; and
when the suspicions of the good faith of England aroused in Ireland by
that restless demagogue, Flood, were laid to rest by the Renunciation
Act of the year 1783, the relations of the two islands became almost
cordial.
Causes of friction, however, remained. The royal veto might, and
probably would, still tell against the Irish Legislature, even though
the veto of the British Parliament and of the Privy Council had lapsed.
The influence of the Lord Lieutenant and of his Chief Secretary on
the Irish Ministers was also great; and his influence was distinctly
British. Dublin Castle could also generally determine the votes of a
majority in both Houses of Parliament. Further, it was quite possible
that on commercial questions the Irish Parliament would differ sharply
from that of Westminster. This seemed so in the early months of Pitt’s
Ministry. The beginning of the year 1784 found Ireland depressed by
a very inclement winter; and the cry was raised that her Parliament
should “protect” her industries, especially that of wool, from English
competition. The exertions of the new Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of
Rutland, aided perhaps by the reluctance of the more moderate members
to enter on a commercial war with England, sufficed to defeat these
proposals; but the Irish House of Commons, in May 1784, unanimously
passed an address to the King, emphasizing the need of “a wise
and well-digested plan for a liberal arrangement of a commercial
intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland.” This was the friendly
challenge which Pitt determined to take up. From the outset he made the
Irish commercial question peculiarly his own. More than once in his
correspondence with the Duke of Rutland he describes it as the nearest
to his heart.[326]
No problem could have been more tangled. Ireland was still in a very
restless state. Despite the warnings of that uncrowned King of Ireland,
Grattan, the Volunteers began to enroll Catholics and to threaten
the coercion of the Dublin Parliament. But, as the Duke of Rutland
wrote to Pitt, Parliament “does not bear the smallest resemblance to
representation”; and a petition from a great meeting held at Belfast in
July 1784 declared that “the [Irish] House of Commons has degenerated
into a fixed body so little connected with the people that it ceases
to be a guardian of their property, and hath become the representative
of an overbearing aristocracy.” The petitioners asserted that the
delegates of the Volunteers were a representative body, and urged
the King to dissolve the Irish House of Commons.[327] This demand
was widely echoed. The Volunteers, having already through their
delegates exerted on Parliament a pressure which was semi-national,
refused either to let politics alone, or to disband. Ultimately their
recklessness and the efforts of Grattan undermined their influence,
and they gradually dwindled away; but, for the present, they seemed
able to extort all their demands, prominent among which was that for
the “protection” of Irish industries and products. In his first long
communication to Pitt, the Duke of Rutland dwelt on the urgent need of
investigating Irish claims, though he frankly declared that he could
not understand the commercial question. Open-handed to ostentation, and
devoted to the pleasures of the table, this affable young aristocrat
occasionally showed signs of political foresight, as when he ventured
to predict “that without _an union_ Ireland will not be connected with
Great Britain in twenty years longer.”[328]
Far abler and more painstaking was his chief secretary, Orde, on whom
was to fall the burden of work connected with the proposed Reform. The
letters which passed between him and Pitt in the summer of 1784 show
the care taken by both of them to master the facts of the situation.
Orde (the future Lord Bolton) warned Pitt that a resolute effort would
soon be made to effect the entire separation of the two Kingdoms, and
urged him to “act towards Ireland with the utmost liberality consistent
with your own safety: it must in the long run be the wisest policy.”
Above all he insisted, as the duke had also done, on the need of a firm
decision, which even the malcontents must regard as final.[329]
Pitt on his side sought to procure the fullest information on all
points. In regard to the Reform of the Irish Parliament he deprecated
any extreme measure such as the admission of the Roman Catholics then
appeared to be; but he advocated the extension of political rights
to Protestant Dissenters; for, as he forcibly put it, “we may keep
the Parliament, but lose the people.” As for the fiscal question he
required first of all a satisfactory knowledge of the facts, so that
some general principles of action could be agreed on; and he urged that
the financial relations of the Kingdoms should be regulated according
as the prosperity of Ireland increased with her enlarged commercial
opportunities. Justice required that Ireland should then take her
share of the imperial burdens, which at present rested almost entirely
with Great Britain. Finally they must seek some means calculated to
bestow on Ireland that permanent tranquillity which the late commercial
concessions had failed to secure.[330]
In this letter, dated 19th September 1784, we see not only an outline
of the scheme which took definite form in the Irish Propositions,
or Resolutions, of the session of 1785, but also an instructive
example of Pitt’s methods of procedure. He began by collecting all
the ascertainable facts, including the causes of previous failures,
and, by sifting these data, he sought to arrive at general principles
which would illuminate the whole question. In a word, his method was
inductive. It begun with facts and ended with principles. Unlike the
French legislators of 1789–93, who first enunciated principles and then
sought to square the facts of life to them, he started with a solid
basis and reared on it a structure from whose summit the toiler might
take a wide survey. The Revolutionists built symmetrically and grandly,
but without foundations.
In order thoroughly to master details, Pitt summoned from Ireland not
only Orde but also Foster, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Beresford,
Chief Commissioner of the Revenue. Both were able and masterful men,
the former the doughtiest opponent, the latter the staunchest champion,
of Pitt’s Act of Union. Beresford did much to beautify Dublin, and his
name lives on in Beresford Place. With these experienced officials Pitt
had many conferences at Downing Street, or at the house on the north
side of Putney Heath, which he rented for the latter part of 1784.
They confirmed Orde’s advice as to the wisdom of granting to Ireland
complete liberty and equality in matters of trade, but warned him as to
the difficulty of drawing from Ireland any contribution to the imperial
funds. Here it should be remembered that Ireland supported 15,000
regular troops, 3,000 of whom were at the disposal of the British
Executive in Ireland, while the others could be moved from Ireland with
the consent of her Parliament.
Converse with Foster must also have strengthened Pitt’s resolve to
press on the Reform of the Irish Parliament; for he now warned the
Duke of Rutland, who stoutly opposed Reform, not to confuse peaceable
efforts in that direction with subversive or treasonable schemes; and
in a notable phrase of his letter of 4th December, he declared that
Parliamentary Reform must sooner or later be carried in both countries.
As regards procedure, he thought it best to postpone a change in the
Irish franchise until a similar measure came forward at Westminster;
for this, if successful, would impart to the movement in Ireland an
irresistible force. In the meantime it would be well to take up the
commercial problem.
Pitt’s sanguine temperament here led him into a tactical mistake. The
Irish Resolutions were destined to arouse in Great Britain a storm of
opposition which swept away the hopes of the Reform Associations; and
the collapse of their efforts told unfavourably on the Irish political
movement. Probably also he erred in bringing forward his proposals
first in Dublin--a matter on which Fox readily aroused resentment at
Westminster. Yet, where the issues were so tangled, it is difficult to
say whether success could have crowned Pitt’s efforts had they been put
forth in a different order.[331] From his letter of 7th October 1784 to
the Lord Lieutenant we see that he looked on the Reform of the Irish
Parliament as simpler, but yet “perhaps more difficult and hazardous,”
than the commercial questions then at stake.
Here again he calculated wrongly. Ireland’s demand for equality of
trading advantages with Great Britain was certain to meet with vehement
opposition from our manufacturers, as the events of the year 1778
convincingly showed. His mistake is the more remarkable as he proposed
“to give Ireland an almost unlimited communication of commercial
advantage, if we can receive in return some security that her strength
and riches will be our benefit, and that she will contribute from time
to time in their increasing proportions to the common exigencies of the
Empire.”[332] How buoyant was Pitt’s nature to cherish the hope that
British merchants would concede commercial equality to Ireland, or that
the factions at Dublin would take up the burdens of Empire!
No letter of Pitt’s rings with more enthusiasm, though an undertone
of anxiety can be detected, than the very long one of 6th-7th
January 1785. Writing until far past midnight he explained to the
Lord-Lieutenant in great detail the aim which he had in view, namely,
the sweeping aside of all local prejudices, so that England and Ireland
might become “one country in effect, though for local concerns under
distinct Legislatures.” The pupil of Adam Smith had caught a clear
glimpse of the truth that States which throw down their customs’
barriers become effectually parts of the same body. But he now saw that
British manufacturers would probably resist so sweeping a change; and
he pointed out to Rutland that the admission of Ireland to commercial
equality, even in the case of the export trade from British Colonies,
to which, he said, she had no claim of right, involved a solemn duty
to respond to imperial duties. He then pointed out that Ireland would
have more than mere equality; for Great Britain was burdened by taxes
which were the outcome of those duties; and Irish shippers, with their
lighter burdens, might find it possible to export the produce of those
colonies to Great Britain to the detriment of British shippers. In
many ways he sought to disprove the claims or excuses put forward by
Irish patriots why they should receive much and give little in return.
He showed the impossibility of conceding so much unless Ireland would
irrevocably pledge herself to contribute, according to her ability, to
the expenses of the Empire.[333]
The despatches sent by the Home Secretary, Lord Sydney, to the Lord
Lieutenant, and the letters of Pitt to Orde, contained precise
instructions on this last point. Pitt first desired that Ireland’s
contribution should go towards the navy.[334] Then for a time he
harboured the notion that it should go towards his proposed Sinking
Fund, because that money would not pass beyond England, and would
return in the form of a trade the balance of which was known to be in
favour of Ireland.[335] But the Cabinet adopted the earlier proposal,
with the proviso that the contribution towards the naval expenses of
the Empire should be made in such a way as the Irish Parliament might
direct. The letter of George III to Pitt, of 28th January 1785, shows
that the King insisted on a contribution from Ireland as essential.
The ten Propositions, or Resolutions, embodying the aims of Pitt, were
brought before the Irish Parliament on 7th February 1785. They embodied
the information gleaned from Beresford, Foster, and Orde; and a report
recently drawn up by a special committee of the British Privy Council
also furnished useful information. Modified in some particulars, and,
with the addition of a Proposition soon to be noticed, they passed the
Dublin Parliament with little difficulty. In their modified form they
may be summarized as follows. Foreign and colonial products were to
pass between Great Britain and Ireland, in either direction, without
any increase of duty. The goods and products of the sister islands were
also to be imported either free or at identical rates; or again, where
the duties were not equal, they were to be reduced to the lower of the
two tariffs hitherto in operation. All prohibitions on inter-insular
trade were to lapse without renewal, unless it should seem expedient
in the case of corn, meal, malt, flour, and biscuits. The British
Government required that, when the “hereditary revenue” exceeded a
certain sum, Ireland should pay over the surplus as a contribution
to the naval expenses of the Empire. As the “hereditary revenue”
consisted mainly of custom and excise duties, its increase (which was
generally steady) afforded the best index of the prosperity of Ireland.
Moreover that branch of the revenue had hitherto been under the general
direction of the Crown; and Pitt’s proposal to transfer its surplus
to the control of the Irish Parliament was both statesmanlike and
conciliatory.[336]
Nevertheless, the letters of the Duke of Rutland to Pitt revealed the
conviction even of the best friends of Government that the Propositions
would fail if they were coupled with any demand for a money payment.
The time, said the Duke, was very critical. They were seeking to
organize a legal militia force in place of the self-constituted
Volunteers; Grattan and Daly had spoken splendidly for the change;
but the demand for a subsidy would jeopardize everything, even the
connection with Great Britain.[337] A secret report which he sent to
Pitt showed that of the members of the large towns of Ireland, only
Londonderry was well disposed to the Resolutions. In the case of
Waterford (“well governed, under Lord Tyrone’s influence”) the freemen
opposed them while the two members supported them. Belfast, a close
borough, opposed them. In all, he reckoned forty-five members hostile,
twelve friendly, and the others absent or not accounted for. A list
followed of the “expectations” of members as regards judgeships,
pensions and sinecures.[338]
As Rutland and Orde had foreseen, the assailants of the measure
fastened on the question of the contribution. How could a country,
whose annual expenditure at present exceeded income by £150,000, and
whose absentee landlords drained her of a million a year, pay a large
sum to the richer island? Did not Ireland contribute largely in men
and money to the army? And was not a great part of her administration
controlled by a Monarch and a Ministry in whose succession and
appointment she had no voice? Such were the invectives of that most
acrid and restless of demagogues, Flood. Far more statesmanlike was the
conduct of Grattan. Equalling, nay excelling, Flood in his oratorical
powers, he held them under the control of a masculine reason. As
his energy and tact had gained for his land the boon of legislative
independence, so now he sought to cement friendly relations with
Great Britain, and therefore gave a general assent to the commercial
proposals. The Irish Ministers also pointed out that Great Britain
opened a far larger market than Ireland did; that the industries of the
larger island, being handicapped by war taxes and high wages, could be
exploited by Irishmen, whose national burdens were comparatively light,
and that the colonial trade was now to be opened up in its entirety and
for ever, not on terms that were revocable at the option of the British
Government, as was the case in 1780.
All these arguments were of no avail to carry the proposal respecting
Ireland’s contribution to the navy. Though Pitt had carefully framed
it so that Ireland would pay nothing until she was in a prosperous
state, he failed to meet the rooted objections of the Dublin Parliament
to money going out of the country. Grattan focused the opposition by
demanding that Ireland should pay nothing until her Government had put
an end to the long series of deficits. In private conversations with
him Orde failed to weaken this decision, in which nearly all Irishmen
concurred. A Resolution to that effect was therefore added. It was
further arranged that when the annual hereditary revenue, which then
stood at £652,000, should exceed £656,000 in time of peace, the surplus
should go towards the support of the imperial navy in such a way as the
Irish Parliament should direct. Additional taxes were then voted which
were estimated to yield £140,000 a year.
No beginning could have been less auspicious. The arrangement was far
less satisfactory than the worst of the alternative plans to which Pitt
expressed the hope that Orde would never resort. The contribution,
on the present terms, could be evaded by any juggling Chancellor of
the Exchequer who should contrive a series of small and profitable
deficits. Consequently Orde, who came to London to persuade Pitt of
the need of the change, found him inexorable. Pitt was resolved “not
to proceed until the condition should be taken away from the last
Resolution.”[339] This also appears in a part of his letter to the
Marquis of Buckingham:
[_Secret._]
Sunday, February 20, 1785.[340]
... I am able to tell you confidentially that we shall certainly
_suspend_ the final approbation of the commercial system, and
declare the impossibility of completing it till more satisfaction
and explicit provision is made in Ireland respecting the object of
contribution.
Yours ever,
W. PITT.
In opening his case at Westminster on 22nd February, Pitt had to
contend with the discouragement caused by this rebuff, and with a fit
of hoarseness, which he informed Grenville he had been trying to sleep
off without much success. Nevertheless his speech was allowed to be
a fine effort. He besought members fairly to consider his proposals,
which aimed at settling the relations of the two islands on a liberal
and permanent basis. Glancing scornfully at the tactics of the
Opposition and the campaign of malice and misrepresentation started
by the “Gazetteer” and taken up by various trading bodies, he claimed
that there should be fair play, at least until he had stated his case
fully. It was complex, and his proposals might need modification in
details. The old system of cruel and abominable restraint imposed on
Irish trade had vanished. They now had to complete a new system,
and community of benefits was the only principle on which they could
proceed. They proposed entirely and for ever to open to Ireland the
trade of our colonies except that of India, which was a monopoly of the
East India Company. There was no solid ground for the fear that so poor
a country as Ireland would become the emporium of colonial goods, and
would re-export them to our shores. Equally unlikely was the suggestion
that Ireland would undersell us in manufactures; for British energy had
secured for our goods a fairly large market in Ireland even against her
import duties. He then referred guardedly to the subject of Ireland’s
contribution to the imperial navy. Finally, while deprecating any
immediate decision, he declared that what England lost by the bargain
she would more than recoup from the growing friendliness and prosperity
of the sister island. He therefore proposed a general motion for the
permanent and irrevocable admission of Ireland to all the advantages
of British commerce when she irrevocably pledged herself to pay a sum
towards the defence of commerce.[341]
The Opposition, exasperated by Pitt’s ungenerous treatment of Fox
concerning the Westminster election, at once opened a furious fire of
criticisms. Fox, who held the old Whig views in favour of a “national
commerce,” that is, protection, urged that Ireland would probably
smuggle into Great Britain the produce of foreign colonies, and would
become the “grand arbitress of all the commercial interests of the
Empire.” The Resolutions ought, he claimed, first to have been moved
at Westminster, in which he was probably right. If they were passed,
he said, Great Britain would never have anything more to concede to
Ireland. The Navigation Acts, the source of England’s prosperity, would
be a dead letter. As for Ireland’s contribution to the navy, he would
“trust everything to her generosity, but not much to her prudence.”
Eden, formerly Irish Secretary, then dwelt on the danger of allowing a
lightly taxed country to compete with a heavily burdened country. The
debt of Great Britain was a hundredfold that of Ireland; and, while a
Briton paid on an average fifty shillings a year in taxes, an Irishman
paid only eight shillings. The plan now proposed would be a revolution
in British trade. These words are remarkable in view of Eden’s
desertion of North and his assistance to Pitt in carrying through a
still greater “revolution,” the commercial treaty with France of 1786.
The speeches of Fox and Eden did some good; their attack on Pitt’s
measure convinced Irishmen that it must have many excellences. The Earl
of Mornington (afterwards the Marquis Wellesley) declared that Ireland
would warmly support Pitt. Beresford also stated that the Irish members
now only wanted an excuse for siding with him; but England must beware
of pressing Ireland too hard in this bargain. A rebuff would seriously
jeopardize the cause of order.[342]
No sense of prudence or responsibility restrained the action of the
British Opposition and their mercantile allies. A campaign had already
begun. It bore signs of careful organization. The signal was given by
the “Gazetteer” of 16th February, which pointed out that the Navigation
Acts, the source of Britain’s prosperity, would be virtually annulled
by Pitt’s proposals. On the next day it showed that Irish competition,
based on low wages, must ruin our industries. On 18th February a
meeting of silk manufacturers protested against the Resolutions. On
the 24th the planters and merchants of the West Indies followed suit.
On that day the “Gazetteer” stated that, if Pitt’s measure became law,
the Exchange would be transferred from Cornhill to Cork; later on it
declared that Arkwright and Dempster would set up their factories in
Ireland. On 3rd March the “Morning Chronicle,” the organ of the middle
classes, joined in the hue and cry, declaring that even as it was the
balance of trade between Great Britain and Ireland was in favour of
the latter, and that the larger island must be drained of money by the
smaller if the old restrictions were not maintained.
Meetings of protest were now in full swing. Delegates of the West
India merchants had an interview with Pitt and declared his answer to
be unsatisfactory. The merchants themselves refused, by fifty-nine to
forty, to petition against his proposals, but the minority published
and circulated their opinions. The manufacturing towns, except those
of the woollen districts, petitioned strongly against the Resolutions.
Manchester, Lancaster, and Dudley each sent two petitions to that
effect; while three apiece emanated from Glasgow, Paisley, and Bristol.
So the game of misrepresentation went on. A petition from Lancashire
contained 80,000 signatures; and a document purporting to come from
13,243 weavers of Glasgow and Rutherglen, shows that artisans were as
much alarmed as the merchants. The weavers stated their conviction
that if the Resolutions became law, they would be undersold by the
Irish in the home market and reduced to beggary.[343] This solidarity
of interest is noteworthy. In those days the “manufacturer” was
actually, as well as in name, the weaver; and tens of thousands of
households, where the hand-loom kept the wolf from the door through
the winter, saw pale Ruin stalking behind the figure of thrifty,
resourceful, energetic Paddy. The agitation therefore spread through
all classes with a unanimity that would scarcely be possible now,
when the term “manufacturer” has come to mean a capitalist who owns a
factory where nothing is done by hand. Then the solidarity of interest
between merchants and weavers was obvious. In imagination both classes
saw their industries wafted by a cruel east wind to a land whose
inhabitants they disliked and despised.
Some of the petitions were based on false information. That of the
Glasgow cotton workers complained that the fourth Resolution, as
it left the Irish Parliament, would place a heavy duty on British
cottons.[344] But Pitt had throughout insisted that there must be
an equalizing of duties on both sides of the Irish Sea, the lower
level being always taken. In truth, all reasoning was in vain. The
protectionist spirit was proof against all arguments. Thus, the
committee of the merchants and manufacturers of Sheffield declared
that their industry could not be carried on without grave injury if
the present duty on bar iron imported into Great Britain, namely, 56
shillings per ton, were reduced to the level then obtaining in Ireland,
that is, 10 shillings a ton.
Still keener was the opposition in Bristol. The protectionist feeling
had lost none of the bitterness which mainly caused the unseating of
Burke in the election of 1774. The sugar refiners of that town now
declared that they had spent more than £150,000 in buildings and plant,
all of which would go for naught, if the Irish Parliament, “under the
privilege of importing raw and refined sugars through that country to
this [should] lay a heavy duty on loaf and lump sugar and a small duty
on bastard and ground sugars and molasses”; for the Irish merchants
would then “effectually prevent our exporting the former to that
kingdom and also to foreign markets, and enable them to send the latter
into Great Britain at a less price than it can be manufactured here
under the burthen of the high duties, the high price of labour, and
heavy taxes, which would inevitably tend to the ruin of that valuable
branch of trade in this kingdom.”[345] The Bristol sugar-refiners can
scarcely have read Pitt’s proposals, which implied equal duties on
all articles at British and Irish ports; and the Irish Parliament had
agreed to this. The notion that Irish sugar-refiners, by complex duties
of their own devising, would soon beat their British rivals out of
foreign markets and ruin them in the home market, is a sign of the mad
folly of the time. Against stupidity such as this even the gods fight
in vain.
By no arguments could the hubbub be appeased. Pamphlets, especially
one by Lord Sheffield, denounced the doom awaiting England should
Pitt’s Resolutions pass. In a short time sixty-four petitions poured
in against them;[346] and the manufacturers of Great Britain, under
the chairmanship of Wedgwood, formed a “Great Chamber” in order to
stave off the catastrophe. Yet Pitt’s energies and spirits seemed to
rise with the rising opposition. In order to emphasize the importance
of commerce, he had recently appointed a Committee of Council for
Commerce, which promised to answer the purposes which that ornamental
body, the Board of Trade (abolished in 1782), had signally failed to
fulfil. The new Council was charged to examine manufacturers and others
as to the relations of Anglo-Irish commerce and the probable effect
of the Resolutions. Similar investigations were made at the bar of
the House of Commons. Pitt cherished high hopes from these inquiries.
“The more the subject is discussed,” he wrote to Orde on 4th April,
“the more our cause will be benefited in the end.... I do not myself
entertain a doubt of complete success.” To the Duke of Rutland he
wrote on the 16th: “Though we may lose a little in popularity for the
time, we shall ultimately gain--at least the country will, which is
enough.”[347]
The report of the committee is very curious, as showing the difficulty
of obtaining trustworthy statistics even on the weightiest topics. The
Irish accounts showed a far larger export of goods to Great Britain
than of imports from Great Britain; while, on the contrary, the British
Custom House returns gave the balance of trade as largely against
Ireland. The committee could discover no means of accounting for this
extraordinary discrepancy.[348] Thus, while protectionists on both
sides of the Irish Sea were croaking over the decline of their trade
and the growth of that of their rival, the official returns showed that
(as they would have phrased it) the balance of trade was so largely in
their favour as to warrant the hope of the speedy exhaustion of that
rival.
In matters which were within the ken of the financiers of that age, the
report was reassuring. The woollen manufacturers of Norwich declared
that, though the wages of Irish spinners were less by one-half than
those of English spinners, Irish competition was not to be feared under
the conditions now proposed. Everett, a London merchant, maintained
that the British manufacturers, owing to their skill, taste, and
ingenuity, would always have a superiority over those of Ireland,
provided that British sheep and wool were not exported thither. Nine
woollen manufacturers of Yorkshire were decidedly of this opinion. The
chief clothier of Devizes expected harm from Irish competition only
in the cheaper stuffs.[349] For the cotton industry the evidence was
less encouraging, the witnesses from Manchester claiming that Irish
thread could be spun 20 per cent. cheaper than British thread, and
that an import duty of 10½ per cent. was needed to protect the home
market.[350] Representative silk merchants of London and Scotland had
little apprehension for the future, until the Irish workers developed
skill and taste.[351] As for the iron trade, the evidence of eight
iron-masters who were examined refuted the reasoning of the Sheffield
petition. Provided that Ireland did not pay a smaller duty than Great
Britain on imports of bar iron, they asserted that they could hold
their own against her small and struggling iron industry.[352]
In face of the alarmist statements of Wedgwood in public, his evidence
before the committee is of some interest. When asked whether he feared
Irish competition in pottery if the duties in both kingdoms were
equalized, he replied that “there might be danger of a competition in
time, in their own and every foreign market.[353] I should think we
were safer if earthenware was allowed to be imported free of all duties
into both countries.” This was the man who headed the protectionist
“Great Chamber of Manufacturers.” Wedgwood’s chief manager admitted
that he had only the day before heard that any pottery at all was made
in Ireland. Is it surprising that Pitt sharply criticized Wedgwood’s
tactics?
Other strange features of this report are, first, that the outcry in
England against any relaxation of duties was greatest in the case of
the very articles, calicoes and sugar, in which the Irish Parliament
had recently imposed higher duties; secondly, that whereas much of the
evidence told in favour of inter-insular Free Trade, the committee
decided in favour of a system of moderate duties to be agreed on by the
two Governments.[354] Some such conclusion was perhaps inevitable in
view of the popular clamour; but the committee made no suggestion how
the two Parliaments, now drifting into fiscal hostility, were to come
to terms.
If the evidence contained in the report had been duly weighed, the
scare among British traders must have passed away; but official reports
are of little avail to thwart the efforts of panic-mongers. In vain did
George Rose, in an unsigned pamphlet, point the moral of the case, and
appeal to the common sense of his countrymen.[355] The Opposition had
the ear of the public, and the fate of the Resolutions in their present
form was evidently sealed. Probably Pulteney was right in stating that
the report came out too late to influence public opinion, and that Pitt
had unaccountably underrated the force of the prejudices contending
against him. Now, when the vote on the Westminster Scrutiny alarmed
him, he became perhaps unduly cautious.[356] This may be the true
explanation of his disposition to compromise. In his letter of 21st
May, to the Duke of Rutland, he dwelt on the difficulties arising from
the unscrupulous tactics of the enemy and the very marked independence
of a large number of his supporters, so that “we are hardly sure from
day to day what impression they may receive.”
This avowal is of some interest. It shows how critical was Pitt’s
position in the spring of 1785. As has been seen in a former chapter,
he had strained the allegiance of his motley following by taking up
too many thorny questions at once. The composite elements--Foxite,
Northite, and Chathamite--had not yet been fused into unity by the
power of his genius and the threatening pressure of France. Only by
the most careful leading could he keep his supporters together, and
save the country from the turmoil which a Fox-North Ministry must have
caused. There was the danger; and we may be sure that Pitt clung to
office, not merely from love of power (though he did love power), but
because, in the proud words of Chatham, he knew that he could guide his
country aright, and that no one else could.
Viewing the question of the independence of members of Parliament in
a more general way, we may hazard the conjecture that in the days of
pocket boroughs and small electorates members probably acted more
independently than in the present time, when their action is apt to
be the resultant of two external forces, pressure from constituents
and pressure from the party “whip.” However we may explain the fact,
it is certain that Pitt, despite his huge majority, failed to carry
three important proposals in 1785–6; and in the case of the Irish
Propositions he hesitated and lost the day.
* * * * *
In the second week of May, 1785, the Prime Minister bent before the
storm, and on the 12th presented his modified measure in the form of
twenty Propositions. The chief changes were those tending to safeguard
our West India planters and merchants against the secret importation
of the products of the French or Spanish colonies into this country on
Irish ships. He maintained the monopoly of the East India Company in
all the seas and lands between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of
Magellan, but allowed the Company’s ships to export goods from Ireland
to the East Indies. Further, he proposed that the Navigation Laws,
whether present or future, and the enactments respecting colonial
commerce, should be equally binding on both kingdoms. Respecting the
reduction of duties in either country, it was suggested that they
should not fall below 10½ per cent.; also that no new duties should be
imposed except such as would “balance duties on internal consumption.”
He also added a Proposition concerning the copyright of books.
Respecting Ireland’s contribution to the navy, Pitt annulled the Irish
proposal asserting the prior need of balancing income and expenditure,
and required that the proposed financial arrangement should be
perpetual.
In his speeches of 12th May and succeeding days he showed that most of
the petitions against his plan were founded on error, and he refuted
the hackneyed assertion that, because Ireland was lightly taxed and
wages were low, she would therefore undersell Britons in their own
markets. Considering her extreme poverty, he said, her burdens were in
effect as great as those of England; her backwardness in industry would
long cripple her; moreover, for skilled labour she had to pay as dearly
as British employers. He claimed that a liberal scheme of commercial
union would benefit both islands, just as the Union with Scotland
had immensely furthered the prosperity of Great Britain despite the
prophecies of ruin with which it was at the time received.
His opponents now changed their tactics. Seeing that the Propositions
had been altered largely in deference to their fears, they could
scarcely meet them with a direct attack. They therefore sought to
procure their rejection, if not at Westminster, then at Dublin.
Congratulating themselves on having caused the abandonment of the first
proposals, as fraught with ruin to Great Britain, they sought to set
Ireland in a flame against the amended measure. It is true that Fox
deprecated the concession of the proposed advantages to Ireland, on
the ground that they would subject our workers to the caprices of the
Dublin Parliament. But he reserved his denunciations for the proposals
which treated Ireland as a subsidiary State, in the matter of the
Navigation Acts. Above all, he declared, he would trust Ireland where
the Prime Minister distrusted her, namely, in the contribution to the
navy. Put that to her as a debt of honour, said he, and she would
discharge it. Compel her, and she would either refuse from injured
pride or concede it grudgingly, while perhaps equally withdrawing her
support from the army. “I will not,” he exclaimed, “barter English
commerce for Irish slavery: that is not the price I would pay, nor is
this the thing I would purchase.” Finally he declared that the House
could not understand these matters so well as the traders and workers
of Great Britain, who had overwhelmingly declared against the measure.
Fox did well to disclaim any positive opinions on these subjects; for
he took no interest in them, and is known never to have read Adam
Smith’s work, which he scoffed at as a collection of entertaining
theories.[357] We can now understand his conduct in declaiming against
the new safeguards for British industry, which he himself had demanded;
and if we may judge from Wraxall, the most telling parts of his
speech were the personal touches in which he reprobated Pitt’s lofty
dictatorial manner, and his novel connection with the “King’s friend,”
Jenkinson. Formerly War Secretary under Lord North,[358] he had
recently been appointed by Pitt head of the new “Committee of Council
for the Superintendence of Commerce.” Burke, who must have approved
Pitt’s proposals (except the contribution from Ireland, against which
he hotly inveighed), made capital out of the new “Coalition,” calling
Jenkinson Pitt’s pedestal, and wittily declaring that he envied not the
statue its pedestal or the pedestal its statue.[359] Other members,
including Fox and Pitt, skilfully played with the simile, and thus
beguiled the hours of these otherwise exhausting debates, which, we may
note, caused Wilberforce to faint in the midst of his efforts to defend
his chief.
The most brilliant, though not the least mischievous, speech of these
debates was that of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It is needless to dilate
on the Celtic charm and vivacity of this great _littérateur_. Descended
from an old Irish family, which gave to Swift one of his dearest
friends, and to Dublin one of its leading actors and authors, he was
born in 1751, doomed to sparkle. Educated at Harrow, and called to the
Bar, he soon attracted attention by his speeches and still more by his
plays. His “Rivals” and “School for Scandal” attested the versatility
of his wit and the cynical geniality of his nature. In 1780 he made
what was perhaps the chief mistake of his life in entering Parliament
as member for Stafford; for his character was too volatile his satire
too caustic, to ensure success except as a _frondeur_. Friendship
with Fox condemned him almost entirely to this _rôle_ and exaggerated
the recklessness of his utterances. He was the Charles O’Malley of
politics. When, therefore, that engaging political satire, “The
Rolliad,” appeared, in castigation of Rolle, the somewhat roisterous
member for Devonshire, everyone attributed the poems to Sheridan; and
his strenuous denial found little credence.[360]
One of the “Probationary Odes” amusingly hit off the alliance of
Jenkinson with Pitt and the increase in the number of the Irish
Propositions:
Lo! hand in hand advance th’ enamour’d pair
This Chatham’s son and that the drudge of Bute.
Proud of their mutual love
Like Nisus and Euryalus they move
To Glory’s steepest heights together tend,
Each careless for himself, each anxious for his friend.
CHORUS
Hail! most prudent Politicians!
Hail! correct Arithmeticians!
Hail! vast exhaustless source of Irish Propositions!
Elsewhere in dolorous strains the Muse
Sees fair Ierne rise from England’s flame,
And build on British ruin Irish fame.[361]
In these witticisms we have the high-water mark of the achievements
of the Opposition. Sheridan inveighed against the exaction of a
contribution from Ireland towards the navy, and the re-imposition of
the Navigation Laws (certainly the weakest part of Pitt’s case) as
implying a legislative inferiority from which she had escaped in 1782.
He scoffed at the commercial boons as a mean and worthless bribe,
and the whole scheme as “a fraud, cheat and robbery,” fatal to the
confidence of the Irish in the good faith of Britain. The playwright
further exclaimed that it would be a misfortune if the Irish Parliament
dared to pass the Resolutions, and that, as it was not by Parliament
that the independence of Ireland had been obtained, so it was not
by Parliament that it should be given up. This was tantamount to an
invitation to the Irish Volunteers to renew their coercion of the
Dublin Parliament; and it was now clear that Fox and his friends, in
despair of defeating the proposals at Westminster, were seeking to
wreck them at Dublin, if need be, at the cost of civil broils.
In this they succeeded. By substantial majorities Ministers carried
the Irish Propositions at the end of May; and the Lords passed them
on 18th July. But long before this the storm-centre had moved across
St. George’s Channel. Throughout the length and breadth of Ireland an
outcry was raised against the state of ignominious dependence in which
Ireland would be placed by the contribution now imposed on her for ever
in return for greatly diminished advantages. Fox’s telling phrase about
the bartering of Irish liberty against British commerce was on every
lip. The results were at once obvious. Though Pitt, with his usually
sanguine forecast, had expressed the belief that the Dublin Parliament
would be more manageable than that of Westminster, it set at naught
all the Viceregal blandishments. Some of its members even taunted
Pitt with acting treacherously towards Ireland throughout. Grattan,
while refraining from this taunt, opposed the new scheme, especially
clause iv and the perpetual contribution, in a speech which the Lord
Lieutenant described to Pitt as “seditious and inflammatory to a degree
scarcely credible.” Flood excelled himself in recklessness; and in that
body of usually subservient placemen, leave to bring in the Bill was
granted only by a majority of nineteen (12th August).
* * * * *
In face of this storm-signal the Irish Government decided to furl
their sails and come to anchor. The measure was deferred to another
session; and of course was never heard of again. Considering the “very
great clamour”[362] in the country, this was inevitable; and Dublin
manifested its joy by a spontaneous and general illumination. Woodfall,
an opponent of Pitt’s policy, admitted to Eden that neither the
populace nor the members could explain the cause of their recent fury
or their present joy.[363] The excitement soon abated; and it must be
allowed that the popular party in Ireland did not adopt the hostile
measures against British trade which might have been expected after the
breakdown of these enlightened proposals. Lord Westmorland, during his
viceroyalty five years later, admitted that complete harmony existed in
the commercial relations of the two kingdoms.
This may have salved the wound which the events of 1785 dealt to
Pitt. Up to the very end he had hoped for success in what had been
the dearest object of his life. After hearing of the ominous vote of
12th August in Dublin, he wrote to the Marquis of Buckingham in the
following manly terms:
Putney Heath, Aug. 17, 1785.[364]
MY DEAR LORD,
I have many thanks to return you for your letter. Grenville will
probably send you the account we received to-day from Ireland,
after a long period of suspense. The motion for bringing in a
Bill has been carried only by 127 against 108; and such a victory
undoubtedly partakes, for the present at least, of the nature of
a defeat. A motion was announced for Monday last, declaratory
against the 4th Resolution. The event of this motion seemed to be
thought uncertain. The probable issue of all this seems to be that
the settlement is put at some distance, but I still believe the
principles of it too sound, not to find their way at last.
To the Duke of Rutland he also wrote in the same lofty spirit, using
the words quoted at the head of this chapter, and adding that, when
experience had brought more wisdom, “we shall see all our views
realised in both countries and for the advantage of both.”
Faith and courage such as this are never lost upon colleagues and
subordinates, especially when they can rely on loyal support from their
chief. Both to the Duke and to Orde Pitt now tendered his thanks for
their tact and resolution in face of overwhelming difficulties, and
thus manifested that kindliness and magnanimity which wins heartfelt
devotion. For, as usually happens after defeat, envious surmises
were rife. Some spiteful influence (probably that of the Marquis of
Buckingham),[365] had sought to poison Pitt’s mind against Orde
as the chief cause of the failure in Dublin. As for Beresford, he
believed that some of Pitt’s colleagues had turned traitors. Lesser men
might pry into corners to find petty causes for that heart-breaking
collapse; but no such suspicions mar the dignity of Pitt’s voluminous
correspondence, a perusal of which enables the reader to understand
why Orde once exclaimed: “I am so sensible of the manly and noble part
which Mr. Pitt has acted, that I will die by inches in the cause of his
support.”[366]
The real reason of failure, as Pitt clearly saw, was the determination
of powerful factions in both kingdoms to wreck his proposals by
representing each concession made to the sister-island as an injury or
an insult, or both. At all times it is easier to fan to a flame the
fears and jealousies of nations than to allay them; and in that age the
susceptibilities both of Britons and Irishmen were highly inflammable.
Twelve decades, marked by reforming efforts and closer intercourse,
have softened the feelings then so easily aroused; and as we look back
over efforts of conciliation, not yet crowned with complete success, we
see no figure nobler and more pathetic than that of the statesman who
struggled hard to bring together those hitherto alien peoples by the
ties of interest and friendship; we see also few figures more sinister
than those of his political opponents at Westminster who set themselves
doggedly to the task of thwarting his efforts by means of slander and
misrepresentation.
CHAPTER XII
PITT AND HIS FRIENDS
(1783–94)
Keep thy friend
Under thy own life’s key.
SHAKESPEARE, _All’s Well that Ends Well_.
A crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures,
and talk but a tinkling cymball where there is no love.--BACON.
Some statesmen merit notice solely from the magnitude of their
achievements; others attract attention by the charm of their
personality. Pitt claims homage on both accounts. Accordingly I propose
to devote this chapter to his private life and friendships during the
early part of his career, beginning with the time when he laid down the
Chancellorship of the Exchequer and fled to the house of his friend
Wilberforce at Wimbledon. In the Diary of the latter we read this brief
but suggestive entry: “April 3 [1783]. To Wimbledon, where Pitt, etc.,
dined and slept. Evening walk--to bed a little past two. April 4.
Delicious day: lounged the morning at Wimbledon with friends: foining
at night, and run about the garden for an hour or two.”
We can picture the scene. Lauriston House, Wilberforce’s abode on
the south side of Wimbledon Common, is a spacious villa, comfortable
in its eighteenth-century solidity, and scarcely changed since those
days. One of the front bedrooms is known as “Mr. Pitt’s room.” There
he would look forth on the Common, which had for him a peculiar charm.
At the back, the south windows look upon an extensive lawn, bordered
not too thickly by trees, under one of which, a maple, tradition says
that he was wont to lounge away his Sunday mornings, to the distress
of his host. At other times the garden was the scene of half riotous
mirth. Pitt, Dudley Ryder, Pepper Arden, Tom Steele, and Wilberforce
there broke loose from the restraints of Westminster, and indulged
in _foyning_. That old-English word, denoting thrusting or fencing,
conjures up visions of quips and pranks such as Horace loved. Would
that Pitt had had more time for these wholesome follies!
Imagine these youths, with the freshness of Cambridge still upon
them, cheating the hours with fun. Pitt, the stately, austere leader
of the House of Commons, who, on entering its precincts, fixed
his eyes straight on his seat, and tilted his nose loftily in air
during his State progress thither, with not so much as a nod to his
supporters[367]--yet here, on the lawn of Lauriston House, is all fun
and laughter, sharpening his wit against the edge of Wilberforce’s
fancy, answering jest with jest, quotation with quotation, in a fresh
mingling of jollity and culture. As yet all is joyous in the lives
of the friends. Wilberforce has inherited from an uncle an ample
fortune along with Lauriston House, and adds rooms to it so as fitly
to entertain the friends who always cluster about him. The woes of the
slaves have not yet struck a chill to his life, and he lives amidst
a buzz of friends and admirers. He reminds us of that character in
Disraeli’s “Lothair,” who proved an irresistible magnet at every
party--no one quite knew why; but every one sought to be next him. The
magnetism of Wilberforce is easily intelligible; it lay in his lovable
and gifted nature, which welled forth freely in genial anecdote,
friendly parody, sparkling retort.
For Pitt, too, there were as yet no oppressive cares. True, at that
time, there loomed before him the toilsome career of an impecunious
barrister, but that did not daunt his serene and self-reliant nature.
Doubtless the troubles of England moved him more, now that the prospect
of peace with America and the half of Europe was overclouded by the
triumph of Fox and North. But Pitt had that protective faculty,
inherent in all great natures, of laying aside personal and even
national cares in the company of his dearest friends, and it set him
free for life-restoring mirth. Then, too, his nature, shy and stiff
to mere acquaintances, blossomed forth radiantly to a chosen circle,
such as he found at Wimbledon. Here, then, was seen the real man.
Away went the mask of official reserve, which prudence compelled him
to wear at Westminster as a defence against his seniors. Here, among
youths and friends, his pranks were startling. One of them must be
told in the words of Wilberforce: “We found one morning the fruits of
Pitt’s earlier rising in the careful sowing of the garden beds with the
fragments of a dress-hat in which Dudley Ryder had overnight come down
from the opera.”
Would that we knew more of those bright days! For Pitt the man, not
Pitt the statesman, is seen at Wimbledon. The pillar of State, columnar
in its Doric austerity, becomes a lithe facile form, twined about
with social graces, gay with the flowers of friendship. The hours of
recreation, rather than those spent in the office, reveal the inner
life. Alas! the self-revealing episodes in the life of Pitt are hidden
from us. None of his friends was a Boswell. Wilberforce, who might
have been the enlightener, was troubled by defective eyesight, which
curtailed his correspondence; and his Diary is a series of tantalizing
jottings, a veritable Barmecide feast. As for Pitt’s relatives, they
never drew him out of himself. Lord Chatham, though a good talker
in general company, seems to have exerted on his younger brother
a slightly chilling influence; and their letters were fraternally
business-like. We therefore search in vain for those lighter traits
of character, those sparkles of wit, which enlivened the joyous years
1783–5. This side of Pitt’s character is little more known to us than
are the hidden regions of the moon. We wish to know it all the more
because it is not the frozen but the sunny side of his being.
Failing to catch more than one sportive echo of those glad times, the
chronicler falls back on mere externals, such as Pitt’s occasional
reluctance to attend the parish church at Wimbledon, or his fondness
for fishing in Lord Spencer’s lake on the lower land east of the
Common. Clearly the neighbourhood must have attracted him; for in
August 1784 he leased the house next to Lord Ashburton’s, on the
north side of Putney Heath, scarcely two miles distant from the abode
of Wilberforce. He resided there up to the autumn of 1785, when the
opportunity of buying the house at Holwood drew him to the scenes of
his boyhood, near Hayes, in Kent. Nevertheless the Surrey Common was to
win him back. For, during his last term of office, he purchased Bowling
Green House, on the old Portsmouth road, near the middle of that
beautiful space.
There it was that he fought his duel with Tierney on Whitsunday 1798.
There, too, he breathed his last, on 23rd January 1806. In the dark
days that followed on the news of Austerlitz, his thoughts turned with
one final flicker of hope towards the news which he expected from his
special envoy to Berlin, the Earl of Harrowby, formerly Dudley Ryder.
The news proved to be heart-breaking. But fancy persists in wondering
whether, perchance, during the time of waiting, the dauntless spirit
did not for a brief space fling off the thraldom of the present and
flit across the open to dwell with fond remembrance on that spring
sowing of the flower-beds of his friend Wilberforce.[368]
* * * * *
After the severe disappointments of the session of 1785, the signs
of friskiness vanish from the life of Pitt. Up to that time his
hopefulness is of almost boyish intensity. Confidence in himself, and
in the goodness of his cause, and determination to carry out a work of
national revival, lead him to grapple with great enterprises in a way
that astonishes friends and baffles opponents. The nation having given
him a mandate in 1784, he hopes to solve the most urgent of existing
problems. They are the restoration of public credit, the reduction
of the National Debt, the reform of Parliament, the subordination of
the East India Company to the control of Parliament, the opening up
of freer trade not only with Ireland but also with France, and the
preservation of peace, so that, as he phrased it--“Let peace continue
for five years, and we shall again look any Power in Europe in the
face.”[369]
Here was a programme which transcended anything previously seen. But
to it were added the many unforeseen events and problems that provide
a full stock in trade for an ordinary parliamentary leader. The Warren
Hastings affair alone would have occupied a whole session under a
quiescent Minister; and we may here note that Pitt’s conscientious
treatment of it, as a matter on which Ministers and members must vote
according to their convictions, tended to relax the bonds of party
discipline to a dangerous extent.
Indeed, there is only one of his important actions during the first
years of power that needs apology. This is the persistence with which
he pressed against Fox the demand for a complete scrutiny of the
Westminster election. Despite the fact that that wearisome and very
expensive inquiry brought to light few bad votes, and did not exclude
Fox from Parliament (for as we saw, he sat as Member for Orkney), the
Prime Minister refused to put an end to “this cursed business,” as
Pulteney termed it,[370] until his own supporters compelled him to
desist. How are we to explain this conduct? It led to waste of time
and temper in Parliament, besides annoying many of his friends, and
straining to breaking-point the allegiance of his composite majority.
There can be no doubt that he committed a blunder, and one which
Englishmen detest; for his conduct seemed ungenerous to a beaten foe
and a violation of the unwritten rules of fair-play.
Nevertheless, it is likely that he acted, not from rancour, not from
a desire to ban his enemy, least of all under any dictation from
Windsor (of this I have found no sign), but rather from the dictates
of political morality. That there had been trumping up of false votes
was notorious; for the votes polled exceeded the total number of
voters; and Pitt, as the champion of purity at elections, may have
deemed it his duty to probe the sore to the bottom. In these days an
avowed champion of Reform would be praised for such conduct. In that
age he was condemned; and it was certainly tactless to single out Fox
from among the many candidates for whom corrupt practices had been
used. Such an act appeared the outcome of personal pique, not of zeal
for electoral purity. So at least men looked on it in the spring of
1785. Pulteney, Wraxall, and the ordinary ruck of members failed to
see anything but personal motives in the whole affair.[371] Fox, who
always gauged the temper of the House aright, carried it with him when
he protested that he had little expected to find Pitt acting as the
agent of the Crown in his persecution; that it was clearly the aim of
the Ministry to ruin him, for he was a poor man. “Yet,” he added, “in
such a cause I will lay down my last shilling. If ultimately I lose
my election, it will be for want of money, not from want of a legal
majority of votes, while Westminster will be deprived of its franchise
because I am unable to prosecute a pecuniary contest with the Treasury.”
This is the most effective type of parliamentary speech. It avoided
all reference to the abstract principles which were at stake, and it
appealed with telling force to the sporting instincts of squires.
Little wonder is it that Pitt’s followers went over to the side which
seemed to stand for fair play to a poor man in his contest with a
spiteful bureaucracy. A few days later Pitt could muster only a
majority of nine (21st February 1785), and this clearly foreshadowed
the end of the scrutiny, which came with a vote hostile to Ministers on
3rd March. On a subordinate motion, six days later, several malcontents
returned to their allegiance, thus proving, in Wraxall’s words, that
“they wished to control and restrain, but had no desire to overturn,
the Administration.”[372]
This affair deserves mention here because it illustrates what was the
chief weakness of Pitt. His secluded childhood, his education apart
from other youths, even at Cambridge, his shyness in general company,
and his decided preference for the society of a few friends, gave him
very few opportunities for knowing ordinary men. He therefore was
slow in understanding the temper of the House, and he never gained
what we may call the Palmerston touch. Well would it have been for
him if he had mixed more with men and shown towards members of the
House the affability with which Fox and North charmed friends and
foes alike. But, like Peel, Pitt had neither parliamentary graces
nor small talk for the lobby. In truth he was too shy or too proud
to unbend with ease. Or rather he did so only in a circle of friends
or among his juniors. Then his sense of fun could go to surprising
lengths, witness that historic romp when Lady Hester Stanhope, two of
her younger brothers, and young William Napier (the future historian)
managed to get him down and blacken his face. In the midst of their
jubilant triumph there came a knock at the door. Two Ministers were
announced as desirous of taking his commands on some question. For a
few minutes State business stood still until the Prime Minister shook
off his assailants and washed his face for the interview. Then the
boys marvelled more at the change of manner than of colour. The Prime
Minister threw up his chin, loftily inquired the cause of the visit,
imparted his decision, stiffly dismissed the Ministers--and resumed the
romp.[373] Clearly there were two Pitts.
His rather stilted manners at Westminster were doubtless a
reflection--a lunar reflection--of the melodramatic splendours of his
father. Never was a colleague or a subordinate introduced to Chatham’s
presence until the effects of light were Rembrandtesque, and the
telling phrase had been coined. But where the father triumphed by the
force of his personality, the son only half succeeded. For he was more
a Grenville than a Pitt, and he inherited from that family some of its
congenital stiffness. Hence the efforts which the son put forth, as if
with the aim of fulfilling the precept of St. Paul to Timothy--“Let no
man despise thy youth”--were calculated, not to impress beholders, but
rather to freeze them.
Far different was the easy good nature of Fox, which often salved
the wounds inflicted in the course of debate. It is said that Lord
North, after one of the debates on the American War, in which Fox had
mercilessly belaboured one of the Ministers, good-humouredly remarked
to the orator, “You were in fine feather to-night, Charles; I am
glad that it was not my turn to be fallen upon.” Fox, we may add,
reciprocated these sentiments. However he might threaten North with
impeachment, he was ready in private to shake him by the hand; and
shortly before the fall of that Minister he publicly asked his pardon
for offending him by his tremendous indictment, adding that he meant it
not. To us this sounds unreal. Either the indictment against the author
of the nation’s ruin was not quite sincere, or the apology was hollow.
Pitt, with his exceptionally high standard of truthfulness,[374] could
not have tendered it. Fox did; and Wraxall praised his conduct, adding
that Pitt was less placable, and was wanting in those frank, winning,
open ways which made friends and retained them through adversity.[375]
This rather superficial verdict--for Wraxall knew Pitt only very
slightly--summed up the views of the easy-going mass, which cares
nothing for principles, little for measures, and very much for men,
provided that they keep up the parliamentary game according to the old
rules and in a sportsmanlike way. It must always be remembered that
few members of Parliament took their duties seriously, and looked on
the debates mainly as a change from the life of the other fashionable
clubs. To such an assembly the political philosophy of Burke was
foolishness, and the lofty principles of Pitt, mere Pharisaism. Its
ideal would have been Esau, provided that he had held fast to the
customs of primogeniture.
We have little or nothing that directly shows the impression produced
on Pitt by his discovery of the shallowness and fickleness of his
supporters. Perhaps it intensified his natural shyness and awkwardness
of manner, which Wilberforce assures us were very great. Certainly
he did not mix more with men. “Pitt does not make friends” is a
significant entry in Wilberforce’s Diary for March 1785.[376] This
inability to make a wide circle of friends was not incompatible with
those rarer gifts which link a man closely to those with whom he had
real kinship of spirit. If we may read Shakespeare’s thoughts into the
well-known words of Polonius to Laertes, the poet supremely admired a
man who inspired the few with ardent affection and held the many at
arm’s length. In regard to character, then, we may honour Pitt for the
very characteristic which to men like Wraxall seemed a blemish.
Nevertheless, it was a serious failing in a parliamentary tactician.
Onlookers, who saw only the cold and reserved exterior, described
Pitt as the embodiment of egotism and pride. His friends knew full
well that he was the soul of kindness. Dundas and Wilberforce testify
to his affable behaviour to subordinates, his fund of good temper,
which was proof even against contradiction and the advent of bad
news. Wilberforce mentions a case in point. Pitt had long been
ruminating on some revenue proposal, and at length mentioned it to
the Attorney-General, only to learn that there would be grave legal
objections to the scheme; far from showing annoyance, he received the
announcement “with the most unruffled good-humour,” and, giving up
his plan, “pursued his other business as cheerfully and pleasantly as
usual.”[377]
It is not thus that a proud and egotistical nature sees his castle
vanish into air. Anecdotes such as this have been known only since the
year 1897. Now we know the real Pitt; the men of these times saw only
the professional mask; and therefore we find exclamations like that of
Sir Gilbert Elliot who, after hearing the almost inspired speech of
Pitt on the abolition of the slave-trade, remarked: “One felt almost
to like the man”;[378] or again Lady Anne Hamilton in her “Memoirs
of the Court of George III,” asserted that Pitt was always cold and
carried his frostiness even into his carouses.
This certainly was the general belief. In one particular Pitt’s
behaviour often gave colour to the charge of pride or egotism. His
letters were as stiff as his parliamentary attitudes. Worst of all,
he very often left letters unanswered; and this applied not merely to
begging letters, against which silence is a Prime Minister’s panoply,
but even to important matters of State. We find Eden, in the midst
of the commercial negotiations with France, writing from Paris in
despairing terms about the Prime Minister’s silence, and finally
suggesting that all his letters of the last fortnight must have sunk
in the Channel. Sir James Harris, too, when fighting an unequal battle
against the French party in Holland, begged Pitt to send a few lines
to encourage the hard pressed friends of England. For four months not
a line came; and at last Harris begged Carmarthen to cajole a letter
out of his chief: “Is it impossible to move him, _who speaks_ so well,
to write one poor line to these sound shillings and pence men?”[379]
The excuse doubtless was, that Pitt was overworked in Parliament
(as indeed he stated to Eden);[380] but, even with the then scanty
facilities for dealing with a vast correspondence, he should certainly
have handled it with more method and tact. Careless correspondents will
readily conjecture how much a Prime Minister may harm his prospects by
subjecting friends and foes alike to a peculiarly annoying slight.
Pitt, then, owed little or nothing to social graces; and Horace Walpole
gave a very superficial judgement, when, in his companion sketches of
Pitt and Fox, he stated that the former “cultivated friends to form a
party.” On the contrary, he harmed his party by cooling his friends.
* * * * *
The men who most helped Pitt to keep in touch with his following were
Dundas, Grenville, and Jenkinson. They did not, as Wraxall avers, hold
the first place in his confidence. That was still held by Wilberforce;
and to their friendship we may apply the apt remark of Montaigne, that
the amity which possesses and sways the soul cannot be double. For
political reasons Pitt after the year 1784 came into closer contact
with his subalterns, among whom Dundas and Grenville claim notice.
Henry Dundas (1742–1811), a younger son of the Right Honourable
Robert Dundas, Lord President of the Scottish Court of Session, and
of Anne Gordon of Invergordon, was born at Edinburgh, where he was
educated first at school, then in the University. The atmosphere in
which he grew up was strictly legal; and his ancestry, no less than
his upbringing, seemed to fit him for success at the Bar, at which
he appeared in 1763. His rise was rapid, and in 1774 he entered
Parliament as member for Midlothian. At Westminster he attached himself
to North’s party and became known as a hard worker and hard hitter.
United as these powers were with a manly presence, genial gifts, and
the full fund of Scottish shrewdness, he acquired favour and became
Lord Advocate. Grace and persuasiveness of speech he lacked; a harsh
voice, a still harsher accent, and awkward gestures told against him;
but above these defects he rose triumphant, thanks to indomitable
courage, which enabled him unabashed to bear the heaviest blows of
debate. Napoleon once expressed his admiration of Blücher, because,
however badly he was beaten, “the old devil” came up again as though
nothing had happened. So it was with Dundas in his many encounters with
Fox. He might be repulsed but never routed. His features were bold
and handsome, and, if they were “tinged with convivial purple,” that
perhaps enhanced their charm. For the House loved a _bon vivant_, who
entertained with lairdly lavishness and had good store, not only of
wine, but of broad stories.
Wraxall, while admitting Dundas’s appearance to be “manly and
advantageous,” avers that his conviviality was part of a deep-laid
scheme for managing men and tightening his grip on the Administration;
for “never did any man conceal deeper views of every kind under
the appearance of careless inattention to self-interest.” The same
insinuation is wittily conveyed by the authors of “The Rolliad” in a
skit on the Cabinet Meetings which Dundas was supposed to hold in his
villa. “March 9th, 1787. Got Thurlow to dine with us at Wimbledon--gave
him my best Burgundy and blasphemy to put him into good humour. After
a brace of bottles ventured to drop a hint of business. Thurlow cursed
me, and asked Pitt for a sentiment. Pitt looked foolish, Grenville
wise. Mulgrave stared. Sydney’s chin lengthened. Tried the effect of
another bottle. Pitt began a long speech on the subject of our meeting.
Sydney fell asleep by the fire”--and so on.
In one respect Dundas was the great political agent of the age. He
managed Scotland, so thoroughly, indeed, that he has been termed “the
foremost Scotsman of the eighteenth century.”[381] No civilian since
the time of John Knox has ever controlled the energies of that people
so thoroughly as Henry Dundas. What the great Reformer achieved by an
appeal to their highest aspirations, the party manipulator achieved
by an appeal to the purse. Since the collapse of the Stuart cause
material interests had been paramount; and their deadening effect on
national character appears in the political torpor which lay upon
Scotland until the strident call of the French Revolution awakened her.
The men north of the Tweed had even more reason than Englishmen to
desire Parliamentary Reform; for, as will be seen in a later chapter,
in all Scotland there were only 1303 electors; and these returned 45
members as against 44 who misrepresented Cornwall. But so long as the
Scots slumbered, it mattered not whether they had 45 members or 4;
for the return of 45, and their course of conduct at Westminster were
alike prescribed by Dundas. The soporific fruit which drugged the
Scottish people and kept their representatives close to his heel was
“patronage.” Dundas it was who dispensed all important prizes both in
Church and State. Valuable livings at home, lucrative posts in India
or speedy advancement in the navy, these and many other rewards were
in his hands. His influence at the Admiralty and at the India Board of
Control was immense; he worked hard for his men; and it may be admitted
that his choice of officials, especially for India, was often sound.
Certain it is that he opened up golden avenues to hundreds of poor
Scottish families, so that he was often hailed as the benefactor of his
people.
In one respect Dundas conferred a substantial boon. He persuaded Pitt
to extinguish the embers of hatred to the reigning dynasty which still
smouldered in the Highlands, by restoring the estates that were
confiscated after the “Forty-five.” By this act of clemency Pitt and
Dundas linked their names to the work of reconciliation so tactfully
begun by Chatham, and helped to foster the sentiment of British
nationality, which bore a rich harvest on the fields of Salamanca
and Waterloo. It is not surprising, then, that Dundas had the small
governing clique in Scotland entirely at his beck and call. One of his
forty-five henchmen at Westminster, Ferguson of Pitfour, frankly stated
that he had never heard a speech which had influenced his vote, and
that there was only one defect in Dundas’s leadership, namely, that he
was not quite tall enough to enable his followers readily to see into
which lobby he was going at division-time.[382]
Even so, the magnetic influence of Dundas upon the obedient Caledonian
squad was a political asset of no small worth. Not seldom could
the laird of Melville decide the fate of Cabinets by throwing his
forty-five votes into this or that scale. He himself was fully aware of
his importance; for in a letter which he wrote to Grenville early in
1789, he declined another official post because in his present position
(or positions) he was “a cement of political strength to the present
Administration,” the dissolution of which might be ruinous. The words
are instinct, not only with the Scottish canniness, but with Scottish
loyalty. In truth, the staunchness of Dundas’s friendship to Pitt
suffices to refute those critics, both of his own and later times, who
speak of him as of a political Vicar of Bray. In his early days his
trimming propensities were often disagreeably prominent; and the speech
in which he hailed the rising sun of Pitt, and slighted the waning
orb of North, was quite characteristic of the earlier half of his
career.[383] But, for him as for some others, the splendour of Pitt’s
genius, and the glow of his pure patriotism, inaugurated a brighter
future; and he might well say of his tergiversation at that time what
Talleyrand said of his still more numerous changes of front: “I have
never deserted a party before it deserted itself.” While recognizing
in this new ally great powers of work, and still greater powers of
“influence,” Pitt did not at once give him his whole confidence; and
we shall probably not be far wrong in inferring that only after the
disillusionment of the spring of 1785, did “Henry VIIIth of Scotland”
become his counsellor on matters of the highest moment. Thenceforth
his influence over Pitt steadily increased, while that of Wilberforce
somewhat waned; and we find the latter declaring at a later time that
Pitt’s connection with Dundas was his “great misfortune,” a remark
which applied mainly to the slavery question.[384] It is, however,
still more applicable to Dundas’s conduct of the war, when, as we
shall see, his absorption in other work, and his utter inexperience of
military affairs, should have made him backward in giving advice. Far
from that, he was for some time the guiding spirit; and from his seat
at the Home Office or the India Board, or from his suburban villa, he
dashed off orders of momentous import, which were to gladden the heart
of Carnot.
Such, then, was the man at whose house, on the west side of Wimbledon
Common, Pitt was a frequent visitor. There the conviviality was
unrestrained by those scruples which more and more prevailed at
Wilberforce’s abode hard by; and after the latter gave up that villa,
in the autumn of 1786, the associations of Pitt with Wimbledon are
somewhat vinous. Both Pitt and Dundas were hard drinkers. The former
frequently tossed off several tumblers of port wine before a great
speech in the House of Commons; and it would seem, if rumour spoke
truly, that at Dundas’s the potations were long and deep. It must not,
however, be supposed that Pitt performed no serious work there. The
long and important despatches which he wrote at Wimbledon show the
contrary; and their contents prove them to have been written before
the Bacchic pleasures, which men of that age deemed the appropriate
close of a busy day. Only once did the pleasures of dessert at Dundas’s
cause Pitt and his host to compromise themselves in public. But on one
occasion they came to the House of Commons obviously the worse for
liquor. The occasion was equally remarkable. It was on the acceptance
of the French Declaration of War, in February 1793. Fox generously
forebore from taking advantage of his rival’s incapacity,[385] but the
situation was hit off in the following lines:
I cannot see the Speaker, Hal, can you?
What! Cannot see the Speaker, I see two.
A man so frank and intriguing, so subtle and pugnacious as Dundas, is
fair game for the satirist; and it is not surprising that the Whig
rhymsters who compiled the “Rolliad” scourged the factotum of Caledonia:
Whose exalted soul
No bonds of vulgar prejudice control.
Of shame unconscious in his bold career
He spurns that honour which the weak revere;
For, true to public Virtue’s patriot plan,
He loves the _Minister_ and not the _Man_.
Alike the advocate of North and Wit,
The friend of Shelburne and the guide of Pitt,
His ready tongue with sophistries at will
Can say, unsay, and be consistent still.
This is, of course, the effusion of unscrupulous party hacks; but it
shows the skill with which the enemies of Dundas seized on the weak
points in his career. As a matter of fact, few men have worked harder
than the future Viscount Melville, and on few men has fortune at the
close pressed more unkindly.
* * * * *
William Wyndham Grenville (1759–1834) is a less interesting man than
Dundas. First cousin to Pitt, and born in the same year, he seemed
destined to advance hand in hand with him, just as his father had
signally helped Chatham in certain parts of that meteoric career.
Nature, however, had clearly designed the Grenvilles, both father
and son, not to be comets, scarcely planets, but rather satellites.
The traditional pride of the Grenvilles (in which Pitt was by no
means lacking) appeared in William Grenville, blended with a freezing
manner, the effect of which was enhanced by his heavy features and
stiff carriage. To counterbalance these defects, he was dowered with
an upright and virtuous disposition, great industry, a choice store of
classical learning, good sense, though not illuminated by imagination,
and oratorical gifts, which, if neither majestic nor pleasing, partook
of his native solidity. As Paymaster of the Forces (conjointly with
Lord Mulgrave) he did useful work, the higher branches of which
involved questions of foreign policy.
[Illustration:
_Emery Walker Ph. sc._
_William Wyndham, Lord Grenville
from a painting by Hoppner_
]
Pitt’s appreciation of his sound sense appeared in his choice of
Grenville for very delicate diplomatic missions to The Hague and
Paris in the crisis of 1787. The evenness of his judgement and temper
procured him the Speakership of the House of Commons in 1789,
after the death of Cornwall. From this honourable post he was soon
transferred to more congenial duties, as Secretary of State, and
entered the Upper House as Lord Grenville. In 1791 he became Secretary
for Foreign Affairs, his conduct of which will engage our attention
later on. Here we may note that in all his undertakings he gained a
reputation for soundness; and if the neutral tints of his character
procured for him neither the enthusiastic love of friends nor the
hatred of foes, he won the respect of all. The envious railers who
penned the “Rolliad” could fasten on nothing worse than his solidity--
A youth who boasts no common share of head.
What plenteous stores of knowledge may contain
The spacious tenement of Grenville’s brain!
Nature, in all her dispensations wise,
Who formed his head-piece of so vast a size,
Hath not, ’tis true, neglected to bestow
Its due proportion to the part below.
Unfortunately, though Grenville could manage business, he could not
manage men; and at this point he failed to make good a defect in
the political panoply of Pitt. On neither of the cousins had nature
bestowed the social tact which might have smoothed the rubs of
diplomatic discussion, say, in those with the French envoy, Chauvelin,
in 1792. That fervid royalist, Hyde de Neuville, complained bitterly
of the freezing powers of Downing Street. The enthusiastic young
Canning found it impossible to work with Grenville, who was also on
strained terms with Dundas. The “inner Cabinet,” composed of Pitt,
Grenville, Dundas, must have been the scene of many triangular duels;
and it needed all the mental and moral superiority of Pitt (as to which
every one bears witness) to preserve even the appearance of harmony
between seconds who were alike opinionated, obstinate, and covetous of
patronage.[386] On the whole, the personality of Grenville must rank
among the dullest of that age. I have found no striking phrase which
glitters amidst the leaden mass of his speeches and correspondence. His
life has never been written. He would be a very conscientious zealot
who would undertake it.
* * * * *
Turning to the central figure of the group, we have once more to
mourn the lack of information about those smaller details which light
up traits of character. Few of Pitt’s letters refer to his private
affairs in the years 1784–86; and the knowledge which we have of them
is largely inferential. Even the secondary sources fared badly; for it
seems that Pitt’s housemaid made a holocaust of the many letters which
Wilberforce wrote to him during his foreign tour in 1785.[387] In the
Pitt Papers there is only one letter of Wilberforce of this period; and
as it throws light on their friendship and the anxiety felt by Pitt’s
friends at the time of the Irish Propositions, I print it here almost
_in extenso_.[388]
Lausanne, 2nd Aug., 1785.
MY DEAR PITT,
... If I were to suffer myself to think on politics, I should be
very unhappy at the accounts I hear from all quarters: nothing
has come from any great authority; but all the reports, such as
they are, are of one tendency. I repose myself with confidence on
you, being sure that you have spirit enough not to be deterred by
difficulties if you can carry your point thro’; and trusting that
you will have that greater degree of spirit which is requisite to
make a person give up at once when the bad consequences which would
follow his going on are at a distance. Yet I cannot help being
extremely anxious: your own character, as well as the welfare of
the country are at stake; but we may congratulate ourselves that
they are here inseparably connected. In the opinion of unprejudiced
men I do not think you will suffer from adjourning the Irish
propositions _ad calendas Graecas_, if the state of Ireland makes
it dangerous to proceed and you can make it evident you had good
reason to bring them on, which I think you can. At the worst, the
consequences on this side are only that you suffer (the Country
may suffer too, but I am taking for granted this is the lesser
evil); but I tremble and look forward to what may happen if the
Irish Parliament should pass the propositions, and the Irish nation
refuse to accept them; nor would it be one struggle only; but as
often as any Bill should come over from our House of Commons to
be passed in theirs, which was obnoxious, there would be a fresh
opportunity for reviving it, especially as you have an Opposition
to deal with as unprincipled and mischievous as ever embroiled the
affairs of any country. God bless you, my dear Pitt and carry you
thro’ all your difficulties! You may reckon yourself most fortunate
in that chearfulness of mind which enables you every now and then
to throw off your load for a few hours and rest yourself. I fancy
it must have been this which, when I am with you, prevents my
considering you as an object of compassion, tho’ Prime Minister
of England; for now, when I am at a distance, out of hearing of
your foyning, and your (illegible) other proofs of a light heart,
I cannot help representing you to myself as oppressed with cares
and troubles, and what I feel for you is more, I believe, than even
Pepper feels in the moments of his greatest anxiety; and what can I
say more?...
Pepper Arden, to whom Wilberforce here refers, scarcely lived up to his
name. His character and his countenance alike lacked distinction. The
latter suffered from the want of a nose, or at least, of an effectively
imposing feature. What must this have meant in a generation which
remembered the effect produced by Chatham’s “terrifying beak,” and was
dominated by the long and concave curve on which Pitt suspended the
House of Commons! Further, Pepper lacked dignity. His manner was noisy
and inelegant.[389] He pushed himself forward as a Cambridge friend of
Pitt; and the House resented the painful efforts of this flippant young
man to run in harness by the side of the genius. Members roared with
laughter when Arden marched in, at Christmastide of 1783, to announce
that Pitt, as Prime Minister of the Crown, would offer himself for
re-election. The effrontery of the statement was heightened by the
voice and bearing of the speaker. Nevertheless, Pitt, as we have seen,
made him Attorney-General. No appointment called forth more criticism.
He entered the peerage as Lord Alvanley.
It is the characteristic of genius to attract and inspire the young;
and Pitt’s influence on them was second only to that of Chatham. As
we shall see later on, Canning caught the first glow of political
enthusiasm from the kindling gaze of the young Prime Minister.
Patriotism so fervid, probity so spotless, eloquence so moving fired
cooller natures than Canning’s; and among the most noteworthy of
those who now came forward was Henry Addington. His father, Anthony
Addington, had started life as a medical man in Reading, and afterwards
in Bedford Row, London, where Henry was born in 1754. In days when
that profession held a lower place than at present, this fact was to
be thrown in the teeth of the son on becoming Prime Minister. Chatham,
however, always treated his family physician (for such Addington
became) with chivalrous courtesy. Largely by the care of the doctor
William Pitt was coaxed into maturity after his “wan” youth.[390] It
was natural, then, that the sons should become acquainted, especially
as young Addington, after passing through Winchester School and
Brasenose College, Oxford, entered at Lincoln’s Inn while Pitt was
still keeping his terms there.
Considering the community of their studies and tastes, it is singular
that few, if any, of their letters of this period survive. Such as
have come down to us are the veriest scraps. Here, then, as elsewhere,
some evil destiny (was it Bishop Tomline?) must have intervened to
blot out the glimpses of the social side of the statesman’s life.
It is clear, however, that Pitt must have begun to turn Addington’s
thoughts away from Chancery Lane to Westminster; for the latter in 1783
writes eagerly against “the offensive Coalition of Fox and North.” At
Christmas, when Pitt leaped to office as Prime Minister, he sought to
bring Addington into the political arena, and held out the prospect
of some subordinate post. Addington accordingly stood for Devizes,
and was chosen by a unanimous vote at the hustings in April 1784.
Nevertheless, his cool and circumspect nature rose slowly to the height
of the situation at Westminster. Externals were all in his favour.
His figure was tall and well proportioned; his features, faultlessly
regular, were lit up by a benevolent smile; and his deferential manners
gave token of success either as family physician or family attorney.
In fine, a man who needed only the spur of ambition, or the stroke of
calamity, to achieve a respectable success. It is said that Pitt early
bade him fix his gaze on the Speaker’s chair, to which, in fact, he
helped him in 1789, after Grenville’s retirement. But, for the present,
nothing stirred Addington’s nature from its exasperating calm. As
worldly inducements failed, Pitt finally made trial of poetry. During a
ride together to Pitt’s seat at Holwood, the statesman sought in vain
to appeal to his ambition; but Addington--five years his senior, be
it remembered--pleaded the disqualifying effects of early habits and
disposition. Thereupon Pitt burst out with the following passage from
Waller’s poem on Henrietta Maria:
The lark that shuns on lofty boughs to build
Her humble nest, lies silent in the field;
But should the promise of a brighter day,
Aurora smiling, bid her rise and play,
Quickly she’ll show ’twas not for want of voice,
Or power to climb, she made so low a choice;
Singing she mounts; her airy notes are stretch’d
Towards heaven, as if from heaven alone her notes she fetch’d.
Then the statesman set spurs to his horse and left Addington far
behind.[391] It is curious that when Addington’s ambition was fully
aroused, it proved to be an obstacle to Pitt and a danger to the
country in the crisis of 1803–4.
Adverting now to certain details of Pitt’s private life, we notice
that he varied the time of his first residence on Putney Heath (August
1784–November 1785) by several visits to Brighthelmstone, perhaps in
order to shake off the fatigue and disappointment attendant on his
Irish and Reform policy. At that seaside resort he spent some weeks in
the early autumn of 1785, enjoying the society of his old Cambridge
friends, “Bob” Smith (afterwards Lord Carrington), Pratt (afterwards
Lord Camden), and Steele. We can imagine them riding along the quaint
little front, or on the downs, their interchange of thought and sallies
of wit probably helping in no small degree the invigorating influences
of sea air and exercise. If we may trust the sprightly but spiteful
lines in one of the “Political Eclogues,” it was at Brighton that Pitt
at these times especially enjoyed the society of “Tom” Steele, whom he
had made Secretary of the Treasury conjointly with George Rose. Unlike
his colleague, whose visage always bore signs of the care and toil of
his office, Steele was remarkable for the rotundity and joviality of
his face and an inexhaustible fund of animal spirits.[392] Perhaps
it was this which attracted Pitt to him in times of recreation. The
lines above referred to occur in an effusion styled--“Rose, or the
Complaint,”--where the hard working colleague is shown as bemoaning
Pitt’s preference for Steele:
But vain his hope to shine in Billy’s eyes,
Vain all his votes, his speeches, and his lies.
Steele’s happier claims the boy’s regard engage,
Alike their studies, nor unlike their age:
With Steele, companion of his vacant hours,
Oft would he seek Brighthelmstone’s sea-girt towers;
For Steele relinquish Beauty’s trifling talk,
With Steele each morning ride, each evening walk;
Or in full tea-cups drowning cares of state
On gentler topics urge the mock debate.
However much Pitt enjoyed Steele’s company on occasions like these,
he did not allow his feelings to influence him when a question of
promotion arose. Steele’s talents being only moderate, his rise was
slow, but he finally became one of the Paymasters of the Forces. In
that station his conduct was not wholly satisfactory; and Pitt’s
friendship towards him cooled, though it was renewed not long before
the Prime Minister’s death.
For George Rose, on the other hand, despite his lack of joviality, Pitt
cherished an ever deepening regard proportioned to the thoroughness and
tactfulness of his services at the Treasury. In view of the vast number
of applications for places and pensions, of which, moreover, Burke’s
Economy Bill had lessened the supply, the need of firm control at the
Treasury is obvious; and Pitt and the country owed much to the man
who for sixteen years held the purse-strings tight.[393] On his part
Rose felt unwavering enthusiasm for his chief from the time of their
first interview in Paris in 1783 until the dark days that followed
Austerlitz. Only on two subjects did he refuse to follow Pitt, namely,
on Parliamentary Reform, from which he augured “the most direful
consequences,” and the Slavery Question. That he ventured twice to
differ decidedly from Pitt (in spite of earnest private appeals) proves
his independence of mind as well as the narrowness of his outlook.
He even offered to resign his post at the Treasury owing to their
difference on Reform, but Pitt negatived this proposal. We need not
accept his complacent statement that Pitt later on came over decidedly
to his opinion on that topic.[394]
The tastes of the two friends were very similar, especially in their
love of the country; and it was in the same month (September 1785)
that each bought a small estate. We find Pitt writing at that time to
Wilberforce respecting his purchase of “Holwood Hill,” near Bromley,
Kent, and stating that Rose had just bought an estate in the New
Forest, which he vowed was “just breakfasting distance from town.” “We
are all turning country gentlemen very fast,” added the statesman. A
harassing session like that of 1785 is certain to set up a centrifugal
tendency; and we may be sure that the nearness of Holwood to Hayes was
a further attraction. Not that Pitt was as yet fond of agriculture.
He had neither the time nor the money to spare for the high farming
which was then yearly adding to the wealth of the nation. But he
inherited Chatham’s love of arranging an estate, and he was now to
find the delight of laying out grounds, planting trees and shrubs and
watching their growth. Holwood had many charms--“a most beautiful spot,
wanting nothing but a house fit to live in”--so he described it to
Wilberforce.[395] He moved into his new abode on 5th November 1785, and
during the rest of the vacation spent most of his time there, residing
at Downing Street only on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Many
affairs of State were decided at parties at Holwood, or, later on, at
Dundas’s villa at Wimbledon.
Pitt admitted to Wilberforce that the purchase of Holwood was a piece
of folly; and this was soon apparent to all Pitt’s friends who had
old-fashioned notions of making both ends meet. That desirable result
had rarely, if ever, been attained by the son of the magnificent
Chatham. Sparing for the nation’s exchequer, Pitt was prodigal of
his own. The aristocratic _hauteur_, of which all but his friends
complained, led him to disregard the peccadilloes of servants and the
overcharges of tradesmen. A bachelor Prime Minister, whose nose is
high in air, is good sport for parasites; and even before the purchase
of Holwood, Pitt was in difficulties. During one of the visits to
Brighthelmstone, “Bob” Smith undertook to overhaul his affairs, and
found old and forgotten bills amounting to £7,914. The discovery came
as a shock; for Pitt, with his usual hopefulness, had told his Mentor
that, as three-quarters of his official salary were due, he would have
enough for his current liabilities. A further scrutiny showed that
tradesmen, in default of any present return, took care to ensure an
abundant harvest in the future. The butcher usually sent, or charged
for, three or four hundredweight of meat on a Saturday, probably
because Pitt was often away for the week-end. The meat bill for
January 1785, when Pitt generally dined out, was £96, which, reckoning
the price at sixpence a pound, implied a delivery of 34 hundredweight.
Other bills for provisions (wrote Smith to Wilberforce) “exceed
anything I could have imagined.” Apparently they rose in proportion
to Pitt’s absence from home. His accounts were kept by a man named
Wood, whose book-keeping seems to have been correct; but Smith begged
Wilberforce to urge on Pitt the need of an immediate reform of his
household affairs.[396] Whether it took place, we cannot tell; for this
is one of the private subjects over which Bishop Tomline chose to draw
the veil of propriety.
An economical householder would have found relief from the addition
of £3,000 a year to his income. That was the net sum which accrued
to him after August 1792, from the Lord Wardenship of the Cinque
Ports.[397] That Pitt felt more easy in his mind is clear from his
letter to Lady Chatham, dated Downing Street, 11th November 1793. She
had been in temporary embarrassment. He therefore sent £300, and gently
chid her for concealing her need so long. He continued as follows:
“My accession of income has hitherto found so much employment in the
discharge of former arrears as to leave no very large fund which I can
with propriety dispose of. This, however, will mend every day, and at
all events I trust you will never scruple to tell me when you have the
slightest occasion for any aid that I can supply.”[398]
Unfortunately, Pitt soon fell into difficulties, and partly from his
own generosity as Colonel of the Walmer Volunteers. As we shall also
see, he gave £2,000 to the Patriotic Fund started in January 1798.
But carelessness continued to be his chief curse. In truth his lordly
nature and his early training in the household of Chatham unfitted him
for the practice of that bourgeois virtue, frugality. That he sought to
practise it for the Commonwealth is a signal proof of his patriotism.
We shall see that his embarrassments probably hindered him from a
marriage, which might have crowned with joy his somewhat solitary life.
In the career of Pitt we find few incidents of the lighter kind, which
diversify the lives of most statesmen of that age. Two such, however,
connect him with the jovial society of Dundas. It was their custom
to outline over their cups the course of the forthcoming debates;
and on one occasion, when a motion was to be brought forward by Mr.
(afterwards Earl) Grey, Dundas amused the company by making a burlesque
oration on the Whig side. Pitt was so charmed by the performance that
he declared that Dundas must make the official reply. The joke sounded
well over wine; but great was the Scotsman’s astonishment to find
himself saddled with the task in the House. Members were equally taken
aback; and the lobbies soon rustled with eager conjectures as to the
reason why Pitt had surrendered his dearly cherished prerogative. It
then transpired that the Prime Minister had acted partly on a whim, and
partly on the conviction that a speaker who had so cleverly pleaded a
case must be able to answer it with equal effect.[399]
The other incident is likewise Bacchic, and is also uncertain as to
date. Pitt, Dundas, and Thurlow had been dining with Jenkinson at
Croydon; and during their rollicking career back towards Wimbledon,
they found a toll-bar gate between Streatham and Tooting carelessly
left open. Wine, darkness, and the frolicsome spirit of youth prompted
them to ride through and cheat the keeper. He ran out, called to them
in vain, and, taking them for highwaymen, fired his blunderbuss at
their retreating forms.[400] The discharge was of course as harmless
as that of firearms usually was except at point-blank range; but the
writers of the “Rolliad” got wind of the affair, and satirised Pitt’s
lawlessness in the following lines:
Ah, think what danger on debauch attends!
Let Pitt o’er wine preach temperance to his friends,
How, as he wandered darkling o’er the plain,
His reason drowned in Jenkinson’s champagne,
A rustic’s hand, but righteous fate withstood,
Had shed a premier’s for a robber’s blood.
Gaiety and grief often tread close on one another’s heels; and Pitt
had his full share of the latter. The sudden death of his sister
Harriet, on 25th September 1786, was a severe blow. She had married his
Cambridge friend, Eliot, and expired shortly after childbirth. She was
his favourite sister, having entered closely and fondly into his early
life. He was prostrated with grief, and for some time could not attend
even to the public business which was his second nature. Eliot, now
destined to be more than ever a friend and brother, came to his house
and for some time lived with him. It will be of interest to print here
a new letter of George III to a Mr. Frazer who had informed him of the
sad event.
WINDSOR,
_Sept. 25, 1786._ 9.15 p.m.[401]
I am excessively hurt, as indeed all my family are, at the death
of the amiable Lady Harriot Elliot (_sic_); but I do not the less
approve Mr. Frazer’s attention in acquainting me of this very
melancholy event. I owne I dread the effect it may have on Mr.
Pitt’s health: I think it best not at this early period to trouble
him with my very sincere condolence; but I know I can trust to the
prudence of Mr. Frazer, and therefore desire he will take the most
proper method of letting Mr. Pitt know what I feel for him, and
that I think it kindest at present to be silent.
G. R.
The King further evinced his tactful sympathy by suggesting that
Pitt should for a time visit his mother at Burton Pynsent. In other
respects his private life was uneventfully happy. The conclusion of the
commercial treaty with France, the buoyancy of the national revenue,
and the satisfactory issue of the Dutch troubles must have eased his
anxieties in the years 1786–87; and after the serious crisis last
named, his position was truly enviable, until the acute situation
arising from the mental malady of George III overclouded his prospects
at the close of the year 1788.
Certainly Pitt was little troubled by his constituents. Almost the only
proof of his parliamentary connection with the University of Cambridge
(apart from warnings from friends at election times how so and so is to
“be got at”) is in a letter which I have discovered in the Hardwicke
Papers. It refers to a Cambridge Debt Bill about to be introduced by
Charles Yorke in April 1787, to which the University had requested Pitt
to move certain amendments in its interest. It will be seen that Pitt
proposed to treat the request rather lightly:
DEAR YORKE,
I am rather inclined to wish the Cambridge [Debt] Bill should
pass without any alteration, unless you think there are material
reasons for it.--The impanelling the jury does not seem to be
a point of much consequence, but seems most naturally to be the
province of the mayor.--With regard to the appeal, I think we
agreed to strike it out entirely.--As the Commission are a mixed
body from the town, the county, and the University, there seems to
be an impropriety in appealing either to the town sessions or the
County Sessions, either of which may be considered as only one out
of three parties interested. The decision of the Commission appears
therefore the most satisfactory, and if I recollect right, it is
final as the bill now stands.
Yours most sincerely,
W. PITT.[402]
In the whole of Pitt’s correspondence I have found only one episode
which lights up the recesses of his mind. As a rule, his letters are
disappointingly business-like and formal. He wrote as a Prime Minister
to supporters, rarely as a friend to a friend. And those who search
the hundreds of packets of the Pitt Papers in order to find the real
man will be tempted to liken him to that elusive creature which, when
pursued, shoots away among the rocks under a protective cloud of ink.
At one point, however, we catch a glimpse of his inmost beliefs.
Wilberforce, having come under deep religious convictions in the autumn
of 1785, resolved to retire for a time from all kinds of activity
in order to take his bearings anew. Then he wrote to Pitt a full
description of his changed views of life, stating also his conviction
that he must give up some forms of work and amusement, and that he
could never be so much of a party man as he had hitherto been. Pitt’s
reply, of 2nd December 1785, has recently seen the light. After stating
that any essential opposition between them would cause him grief but
must leave his affection quite untouched, he continued as follows:
Forgive me if I cannot help expressing my fear that you are
nevertheless deluding yourself into principles which have but too
much tendency to counteract your own object and to render your
virtues and your talents useless both to yourself and to mankind.
I am not, however, without hopes that my anxiety paints this too
strongly. For you confess that the character of religion is not a
gloomy one, and that it is not that of an enthusiast. But why then
this preparation of solitude, which can hardly avoid tincturing the
mind either with melancholy or superstition? If a Christian may act
in the several relations of life, must he seclude himself from them
all to become so? Surely the principles as well as the practice of
Christianity are simple, and lead not to meditation only but to
action. I will not, however, enlarge upon these subjects now. What
I ask of you, as a mark both of your friendship and of the candour
which belongs to your mind, is to open yourself fully and without
reserve to one, who, believe me, does not know how to separate his
happiness from your own.[403]
On the morrow, a Saturday, he called on Wilberforce at Wimbledon, and
the friends for two hours unburdened their hearts to one another.
We know little of that moving converse. The two men had ideals so
different that unison was out of the question. The statesman, so we
learn, had never reflected much on religion, that is, in the keenly
introspective sense in which Wilberforce now used the word. To Pitt, as
to most Englishmen, religion meant the acceptance of certain doctrines
laid down by the State Church, and we may describe it as largely
political and conventional, buttressing the existing order, but by no
means transforming life or character. One glance alone we gain into the
sanctuary of his thoughts; he told Wilberforce that Bishop Butler’s
“Analogy” raised in his mind more doubts than it answered--a proof
(perhaps the only proof that survives) of his cherishing under that
correct exterior a critical and questioning spirit.
To Wilberforce, thenceforth, all doubts were visitations of the devil.
Indeed, the microscopic watch which he kept on his thoughts and moods
seemed likely to stunt his activities. From this he was perhaps saved
by his friendship with Pitt. True, they could no longer tread the same
path. Pitt obeyed that call to action on behalf of his country which
from his boyhood had deadened all other sounds. Wilberforce for a long
time held aloof from politics as debateable ground beset with snares
to the soul. And yet, though the two men diverged, the promptings of
affection kept them ever within hail. No gulf ever opened out such as
Coleridge finely pictured as yawning between two parted friends:
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between.
Indeed, Wilberforce found with some surprise that on most questions
they agreed as before[404]--a proof that there was no desertion of
principle on Pitt’s part after the session of 1785. We may go further,
and assert that in their changed relations the two friends exerted upon
each other a mutually beneficent influence. The new convictions of
Wilberforce tended to refine the activities of his friend; and Pitt’s
practical good sense helped to launch the philanthropist on that career
of usefulness in which he could both glorify God and uplift myriads of
negroes.
A sharp difference of opinion respecting the war with France
overclouded their lives in the year 1793. Wilberforce fully recognized
the sincerity of the Cabinet’s efforts to avoid a rupture, and admitted
that Ministers had not pursued a “war system.” But shortly before
the outbreak of hostilities, when he was about to speak in favour
of conciliation, Pitt took the strange step of sending Bankes to
him, earnestly begging him not to speak, as it might do irreparable
mischief, and promising him an opportunity for the statement of his
views. That opportunity did not come; and Wilberforce evidently
resented this attempt to make political capital out of their
friendship.[405] The breach between them did not widen until late
in the year 1794, when Wilberforce deemed it his duty to move an
amendment in favour of peace. Bankes and Duncombe supported it; but it
was easily defeated. In the following year the relations between Pitt
and Wilberforce on this question became so strained as to cause both
of them deep distress. Indeed Pitt, who generally enjoyed profound
slumbers, for a time suffered from insomnia. The only other occasions
when sleep fled from him were the sudden resignation of Earl Temple
late in 1783, the mutiny at the Nore, and the arrival of the news of
Trafalgar.
The old feelings began to reassert themselves, when Pitt spoke
strongly in favour of the Abolition of the Slave Trade (26th February
1795); but the friends did not meet for nearly a month, and then with
some little embarrassment on both sides. All shadows, however, vanished
in a few months’ time, when Wilberforce came to see that his friend
longed for peace so soon as it was compatible with security. Thereafter
their old friendship revived, though tinged with the sadness attending
disappointed hopes.
Pitt did not so readily forget the independence now and again
displayed by Bankes, for instance, in opposing Parliamentary Reform,
the Westminster Scrutiny, and the continuance of the war. Though they
were friendly at Cambridge, and afterwards at Goostree’s Club and in
the House, Pitt never warmed to Bankes, whose nature indeed was too
precise, cold, and prudent ever to call forth affection. Respected
by all for his sound but stolid speeches, he for forty years sat at
Westminster as member for Corfe Castle. No one seems ever to have
thought of making Bankes either a Minister or a peer. At a later time
the circle of Pitt’s friends included Canning and Wellesley, who will
receive notice in later chapters.
On the whole, Pitt seems to have been somewhat exacting in his
friendships. One of his early comrades complained that all suggestions
to the Prime Minister must, under pain of his resentment, go forth
to the world as emanations of his wisdom. This is to sacrifice
friendliness and candour to egotism and parliamentary punctilio. True,
no statesman can afford to neglect prudential considerations; and we
may freely grant that the cautious calculations of Pitt rarely obsessed
his whole being, as that of Napoleon was dominated by his egotism.
We do not find Pitt acting, still less speaking, in the sense which
prompted the remark of Napoleon about an over scrupulous servant: “He
is not devoted to me; he does not want to get on.”
It must be confessed that there is something wanting about Pitt. He
lacked geniality and glow alike in his treatment of men, and in his
attitude towards the aspirations of the age then dawning. Probably this
defect sprang from a physical basis. It must be remembered that Chatham
was nearly all his life a martyr to gout. He bequeathed this weakness
to his second son, a fact which may account for the coldness of Pitt’s
nature. Just as creatures with a torpid circulation love to bask in the
sun, so his chilliness may have prompted the cravings for the Bacchic
society of Dundas and Steele. In this respect he suffers by comparison
with Fox, the full-blooded man, the impetuous foe, the open-handed,
forgiving friend, whose character somewhat resembles that of Antony,
deified by Cleopatra:
For his bounty,
There was no winter in ’t; an autumn ’twas
That grew the more by reaping; his delights
Were dolphin-like; they showed his back above
The element they lived in.[406]
CHAPTER XIII
ISOLATION
(1784, 1785)
The situation of Europe appears never to have been so critical at
any epoch since the breaking out of the Thirty Years’ War as it is
at the present moment.--SIR JAMES HARRIS, _2nd February 1785_.
The American War of Independence left Great Britain in a critical
situation both internally and in relation to other Powers. She had
been at war with France, Spain, the Dutch Netherlands, and the United
States, while the Baltic Powers threatened her with hostilities owing
to her insistence on an exacting maritime code. As she refused to come
to a compromise on these questions, the period of peace which followed
after the Treaty of Versailles (September 1783) did not lead to a
resumption of friendly relations with the States above named. She was
in part hated, in part despised.
The prevalent feeling found striking expression in an intercepted
letter of Frederick the Great, which our able ambassador, Sir James
Harris, saw at St. Petersburg. The crabbed monarch therein described
Great Britain as a land ruined by an unfortunate war, and unable ever
again to become a formidable rival to France. Here the wish was father
to the thought. “Old sour-mug,” as the Berliners dubbed him, had not
forgiven his desertion by England at the close of the Seven Years’ War,
and never missed an opportunity of affronting George III and damaging
his interests. It was he who, in the years 1778 and 1779, thwarted
Harris’s plan of effecting an Anglo-Russian alliance, which might have
nullified the efforts of France in the American War; and now, at the
end of that struggle, the resentful old King did his best to perpetuate
the isolation of the Island Power. In name, he was our ally, the treaty
of 1756 never having been broken; but in reality he was the wiliest of
opponents, his fleeting fits of complaisance being designed to make bad
blood between England and the Emperor Joseph II.[407]
The ceaseless rivalry of Austria and Prussia would generally have
enabled Great Britain to count on the support of one of those Powers.
But while Frederick flouted us from senile spleen, Joseph held aloof
from motives of policy. Not only did he hold England cheap, but he saw
in her an obstacle to one of his many schemes. As he was then one of
the most active of European rulers, we may well begin our survey of
foreign affairs by a short account of him and of his aims.
Joseph II (1780–1790) held the extensive lands of the House of
Hapsburg-Lorraine, ranging from the Milanese to Cracow, and from the
Carpathians to the Breisgau on the Upper Rhine; but these States,
especially those in Italy and Swabia, lacked the strength that comes
from continuity. His position as “Emperor” (that is, elective head of
the Holy Roman Empire) implied little; for the confederate princes of
that moribund organism had almost complete sovereign powers in the
component States. To breathe new life into “the Empire” was almost
hopeless; but he set himself to solidify and extend his hereditary
dominions by a series of attractively perilous projects. He also
sought to centralize at Vienna the governing powers of his very
diverse domains, and to carry out reforms, social, agrarian, and
religious, which aroused widespread opposition. Many of his schemes
were generous and enlightened, but they stirred the resentment of
landowners, priests, and Nationalists, especially in Hungary and in his
Belgic Provinces. In order to carry out these programmes, he sought or
maintained alliances with the most powerful States, namely, Russia and
France.
Here we are concerned chiefly with his connection with the latter
Power. Despite temporary causes of friction, the Franco-Austrian
alliance of 1756 still subsisted; and it had gained new vitality by
the marriage of Louis XVI (then Dauphin) with Marie Antoinette, a
daughter of Maria Theresa and sister of Joseph II, whose efforts on
behalf of Viennese policy were to effect something for that Court, at
the expense of her popularity at Paris. Thus, early in the year 1785,
when Joseph II revived a scheme, which had been thwarted in 1778,
for the exchange of his discontented Belgic lands for the Electorate
of Bavaria, all Europe saw in it the hand of Marie Antoinette. The
absorption of Bavaria would have made the Hapsburgs absolutely supreme
in Central Europe, while the transfer of the Bavarian Electoral House
to Brussels would have broken down the Barrier arrangements which
British statecraft had ever sought to build up on the North of France.
The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) had assigned the then Spanish Netherlands
to the House of Austria in order to set limits to the expansion of
France; and the transfer could not be made without the consent of the
signatory Powers, the chief being England.
In other respects, too, Joseph’s Belgian policy ran counter to British
interests. He had ordered the Dutch troops out of the fortresses (Mons,
Namur, etc.), which, by the Barrier Treaty of 1715, they had the right
to occupy at the expense of those districts; and he further set at
naught well-established rights of the Dutch, first by furbishing up
certain musty claims to their frontier stronghold, Maestricht; and
secondly, by declaring the navigation of the estuary of the Scheldt,
below Antwerp, free from Dutch control. In the latter demand he
undoubtedly had “natural law” on his side, while the law of nations
was as clearly for the Dutch, the Treaty of Münster (1648) having
empowered them to close that estuary to all commerce but their own. As
a result the once flourishing trade of Antwerp was wellnigh strangled,
and it was reasonable for Joseph II to seek to end this state of
things. Nevertheless, his conduct in setting aside that treaty-right
without consulting other Powers, was no less indefensible than the
same action of the French Revolutionists in the autumn of 1792, which
largely brought about the Great War. In fact, the conduct of Joseph
II towards his own subjects and neighbouring States fitly earned him
the designation, the “crowned revolutionist”; and, had his power of
carrying out schemes equalled his facility in weaving them, he might
have figured in history as a Teutonic Napoleon.
Equally disturbing and more incisive was the influence of Catharine II
of Russia. It is needless to describe here the strange career of that
daughter of a poor German prince who ultimately became Czarina. She was
justly suspected of having connived at the murder of her consort Peter
III; and her relations with her son, the future Paul I, were severely
strained by her numerous amours. But no indulgences dulled the vision
or the ambition of Catharine. Her freshness of mind and facility of
expression dazzled her philosophic visitors, Diderot and Grimm; and
these varied powers were held in leash by a virile will which made
her one of the greatest political forces of the age. Her resolve to
aggrandize Russia centred in two great enterprises, the partition of
Poland and the overthrow of the Turkish Power. In the first partition
of Poland (1772) she had the concurrence of Frederick the Great and the
reluctant consent of Maria Theresa; but the death of the latter, in
November 1780, removed all checks on Joseph II, who for fifteen years
had been associated with her in the government of the Austrian States.
The two most daring rulers in Europe in the year 1781 came to an
understanding which foreboded a general upheaval. Their arrangement
did not take the form of a treaty, for Joseph, as Emperor, claimed
precedence in all titles, which Catharine, proud of the comparatively
new Imperial title of the Czars of Muscovy, refused to recognize.
Accordingly, in May 1781, the punctilious sovereigns exchanged letters,
binding themselves to mutual support; Joseph undertaking to assist
the Czarina in her designs against the Turks, while she guaranteed to
Joseph the integrity of his dominions, thus enabling him to adopt the
forward policy whose developments in the Netherlands we have noticed.
In vain did Frederick the Great and England seek, though by widely
diverse means, to dissolve this alliance. Capricious and violent
in private life and in her likes and dislikes, Catharine showed
statesmanlike firmness and caution in public affairs. Her firmness
appeared in her refusal to take the tempting bait of Minorca which
our ambassador Harris skilfully held out to her in 1780, if she would
mediate in favour of England in the American War. She rightly saw more
profit in heading the Armed Neutrality League; and Harris used all
his arts in vain.[408] Her caution shines in her charming repartee to
Diderot after the French philosopher had vivaciously sketched his plan
of renovating Russia. “M. Diderot, you forget in all your plans of
reform the difference in our positions; you only work on paper, which
endures all things; it opposes no obstacle either to your imagination
or to your pen. But I, poor Empress that I am, work on a sensitive and
irritable medium, the human skin.” In these phrases lies the secret
of the success of Catharine and of the ultimate failure of Joseph. He
forgot that the sentient skin is not parchment: she never forgot it.
For the present, their alliance promised to make them the arbiters
of Europe, Catharine in the East, and her ally in the centre and the
Netherlands. It was therefore desirable for Great Britain to gain their
alliance, or at least their friendship. But our overtures were repulsed
at both Courts. In vain did Sir Murray Keith, our respected envoy at
Vienna, seek to undermine the unnatural alliance between France and
Austria, and suggest a return to the traditional connection between the
Courts of St. James and Vienna; the Francophile policy of the Austrian
Chancellor, Kaunitz, was still in the ascendant.
In vain also did Alleyne Fitzherbert, now the British Ambassador at
St. Petersburg, remind Catharine II of the many interests, trading and
political, we had in common, and of the help we had given to the infant
navy of Russia in officers and men, and in granting facilities for
its repair at Portsmouth and Port Mahon.[409] With her, past services
weighed but lightly as against present expediency. The assurances of
the previous decade as to the natural links between England and Russia
were ridiculed, probably because her keen eyes discerned, sooner than
those of any British statesman, the eventual opposition of England to
her scheme of seizing Constantinople. As a prelude to this enterprise
she annexed the Crimea in the year 1783; and, as we shall see later,
she thenceforth bent all her energies to the task of enthroning at
Constantinople her grandson, Constantine. The alliance of Austria being
essential, and the union of the Hapsburgs with France being but little
impaired by Joseph’s Belgic plans (at least up to the end of 1784), she
courted Paris and slighted London. A proposal which Fitzherbert made at
St. Petersburg in April 1784, for an alliance with Russia, Sweden, and
Denmark, fell to the ground.[410]
Thus, the trend of European politics in the East, in Germany, and in
the Netherlands told heavily against England, and increased the natural
reluctance of any Power to seek the friendship of a beaten nation. It
is at such times that the artificiality of the idea of the Balance of
Power is seen. No State took the slightest interest in restoring the
islanders to their rightful position in the world. For this they had to
trust to themselves and to their young leader.
In point of fact, Pitt and his Foreign Secretary, the Marquis of
Carmarthen, at first desired little more than to be left alone.
Peace is always the greatest of British interests, and it was so
pre-eminently at that time, when the interest on the National Debt
absorbed three-fourths of the nation’s revenue. Foreign Affairs
interested the Cabinet but little, so we gather from the memoranda of
the Marquis of Carmarthen (afterwards Duke of Leeds); but he there
states that Pitt applied himself closely to the correspondence with
ambassadors, and that, in a conversation which they had together at
Wimbledon in May 1784, he found that they agreed as to the desirability
of severing the connection of Austria with France, and of forming some
alliance which would counterbalance the power of the French and Spanish
Houses of Bourbon; but at the same time Pitt was strongly convinced
of the need of avoiding any engagements which might lead to war.[411]
That George III had lost his bellicose temper appears from the closing
sentence of his letter of 6th July 1784 to Carmarthen: “Till I see this
country in a situation more respectable as to Army, Navy, and Finances,
I cannot think anything that may draw us into troubled waters either
safe or rational.”[412]
This sensible pronouncement was called forth by the proposal of Pitt
and Carmarthen to make another overture to the Empress Catharine.
An opportunity occurred owing to a recent compact between France
and Sweden, according to the former a naval depôt and other special
privileges at the port of Gothenburg. As this might enable French
warships to control the mouth of the Baltic, it threatened the
interests of England, Denmark, and Russia; and the British Cabinet,
always intent on regaining the favour of the Czarina, began to sound
the situation at St. Petersburg and Copenhagen. Carmarthen sought the
advice of Sir James Harris, and received the following witty reply:
Cuffnalls, Oct. 6, 1784.[413]
Should the Northern Lights be really enlightened, and a spark of
common sense be added to Kitty’s bright understanding I hope my
friend Fitz[herbert] will accomplish the point we have all failed
in. I cannot but suppose that the Ch[ancellor] and Lord C. will
defer to your opinion, and that your next messenger will carry
positive and particular instructions both to Hamlet and Semiramis.
“Semiramis” (Catharine) proved to be no less obdurate to Fitzherbert
than to Harris, though the instructions issued to the former had
been drawn up in a masterly manner by Pitt himself. It is clear that
the young statesman took a keen interest in the overture to Russia;
for when Carmarthen sent him a draft of his “Instructions for Mr.
Fitzherbert,” he sent the hitherto unpublished replies, which throw an
interesting light on his relations to that Minister, and his views on
foreign policy:
BRIGHTHELMSTONE, Wed^y night. _Oct. 13, 1784_.[414]
MY DEAR LORD,
I return you with many thanks the draft of the Instructions to Mr.
Fitzherbert. I trouble you at the same time, as you permitted me,
with the sketch of the Ideas which had occurred to me on the same
subject. I have the satisfaction to perceive, as I flattered myself
must be the case, that our Ideas do not seem to differ in any
respect. I hardly need give you the trouble of reading my scrawl.
I leave it however to your consideration, tho’ hardly thinking
anything in it will repay the time of perusing it. You will, I am
sure, excuse a proof at least of my solicitude on a subject on
which we feel equally interested.
That Carmarthen set a high value on the “scrawl,” appears from the fact
that it bears the pencil-mark, “sent to Russia the 15th.” As it was
probably the first diplomatic note ever penned by Pitt, it deserves to
be quoted in full, especially as it proves that he was no advocate of
isolation. He saw too well the dangers of it. Further, those who take
pleasure in contrasting his orderly and forcible statement of ideas
with a loose and feeble statement may consult the draft of Carmarthen,
which that Minister had the good sense to replace by Pitt’s:[415]
It is His Majesty’s earnest desire to regulate his conduct on the
occasion of the late Treaty between France and Sweden, in the
strictest concert with the Court of Petersburg. And therefore,
altho’ it would have been a great satisfaction to have known first
what line appeared to the Empress most proper to be pursued, we
have no difficulty in stating without reserve what the situation
appears to us to call for. We wish at the same time to know whether
any other specifick measures have been thought of by the Empress,
and we are ready in every respect to enter into the fullest and
most confidential communication.
We are not aware of any treaty or of any other ground, which gives
a direct and absolute right to object to any arrangement which the
King of Sweden may have thought proper to make in this instance
with regard to a Port of his own dominions; altho’ the possibility
of its being carried to the extent which there is reason to suspect
is ultimately intended cannot but occasion great jealousy, and
altho’ even in a commercial light, it may possibly not be a matter
of indifference. The difficulty of making a direct opposition in
the first instance seems, by Mr. Fitzherbert’s report, to have
struck the Ministers of the Empress in the same manner. On this
supposition, the only immediate step which it appears natural to
take is to desire from the Court of Stockholm an explanation to
what extent the privileges granted to the French are _bonâ fide_
intended to be carried. A representation to this purpose should,
we think, be made jointly in the names of the Courts of London,
Petersburg, and Copenhagen, if the latter Court should be disposed
(as we trust will be the case) to co-operate on this occasion.
This may produce such an explanation from Sweden as may furnish
a strong additional ground for interference hereafter to prevent
the dangerous designs of France, if she should be inclined to
avail herself of the privileges she has now acquired to carry
them into execution. If the answer should not be explicit and
satisfactory, further measures should be concerted to guard against
the effects to be apprehended. Indeed, whatever colour may be given
to the transaction, it would not seem wise to trust implicitly
to assurances and explanations. In every light, therefore, the
only substantial security would be in an establishment of that
permanent and solid connection between this country and Russia
and Denmark, which their common interests render on all accounts
most desireable. Without such a system, [the] consequences of this
attempt cannot be effectually obviated, direct opposition to it
seeming hardly practicable; and desultory and unconnected efforts
which terminate in one single and separate point (even if the
occasion admitted of their being exerted to the utmost) promising
comparatively but little effect. Explanations and assurances,
however explicit, unless such measures are taken to enforce an
adherence to them, will be but a feeble and precarious barrier
against the encroaching spirit which has dictated this project.
Even if this particular measure should be defeated, the same spirit
(unless effectual and systematic steps are taken to counteract it)
will show itself in other shapes and on innumerable occasions.
This object therefore of an alliance between the three Courts
seems to be the only measure, under the present circumstances,
which promises effectual support to their common interests and
to the general tranquillity of Europe. And there seems no reason
to imagine that there can be any obstacle in the way of its
completion, which a cordial and mutual inclination, and a free and
open discussion will not easily remove.
All was in vain. There was more method in Catharine II’s waywardness
than Harris understood. Her aim being the preparation of a great fleet
at Sevastopol with a view to the conquest of Turkey, she needed, as we
have seen, the co-operation of Austria; but that implied friendship
with France, and therefore coolness to England.[416] These motives
long continued to govern the policy of the Empress, and prevented the
formation of any good understanding with her.
As for the Emperor, Joseph II, there was small hope of an alliance
with him. The emergence, early in 1785, of his pet scheme of a
Belgic-Bavarian exchange was a palpable threat to the old Germanic
System, of which George III, as Elector of Hanover, was a pillar;
and he knew right well that the Court of St. James would steadfastly
oppose the weakening of the Barrier in Flanders which must ensue from
so violent a change. Sir James Harris summed up the opinion of our
statesmen when he said that that Barrier against the encroachments of
France had “ever been deemed essential to the interests of Europe in
general and to those of England in particular; but it is destroyed
the moment the Low Countries either belong to France directly, or are
governed by a sovereign devoted to her influence.”[417]
* * * * *
We here touch upon a question which, after being the fruitful cause
of wars from the time of the Plantagenets, was soon to involve Great
Britain in the struggle with Revolutionary France, and yet again with
Napoleon. The effort to prevent France acquiring complete control over
the Netherlands was to be the chief work of William Pitt--a career far
other than that which he had marked out for himself, and into which,
as we shall see, he was drawn most reluctantly. The struggle presents
three well-marked phases: the first concerns chiefly the disputes
between the Stadholder of the United Provinces and the Patriots,
abetted by France, which finally resulted in a complete triumph for the
former, thanks to the action of Prussia and England and the formation
of the Triple Alliance of 1788. In the second period Revolutionary
France, with the help of the Patriots, overran those provinces, and set
up the Batavian or Dutch Republic. The uneasy Peace of Amiens ended
in 1803, largely because Bonaparte insisted on treating that Republic
as a dependency of France; and Pitt’s life closed in the midst of the
world-strife that ensued. But the Treaties of Vienna carried out (what
Napoleon never would have agreed to[418]) the erection of a seemingly
solid Barrier against France, the Kingdom of the United Netherlands.
These mighty convulsions arose very largely from a contention as to
the fate of the Netherlands. The importance of States depends not so
much on their size as on their situation; and the Dutch and Belgic
Netherlands, forming the fringes of the French and Teutonic peoples,
derive great importance from that circumstance, or perhaps even more
from their occupying the coast-line beside the mouths of the Rhine,
Meuse, and Scheldt, which contains fine harbours and is peopled
by an enterprising and industrious folk. The conduct of a British
Government with respect to those lands is, so to speak, a barometric
test of its skill and energy. None but the weakest and most craven of
Administrations has ever allowed a great hostile Power to dominate the
mouths of those rivers. It was no idle boast of Napoleon that at his
great naval port of Antwerp he held a pistol at the head of England.
Doubly true would that vaunt be of a Great Power which held Rotterdam
and Amsterdam. In a description of the struggle with France in 1785–7
for supremacy in the Dutch Netherlands, we are concerned with the
prelude of what was to be a mighty trilogy of war.
* * * * *
The fatuity of Lord North’s Administration was nowhere more glaringly
shown than in the high-handed proceedings at sea which embroiled us
with the United Provinces, but it should be remembered that three
provinces out of the seven strongly objected to go to war. Accordingly,
that ill-knit confederacy conducted the war without vigour; and, after
Dutch commerce had suffered severely, it concluded peace with Great
Britain in 1783, ceding the station of Negapatam in India. Resentment
against England was blended with indignation against the Anglophile
Stadholder, William V, who was accused of having paralysed the efforts
of his country. He was even reported by the Patriots or democrats to
have expressed the hope, after the Dutch success at the Dogger Bank,
that the English fleet had not suffered much. These and other silly
tales acquired some credibility from the fact that he was the son of
the Princess Anne, daughter of George II, who had imbued him with a
love of her country. As his guardian and instructor in statecraft was
Duke Lewis of Brunswick, whose intermeddling finally hastened his
departure from the country, the popular movement for the lessening of
the Stadholder’s powers acquired strength from the hatred of foreigners
and foreign ways always so strong in that home-loving folk. These,
then, were the circumstances which brought the disputes between the
Patriots and the Orange party to a crisis in the years 1785–7, and
threatened to plunge Europe into a great war. The immediate causes were
petty and local. The possible results were of world-wide importance.
The functions of the hereditary Stadholder had undergone several
changes according to the exigencies of the times. In the long struggle
with Spain, as later with Louis XIV, the Dutch had wisely entrusted to
the Princes of Orange the chief executive powers, only to go back to
strictly republican and federal customs when the crisis was past. The
same expedient held good during the invasion of the Maréchal de Saxe
in 1746–7, and with a similar sequel. Thus, to the House of Orange
the Dutch looked for a Cincinnatus in times of stress, but expected
him afterwards to go back to his tulips. The advantage of such an
arrangement is obvious, provided that the populace is fully agreed as
to the time of summoning Cincinnatus and the time of dismissal; also
that that illustrious House could ever furnish a supply of men doughty
in war and submissive in peace.
But here lay the difficulty: that the Princes and their supporters
objected to arrangements which implied phenomenal powers of activity
and hibernation. A demand arose that the Republic should so far
centralize its governing powers as to be ready against emergencies;
and in 1747 the United Provinces adopted a constitution whereby the
Stadholderate became a perpetual office, hereditary in the House of
Orange. It was confirmed by all the provinces in 1766; and until
recently no one had disputed the right of the Prince to command the
armed forces, both military and naval, and to exercise a large amount
of control over the executive functions of the provinces. He shared
these last with the States General, representing all the provinces, and
with the States of the several provinces. Nevertheless, these bodies,
together with their Grand Pensionaries, Greffiers, and the Regents (or
chief magistrates) of towns, looked jealously on his prerogatives and
sharply resented any change tending to unify and centralize the forces
of the nation.[419]
In truth, the task of holding together the United Provinces was
like that of grasping oiled billiard balls. They were, in effect,
independent States, having power to decide on peace and war, make
treaties and raise loans. Differing in their constitutions, they also
stood in different relations to the Stadholderate. The duties of the
States General were to uphold the Union framed at Utrecht in 1579, and,
as far as possible, to supervise foreign policy and national defence,
the executive side of these functions falling to the Stadholder and
a Council of State. But ratification by the States of the several
provinces, or at least by a majority of them, was needful to give
validity to all such decisions and actions. When we further learn
that the Regencies of the chief towns had the right of ratifying the
decisions of the States of their provinces, we can understand the
magnitude of the task which confronted the Stadholders and Marlborough
in defending those clannish communities.
The alleged treachery of the Stadholder during the late war with
England, together with resentment at his centralizing efforts, had
now roused these local instincts to a state of fury, which William
V seemed unable either to quell or to calm. In truth, that hapless
ruler was irresolution personified. His _rôle_ was always one of
passivity. Rarely did he show a spark of spirit or turn the tables
on his opponents, though he might easily have thrown on them the
responsibility for the misfortunes of the war, of which they, not he,
were the cause.[420] Compared with him, that other political nullity,
Louis XVI, seemed a man of firmness and energy. Strange to say, the
lottery of marriage had given to each of them an active and capable
consort. In her smaller sphere, Wilhelmina, Princess of Orange, played
a part not unlike that of Marie Antoinette. She was niece of Frederick
the Great and shared in the strong qualities that are rarely eclipsed
in the House of Hohenzollern; but for the present she was doomed idly
to chafe at the humiliating restrictions of her lot. The lynx eyes
of Sir James Harris soon detected her real feelings for her husband,
which, though curbed by wifely duty, now and again broke forth. In
the as yet unpublished letters of Harris to the Marquis of Carmarthen
are sharp comments on the dullness and torpor of the Prince. These
piquant words describe the relations of that ill-matched pair: “He is
so jealous of her sense and power that he would not even go to Paradise
by her influence; and she has so mean an opinion of his capacity, and,
in general, that kind of contempt a high-spirited woman feels for an
inferior male being, that I see no hopes of bringing them to that
degree of cohesion so highly necessary for the completion of my future
plans.”[421]
The man who wrote these words had already seen much of men and
affairs. Born at Salisbury in 1746, Harris was educated at Oxford,
where his acquaintance with Fox instilled into him Whig principles.
After completing his studies at Leyden, he entered the diplomatic
service, served with distinction at Madrid and Berlin, and acted as
ambassador at Petersburg in the years 1777–82, spending there, so it
is said, £20,000 of his private fortune, in his country’s service.
Returning to England, he entered Parliament as member for Christchurch,
and warmly supported Fox. His handsome presence and lively conversation
won him high favour at Carlton House, and afterwards, probably at the
suggestion of Pitt, he gave good advice to the Prince of Wales. A
leader in society, as in the diplomatic world, the brilliant Harris
was courted on all sides; but popularity did not dull his love for
his wife; and the strong expressions of friendship which occur in the
correspondence between him and Carmarthen show that these versatile and
witty men (the latter wrote a comedy which earned the praise of Warton)
had a deep fund of staunchness and fidelity. Their affection had some
political results. The first article in the political creed of Sir
James Harris was hatred of France; and the intervention of Pitt in the
affairs of the Foreign Office may be ascribed to his perception of the
Gallophobe bias which the vehement and persuasive Harris imparted to
the policy of Carmarthen.
Such was the envoy who at the close of the year 1784 proceeded to The
Hague, to uphold the cause of the Stadholder and England against the
Patriots and France. The outlook seemed of the gloomiest. “There is
not, I fear” (so he wrote on 7th December), “the most distant prospect
of reclaiming this country.” And again, on 11th March 1785: “We have
nothing to expect from this country. Passive, tame, and void of every
public virtue, they [the Orange party] will submit to everything.
The Prince now talks of going away, of selling his demesnes in these
provinces and retiring to Germany--a resolution which, if ever he
carries it into execution, will compleat his character.”[422] As for
the refusal of Frederick the Great to help his niece Wilhelmina, it cut
the chivalrous Harris to the quick. His private letters to Carmarthen
breathe hatred against France, but contempt of Prussia. When Frederick
coolly advised her to disarm the Patriots by coming to terms with
France, the impetuous Harris burst forth: “The knot must be cut,
not untied, and the King of Prussia’s half measures rejected.”[423]
Admiration for that unfortunate princess added vehemence to his
language. He found her far more frank and genuine than Catharine of
Russia, needing very little of the flattery which he vainly lavished
on “Semiramis.” He succeeded in persuading the Princess to trust
England rather than Prussia; and it is clear that he worked for a
compact between Great Britain, Austria, and the Netherlands, with the
inclusion of Russia and Denmark if possible. But at times, in hearing
of the indignities that she daily had to bear at The Hague, he forgot
mere questions of policy. “Now and then” (he wrote on 9th September
1785) “my thoughts get worldly, and I think of flesh and blood when
I see a pair of fine eyes with the tears starting from them, but I
soon suppress this idea.”[424] Perhaps it was well that the Prince and
Princess left The Hague and went to reside at Nymeguen, in faithful
Guelderland, near the Prussian Duchy of Cleves.
* * * * *
As Pitt looked away from the turmoil at Westminster (it was the year
of the Reform Bill and the Irish Propositions) he might well feel
dismay at the almost indescribable welter on the Continent. On all
sides the old order was breaking up. Two mighty Empires took the
lead in disruptive schemes which menaced the smaller States with
ruin. Intellectual keenness and military force helped on the coming
cataclysm. Catharine and Joseph were by far the ablest rulers of their
age. Frederick, a prey to moroseness, was content to wait for favours
from Versailles which were never forthcoming. France as yet showed few
signs of that weakness which was soon to overtake her. True, Louis XVI
was a nonentity; but in Marie Antoinette the Austro-French alliance had
its corner stone. Moreover, the French Foreign Minister, Vergennes,
was a man of outstanding talents. His hostility to England had been
notorious; and even now he was reviving the French East India Company,
and was pressing the Sultan for trading facilities in Egypt and the
Red Sea, which threatened our ascendancy in India.[425] To complete
this brief survey, we may note that England had disputes with Spain
concerning the rights of British merchants on the Mosquito Coast of
Central America;[426] and the ill humour of the Court of Madrid lent
some credit to persistent rumours of the formation of a Quadruple
Alliance between Russia, Austria, France, and Spain, for the overthrow
of England.
Having gained some knowledge of the chief players in the great game
that was now opening, and of the vast issues at stake, we return to
notice its varying fortunes, especially as they concerned Pitt. It
should be remembered that, while the Marquis of Carmarthen wrote the
despatches, the spirit which informed them was that of the Prime
Minister. Carmarthen had ability, but it trickled off towards lampoons
and plays. In _la haute politique_ he never had very deep interest;
but it is clear that Pitt soon found in it the fascination which has
enthralled many a master mind.
As we have already seen, Joseph II early in 1785 led the way in two
very threatening moves, namely, the proposal for the Belgic-Bavarian
Exchange and the demand that the Dutch should cede to him Maestricht
and throw open the navigation of the Scheldt estuary below Antwerp. It
was characteristic of him that he should press both these disturbing
claims in the same year, a fact which reveals his confidence in his
alliances with Russia and France, and his contempt for the isolated
Powers, Prussia, Holland, and Great Britain. In these two matters
he used his allies as passive tools for the furtherance of his own
ends; and this explains the concluding sentences of Harris’s letter
to Carmarthen quoted in part above: “The Emperor dupes Russia: France
makes a fool of Prussia. In two words this seems to be the state of
Europe. I wish England could take advantage of this singular position
of affairs.”[427]
Pitt and his colleagues were by no means so absorbed in managing the
House of Commons as Harris hinted in his letter of four days later
to Joseph Ewart at Berlin. The despatches of this able official,
Secretary of the British Legation at the Prussian capital, had already
warned them of their danger, and pointed to an alliance with Prussia
as the only way of escape. The once Prussophobe Harris admitted to
Ewart the force of these arguments;[428] and, as Hertzberg, one of the
Prussian Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, favoured an English
connection, there was some hope that the long feud between Frederick
the Great and George III would die a natural death. During a visit
to London in May, Harris drew up convincing arguments in favour of a
Prussian alliance, and the King suggested that he should go to Berlin
to arrange matters.[429]
Unfortunately the martinet of Sans Souci was as unbending as ever.
He would not hear of entering into a general alliance with England,
either because he still hankered after a union with France,[430]
or feared that an _entente_ with the islanders would drive France
into close union with Russia and Austria. His resolve was the more
remarkable because the Duke of York had been at Berlin to arrange the
accession of Hanover to the League of German Princes which Frederick
was then forming as a counterstroke to Joseph’s assault on the
Germanic System.[431] That the Prussian monarch should have neglected
to strengthen that inherently weak union by the support of England,
is one of the puzzles of his reign. Had he done so, the League would
have taken a long stride forward towards the unification of Germany.
Frederick chose otherwise. He welcomed Hanover and repulsed Great
Britain. The League therefore lacked the support that it might have
had. England and Prussia went their own ways, and therefore yielded to
France the first place in the affairs of Western Europe, particularly
in Holland. Moreover the Imperial Courts hotly resented the inclusion
of Hanover in the League, as will presently appear.
George III very rarely, if ever, consulted Pitt concerning Hanoverian
affairs, the control of which he shared solely with the Regency at
Hanover.[432] But the accession of the Electorate to the _Fürstenbund_,
which took definite shape in August 1785, was not the purely Germanic
affair which George III strove to represent it. The incident gave deep
umbrage to Joseph and Catharine; and their anger fell scarcely less
on Frederick than on the Elector of Hanover. Vorontzoff, the Russian
ambassador at London, on 5th August handed in a sharp protest, which
Pitt at once forwarded to Windsor. It hinted that if George III did not
annul his treaty with Prussia and Saxony, Russia would form alliances
disagreeable to England. As appears in the King’s reply to Pitt,
George scorned the threat, which proved to be harmless.
The natural outcome of this should have been an Anglo-Prussian
_entente_. As Frederick and George had given deep offence to the
Imperial Courts, it would have been reasonable for them to bury the
hatchet and come to a secret compact for mutual defence. Hanover, which
had so long been the cause of alienation, should now have brought them
to a close union. For this consummation Ewart had long been working. He
it was who first caught a glimpse of the brilliant prospects which an
Anglo-Prussian alliance would open up; and with his perfervid Scottish
nature (he was born at a manse near Kirkcudbright in 1759, the year
of Pitt’s birth) he set himself to win the confidence of the Prussian
Minister, Count Hertzberg, and the respect of his chiefs at London.
Possessing lively manners, a frank and pleasing address, natural
shrewdness, perseverance, and zeal tempered with tact, he gradually
won the confidence of Hertzberg, and saw him at least once, and often
twice, every day. Thus he paved the way for a second proposal of a
general alliance between England and Prussia. “_M. Ewart me tourmente
beaucoup du plan_,” wrote Hertzberg on 5th July to the Princess of
Orange.[433] For the present he toiled in vain; but it is clear that
the first conception of the Triple Alliance of England, Prussia, and
Holland, originated neither with Pitt nor Carmarthen, nor Harris,
nor Hertzberg, but with Ewart. His chief at Berlin, Lord Dalrymple,
was in the main a figure-head of the British Embassy, and did not
favour an Anglo-Prussian compact. But Ewart plodded on at the basis
of the fabric, which Pitt and Harris were destined to complete. The
services of this lonely and pertinacious Scot have not received due
recognition.[434]
The threats of the Czarina, however much they might be spurned at
Windsor and Whitehall, furnished another reason why Pitt and Carmarthen
should seek to come to some understanding with Prussia; but, having
failed in the month of May, they were now warily on their guard.
The feeling prevalent in diplomatic circles is piquantly expressed
in Harris’s letter of 23rd August to Carmarthen: “As for the King
of Prussia if he is sincere, he will die; if not, he will of course
deceive us; in both cases he should be used only as a tool, and, by
being forced to speak out himself, compel others [_i.e._ Austria and
Russia] to declare themselves.”[435]
This passage probably explains why the Pitt Ministry, in sending
Earl Cornwallis on an informal mission to Berlin, tied his hands by
instructions of a stringent kind. Carmarthen on 2nd September cautioned
the Earl not to commit this country in the slightest degree; and to
hear much, but speak little to that “artful” monarch.
When such suspicions beset the interview, no good could result. On his
side Frederick appears never to have taken the proposal seriously. He
assured Cornwallis of his friendship for England, but remarked on the
threatening state of things in Europe; France, Spain, Austria, and
Russia were in alliance (which was false); Holland was in the power
of France; Prussia and England were isolated, and, if united, were no
match for the vast display of power opposed to them. The union between
France and Austria was indissoluble (a very questionable statement in
view of their opposing interests in the Netherlands); but it might be
possible to arouse the jealousy of Catharine against Austria over the
suggested partition of Turkey. As for France, she was seeking to make
trouble for England everywhere, especially in India and Ireland. But
he ended his jeremiad with praises of Pitt for his care of British
finances. This tirade was evidently intended to discourage Pitt and
to bring him as a suppliant for the alliance of Prussia. For if the
Quadruple Alliance were a fact, what was to be gained by the two States
remaining in isolation, especially as each of them had annoyed its
neighbours? Frederick’s real opinion appeared in the sharp rebuke which
he sent to Count Lusi, his envoy at London, for venturing to suggest
the desirability of an interview.[436]
The incident left the Pitt Ministry in worse straits than ever by
revealing to all the world the friendless state of England. A note of
anxiety may be detected in the letter which Pitt wrote to Harris on
13th October 1785. After referring to the growing prosperity of the
country, as enhancing its prestige, he added that he would say nothing
about Dutch or continental politics--“for they seem in truth still
too mysterious to form any conjectures on the turn either of them may
ultimately take.”[437] The words deserve notice; for they refute the
notion that Pitt had formed any definite system.[438] His only plan at
this time was to wait until the horizon cleared. Much may be said for
this cautious opportunism; but it had the disadvantage of leaving us
isolated at a time of great danger. We had done enough to incur the
displeasure of two most dangerous sovereigns, Catharine and Joseph, but
not enough to avert its probable consequences.
For the present, Ministers sought to recover the good will of
Catharine. In semblance it was easily procurable. Vorontzoff for a
time dangled before Carmarthen the prize of a Russian alliance, and
sought to persuade him that the Empress was on the point of proposing
it when she heard of Hanover joining the German League. The Austrian
envoy, Kazeneck, also assured him that friendship with Russia would
be the best means of preventing war with France. Carmarthen seems to
have taken these offers at their face value and wrote to Harris that
the road from London to Paris lay through Petersburg.[439] Similar
proposals came from these envoys for some time; and Carmarthen cheered
himself with a truly pathetic belief in their honesty.[440] Harris
also, despite his knowledge of Catharine’s anti-British bias, persisted
in hoping for a return of her favour. He even drew up a memorandum
recounting the advantages of an Anglo-Russo-Austrian League, for which
Carmarthen was already angling; and in particular he deprecated any
offer of alliance to Frederick, “unless compelled by events.”[441] It
is strange that Pitt and Carmarthen did not see that the advances of
the Imperial Courts were designed merely to keep England and Prussia
apart. But, in truth, the fault lay mainly with Frederick the Great,
whose spleen was incurable.
Meanwhile the course of events in the Netherlands should have brought
Prussia and England to terms. They need not have been public, still
less offensive in aim; for that would have brought about a close
union of France with Russia as well as Austria, an event which Pitt
no less than Frederick sought to avert. But why Pitt and Carmarthen
should not have welcomed a secret defensive compact with Prussia it
is hard to say. If the princes and counts of Germany did not hesitate
to brave the wrath of Joseph by union with Prussia, why should Great
Britain? Frederick’s shiftiness may be granted. But at this crisis
there was a motive which might be trusted to keep him staunch, namely,
self-interest. Both England and Prussia sorely needed an ally; yet they
held severely aloof.
In the early autumn of 1785, Joseph II brought severe pressure to
bear upon the Dutch to cede Maestricht to him, and to throw open the
navigation of the Scheldt below Antwerp. Hostilities were on the
point of breaking out, when France skilfully intervened, offered
her mediation, and prevailed on the disputants to accept the terms
which she offered. By the Treaty of Fontainebleau (8 Nov. 1785) the
Emperor agreed to waive his exorbitant claims in consideration of the
payment of 15,000,000 florins, for the half of which sum the Court
of Versailles became responsible. That so heavily burdened a State
should add to its financial difficulties excited some surprise; but in
the political sphere Vergennes gained a signal triumph. By becoming
paymaster to Joseph, he kept that wayward ruler in French leading
strings; and, by saving Maestricht and the Scheldt navigation to the
Dutch, he ensured the supremacy of France in that land. This compact
was followed two days later by a Franco-Dutch treaty of alliance
whereby the Court of Versailles guaranteed the possessions of the
United Provinces; and each of the two States undertook to furnish ships
and men to the other in case of attack.[442]
Meanwhile Pitt awoke to a sense of the danger, and urged Harris to use
his utmost endeavours (short of an open breach with France) to prevent
the ratification of the treaty by the United Provinces. All that the
envoy could do was to present to the States General at The Hague a
Memorial declaring the continued interest taken by England in the
affairs of the Republic. But of what avail was this academic statement
without a conditional and secret offer of armed support, which
everybody knew France would give rather than forego her triumph? Again,
early in December, Pitt warned Carmarthen that Harris should “redouble
every possible effort” to prevent the Franco-Dutch alliance.[443] This
was merely to bid him fight with his hands tied.
France now held a most commanding position in Europe. By the new
compacts she influenced Hapsburg policy, she forced Frederick the Great
into almost abject deference, she allured Catharine, and she controlled
the Dutch Netherlands. This last triumph crowned the life-work of
Vergennes. The recent treaties relieved him from the disagreeable
alternative of choosing between Austria and the United Provinces in
case of a rupture. They emphasized the isolation of England. Above all,
they prepared the way for joint action of the French and Dutch East
India Companies which might prove to be fatal to British ascendancy in
India.[444]
The meagre correspondence of Pitt at this time contains scarcely a
reference to this very serious crisis. His letters turn mainly on
finance, Irish affairs, and domestic topics such as the purchase of
Holwood. On the Dutch problem there is not a word except the curiously
curt reference in his letter of October 6 to Grenville: “I have
written to Lord Carmarthen on the Dutch business much as you seem to
wish.”[445] The phrase is interesting as marking the commencement of
the influence which Grenville was soon to gain over Pitt in foreign
affairs; but its nonchalance is astounding. In part, no doubt, the
passivity of the Prime Minister resulted from the determination of
George III to hold aloof as King of England from all complications,
however much, as Elector of Hanover, he might irritate Austria and
Russia. As we shall see in the next chapter, George was beginning to
be alarmed at the growing expenses of his family, and viewed the Dutch
crisis mainly as involving burdensome demands on the Civil List. Here,
then, as at so many points in his career, Pitt was handicapped by the
King.
But it is also probable that in the disappointing year 1785, marked
by the failure of his Reform and Irish measures, he suppressed the
concern which he must have felt at the deepening isolation of England.
We must remember that he had formed a resolve to play a waiting game
in foreign affairs. On August 8 he wrote to the Duke of Rutland that,
if the commercial treaty with Ireland became law, and peace lasted for
five years, England would be able to look any Power in Europe in the
face.[446] That explains why he tied the hands of Harris at The Hague
and sent to Berlin overtures so cautious as to be received with polite
disdain. His great aim was to lessen the National Debt; and the year
1785, with all its disappointments, witnessed a most extraordinary rise
in Consols, viz. from 54¼ to 73½. There was the strength of England’s
position. If she reduced her debt, while all the Continental Powers
were ruinously increasing theirs, she must have the advantage when
turmoil ended in war.
Pitt therefore adopted a policy of delay. So long as he could
strengthen the navy, maintain the army at the ordinary peace footing,
and enhance the nation’s credit, he was content to bide his time,
leaving Harris to combat French influence in Holland as best he
could.[447] Such a policy was very far from brilliant; and, had not
France in the next two years entered on a period of rapid decline, he
might be censured for tamely waiting on events. For it is possible
that a bold initiative at Whitehall in October, while Vergennes’ Dutch
treaties were taking shape, might have gained active support either
from Prussia or from Joseph II, who had been on very cool terms with
France. Pitt, however, preferred to hold back, even though the Bourbons
gained control of the United Provinces. By his passivity in face of
that diplomatic disaster we may measure his devotion to the cause of
peace. And just as Queen Elizabeth often reassured her people at the
gravest crisis by displays of frivolity, so too Pitt’s absorption
in tree planting at Holwood may have been a device for hiding his
anxiety, reassuring the public, and preventing a fall in the Funds.
Serene hopefulness in the future of his country is a strong feature in
the character of this great man; and we shall find occasions when he
displayed this quality to excess. Certain it is that he never lost hope
or relaxed his energies, even now, when Ministers and envoys evinced
signs of gloom or despair. A proof of the prevalence of these feelings
appears in one of the closing passages of a Memorandum which the Duke
of Richmond, Master of the Ordnance, on 30th December 1785, sent to his
colleague, Carmarthen. It was written owing to a singular circumstance,
which reveals the impulsiveness of Pitt. The Duke had almost casually
suggested the desirability of recovering some foothold in the Dutch
Netherlands by inducing them to propose to include England in their
recent treaty with France. This hint, which the Duke threw out in
conversation, was at once taken up by Pitt, who, without consulting the
Cabinet, urged Carmarthen to take steps to carry it into effect, and
suggested that one of the Patriots might be bribed to make the proposal
of including England, as if it were to test the sincerity of her offers
of friendship. Of course the matter came to nothing; but the surprise
of the Duke at Pitt’s speedy adoption of the hint led him to descant on
our isolation, and to harp on the well-worn theme of an alliance with
Austria:--
Goodwood, December 30, 1785.
... If the Emperor and France keep well together, Leghorn will be
also an inimical port,[448] as may Algiers and Marocco if their
treaties with Spain go on. Holland seems lost to us both in Europe
and the East Indies; and should the Emperor and Russia unite with
France, Sweden must follow, and Denmark dare not be our friend.
Under such circumstances what are we to look for but utter ruin!
If France is disengaged on the Continent and assisted by Spain,
Holland and Russia (to say nothing of America), we must be attacked
with greatly superior forces in the East and West Indies and
perhaps in Canada; but, what is still worse, we shall undoubtedly
have the war brought into Ireland, and I very much doubt whether we
can by any means avoid that country being divided, and a large part
acting against us. If any of these points of attack succeed, and
above all, if our navy should meet with any disaster from superior
forces, the next step will be to bring the war into this country,
and the best issue of such an event must be attended with much
distress. In short, the natural and political advantages of France
are such that I very much fear the consequences. To divert her
attention by stirring up some powerful enemy on the Continent has
been long and universally considered as our only resource, and yet
unfortunately we seem to be obstructing the only Power capable of
creating that diversion, which is the Emperor....[449]
It was amidst fears so intense and prejudices so deep-seated that Pitt
undertook the negotiations for a friendly commercial treaty with France
which is the chief event of the year 1786.
CHAPTER XIV
L’ENTENTE CORDIALE
(1786)
Thy father’s fame with thine fair Truth shall blend.
His vigour saved from foreign foes the land,
Thy prudence makes each foreign foe a friend.
REV. W. MASON TO PITT, 1786.
The nation is but the family writ large; and, just as families after
a ruinous quarrel sometimes win their way back towards prudence and
friendliness, so too nations now and again feel the force of the
sociable instincts. Such a time was now at hand for Great Britain
and France. The eight years of the American War of Independence had
increased the debt of the Island Power by £115,000,000;[450] and so
wasteful had been the conduct of the war by France that in the years
1778–1783, she had exceeded the total of her already large peace
expenditure by £66,000,000.[451] Further, as that struggle brought to
her few results beyond the satisfaction of rending the British Empire
in twain, she was scarcely the better for it. In truth, while defeat
led patriotic Britons to tread the humble paths of retrenchment and
reform, the triumph of France allured her politicians into the stately
avenues ending in bankruptcy and Revolution.
During the period of war, philosophy, science, and industry had
been waging their peaceful campaigns; and now in the exhaustion or
quiescence which beset both peoples, the still small voice of reason
was heard. The responsiveness of thought in England and France is
one of the most remarkable facts in the eighteenth century. Though
political rivalry had five times over embroiled those peoples in deadly
strife, yet their thinkers had never ceased to feel the thrill of
sympathetic ideas, originated by “the natural enemy,” which proved
to be no less potent than the divulsive forces of statecraft. The
Marconigrams of thought pass through storms, whether atmospheric
or political; and it may be that finally the nations will become
sounding-boards responding more and more to progressive ideas, and less
and less to the passions of mankind.
Certainly the mental sympathy of England and France in that century was
strongly marked. As is well known, the philosophy of Locke supplied
Voltaire and Rousseau with most of the weapons of their intellectual
armoury. From the English constitution Montesquieu drew many of the
contentions which lend significance to his _Esprit des Lois_. The ideas
of naturalism and sensibility were wafted hither from the garner of
Rousseau. Philanthropy became a force in both lands about the same
time but in diverse ways. In France it was in the main anti-clerical,
springing from the indignant protests of Voltaire against atrocities
such as that inflicted by the Church on Calas. In this land it may
be traced to the Wesleyan revival, the motive which impelled Howard,
Clarkson, and Wilberforce being distinctly religious.
On a lower plane we notice the immense vogue of English fashions in
France, and of French _modes_ in England. _Grands seigneurs_ sought to
copy our field sports, swathed themselves in English _redingotes_, and
rose in the stirrups _à l’Anglaise_. The Duc de Chartres (the future
Philippe Egalité) set the rage for English ways and fabrics, so that
French industries seriously suffered. In 1785 the French Minister
complained to our envoy that French draperies could not be sold unless
they looked like English stuffs.[452] Britons returned the compliment.
They swarmed into France. We find our envoy complaining that English
families were settling in every French town, so that it might be well
to devise an absentee tax which would drive them homewards.[453]
But no influence helped on the new cosmopolitanism so much as the
spread of ideas of Free Trade. Here the honours lie with French
thinkers. It was by residence in France and contact with the
_Economistes_, Quesnay and Turgot, that Adam Smith was able to
formulate the ideas soon to be embodied in the “Wealth of Nations.”
Here we may note a curious paradox. The practical islanders supplied
their neighbours with political ideas which, when barbed by Voltaire
and Rousseau, did much to gall France into violent action. On the other
hand, the more nimble-witted people gave to its trading rival the
fiscal principles (neglected at home) which furthered the extension
of its commerce. Venomous use might be made of this contrast by that
fast diminishing band of Anglophobes who see in all British actions
perfidious attempts to ruin France; but it must be remembered that
everything depends on the men who introduce and apply the new ideas,
and that, whereas France was unfortunate in the men who promulgated and
worked the political principles learnt in England, the islanders on the
contrary had the wisest of counsellors. Contrast Voltaire, Rousseau,
and Robespierre with Adam Smith and Pitt, and the riddle is solved at
once.
Amidst the exhaustion of war, both nations were now ready to listen
to all that was most convincing in the arguments of the _Economistes_
and of Adam Smith. These exponents of the nascent science of Economics
rendered a memorable service to the cause of peace by urging nations,
like sensible traders, to rejoice in the prosperity of their
neighbours, not in their poverty. Propinquity, said they, should be an
incentive to free intercourse, not to hatred. Adam Smith pointed out
in his “Wealth of Nations” (1776) that France could offer us a market
eight times as populous as that of our North American colonies, and
twenty-four times as advantageous if the frequency of the returns were
reckoned. The British market, he said, would be equally profitable
to France. He laughed to scorn the notion that France would always
drain Great Britain of her specie, and showed that the worship of the
“balance of trade” was accountable for much folly and bloodshed.[454]
It is difficult to say whether these views had much hold on the
English people. If we may judge from the passions aroused by Pitt’s
Irish Resolutions, it was slight. On the other hand the absence of
any vehement opposition to the commercial treaty with France a year
later, shows either that public opinion here was moving forwards, or
that the Opposition felt it impossible to bring to bear on the absolute
government of Louis XVI those irritating arguments which had had so
potent an influence on the Irish people.
The influence of the _Economistes_ in France probably did not count
for very much. But they had shown their power during the brief but
beneficent ministry of Turgot; and even when Marie Antoinette procured
the dismissal of that able but austere Minister, one of his disciples
remained in office, and was now Minister of Foreign Affairs. This
was Vergennes. Few men at that time did more for the cause of human
brotherhood than this man, whom Carlyle described as “solid phlegmatic
... like some dull punctual clerk.” A man’s importance depends,
after all, not so much on external brilliance as on the worth of his
achievements; a statesman who largely decided the Franco-American
alliance, the terms of peace in 1783, and the resumption of friendly
relations with England, need not fear the verdict of history. In a
little known fragment written in April 1776, Vergennes thus outlines an
intelligent policy:
Wise and happy will that nation be which will be the first to adapt
its policy to the new circumstances of the age, and to consent
to see in its colonies nothing more than allied provinces and no
longer subject States of the mother-land. Wise and happy will that
nation be which is the first to be convinced that commercial policy
consists wholly in employing lands in the way most advantageous for
the owners, also the arms of the people in the most useful way,
that is, as self-interest will enjoin if there is no coercion;
and that all the rest is only illusion and vanity. When the total
separation of America [from Great Britain] has forced everybody
to recognize this truth and weaned the European nations from
commercial jealousy, it will remove one important cause of war, and
it is difficult not to desire an event which ought to bring this
boon to the human race.[455]
Two years later, when France drew the sword on behalf of the Americans,
Britons naturally scoffed at these philanthropic pretensions. The
conduct of her Court and nobles was certainly open to the charge of
hypocrisy, especially when Louis XVI issued the ordinance of 1781
restricting the higher commissions in his army to those nobles who
could show sixteen quarters of nobility. Singular, indeed, to battle
for democracy in the new world and yet draw tighter the bands of
privilege in France! Yet Vergennes, Necker, and other friends of reform
were not responsible for this regal folly; and they were doubtless
sincere in hoping that the downfall of England’s colonial system would
inaugurate a new era in the politics and commerce of the world.
A proof of the sincerity of Vergennes is to be found in the 18th
Article of the Treaty of Versailles (1783), which stipulated that,
immediately after the ratification of the treaty, commissioners should
be appointed to prepare new commercial arrangements between the two
nations “on the basis of reciprocity and mutual convenience, which
arrangements are to be terminated and concluded within the space of two
years from the 1st of January 1784.” For this clause Lords Shelburne
and Grantham on the British side were chiefly responsible; and it is
certain that the former warmly approved it.[456] Pitt, as Chancellor of
the Exchequer in that Ministry, doubtless also welcomed the proposal;
but I have found no sign of his opinions on the subject. The credit for
this enlightened proposal may probably be assigned to Vergennes, seeing
that he dictated terms, while the British Cabinet accepted them. There
is a ring of sincerity in his words written on 1st February 1783 to de
Rayneval, then his diplomatic agent in London: “It is an old prejudice,
which I do not share, that there is a natural incompatibility between
these two peoples.... Every nation must strive for the utmost
prosperity; but this cannot be based on exclusiveness, otherwise it
would be a nullity. One does not get rich from very poor nations.”[457]
This seems to be an echo of Adam Smith’s dictum: “A nation that would
enrich itself by foreign trade is certainly most likely to do so when
its neighbours are all rich, industrious, and commercial nations.”[458]
Statesmen on this side of the Channel were slower than their rivals
in seeking to realize these enlightened aims. The fall of Shelburne’s
Ministry and the triumph of the Fox-North Coalition led to no important
change in the Treaty, which was signed at Versailles in September 1783;
but the commercial treaty was shelved for the present. With all his
enlightenment in matters political, Fox had a limited outlook in the
commercial sphere. He held the old Whig views, which for wellnigh a
century had been narrowly national and mercantilist. Further, he hotly
contested the claim put forward by the French Government to consider
all trading arrangements at an end, including those of the Treaty of
Utrecht, if no arrangement were formed before the end of the year
1785.[459]
Such was the state of things when Pitt and Carmarthen took office
at the close of the year 1783. The events described in the previous
chapter will have enabled the reader to understand the need of
great caution on the part of Pitt. Though the language of Vergennes
was redolent of human brotherhood, his actions were often shrewdly
diplomatic. In the United Provinces, as we have seen, his policy wore
a twofold aspect. While supporting the Patriots, he claimed to be
supporting the cause of democracy, but he also dealt a blow at British
influence. Though he maintained the Austrian alliance, he coquetted
with Prussia; and, while dallying with the Czarina in order to keep
out England, he made a profitable bargain with Russia’s enemy, Sweden,
respecting Gothenburg. Thus on all sides he advanced the cause of
enlightenment and the interests of France.
It is not surprising that this dextrous union of philosophy and
statecraft (which resembles that by which Napoleon utilized Rousseau’s
advocacy of natural boundaries) earned the hatred of nearly every
Briton. Carmarthen and Harris were deeply imbued with these feelings;
and it is certain that Pitt, while taking the outstretched hand of
Vergennes, half expected a dagger-thrust. We find Grenville writing
to Carmarthen on 25th February 1785 concerning a plan, which Pitt had
formed, for provisionally buying over a Mr. D. S. M. at Paris to send
confidential news, especially respecting the plans and movements of
the French in the East Indies. He was to receive 60 guineas a month
for news sent to Daniel Hailes, Secretary at the British Embassy,
and 250 guineas at the end of three months if his information gave
satisfaction.[460] Other items make if clear that Pitt viewed with
concern the activity of France in the East. The formation of a French
East India Company in March 1785 was a threatening sign;[461] and in
the summer came a report from Sir Robert Ainslie, British ambassador at
Constantinople, that France was intriguing to gain a foothold in Egypt
on the Red Sea. Part of his despatch of 23rd July 1785 is worth quoting:
... The Porte has varied in her general opposition to establishing
a trade through Egypt, by opening the navigation of the Red Sea to
the flag of Christian Powers. The present undertaking and the late
French mission to Cairo was in consequence of a plan devised by the
late French ambassador to ruin our East India Company by an illicit
trade under the protection of France, in which it was thought the
Company’s servants would join most heartily. It is clear that
France adopted this scheme, but I can pledge myself the Porte was
not consulted and that she will never protect a project by far
more dangerous to her own interests than even to ours. It seems
Count Priest hoped to elude the Ottoman bad humour by employing the
navigation of the flags of all Christian Powers indiscriminately
and to secure his trade by the protection of the Beys of Egypt, who
certainly have aimed at absolute independence ever since the time
of Ali Bey.[462]
The correspondence of Sir James Harris with Carmarthen shows that
our Ministry kept a watchful eye on any symptoms which portended a
union of the Dutch East India Company with that of France. Indeed,
as we shall see, the reasons which prompted the resolute action of
Pitt at the crisis of 1787 in Holland were largely based on naval and
colonial considerations. Matters in the East were in an uneasy state.
Once again, in January 1786, Hailes reported that the unsettled state
of Egypt was known to be attracting the notice of the French Foreign
Office, probably with a view to conquest.[463] The efforts which France
put forth in 1785–6 for the construction of a great naval fortress at
Cherbourg also claimed attention; and Britons were not calmed by the
philosophic reflections of some peace-loving Gauls that the completion
of that mighty harbour would render it impossible for England to make
war on France.
* * * * *
In view of the lowering political horizon, is it surprising that
Pitt was very cautious in responding to the proposals of the French
Cabinet for a friendly commercial treaty? It is incorrect to say, as
Harris did in a rather peevish outburst, that Pitt was too occupied
with Parliament to attend to foreign affairs.[464] We now know that
he paid much attention to them, though the pressing problems of
finance, India, Ireland, and Reform perforce held the first place in
his thoughts. But he must have desired to gain a clearer insight into a
very complex situation before he committed his country to a commercial
treaty with France.[465] To have done so prematurely might have
prevented the formation of that closer political union with Russia and
Austria which British statesmen long and vainly struggled to effect.
But another motive probably weighed even more with Pitt in favour
of delay. We have seen how fondly and tenaciously he clung to the
hope of a commercial union between Great Britain and Ireland through
the session of 1785. Surely it was of prime importance to complete
the fiscal system of the British Islands before he entered into
negotiations with a foreign Power. To have hurried on the French
commercial treaty before that with Ireland was concluded would have
been a grave tactical error. As a firm economic unit, Great Britain and
Ireland could hope for far better terms from France than as separate
entities; and this consideration almost certainly supplies the reason
for Pitt’s extreme anxiety to assure the industrial unity of these
islands before he began to bargain with France; while it may also
explain the desire of Vergennes to press on the negotiation before the
British Islands had acquired fiscal solidarity. In fine, everything
conspired to impose on Pitt a passive attitude. Vergennes, as the
victor, could propose terms; Pitt, representing the beaten Power, could
only await them. Such was the situation in 1784–5. An autocracy founded
on privilege seemed to be threatening our political existence, and yet
made commercial proposals which might have come from Adam Smith himself.
The British Government responded to them very slowly. In the spring
of 1784 it appointed George Craufurd to act as our commissioner at
Versailles for the drafting of a commercial arrangement, as was
required by the treaty of 1783; but he did not receive his instructions
until September. Rayneval, who had the full confidence of Vergennes,
was the French commissioner; and at their first interview he asked that
the principle of reciprocity should form the basis of the negotiations.
To this the British Court demurred, and the affair remained in suspense
for some months. On 3rd March 1785 Craufurd wrote to Carmarthen that
he was still waiting for replies to his notes of 30th September and
25th November, and that Vergennes had repeatedly expressed to the Duke
of Dorset, the British ambassador, his annoyance at the loss of time.
His resentment had recently taken a tangible form; he had issued an
ordinance (_arrêt_) imposing a tax of sixty per cent on all carriages
imported from the United Kingdom. This action led Carmarthen to break
his long silence on commercial matters and to protest against the
tax as tending to “prevent that spirit of conciliation or friendly
liberality so necessary at this time to produce any good effect for
those commercial arrangements now in contemplation.”[466] He also
hinted that Great Britain might with perfect justice retaliate.
Further, he repudiated the French claim, once again raised, that
all commercial arrangements would lapse by the end of 1785, and
maintained that the Treaty of Utrecht would afterwards equally be in
force. After further delays Rayneval demanded that there should be
absolute reciprocity in their commercial dealings, the basis of the
most favoured nation being adopted where it did not infringe existing
treaties. To this Carmarthen sent the following reply on 5th August:
Mutual benefits and reciprocal advantages are indisputably the
objects we are inclined to pursue in the adjustment of this
business; but to say at once that the two nations shall be
entitled to those privileges which are alone allowed to the most
favoured nations, by way of a basis to the negotiation and without
weighing the nature and consequence of such privileges is totally
impossible; and of this I think M. de Rayneval must be convinced
when he recollects that it was a stipulation of this sort contained
in the 8th and 9th articles of the Treaty of Commerce of Utrecht
in 1713 that prevented those articles from ever being carried into
effect.[467]
Considering that reciprocity and the most favoured nation treatment
had been urged by Rayneval at his first interview with Craufurd in
September 1784, it is difficult to see why Carmarthen felt flurried by
the present proposal.
Meanwhile Vergennes had struck another heavy blow. He issued an
_arrêt_ forbidding foreigners to share in the French trade to the
Barbary States, and on 10th July he prohibited the import of foreign
cottons, muslins, gauzes, and linens into France. At once there arose
a cry of distress and rage throughout Great Britain; and Carmarthen
sent an energetic remonstrance against this further proof of the
ill-humour of the French Government. Hailes at once informed him
that the two _arrêts_ had “been suspended with more forbearance than
could reasonably have been expected, considering the detriment French
manufactures have sustained, and the great advantage we have derived
from the balance of trade being so much and so long in our favour.
People in general think that this strong measure will hasten the
conclusion of an arrangement between us.”[468] Vergennes soon assured
Hailes of his desire for a friendly arrangement, but he added that
meanwhile the French Government had to look to its own needs and stop
the enormous influx of British goods, for which the French public
clamoured. Commerce and finance were then the chief care of the French
Government. On 25th August Hailes reported the pains secretly taken
by the French to attract skilled English workmen. On 22nd September
Craufurd stated that further disagreeable events would happen unless
some progress were made with the commercial treaty; Rayneval observed
that, if we objected to reciprocity and the most favoured nation basis,
it was for us to make a proposal. On 21st October Vergennes issued
another unfriendly _arrêt_ prohibiting the import of iron, steel, and
cutlery; but Hailes continued to assure Carmarthen that Vergennes and
Rayneval were anxious for a final settlement and that the _arrêts_ were
“meant to stimulate us to a conclusion of the commercial treaty as soon
as possible.”[469]
Pitt now began to bestir himself on this matter. In order to have at
Paris a commissioner abler, or more acceptable, than Craufurd seems to
have been, he made overtures to William Eden (the future Lord Auckland)
with a view to his acting as special commissioner in his place. In the
Auckland Papers at the British Museum there is an unpublished letter
of Pitt to Eden, dated Brighthelmstone, 16th October 1785, in answer
to one in which Eden had hinted that he would prefer the Speakership
of the House of Commons, as Cornwall “obviously suffered while in the
chair.”[470] Pitt’s reply is as follows:
It gives me great satisfaction to find that there remains no
obstacle to your acceptance of either of the situations mentioned
in my letter to Mr. Beresford, and that nothing seems left to
settle but the mode of carrying such an arrangement into effect. I
confess I am not aware of any means which could properly be taken
to induce the Speaker to retire at present; and therefore in the
interval I should very much wish to accelerate the execution of the
other idea.[471]
Pitt then refers to some difficulties which make it desirable to
defer the actual appointment until the session had begun. He suggests
conferences, especially as in a fortnight he would be nearer to Eden.
All this bespeaks a degree of nonchalance quite remarkable considering
the importance of the questions at stake. Everything tends to show
that Pitt felt far less interest in this negotiation than in that with
Ireland, to which he had very properly given the first place. The
effort to free trade between the two islands having now failed, there
was no reason for further postponing the discussions with France.
Such seems to me the reasonable way of explaining his procedure. The
contention of the French historian of this treaty, that Pitt was
opposed to the commercial arrangement with France, and was only forced
into it by the hostile _arrêts_, is untenable.[472] He maintains that
it was the last _arrêt_, that of 21st October, which brought Pitt to
his senses--“Mr. Pitt, who did not _then_ wish for war, surrendered.”
This phrase reveals the prejudice of the writer, who, publishing his
work at the time of Cobden’s negotiations with Napoleon III, obviously
set himself to prove that Free Trade was French both in the origin of
the idea and in the carrying out in practice by statesmen. Passing
over these claims, we should remember that Pitt had made his first
overtures to Eden in the first week in October, some ten days before
the appearance of the _arrêt_, which, in Butenval’s version, compelled
him to “surrender.”
Pitt acted with much circumspection. He urged Eden to collect
information on trade matters; but it seems that not until December did
the new Council of Trade set on foot any official inquiries.[473]
Perhaps the Irish negotiation, which was hurried on too fast, had
given him pause. Meanwhile, however, France had gained another success
by imposing her mediation on the Emperor Joseph II and the Dutch
Government and settling the disputes between them. As appeared in the
previous chapter, this treaty led to the conclusion of an alliance
(10th November 1785) both political and commercial, with the United
Provinces, which emphasized the isolation of England and secured the
Dutch markets for France. Thus the delay in meeting the advances of
Vergennes had been doubly prejudicial to British interests, and it must
be confessed that Pitt’s _début_ in European diplomacy was far from
brilliant.
If, however, we look into details, we find that Carmarthen hampered
the negotiations at the outset by refusing to accept the “most
favoured nation” basis of negotiation, and by throwing on France the
responsibility for not proposing some “practicable” scheme. On 14th
October 1785 he wrote to Hailes that Great Britain very much desired a
commercial treaty with France, and was waiting for “specific proposals”
from her; and again, on 4th November, that matters seemed hopeless,
owing to Rayneval’s obstinate adherence to his original scheme.[474]
This pedantic conduct was fast enclosing the whole affair in a
vicious circle. Meanwhile the sands of time were running out: and it
seemed that England would be left friendless and at the mercy of any
commercial arrangement which France chose to enforce after the close
of the year. It is strange that Pitt did not insist on the furtherance
of a matter which he judged to be “of great national importance.”[475]
But his only step for the present was to write a letter, signed by
Carmarthen, asking for an extension of time beyond the end of that
year. In reply Vergennes expressed the satisfaction of Louis XVI that
Great Britain was seriously desirous of framing a commercial treaty and
granted six months’ extension of time.[476] A year was finally granted.
Notwithstanding this further proof of Vergennes’ good will, the
negotiation began under conditions so unfavourable to Great Britain
as to call for a skilled negotiator; but the career of William Eden
warranted the hope that he would bear the burden of responsibility
triumphantly. Born in 1744, and educated at Eton and Christchurch,
he early showed marked abilities, which were sharpened by practice
at the Bar. He also devoted his attention to social and economic
questions; and when, in 1780, he became Chief Secretary for Ireland
under the Earl of Carlisle, he did much to promote the prosperity of
that land, especially by helping to found the Bank of Ireland. He
took keen interest in the treatment of prisoners, and proposed to
substitute hard labour for transportation. The reform of the penal
laws also engaged his attention. He had long been attached to Lord
North’s party, though his views were more progressive than theirs. By
his marriage with the sister of Sir Gilbert Elliot he came into touch
with the Whigs; and, though his petulant conduct in 1782 with regard
to the resignation of the lord-lieutenancy by Carlisle caused general
annoyance, he was largely instrumental in bringing about the Fox-North
Coalition. Consistency sat lightly upon Eden; and when, in 1785, he
hotly opposed Pitt’s Irish proposals, similar in effect to his own of
some years earlier, he was roundly abused by one of his friends for his
factiousness.[477] The same correspondent soon had cause to upbraid
him still further for his conduct in the autumn of 1785, when, leaving
the Opposition, he went over to the Government side in order to act as
special commissioner at Paris. The Duke of Portland coldly commended
him for placing country above party; but the many saw in the move
only enlightened self-interest and felt no confidence in him. Wraxall
expressed the prevalent opinion when he said that there “existed in
Eden’s physiognomy, even in his manner and deportment, something
which did not convey the impression of plain dealing or inspire
confidence.”[478]
Undoubtedly Eden was the ablest negotiator whom Pitt could have chosen
for a difficult commercial bargain; Wedgwood at once wrote to say that
he would have been his choice; and the remarks as to Pitt filching away
a prominent member of the Opposition are clearly prompted by spite.
After hearing much evidence on commercial matters at the Committee
of Council, Eden set out for Paris at the end of March 1786, and was
welcomed by Vergennes as a kindred soul. The Duke of Dorset was
somewhat offended at his coming, and held aloof. Fortunately he found
it desirable to take a long holiday in England, during which time the
affairs of the embassy were ably carried on by Eden and Hailes. A
popular song of the day referred to this in the lines:
For Dorset at cricket can play
And leave Billy Eden in France, sir.
Dorset’s services were, in fact, mainly social. He was liked by Marie
Antoinette; and his _thés dansants_ were frequented by the leading
nobles.[479]
On Eden, then, and Pitt (for Carmarthen felt no trust in the French)
lay the chief burden of the negotiations. It is clear that Pitt now
took a keen interest in the affair; and as Vergennes, Rayneval, and
Calonne (Minister of Finance) showed a marked desire to come to a fair
compromise, the matter was soon in good train. The chief difficulties
arose from the suspicions of Carmarthen and the desire of Jenkinson,
head of the Council of Trade, to drive a hard bargain with France.
Pitt could not be indifferent to the opinions of his colleagues; and
his experience of British manufacturers was such as to make him press
for the best possible terms. That he still felt some distrust of the
Court of Versailles is clear from his letter of 19th April 1786 to Eden
that their financial embarrassments were such as “to secure, at least
for a time, a sincere disposition to peace.”[480] By that time, too,
he must have received Eden’s letter of 13th April marked “Private and
confidential,” which referred in glowing terms to the prospects of the
negotiation:
It is a circumstance which I shall think a just subject of pride
to us both in the present age and of merit with posterity if the
result should be what at this moment seems probable.... France
shows a disposition to encourage our trade if we remove the
senseless and peevish distinctions which fill so many lines in our
Book of Rates; and a decided resolution to obstruct it as much as
possible if those distinctions are suffered to remain. In the same
time all the speculations and exertions of our trade with this
Kingdom are suspended, and the manufactures, the navigation and the
revenue are suffering. Besides, all the trading and manufacturing
parts of England are at this hour disposed to go much greater
lengths than are now suggested.... It is even highly possible that
this treaty may form a new epoch in history.[481]
Over against the enthusiasm of Eden we may set the distrust of
Carmarthen, as evinced in his statement to that envoy on 29th April,
that if France could ever be sincere, Eden would doubtless bring the
bargain to a successful issue.[482] Far less complimentary were his
references to Eden in private letters to Dorset and Harris. From
the former he inquired: “How is our paragon of perfection relished
in France?”[483] In a letter to Harris, who constantly maintained
that Eden was playing the game for Versailles, not for London,
Carmarthen referred to “the absurd and officious letter of our great
commercial negotiator.”[484] It is well to remember these jealousies;
for, as Harris was the bosom friend of Carmarthen, he succeeded in
persuading him that the whole negotiation with France was a trick of
our arch-enemy. The letter of Harris, which called forth Carmarthen’s
ironical reply, ended with the statement that France sought “to depress
us everywhere, to keep us in an isolated and unconnected state, till
such time as they think they can cripple us irrecoverably by an open
hostile attack.”[485] These suspicions must have been passed on to Pitt
after due sifting; and it speaks much for the evenness and serenity
of his mind that he persevered with the negotiation in spite of the
prejudices of his Foreign Minister. Naturally, also, he kept the affair
in his own hands.
In truth, Pitt occupied a position intermediate between that of
the incurably suspicious Carmarthen and of the pleased and rather
self-conscious Eden. When the latter very speedily arrived at a
preliminary agreement, or Projet, with Rayneval, and begged that it
should be adopted as speedily, and with as few alterations as possible,
Pitt subjected it to friendly but close scrutiny. His reply of 10th May
has been printed among the Auckland Journals; but his criticisms were
even more practical in a long letter of 26th May, which is among the
Pitt Papers. The following sentences are of special interest:
The Principles on which the Projet is founded are undoubtedly those
on which it is to be wished that this business may be finally
concluded, both as they tend to the mutual advantage of the two
Countries in their commercial intercourse, and as they include the
abolition of useless and injurious distinctions. But on the fullest
consideration it has not appeared to His Majesty’s servants that
it would be proper to advise the immediate conclusion of a treaty
on the footing of that Projet without some additions to it which
may tend to give a more certain and permanent effect to these
principles.... In addition to this, the Projet, as it now stands
affords no security that general prohibitions or prohibitory duties
may not at any time take place in either Country to the exclusion
of whatever may happen to be the chief articles of trade from the
other. It is true that the same motives which should guide both
parties in the present negotiation might for a long time prevent
their adopting a conduct so contrary to the spirit of the proposed
agreement. But it cannot be the wish of either Court to trust to
this security only. We ought by all the means in our power to
remove even the possibility of future jealousy on these subjects.
And it appears from the observations of the French Government on
the first sketch of this Projet that they felt the force of this
remark. There can therefore be no doubt of their readiness to
concur in anything which can give it a greater degree of stability
and certainty. And we shall probably arrive sooner at the great
object--a solid and comprehensive settlement of the commercial
intercourse between the two countries than by beginning with a
Preliminary Treaty, unexceptionable indeed in its principles, but
which would necessarily reserve some very important points for
separate discussion, and would in the meantime leave the whole
system incomplete and precarious.[486]
Pitt then pointed out to Eden that the discussion of a compact of
a temporary nature would tend to unsettle the minds of traders and
perhaps even to discredit the whole undertaking. Accordingly he
enclosed a Declaration, which comprised the substance of the French
Projet, but gave it a more permanent form and set limits to the duties
which might thereafter be levied. The letter shows that he had got
over his first suspicions and was now working for a more thorough and
permanent settlement than that sketched by Rayneval. The draft of the
British Declaration is in Pitt’s writing--a proof that he had taken
this matter largely into his own hands. The replies of Eden to him are
both long and frequent; but most of those preserved in the British
Museum are too faded to be legible. In that of 6th June he warned Pitt
that France was ready to settle matters on friendly terms, but, as
there were many intrigues against the treaty, Pitt should conclude it
promptly. More favourable terms might possibly be gained for British
cottons and steel; but it would be best not to press the Versailles
Cabinet too hard.[487]
Pitt, however, refused to hurry matters. Indeed, the only part of this
long effusion which he heeded, seems to have been that respecting steel
and cottons. He further distressed Eden by his action with regard
to silks. Under pressure from the London silk-workers, he found it
necessary to continue to exclude all foreign silk-goods,[488] which
caused Eden to remark on 17th June: “With what face I am to propose the
admission of English cottons and the exclusion of French silks I do not
well foresee.”[489]
Most of the official letters between Pitt and Eden will be found in
Lord Auckland’s Journals. We will therefore glance only at some of
their letters which have not been published. They show that Pitt sought
by all possible means to lessen the duties on British cottons and
hardware imported into France, and that he demurred to the abrogation
of the Methuen Treaty with Portugal (1703) which had accorded to
her wines exceptionally favourable treatment. Discussions on these
and other topics were retarded by the long debates at Westminster
concerning the Sinking Fund and Warren Hastings: so that on 13th July
Eden ironically informed Pitt that all his letters to him since 10th
June had miscarried. The close of the session (11th July) left Pitt
freer for diplomatic affairs; he threw himself into the bargaining with
much zest, and Eden more than once hinted that a great outcry would
arise in France if their Ministers gave way to our demands.
Nevertheless, Pitt struggled hard to obtain the best possible terms not
only for Great Britain but also for Ireland. Despite Eden’s repeated
appeals for urgency, he asked the Duke of Rutland, Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, to induce the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Speaker,
and Beresford to come to London for the purpose of advising him on
several matters that concerned Ireland, especially as to the admission
or exclusion of French linens. This further delay wrung Eden’s heart,
and he wrote on 31st August: “Your political courage goes beyond mine,
for I suppose that you look without anxiety on this fortnight’s delay,
which we are giving. In truth, if it is given in politeness to Ireland,
it is a great compliment; for it is impossible to do more for Ireland
than we have done.”[490] He then made the noteworthy prophecy that, as
the treaty could not possibly adjust all the topics relating to the
trade of Britain and Ireland, it would lead up to a right settlement
between the two islands. Certainly Eden equalled Pitt in foresight,
however much he fell short of him in coolness, determination, and
bargaining power.
These qualities appear very forcibly in the Anglo-French negotiation.
It is probable that Pitt bargained too closely; but the reason is
apparent if one looks at the scores of petitions that reached him
from alarmed manufacturers. Lancashire was well to the front in its
demands for favourable terms; and we therefore find Pitt holding out
for only a 5 per cent. duty in France on British cottons. To this
Rayneval retorted by claiming at least 20 per cent.--“M. de Vergennes
was of opinion,” wrote Eden, “for 15 per cent., and M. de Calonne,
after much dispute, and by the aid of a paper in which I had urged
for 5 per cent., split the difference and carried it for 10 (but with
great doubts).”[491] Calonne, the cheerful and prodigal Controller
of Finances, now began to take a closer interest in the treaty; he
inveighed against Pitt for prohibiting French silks while expecting the
almost free entry of British cottons, and said that there were 60,000
workers at Lyons who would curse him for this treaty. This explains why
the French negotiators once again held out for 15 per cent., and, when
that was rejected by Pitt, finally fixed it at 12 per cent.
Pitt also struggled to gain easier terms for Irish linens in France,
and suggested that if this were conceded, the Dublin Parliament would
probably accept the Anglo-French treaty _in toto_.[492] On the subject
of hardware Pitt fought for the interests of Birmingham, as appears
in the draft of a long despatch to Eden, of 4th September, with many
corrections and additions in his writing. Very significant is the last
sentence, which is in his hand:
If you cannot obtain a reduction to 5 or 7½ per cent. on iron,
copper, or brass, you will endeavour to gain it on iron alone, that
being a point which H.M.’s servants have most earnestly at heart,
and in which the reasoning above stated seems conclusive in our
favour. This is a point to be pressed to the utmost, but if you
should find it _absolutely_ impossible to carry it, it should not
ultimately prevent your signing the treaty.[493]
The treaty, signed at Versailles on 26th September 1786, may be thus
summarized: It granted complete freedom of navigation and trading
rights between the two nations for their European dominions. The
subjects of either kingdom were thenceforth free to enter the lands
of the other without licence or passport, and free of any capitation
tax--a privilege most unusual in those days--and to enjoy perfect
religious liberty. In regard to the most important of French exports,
namely, wine, Great Britain agreed to place her neighbour on the
footing of the most favoured nation by lowering the duties to the level
of those imposed on Portuguese wines. The duties on French vinegar
and oil were also greatly reduced. The following articles nominally
concerned both nations, but in practice applied almost entirely to
British imports into France. Hardware, cutlery, and similar goods were
not to pay more than 10 per cent.; cottons, woollens, muslins, lawns,
cambrics, and most kinds of gauzes, not more than 12 per cent.; but
silks, or articles partly silken, were prohibited as formerly. Linens
were reciprocally to be charged at no higher rates than those levied
on Dutch linens imported into Ireland, that is, at “the most favoured
nation” rates. Sadlery, porcelain, pottery, and glass of all kinds,
were to pay no more than 12 per cent. The highest impost retained was
30 per cent., levied on beer, perhaps because the interchange of that
product was certain to be small. Countervailing duties might, however,
be placed on certain articles. In the concluding forty articles of
the treaty (one of the longest and most complex ever signed), the
contracting Powers sought to lay down principles or regulations for
the avoidance of disputes with respect to contraband and prohibited
goods, smuggling, privateering, the suppression of piracy, and other
subjects. They also left themselves free to revise the treaty at the
end of twelve years. It is noteworthy that each of the contracting
Powers affirmed the principle of seizing and confiscating the goods of
the other Power when found on an enemy’s merchantman, provided that
they were embarked after the declaration of war.[494]
The treaty disappointed the hopes of some enthusiasts, who hoped that
it might include some proviso for arbitration. Among these was William
Pulteney, who, on 14th September, wrote to Pitt in terms that deserve
to be remembered. After pointing out the futility of prohibitive
edicts, he continued:
It is to be considered whether this is not a good opportunity to
ingraft upon this treaty some arrangement that may effectually
tend to prevent future wars at least for a considerable time.
Why may not two nations adopt, what individuals often adopt
who have dealings that may lead to disputes, the measure of
agreeing beforehand that in case any differences shall happen
which they cannot settle amicably, the question shall be referred
to arbitration. The matter in dispute is seldom of much real
consequence, but the point of honour prevents either party from
yielding, but if it is decided by third parties, each may be
contented. The arbitrators should not be sovereign princes; but
might not each nation name three judges, either of their own courts
of law, or of any other country, out of whom the opposite nation
should choose one, and these two hear the question and either
determine it or name an umpire--the whole proceedings to be in
writing? This would occasion the matter to be better discussed than
is commonly done, and would give time for the parties to cool and
most probably reconcile them to the decision, whatever it might be.
It has frequently occurred to my mind that, if France and England
understood each other, the world might be kept in peace from one
end of the globe to the other. And why may they not understand
each other? I allow that France is the most intriguing nation upon
earth; that they are restless and faithless; but is it impossible
to show them that every object of their intrigue may be better
assured by good faith and a proper intelligence with us, and might
we not arrange everything together now so as completely to satisfy
both?...[495]
Pitt, we may note, had sought to take a first step towards the
limitation of armaments, by suggesting that the two Powers should
lessen their squadrons in the East Indies; but to this Vergennes, on
1st April 1786, refused his assent.[496] Seeing, too, that France
was pressing on the works at Cherbourg, and forming an East India
Company on a great scale, Pitt naturally restricted his aims to the
establishment of friendly commercial relations. The progress made in
this respect was immense. Powers recently at war had never before
signed a treaty containing provisions of so wide a scope, and so
intimate a character; and lovers of peace hailed it as inaugurating a
new era of goodwill. “People in general,” wrote the Duke of Dorset,
from London, to Mr. Eden, “are very much pleased with your treaty: the
principal merchants in the City don’t choose to give an opinion about
it; anything, if novel, is apt to stupify merchants.... I never saw
the King in such spirits: they rise in proportion to the stocks, which
are beyond the sanguine expectations of everybody.”[497] The rise in
Consols gave the verdict of the City in unmistakable terms, and it was
generally endorsed. On 20th November the Marquis of Buckingham wrote:
“My accounts are that all manufacturers are run wild in speculation.
Our wool has felt it already.”[498] A few cranks like Lord George
Gordon declaimed against Pitt for selling his country to the French,
but the majority of thinking men, even in the Chamber of Manufacturers,
thankfully accepted the treaty. A Glasgow manufacturer wrote to Eden
that Great Britain, having the best wool, the best iron, the best
clays for pottery, the best coal, and by far the best machinery in the
world, would soon beat the French in their own market.[499] This was
the general opinion. Those who held it said nothing, but set to work
to regain in France herself the market of which she had deprived us
in America. The state of Great Britain and of France in the year 1789
showed which were the more durable, the triumphs of war or of peace.
Nevertheless, there was some opposition in the House of Commons. Early
in the session of 1787, Fox brought forward the question of the treaty
and pressed for delay, so that the feeling of the country might be
ascertained. To this Pitt demurred, on the ground that members had
had ample time to consider the questions at issue, and that trade
would suffer from the continuance of the present uncertainty. The
arts which had undermined Pitt’s compact with Ireland were now once
more practised. Burke twitted the Prime Minister with looking on the
affairs of two great nations in a counting-house spirit; and the
Chamber of Manufacturers, in which opinions were divided, sought to
frighten members by a petition setting forth “the serious and awful
importance of the treaty ... comprehending a prodigious change in
the commercial system of this country.”[500] This stage thunder was
speedily divested of its terrors by Pitt pointing out that four months
had elapsed since the signing of the treaty, and yet the Chamber of
Manufacturers had remained silent until that day (12th February). After
showing that neither our old ally, Portugal, nor our manufacturers had
cause for alarm, Pitt raised the question to a high level in a passage
which furnished a dignified retort both to the gibe of Burke, and to
those who denounced trade with our traditional enemy: “To suppose,”
he said, “that any nation can be unalterably the enemy of another is
weak and childish. It has its foundation neither in the experience of
nations nor in the history of man. It is a libel on the constitution of
political societies, and supposes the existence of diabolical malice
in the original frame of man.” Then, coming once more to practical
considerations, he affirmed that, though the treaty was advantageous to
France, it would be more so to us.[501]
In reply, Fox made one of the worst speeches of his career. He asserted
twice over that France was the natural enemy of this land, owing to
her overweening pride and boundless ambition; and that by means of the
present treaty she sought to tie our hands and prevent us engaging in
any alliances with foreign powers. Portugal, he said, was now made a
sacrifice and peace-offering to France. The House refused to follow the
vagaries of the Whig leader by 258 votes to 118; and the provisions of
the treaty were passed in Committee by substantial majorities within
a fortnight. The treaty passed the Lords on 6th March by 74 votes to
24.[502] In due course the treaty was ratified, and the ports on both
sides of the Channel were opened to free commercial intercourse on 10th
May 1787.
Pitt undoubtedly erred in proclaiming his conviction that the treaty
was more advantageous to Great Britain than to France. He clinched
his triumph in Parliament, but he imperilled the treaty; and it is
noteworthy that he made that statement after Eden had warned him not
to do so.[503] It was a weakness of which he was rarely guilty. The
French negotiators had often pointed out that they were running a great
risk of inflicting much harm on their industries. This was sober truth.
Indeed, their general acquiescence in Pitt’s requests has always been
a puzzle; for the belief of Vergennes in Free Trade was not shared by
the other Ministers, except perhaps by Calonne; and it was certain that
the manufacturers of Rouen, Amiens, and Lille would cry out against the
sudden change from prohibition to a 12 per cent. duty on textiles.
Daniel Hailes set himself to solve the riddle for the satisfaction of
the ever distrustful Carmarthen, who, on 29th September 1786, wrote
to him privately: “our suspicions of the good faith and friendly
professions of France in political matters ought to be in exact
proportion to the facility she may have evinced upon matters purely
commercial.” He further suggested that her aim was perhaps to sever our
good relations with States with which we had political and commercial
ties.[504] Hailes, doubtless taking his cue from his chief, thereupon
sought to find out the motives which had influenced the French
Ministry, and summed up his conclusions in a long report. It gives an
interesting but somewhat jaundiced account of affairs in that very
critical year 1786--the year of the Diamond Necklace scandal and of the
decision to convoke the Chamber of Notables for the rectification of
abuses too deep-seated for Louis XVI to uproot. The report is too long
to quote here except in its most important passage; but we may glance
at its salient features. Hailes pointed out that France suffered nearly
as much as England from the late war, which left her with a National
Debt almost exactly equal to that of her rival; also that the hopes of
Frenchmen to gain the trade of the United States had been blighted. The
Court of Versailles had, moreover, not exercised “the wise management
of venality and the œconomy of corruption and favor” which would
have satisfied most of the privileged classes. Its partiality was as
notorious as its extravagance; and the failure of the old commercial
prohibitive system, as also of the recent prohibitive _arrêts_, was
probably due to the corruption prevalent in Court and official circles;
for, to quote Hailes’s words:
Every one having credit enough with the great, or the mistresses of
the great, to procure an exemption, would not have failed to apply
for it in favour of some dependent or other. It seems therefore
probable that the French Government felt its own inability to give
effect to its prohibitory laws against the importation of British
manufactures, and in that respect, at all events, they may be said
to have been gainers by the treaty.
But I think I can take upon me to assure your Lordship that there
exists another and no less principal cause of the eagerness of
France to conclude the commercial arrangement. I mean that of the
immediate relief of the _Trésor Royal_ by the increase of the
Revenue, an increase which, it may be presumed, will prove immense,
from the sudden influx of all sorts of British merchandise paying
the legal duties, as soon as the Treaty shall take effect. If this
opinion should prove to be well grounded (and from the attention
which I have paid to the late conduct of the Comptroller General
[Calonne] I am much inclined to think it is) it will be a strong
mark of the corruption of that Minister, who sacrifices to an
immediate and temporary resource the dearest interests of his
country.[505]
We need not lay much stress on the personal arguments here adduced;
for Hailes may have been unduly influenced by the partisans of Necker
or Breteuil, who were always at feud with Calonne. It is probable that
Vergennes and Calonne were swayed by a deeper motive, namely, the
desire to keep England quiet and friendly while they laid their schemes
with a view to the ascendency of France in the Dutch affairs soon to
be described, and thereafter to the combination of their efforts for
the overthrow of British power in the East. Such an aim is consonant
with the philosophic thoroughness of the character of Vergennes and
the ambition of his showy colleague. Whether Pitt suspected some such
design is uncertain; that Carmarthen did so can admit of no doubt.
Much, however, may be said for Hailes’s views. It is generally admitted
that the prodigal Calonne sacrificed very much in order to stand
well with the Queen’s party, and that his ardent desire was to put
a good face on things at the time of the Assembly of the Notables
early in 1787. There was every reason for his concern. The future of
France depended on the docility of the Notables. If they were so far
satisfied with the state of affairs as to pass the reforms desired
by the King and Vergennes, the crisis which led up to the Revolution
might have ended peacefully. Unjust taxation, constant deficits, and
national bankruptcy were among the chief causes of the Revolution. Of
course, Vergennes and Calonne could not foresee events; but they knew
that the future was gloomy in the extreme unless the Notables induced
the privileged classes to take up their fair share of the financial
burdens. If Ministers were able to point to increased customs returns,
the decline of smuggling, and the cementing of friendly relations with
England, the Notables and the nobles at large might prove amenable to
reason (for Anglomania was still the fashion); and all might yet go
well. In these considerations probably lies the key to the conduct
of the French Ministry in the later stages of the negotiation of
1786. With Vergennes the treaty was probably a matter of principle;
to Calonne it was a device adopted in the course of that daring game
of “neck or nothing,” on which he staked the destinies of France.
Though he was the chief sinner, Government and people alike behaved
with incredible levity. Alvensleben, reporting on the situation at
Versailles in November 1787, said: “Everything here is a matter of
ceremony, clothes, varnish, phrases, national boasting, tinsel,
intrigues; and everything is finally decided by forms.”[506]
This scathing report was written after France had lost her one able
statesman. Vergennes died shortly before the Notables assembled;
and they, having to deal with an irresolute King and a political
gamester, turned a deaf ear to counsels of Reform. Probably, too,
they were influenced by the outcry against the commercial treaty,
for it was general in all manufacturing centres, and did not pass
away, as was the case in Great Britain. The Rouen Chamber of Commerce
instituted an inquiry, the outcome of which was a report affirming
the marked superiority of British textile goods to those of France,
and the impossibility of competing with them on the basis of the 12
per cent. duty. An able writer, Dupont de Nemours, gave an effective
answer to the report; but, as generally happens in such cases, the
defence attracted less attention than the attack.[507] We must
further remember that merchants who lived under an oppressive system
of taxation had every possible reason for “crying poor.” Complaints
against the commercial treaty were hurled at Arthur Young in every
French manufacturing town which he visited in his tours of 1787 and
1788. Abbeville, Amiens, Lille, and Lyons declared against it in
varying tones of anger or despair; the wine districts alone were loud
in its praise.[508] Undoubtedly the French textile industries suffered
severely for a time. The taste for English goods continued to depress
home products, and that, too, despite the efforts of Marie Antoinette
to set the fashion for the latter. In 1788 as many as 5,442 looms were
idle in Lyons; but it is to be observed that this crisis was due either
to the continued smuggling of English silk goods, to the preference for
our fine cottons, or to the failure of the silk harvest in that year.
The last cause was probably the most important.[509] The woollen and
cotton trades alone could have been directly affected by the treaty. In
them the conditions were undoubtedly bad in the years 1787, 1788. At
Troyes 443 looms were not worked out of 2,600, and that proportion was
usual throughout the east and north of France.
M. Levasseur, however, who has carefully investigated the causes of
this crisis, attributes it largely to the utter prostration of public
credit in France, and the issue of a coinage of doubtful value. The bad
harvest of 1788, followed by a terribly cold winter, also intensified
the distress. He concludes that, even so, the commercial treaty might
ultimately have been advantageous to certain parts of the industrial
economy of France; but it was applied suddenly in a time of political
unsettlement and general distress.[510]
We must also remember that Calonne had for many months been squandering
the resources of France. In accordance with his motto: “In order to
establish public credit one must cultivate luxury,” he had raised
loan upon loan in time of peace, and it has been estimated that in
the forty-one months of his term of office (1783–87) he borrowed
650,000,000 francs (£26,000,000).[511] No fiscal experiment can have a
fair chance under such conditions; and it is therefore a violation of
the laws of evidence to assert that the Commercial Treaty of 1786 was
the chief cause of the French Revolution.
Summing up the facts concerning this most interesting treaty, we may
conclude that the honour of originating it undoubtedly belongs firstly
to Vergennes, secondly to Shelburne, and only in the third place to
Pitt. It is clear that the French statesman worked steadily for it
during the negotiations of 1783, and used all available means to bring
it about even while Pitt showed no responsive desire. As has been shown
above, the young Prime Minister had good reasons for not taking the
matter up seriously until the autumn of 1785. Indeed it would have
been a tactical mistake to press on the commercial compact with France
until he had put forth every effort to unite Ireland with Great Britain
by intimate trade relations. When those endeavours were frustrated
by ignorance and faction, he turned towards France, but slowly and
suspiciously. Not until the negotiation was far advanced did he show
much eagerness on the subject. But it is the mark of a great Minister
to keep a firm grasp upon colleagues and subordinates at all important
points; and Pitt saw the futility of Carmarthen’s prejudices no less
than the possible danger of Eden’s Gallophile enthusiasm.
The hostile actions of the French agents in Holland, to which we must
soon recur, made him cautious on matters purely political; and, while
pushing on the commercial treaty, which Carmarthen looked on as a trap,
he took care to subject the ardent fancies of Eden to cold douches
like the following: “Though in the commercial business I think there
are reasons for believing the French may be sincere, I cannot listen
without suspicion to their professions of political friendship.”[512]
As we shall see in the next chapters, Pitt generally treated with
wholesome scepticism the alarmist news sent by Harris from The Hague.
But the tidings from that quarter enabled Pitt to assess at their due
value the philanthropic professions of the _salons_ of Paris. Not that
he was indifferent to the golden hopes of that age. After the treaty
was signed he gave expression to his hopes in words pulsating with a
noble enthusiasm; but, while it was under discussion, he showed the
balance of mind and keenness in bargaining which characterize a great
statesman. We may also remark here that Pitt sought earnestly to bring
about a favourable commercial treaty with Spain and Russia, but failed.
The Czarina showed her hostility by granting to France a treaty on the
basis of the most favoured nation.[513]
Finally, we may hazard the conjecture that, if the finances of France
had received from the Court of Versailles and Calonne a tithe of the
fostering care which Pitt bestowed on those of Great Britain, both
countries would have profited equally from the free commercial and
social intercourse inaugurated by this memorable compact. As it was,
France slid fast down the slope that led to the chasm of Revolution;
and in the midst of that catastrophe Robespierre and his followers, who
represented the prejudices of the northern manufacturing towns, spread
abroad the spiteful falsehood that Pitt’s commercial policy had ever
been aimed at the financial ruin of the French nation.
CHAPTER XV
THE DUTCH CRISIS
(1786, 1787)
If we lose the Netherlands, France will acquire what she has always
considered as the climax of her power.--SIR JAMES HARRIS, 1st May,
1787.
His Majesty wishes only the preservation of the independence
and true constitution of the [Dutch] Republic.--THE MARQUIS OF
CARMARTHEN, 29th June, 1787 (B. M. Add. MSS., 35539).
We have interrupted our survey of Pitt’s foreign policy in order
to present a connected account of that interesting episode, the
commercial treaty with France. But this event took place in a year
which witnessed the growth of a crisis so serious as to threaten
ruin to that constructive effort. The crisis arose from the sharp
conflict of interests between Great Britain and France in Dutch
affairs, as described in Chapter XIII. As no adequate account has yet
appeared in English on this question, I propose to treat it on a scale
proportionate to its importance.
The reader will remember that the feuds between the Patriots, abetted
by France and the Stadholder’s party, had already aroused keen interest
at London and Paris; that our able envoy, Harris, had bravely waged
an unequal campaign for the Prince and Princess of Orange--unequal,
because Pitt persistently forbade him to commit this country to the
defence of their cause, though sentiment and policy linked it to that
of England. Further, the general situation of the Powers then seemed
irretrievably to doom the Prince’s fortunes. Frederick the Great, in
his desire to keep on good terms with France, refused to help his
niece, Wilhelmina, Princess of Orange. Austria was allied with France,
and Russia with Austria. Finally, neither Pitt nor the Marquis of
Carmarthen deemed it possible to frame an alliance with Prussia; and
all the advances which they made to the Czarina, Catharine II, and the
Emperor Joseph II, were coldly repelled. In fact, no Power cared for
an alliance with England. The conclusion of the Franco-Dutch alliance
of November 1785 seemed to close all doors against her. When the
fortunes of a State have been on the decline, it is very hard to stop
the downward movement. That was the position of Great Britain early in
the year 1786.
The only sources of hope seemed to be in the imminence of the death of
Frederick and in the outrageous actions of the Dutch Patriots. Their
violent support of provincial rights and hatred of the Stadholder
and his mildly centralizing policy were carried to strange lengths.
The Estates of Holland decreed that no Orange songs were to be sung,
and no Orange colours worn. Harris relates that a woman came near
to be hanged for the latter offence. Even the vendor of carrots was
suspect unless he left the roots in a protective coating of soil. To
a home-loving people like the Dutch these pedantries became ever more
hateful. The bovine character of the Stadholder was to some extent a
safeguard; for who could reasonably claim that his colossal powers of
inaction would ever be a danger to the Republic? It is fairly certain
that he had the allegiance of the rural population everywhere, even
in the Province of Holland; but the populace of the large towns was
overwhelmingly on the side of the Patriots; and the Estates of Holland
(a province which contained more than half the population, and more
than half the wealth, of the whole Union) decidedly opposed him.[514]
Of the smaller provinces, Guelderland, Zealand, and Friesland supported
the Stadholder. Utrecht was torn with schism on this subject, the rural
districts cleaving to him, while the city of Utrecht broke away, and
defied his authority. As Pitt forbade Harris to take any step which
would commit England to the defence of the Stadholder, that envoy
continued to play an apparently hopeless game. But his skill, resource,
his commanding personality, and occasional bribes, enabled him to
continue the struggle, even in democratic Holland. His great difficulty
was that France in April 1786 had let it be known that she would allow
no other Power to interfere in Dutch affairs, and would forcibly oppose
any such attempt. To strive against the Patriots while they had a
ground of confidence utterly denied to their opponents, was to condemn
Harris to struggle against great odds, and never has an unequal fight
been more gallantly fought. The worst symptom was the rise of bodies
of armed burghers, styled Free Corps, which soon attained considerable
strength. Encouraged by success, the Patriots sought to depose William
V outright, and proclaimed the Princess Regent during the minority of
her son. She rejected this scheme with indignation. Failing here, they
struck at the authority of the Prince by procuring from the Estates of
Holland his deposition from the command of the regular troops of that
province. This blow could not be parried; and it dealt consternation
among the loyalists.
There was no hope of help from Frederick the Great. For the reasons
previously stated he had hardened his heart against all the appeals
that came from the Princess of Orange; and she finally rejected with
scorn his advice that she should come to terms with the Patriots and
France. On 16th May 1786 Harris summed up the relations of Prussia to
France and Holland in this sprightly way:
“Prussia says to France ‘Do what you please in Holland, but leave
at least the appearance of a Stadholderian Government.’--France
replies--‘We shall lose the confidence and support of the Patriots
and with it our whole influence in the Republic if we mention the
word “Stadholder”; take from us the odium of the measure by declaring
you cannot see him deposed. We then may, without displeasing our
friends, espouse his cause to a certain degree, and we shall both be
satisfied.’”[515]
While the welter was ever increasing in this once prosperous land,
there came a gleam of hope from the East. On 17th August 1786 Frederick
the Great was gathered to his fathers, and his nephew Frederick
William II reigned in his stead. As Prince Royal he had spoken warmly
of his resolve to right the wrongs of his sister, the Princess of
Orange; but as King he disappointed her hopes. His character was
despicable. Extravagance and dissipation were accountable for private
debts amounting to one million sterling at the time of his accession
and soon after to three-quarters of a million more.[516] But his
irresolution was of more serious consequence. A vicious man may excel
as a ruler; an unstable man, never. Frederick William had scarcely a
feature in common with the masterful race of the Hohenzollerns. The
contrast between him and his uncle was startling. In place of that
silent, cynical, and dogged ruler, Berlin and Sans-Souci rejoiced
in a handsome, affable monarch, who seemed made to win the hearts
of all at first sight and to lose them on closer acquaintance. For
it was found that with him work and policy depended on whims and
moods. Swaying to and fro between energy and sloth, violence and
timidity, he disconcerted his Ministers, until they came to see that
the King’s resolves were as fleeting as his feelings. After the
first flush of activity wore away, languor pervaded every bureau of
that centralized autocracy. On 6th January 1787 Lord Dalrymple, our
ambassador at Berlin, wrote of the King: “in general he appears very
indifferent about what is passing”; and he further reported that he
urgently desired to “get rid of so irksome an affair” as his sister’s
troubles, and looked on the Prince of Orange as the chief cause of
the dissensions in the Dutch Netherlands.[517] Another of our envoys,
with more wit than is usually found in semi-official letters, summed
up the difference between Frederick the Great and Frederick William II
by saying that the former had the wisdom of Solomon, but the latter
resembled that potentate only in respect of his overflowing harem.
Mirabeau’s opinion on the imminent downfall of the Prussian State is
too well known to need quoting here.
Yet the nonchalance of Frederick William in foreign affairs is not
wholly indefensible. Confronted by the alliance of those scheming
and unscrupulous rulers, Catharine II and Joseph II, he could effect
little until he had the friendship of one at least of the Great
Powers; but France was pledged to Austria, and England was still
averse from a Prussian alliance. On 20th October 1786 Dalrymple thus
summed up his arguments against a compact with the Court of Berlin:
“We might indeed form a temporary co-operation with Prussia for some
particular purposes, as at present in the case of Holland, where
little or no opposition is to be expected from the two Imperial
Courts; but to enter into a general and permanent system with Prussia
alone, without the concurrence of other Powers, would be a measure,
in my apprehension, perfectly frantic, and only to be justified by a
combination similar to that in 1756 being formed against us.” Four
days later, after an interview with Hertzberg, Dalrymple wrote that
a Northern League between us and the Baltic Powers was out of the
question during the lifetime of the Czarina, seeing that Turkish
schemes stood first in her thoughts, and these implied alliance with
Joseph.[518] As will shortly appear, the knowledge which the Turks had
of these schemes was to lead to the Eastern War of 1787, which ended
the suspense besetting Prussia and England.
For the present the isolation of these States left them in a most
precarious position. The utmost they could hope for was to struggle on,
waiting for a turn of Fortune’s wheel in their favour. The first aim of
the Court of Berlin was to thwart the Austrian scheme for exchanging
the Belgic provinces for Bavaria. Joseph II still pursued this phantom,
though he had his hands full in Brabant, where philosophism had again
stirred up revolt, and his alliance with Catharine portended war with
the resentful Turks. Frederick William believed, and perhaps rightly,
that so long as the Austro-Russian alliance held good, Prussia could
take no step Rhinewards. He therefore saw in the entreaties of his
sister only a scheme to draw him into fatal courses; and when the
entreaties became reproaches his answers became few and cold.[519]
Unfortunately, too, the influence of the veteran diplomatist,
Hertzberg, was waning, because of an austere and somewhat superior
manner which the young King resented. That Minister favoured a close
understanding with England with a view to joint action at The Hague;
but there was associated with him at the Foreign Ministry a colleague,
Count Finckenstein, who strongly inclined towards France, thwarted
Hertzberg’s efforts, and prejudiced the King against an English
alliance.[520] To add to the perplexities of the time, Thulemeyer, the
Prussian envoy at The Hague, supported France; and Harris suspected
him, perhaps rightly, of having been bought over by the Patriots and
their paymasters. He certainly thwarted the efforts of Görtz, a special
envoy sent from Berlin to The Hague; and finally the Princess of Orange
begged her brother, seeing that he would not help her, at least not to
allow Thulemeyer to act in concert with De Vérac, the French envoy at
The Hague.[521] Early in May she sent a request for a loan of Prussian
cannon in order to withstand the growing forces of the Patriots, but
met with a refusal.
Matters, however, now took a turn for the better for that unfortunate
Princess. Latterly the Court of Berlin had sought to arrange with that
of Versailles a plan of joint intervention so as to end the strifes
in the United Provinces in a way not too derogatory to the Prince of
Orange. But this proposal was accompanied by conditions which were at
once very tartly rejected by the Court of Versailles. This refusal of a
friendly overture was to have far-reaching results, for the irritation
of the Prussian monarch now led him to favour the idea of intervention
in Holland.
* * * * *
This brief survey will have enabled us to understand the gradual
development of Pitt’s policy from strict neutrality to tentative and
cautious activity. The change of attitude will be found to correspond
closely with a change in Continental affairs which enabled him with
little risk to raise his country once more to her rightful position.
It is the mark of a great statesman to keep his gaze on all the chief
matters of public interest, to weigh their importance, and to make
his policy the resultant, as it were, of the leading forces and best
tendencies of his age. No one who has not a clear vision and ripe
judgement can give such an assessment and act on it with tact and
firmness. Small minds are certain to be diverted towards side issues
and hastily to take up questions which are unripe for solution. From
these faults Pitt’s singular maturity of mind and steadiness of purpose
kept him free. He saw that the greatest of British interests was peace;
and, despite the pressing claims of Harris at The Hague, he refused to
be drawn blindfold into the irritating and obscure questions there
at stake. True, it was important to keep the United Provinces from
becoming dependent on France; but he believed that the efforts of the
Patriots in that direction might be curbed by means of diplomacy. No
statesman prefers a warlike to a peaceful solution unless all the
resources of his own craft have been exhausted, least of all could the
champion of economy, who naturally discounted the clamorous appeals of
Harris for help.
There were reasons why our envoy should urge Pitt to adopt a more
forward policy. In the autumn of 1786 the fortunes of the Stadholder
steadily declined, and the raids of the Patriots on his prerogatives
became more daring and successful. In September, as we saw, he was
deprived of the command of the regular forces in the Province of
Holland. His opponents, the Patriots, next strengthened their Free
Corps, drew a cordon of troops along the frontiers of Holland, and
overthrew his authority in the hitherto loyal provinces, Overyssel and
Groningen. The city of Utrecht also defied him and elected Estates,
while those of the still loyal Province of Utrecht assembled at
Amersfoort. Other towns, even in the loyal provinces, seemed likely
to follow the example of Utrecht. In face of these facts the appeals
of Harris for help became more urgent than ever. On 24th October he
wrote privately to Carmarthen: “As we are afraid to threaten, we must
either bribe or give up the game.”[522] But, realizing more and more
that the obstacle to his forward policy lay in the peaceful resolves
of Pitt, he wrote directly to him on 28th November, pointing out that
France was making amazing strides everywhere at our expense, that she
was on the point of gaining complete control over the United Provinces,
and he hinted that that accession to her naval strength and to her
resources in the East Indies would enable her soon to attack England in
overwhelming strength.
Much could be said in favour of this view. The activity of France in
the East, as we saw in the last chapter, had been very threatening,
and it is clear that the schemes of St. Priest and other French agents
in Egypt pointed out the path on which Bonaparte set forth with heroic
stride thirteen years later. Dreams of a French Empire in the East
haunted many minds at Paris in 1786. On 7th September, shortly before
the signature of the Anglo-French commercial treaty, Hailes, Secretary
of Legation at Paris, reported that the French Government seemed to
be preparing for “the entire subversion” of British power in India;
and he cynically added that when the time for action came, “then, as
formerly, the rights of mankind will be held out as the pretext.”[523]
Even Eden sent word that there was talk of a design that France should
gain control over all the Dutch ports in the East Indies.[524] When we
remember that the Cape of Good Hope was a Dutch possession, and that
the British lands in India were scattered and weak, we can appreciate
the gravity of the crisis.
The surmises of Hailes and Eden were correct. There was a powerful
party at the French Court which worked in alliance with the Dutch
Patriots for the control of the East Indies. They saw their opportunity
in the bankruptcy then threatening the Dutch East India Company; and
in the winter of 1786 the Patriot leader, the Rhinegrave of Salm, sent
to the Cabinet of Versailles a plan of a Franco-Dutch alliance with
a view to the overthrow of the British power in India. Thanks to the
pacific views of Louis XVI and Vergennes, nothing came of the scheme;
but the Patriots then changed front and offered to hand over to France
the important naval station, Trincomalee, in the north-east of Ceylon,
to serve as a place of arms for France in case of war. This plan had
a favourable reception at Versailles, some of the Ministers urging
that 18,000 troops should be sent out under the command of General de
Bouillé. This soldier (the hero of Carlyle’s stirring account of the
Mutiny of Nancy in 1790) states in his Memoirs[525] that he remained
some time at Paris in hopes of receiving the order for the conquest
of the British settlements in India; but he remained in vain; for the
French Cabinet _found no opportunity for going to war_. The events now
to be described will explain the sorry ending to these golden hopes;
and the reader will bear in mind that the struggle of the rival Powers
for ascendancy in Holland concerned the fate of Britain’s Indian Empire
no less than her position in Europe.[526]
All the more astonishing, then, is the calmness of Pitt’s reply to
Harris of 5th December 1786. In it he directed him to do all in his
power to keep together the Orange party, so that it might “act with
advantage, both for their own country and for us, on some future day,
if it should arrive.” For the present, however, that party must “lie
by,” and avoid pushing things to an extremity which would commit both
themselves and England.[527]
This cautious policy was perhaps in some measure due to the King,
who strongly opposed a forward policy in the Netherlands. His chief
preoccupation in the years 1786, 1787, was the extravagance of the
Prince of Wales and the rapidly increasing expense of his own family,
to which he refers in pathetic terms. The news of the activity of Sir
James Harris at The Hague “much affected” him; and when, on 7th January
1787, Lord Carmarthen wrote to Windsor in order to suggest a more
energetic policy in the Netherlands, a sharp retort came, bidding that
Minister remember “the disgraceful conduct” of England in the late war,
and asserting that he (George III) refused to act as the _Draw-can-sir_
of Europe.[528]
From the tenour of the King’s letter to Pitt on 8th January we may
infer that Carmarthen had kept his overture to Windsor secret; and
Pitt, on hearing of it from the King, must have felt piqued at his
colleague’s action. Already they were on strained terms owing to
Pitt having insisted on Carmarthen’s presence at Court, despite
indisposition, in order to present the Portuguese envoy; and a chief
who demanded so strict an observance of etiquette was certain to resent
any private attempt of his Foreign Minister to influence the King’s
opinions on a far weightier question. There is an apologetic tone in
Carmarthen’s hitherto unpublished letter of 8th January to Pitt. The
first sentences refer to his ill health, and are omitted:
Hendon, Jan. 8, 1787.
MY DEAR SIR,
I wish to lay before you _in confidence_ my letter to the King of
yesterday, together with His Majesty’s answer of this morning’s
date, which I am free to confess to you has occasioned me a
considerable degree of uneasiness.... You will, I am sure, do me
the justice to remark the manner in which I have stated my opinion
to the King and I have always understood your sentiments to be
precisely the same in regard to the _object_, though perhaps
more cautious (from prudential and well founded motives) in the
means to be employed. I am free to own that, eager as I am for
preventing France acquiring the absolute command of Holland, I have
always thought we might succeed by means of private negotiation
and intrigue. The experiment of trying to combat her with her own
weapons would have some merit; and, convinced as I am that she
has reckoned all along upon England not interfering, I think the
present moment must not be passed by without our endeavouring to
make the most we can of the Provinces which are opposed to Holland,
and of the present firmness of the Prince and Princess of Orange.
_L’Assemblée des Notables_ is I think some security for the pacific
disposition of France, or rather for her inability of indulging
any of a contrary nature at present. I should hope we might have a
meeting on Thursday for the Dutch business.[529]
The differences between Pitt and Carmarthen were greater than are here
represented; and the joint influence of the King and Pitt prevented the
adoption of the more spirited measures towards which he inclined. This
was gall and wormwood to Harris. That able envoy, looking on helplessly
at the brilliant diplomatic successes of France, failed to see the
canker which was eating at her heart. The Assembly of the Notables
was “the beginning of the end.” It implied the inability of the
absolute monarchy to carry the urgently needed reforms or to meet the
ordinary expenses of the State. Pitt saw this. Further, while Harris
admitted that he regarded France as “a natural enemy,” Pitt looked on
her as a possible friend. On the Dutch Question alone was there keen
rivalry between the two States; and, in view of the growing financial
difficulties of France, delay was more than ever advisable; for her
efforts abroad must slacken as her vitality lessened under the load
of debt that Calonne was gaily heaping up. In the meantime, until the
Prussian monarch had the will, and England had the power, to intervene,
Harris must continue his Sisyphus toil, and the Prince and Princess
must suffer further indignities. Such was Pitt’s policy. To our envoy
it seemed unbearably mean; but it won in the end, and all the more
surely for the delay. A Minister at the centre can often see things in
truer perspective than an ambassador who is, after all, only at one
point on the circumference.
Harris continued stoutly to roll the stone uphill. He helped to form
an Association of the Provinces, towns and persons opposed to any
change in the constitution; and, as the Stadholder in the early part of
1787 showed far more spirit and tact, the Patriots found it by no means
easy to push the stone backwards. Harris declared on 20th April 1787
that the popular indignation ran strongly against the Patriots, who had
not one-twentieth of the people on their side. This is incredible; but
it is quite certain that his activity and the less determined policy of
Montmorin, the successor of Vergennes at Versailles, put new heart into
the Stadholder’s party. Nevertheless, the Patriots carried the day at
Amsterdam by sheer audacity, and compelled the Regents, or magistrates,
to dismiss nine of their number. This act of violence, together with
the increasing activity of William V and the signs of wavering at
Versailles, led Harris to request an interview with Ministers at
Whitehall.[530] He also bore a letter of the Princess to George III,
which met with no favourable response.
A Cabinet meeting was held on 23rd May 1787, at which Harris was
present, and submitted his opinions to a full discussion. Ministers
met at Thurlow’s house for dinner; and he in due course launched
forth on the troubled sea of Dutch politics, stating at great length
the arguments against intervention, then tearing them to pieces, and
declaring even for war with France, if the need arose. Richmond, Master
of the Ordnance, called for maps, discussed the military situation, and
urged the need of speedy preparations. Pitt then admitted the immense
importance of preserving the independence of Holland, and of facing
war as a possible, but not probable, alternative; then, turning to
Harris, he pressed him to say which course involved the greater risk,
that of opposing France at once before she entirely dominated the Dutch
Netherlands, or that of awaiting the issue of her present efforts. He
also asked what kind of help the Orange party most needed. In reply
to this and to similar questions from Thurlow, Harris urged that
money should be supplied, especially to the Province of Guelderland;
he declared that the supporters of the constitution would probably
be overborne if they were not helped by England; that France was not
in such a condition as to go to war in order to conquer Holland, but
that when she had the upper hand there she probably would throw
down the gauntlet. Stafford then declared in favour of intervention.
Nevertheless, Pitt held firmly to his conviction, that no case was
yet made out for a course of conduct which might possibly lead to war
and so blight the budding prosperity of Great Britain. Carmarthen and
Sydney did not speak. We may plausibly conjecture that the silence of
the Foreign Minister betokened his disapproval of Pitt’s views and his
inability to controvert them.
So far as we can judge, Pitt alone was for complete neutrality.
Nevertheless, his view prevailed. An interview which Harris had with
him on the morrow did not change his sentiments; but, on 26th May, the
Cabinet agreed to allow our envoy the sum of £20,000 so as to enable
the loyal provinces to take into their pay the troops which had been
disbanded by, or had deserted from, the forces of the Province of
Holland.[531] On 10th June the further sum of £70,000 was advanced.[532]
Pitt’s resolve was doubtless based on the difficulty of gaining an
ally, for, as we have seen, the King of Prussia had recently refused
the request of his sister for a loan of cannon and was proposing to
concert plans with France for a joint mediation in Dutch affairs.[533]
How was it possible for England alone to interfere for the Prince and
Princess of Orange while their natural protector was making advances to
their enemy? So little hope was there at present of aid from Prussia
that on 12th June Carmarthen expressed to Harris his belief that the
Orange party would get more help from the Emperor Joseph than from
Frederick William. The torpor of that party was another depressing
symptom. Time after time Carmarthen informed Harris that if the
Prince’s supporters desired help, they must bestir themselves: they had
as yet the majority of the regular army and of the States-General on
their side; and a fit use of this strength would save the situation.
Despite the efforts of Harris, the Patriots continued to gain ground.
At the end of May their partisans wrecked the houses of the Prince’s
friends at Amsterdam, and crushed the reaction in his favour which
had gathered head.[534] On 15th June the States-General decided, on
the casting vote of the President, to admit the deputies sent by the
illegal Estates of the city of Utrecht. This gave a bare majority to
the Patriots, who then proceeded to deprive the Stadholder of the right
to order the march of troops or the distribution of stores in the
provinces outside Holland. Four days later, however, Harris was able
to procure the rejection of this decree as illegal; and it was further
decided that the Estates of Utrecht meeting at Amersfoort were the
legal Estates of that province and could alone send deputies. Of course
this change of front has been ascribed to English gold, and certainly
it was due to Harris. This rebuff to the Patriots and the coyness of
the French Court to their urgent demands for help may have led to the
formation of a resolve which was to end the balancings of statesmen and
the even pulls of parties. The solution of the Dutch problem was, in
the first instance, due to a woman’s wit.
* * * * *
About the middle of the month of June 1787, the Princess of Orange
framed a plan for leaving her city of refuge, Nymeguen, and proceeding
to The Hague with the aim of inspiring her crestfallen partisans.
Hitherto the Orange party had shown the torpor which is the outcome of
poor leadership. Of the Prince of Orange it might have been said, as it
was said of Louis XVI, that he cooled his friends and heated his foes;
but his consort had the fire and energy which he lacked. Harris once
confessed that her frank, blue eyes could be “dangerous”; and in many
ways her presence promised to breathe new life into her party.
As the journey to The Hague would involve some risk of insult from
the Free Corps which formed a cordon on the frontier of the Province
of Holland, she proceeded first to Amersfoort, where her consort was
holding together his partisans in the Province of Utrecht, in order
to gain his consent to this daring step. Thereafter she warned Harris
and her chief friends at The Hague of her resolve, and asked their
sanction, adding that the magnitude of the object at stake impelled her
to run some measure of personal risk in order to compass it. Harris
saw objections to the plan, but yielded to the representations of the
Dutchmen. He, however, stated to Carmarthen his doubts whether she
could make her way through the bodies of armed burghers, and asked his
chief for instructions as to his course of action in case any violence
were offered to Her Royal Highness.[535]
His apprehensions were in part to be realized. The princess set out
from Nymeguen on 28th June with the ordinary retinue. While seeking
to enter the Province of Holland near Schoonhoven, she was stopped by
a lieutenant commanding a body of Free Corps, who refused to allow
her to proceed; his action was endorsed by the authorities; and she
was obliged, though without much personal indignity, to put up at the
nearest house where the lieutenant kept her and her ladies-in-waiting
under close and embarrassing surveillance, until she consented that the
question of her journey should be decided by the Estates of Holland.
Then she was allowed to return to Schoonhoven, where she indited
letters to the Grand Pensionary and others, declaring that her sole
aim was to promote a reconciliation. The Estates of Holland refused to
allow her to proceed, and she had finally to return to Nymeguen. This
insult to royalty sent a thrill of indignation through every Court but
that of Versailles.
Before describing the political results of the incident, we may pause
to ask whether the plan of the Princess’s journey was the outcome of
the fertile brain of Harris. That was the insinuation of the French
Foreign Minister, Montmorin, and it has often been repeated.[536] The
charge has never been proven; and the following reasons may be urged
against it. Harris certainly hoped to profit by her presence at The
Hague, but obviously he doubted the possibility of her entering the
province. Further, on 29th June, when he heard of her detention, he
wrote to Carmarthen: “The event which has happened oversets our whole
plan. Check to the queen, and in a move or two checkmate is, I fear,
the state of our game.” Not yet did he see that the check might be
worth a Prussian army to the Orange party. All he saw was the present
discouragement of that party, and the timidity of the States-General
of the United Provinces, who now refused to censure the outrage.
Carmarthen saw more clearly. “Don’t be so disheartened by a check to
the queen,” he replied. “Cover her by the knight and all’s safe.... If
the King, her brother, is not the dirtiest and shabbiest of Kings, he
must resent it.”[537]
But had the Princess throughout laid her plans with a view to such an
event? In this connection it is significant that Frederick William
of Prussia had latterly shown great irritation against the Court of
Versailles owing to its summary rejection of his offer of a joint
mediation in the Dutch troubles. Montmorin curtly declined every one
of the preliminary terms which Hertzberg had succeeded in appending to
that proposal. He also blamed the Stadholder for all the ferment, and
stated that, if the Prussian monarch intervened in favour of the Orange
party, he would “only compromise himself to his entire loss.”[538] This
nagging reply to a friendly overture cut the sensitive monarch to the
quick; he sent a spirited remonstrance, declaimed against the bad faith
of the French Government, and stated that he meant now to complete his
own plans in Holland, that he hoped to have the support of England,
and might draw the sword sooner than was expected.[539] Ewart expected
little result from all this; but he was mistaken. Frederick William was
a man of sentiment; and the appeal which now came from Holland was one
that stirred his being to its depths.
The Princess, on hearing of his resentment against France, seems to
have devised a course of action which would be likely to make this
mood lasting. Harris reported on 22nd June that on the day before, “in
consequence of a courier from Berlin, the Princess of Orange, a few
hours after he arrived, left Nymeguen and set out for Amersfoort. She
had time to write to nobody, and the cause of this sudden departure is
not to be guessed at.”[540] The short journey to Amersfoort was for the
purpose described above. That the Princess was acting in close concert
with her brother, and that Harris knew nothing as to the motives of her
conduct further appear in statements which (strange to say) are omitted
from his despatch of 25th June, printed in the “Diaries.” He informed
Carmarthen that she was sending a courier to Berlin, and that the
present plan “completely does away all the ideas which have been very
prevalent here for these three or four days, that His Prussian Majesty
was so irritated at the late answer from France as to be decided to
assist the Prince of Orange with men and money.” Obviously the guile
of Sir James Harris was of the diplomatic, not of the feminine, kind.
Further, the fact that the Princess travelled with a retinue made it
almost certain that she would be stopped by the cordon of Free Corps
on the frontier of Holland. If her chief aim had been to arrive at The
Hague, she would have gone in disguise; for only so could she hope to
pass through the troops. Her chief aim surely was to be stopped; and
the more contumeliously, the better for her purpose.
Her letters written after the incident show that she desired to reap
the full advantage from it. On 6th July Harris reported her expectation
that, if England proposed to Prussia a plan for rescuing the Republic
from France, it would be well received at Berlin; and that she grounded
her confidence in the reports of those who knew the King of Prussia
well. Ewart also on 10th July stated that she had written to Berlin in
terms implying that the honour of the King was at stake fully as much
as her own.[541] With these proofs of the discouragement of Harris,
and of the keen insight of the Princess before us, may we not infer
that she deliberately chose to submit herself to an insult from the
Patriots in order to clinch a resolve which she knew to be forming in
her brother’s mind? His anger against France might then be fanned to a
flame of resentment fed by injured family pride.
Fortunately for her purpose, the Estates of Holland waived aside the
demand of the King of Prussia for immediate and complete satisfaction
for the insult; and Frederick William vowed that he would exact
vengeance at the sword’s point. Hertzberg now saw within his reach the
great aims which Ewart and he had so long pursued, an Anglo-Prussian
compact which might ripen into alliance. But it was a task of much
difficulty to stiffen that monarch’s wavering impulses. Hertzberg
rightly saw that English influence should not at first be pushed;[542]
and only when the King’s resentment at the insult began to cool, were
the wider questions of the future discreetly opened to his gaze.
Here again the situation was complicated; for Finckenstein worked on
his fears of an attack from Austria, if he intervened in Holland;
and Thulemeyer, the Prussian envoy at The Hague, darkened the royal
counsels by sending an official warning that Prussia must expect no
help from England, even if France struck at the Prussian expeditionary
corps. Ewart, however, was able to show that this report closely
resembled an earlier one from the same source. The only result, then,
was to discredit Thulemeyer and pave the way for his disgrace. When
further friendly assurances came from the Pitt Ministry, Frederick
William gave orders for the mustering of 25,000 troops at his fortress
of Wesel on the lower Rhine. Even now he was afflicted by the
irresolution which for so many years was to paralyze the power of his
kingdom; and it is doubtful whether he would have acted at all but for
the initiative now taken by the Prime Minister of England.[543]
Pitt’s change of attitude at this time is the decisive event of the
situation. At once, on hearing the news of the insult to the Princess
of Orange, he saw that the time for action had come. In a personal
interview with Count Lusi, Prussian ambassador at London, he pointed
out that this was a matter which solely concerned the Prussian monarch,
and in which France had no right to interfere.[544] George III spoke in
the same terms to Lusi at a _levée_. Further, on the receipt of Ewart’s
despatch of 7th July, reporting that Pitt had declared against any
intervention whatever by Great Britain, Carmarthen sent a sharp denial,
and stated that diplomatic support would have been offered earlier to
Prussia in Dutch affairs, but for the strange conduct of Thulemeyer at
The Hague. If that conduct did not represent the wishes of the Prussian
Government, His Majesty “will be extremely ready to enter into a most
confidential communication with His Prussian Majesty” on the means of
preserving the independence of the Dutch Republic and the rights of the
Stadholder. Carmarthen added the important information that Montmorin
had declared that France would not thwart the Prussian monarch’s
resolve to gain reparation for the insult. That question he declared
to be totally distinct from an interference in the domestic affairs of
the Republic, which might be settled amicably by a joint mediation of
the Powers most concerned in them, namely, the Emperor, Great Britain,
Prussia, and France. The draft of this important despatch closed with
this sentence, in Pitt’s handwriting: “Could such a good understanding
be agreed on, there can be little doubt that the affairs of Holland
would be settled in an amicable way, to the satisfaction of all those
who are interested in the welfare of the Republic.”[545]
It is clear, then, that Pitt meant to encourage Prussia to energetic
action, in case the Estates of Holland did not grant full reparation
for the insult; but he looked on that step merely as preliminary
to the others which would solve the whole question by a peaceful
mediation of the four Powers above named. On learning that the
Emperor had expressed his friendly interest in the Prince of Orange
and his approval of Prussia’s conduct, the Foreign Office sent off a
despatch to Keith, British Ambassador at Vienna, bidding him to urge
his active co-operation “and to make it, if possible, the means of
establishing a cordial and confidential correspondence with that Court
in future.”[546] Joseph II did not respond to this friendly proposal,
probably because of troubles lowering in the East. But the incident
proves the reluctance of our Foreign Office to act with Prussia alone,
and also its hopes of a peaceful mediation in Dutch affairs. According
to news received from Paris, France did not seem likely to oppose
Prussia’s action, and even favoured the scheme of a joint mediation of
the three Powers, which were then on cordial terms.[547]
In spite of the friendly assurances that came from London, and the
manly advice of Hertzberg, Frederick William continued to vacillate in
his usual manner. As we have seen, he had recently coquetted with the
notion of a mediation conjointly with France alone; but, despite its
curt rejection by the Court of Versailles, he now recurred to a similar
scheme.[548] If France had played her cards well, she might even then
have won the day at Berlin.
The conduct of the French Government at this crisis is hard to fathom.
Its swift and unaccountable changes may perhaps be explained by the
alternate triumph of peaceful and warlike counsels in the Ministry,
which in the month of August underwent some alterations. Towards Great
Britain the tone was at first quite reassuring, a fact which may be
ascribed to the friendly relations between Montmorin and Eden. Our
envoy had visited London in July, and therefore, on his return to Paris
at the end of the month, fully knew the intentions of his chiefs. Their
pacific nature appeared in a proposal, which he was charged to make
to Montmorin, for the discontinuance of warlike preparations on both
sides until such time as notice might be given for their renewal. On
4th August the French Minister cordially received this proposal,[549]
and it was acted on with sincerity until the crisis of the middle of
September. But Eden soon found that the French Court intended forcibly
to intervene if the Prussian troops entered the United Provinces, and
that Montmorin had rejected the recent proposal from Berlin for a
Franco-Prussian intervention.[550] Here, surely, the French Minister
committed a surprising blunder. The traditional friendship between
their Courts should have led him to welcome a proposal which would
have kept England entirely out of the question. Probably he counted
on procuring better terms from the ever complaisant Court of Berlin.
If so, he erred egregiously. By repelling the advances of Prussia, he
threw that Power into the arms of Great Britain; and Pitt was shrewd
enough to accord a hearty welcome.
CHAPTER XVI
THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE
This treaty produced an effect throughout the whole of Europe by
its mere existence, without military preparations or force of
arms.--VON SYBEL.
Pitt has already astonished all Europe by the alacrity of the late
armament, and his name as a War Minister is now as high as that
of his father ever was.--THE EARL OF MORNINGTON TO THE DUKE OF
RUTLAND, 17th October 1787.
The events described in the last chapter had brought England and
Prussia to a crisis at which, despite their strong mutual suspicion,
common action was imperiously needed in order to save the Dutch
Netherlands from French domination. As we have seen, no British
statesman had ever acquiesced in the supremacy of France in that
country; and it is clear from the British archives that Pitt now took
a keen interest in thwarting her designs. The draft of the official
answer to Eden’s despatch of 4th August 1787 is entirely in Pitt’s
writing, and it was sent without alteration or addition by the Foreign
Minister, Lord Carmarthen--an unusual circumstance, which shows the
masterful grip of the chief over matters of high import. In this
despatch, of 10th August, he welcomed the assurance of Montmorin
that warlike preparations would be stopped until further notice.
Great Britain would, however, renew them after due notice if France
assembled a force at Givet, on the Belgian border. He then referred
pointedly to rumours that French transports had sailed for Amsterdam--a
measure which would prejudice “the great work of conciliation which
it is so much the object of the two Courts to forward and promote.”
French ships were also reported as laying in stores of food in
British ports, a proceeding which would have been stopped but for the
friendly assurances now received. He then referred to the invitation
of the loyal provinces of Friesland and Zealand, that Great Britain
would mediate on their behalf, and hinted that this might be done.
The despatch closed with the following dignified remonstrance on the
subject of the outrages of the Free Corps in Holland:
I am here also under the painful necessity of adding that the
conduct held in the Province of Holland, apparently instigated
by those who have all along appeared the instruments of France,
seems to increase, instead of diminishing in violence. I enclose a
copy of an address presented by the Free Corps of that Province,
which it is intended that you should show to M. de M[ontmorin]. It
cannot escape that Minister how little such a step is calculated to
promote an accommodation or a suspension of hostilities, which his
language so strongly recommends.[551]
Meanwhile Pitt had sent his cousin, William Wyndham Grenville, to
collect information at The Hague. As we saw in Chapter XII, the
attainments of that young statesman, then Paymaster of the Forces, were
eminently sound. His hard and practical nature stood in contrast to the
sensitive and imaginative Harris, about whom George III trenchantly
wrote to Pitt, that he was so easily discouraged that it was well he
held no military command. Probably Pitt held the same opinion about
Harris, whose forward policy he had long held in check. That there was
some widespread distrust of him is clear from the observation of the
Duke of Dorset, that “he was playing the devil at The Hague.”[552] In
any case, it was well to have independent advice, and the selection of
so young a man as Grenville is a tribute to his prudence and ability.
He reached The Hague on 30th July, and during his stay of about
three weeks succeeded in clearing up many points preliminary to the
mediation. The letters which passed between him and Pitt bespeak a
resolve on both sides to settle matters peaceably if possible. The
following sentence in Pitt’s letter of 1st August is noteworthy: “It
is very material that our friends should not lose the superiority of
force within the Republic, while we are labouring to protect it from
interference from without.” Six days later he wrote that the prospect
was still favourable, but that, if French troops were to assemble
at Givet, it might be needful to resume naval preparations, so as to
reassure Prussia.[553] Equally hopeful in tone is his letter of 2nd
August to Earl Cornwallis, Governor-General of India. After pointing
out that Great Britain could not allow France to become mistress of the
Dutch Netherlands, and thereby add enormously to her naval strength
and her power of aggression in India, he expressed the hope that the
mediation of the three Powers would take place; but, failing an apology
from the Estates of Holland, the King of Prussia would order his
troops into that province, and take steps for “maintaining the just
rights of the Stadholder and the constitution and independence of the
Republic.” If war broke out, Cornwallis was at once to strike at the
Dutch settlement of Trincomalee, in Ceylon; while a force from England
would be sent to reduce the Cape of Good Hope--the first sign in Pitt’s
letters of the importance which he attached to that post.[554]
Despite suspicious signs to the contrary, the French Cabinet at that
time probably wished for a peaceful mediation; but the Courts of London
and Versailles differed sharply as to the way of action. Pitt and
Carmarthen held that reparation to the King of Prussia for the insult
to his sister was a purely personal affair, distinct from the political
issues. France now denied this; she belittled the affront to the
Princess, and induced the Estates of Holland to frame an apology which
was in the main a justification of their conduct. If Montmorin had
pressed that body to make an adequate apology, it would certainly have
been forthcoming. The stiff-neckedness of the Estates of Holland was
due to their expectation of armed support from France if matters came
to the sword; and the action of the Marquis de Vérac, the French envoy,
justified their confidence.
In truth, French policy wore different aspects at Paris and at The
Hague. Montmorin assumed an air of injured innocence when Eden
transmitted to him Pitt’s remonstrances. On 15th August he indignantly
denied the truth of the rumours about French transports sailing to
Holland and of the food supplies drawn from England. He also complained
of the harshness of Pitt’s reference to the assembling of troops at
Givet, an action which was a natural retort to the muster of Prussians
at their fortress of Wesel on the Rhine; and he merely laughed at
the address of the Free Corps.[555] A week later Eden reported that
Montmorin was anxious to settle the Dutch troubles peacefully and
speedily, and would therefore recall the over-zealous Vérac from The
Hague. Pitt, however, refused to allow that Prussia was exceeding her
just rights in claiming satisfaction for the insult. The fit way of
ending the matter, he argued, would be for the Estates of Holland to
apologize frankly and fully, whereupon the three Powers must insist on
the dispersal and disarming of the Free Corps as a needful preliminary
to the joint mediation.[556] On 28th August Eden heard that the French
Government would not form the camp at Givet, it being understood that
the Prussian monarch would limit his claims to the gaining of personal
satisfaction, which France promised to procure from the Estates of
Holland. This welcome news led Pitt to express the hope that an
agreement would at once be framed for stopping the excesses of the
Free Corps. Thus, so far as our dealings with Montmorin ran, there
seemed, even at the end of August 1787, the likelihood of a peaceful
settlement. A signal proof of Pitt’s hopefulness is afforded by his
letter of 28th August to Cornwallis at Calcutta. In this he speaks of
the need of settling the personal question between the King of Prussia
and the Estates of Holland as preliminary to the general settlement of
the dispute. Even of that he cherished hopes, but he deemed caution and
preparation so eminently necessary as to order the despatch of another
regiment to Bombay.[557]
In truth, the central knot of the whole tangle was at The Hague. In
order to understand the position there we must remember that the
States-General, representing the Union, had not called on France for
aid, in case of hostilities. Thanks to the skill and private influence
of Harris, a majority of that body still upheld the claims of the
Stadholder, deprecated any appeal to the Court of Versailles, and
sought to procure from the Estates of Holland an apology to the King
of Prussia. The Estates, however, stoutly refused to give anything
more than a complacent explanation of the incident. The spirit which
animated that assembly appears in the comment of one of the leading
Patriots on the Prussian ultimatum: “A sovereign body can never
apologize to the wife of its first servant.”[558] The Memoirs of
Count de Portes, a Swiss officer who espoused the cause of the Dutch
Patriots and helped to raise a regiment for them, show the cause of
their confidence. He wrote on 14th September: “Though the Prussians are
at our gates, they seem to me still at the sport of politics, and I
can scarcely believe that they will put themselves between our waters
and _our French_. At the worst we will open our sluices and drown
ourselves.”[559]
There was the strength of the Patriots. In a legal sense their case
was weak; but their audacious energy even now promised to snatch
victory from the inert Orange party. The Free Corps in the months of
July and August became more numerous and insolent than ever, and it
was a notorious fact that hundreds of French officers and soldiers had
passed into their ranks.[560] Thus strengthened, they marched about the
country, taking some places by force, and in several cases deposing the
Regents, or chief magistrates appointed by the Stadholder. On all sides
they despoiled the property of opponents, and carried confusion to the
gates of The Hague. On 1st August Harris thus summed up his hopes and
wishes to Carmarthen: “If I am de-Witted, don’t let me be outwitted,
but revenge me.”[561] Count Bentinck also wrote: “the majority of
Holland have made themselves masters of our lives and property; ...
they are masters of the purse, and of the sword, and of the Courts
of Justice.”[562] That arch-intriguer, Vérac, on 31st August, the
very day of his recall, assured the Patriots that France would never
desert them. This boast was consonant with the whole policy of France
respecting the Free Corps. She had rejected the Prussian proposal for
their suppression, which accompanied the plan of a Franco-Prussian
mediation. On 29th August Montmorin stated to Eden that it was
impossible to disarm the Free Corps, and on 11th September when stiff
remonstrances came from London on this subject, he airily declared
that France could no more control those troops than the waves of the
sea.[563]
Is it surprising that the Pitt Ministry came to the conclusion that
the real aim of the French Government was to amuse England and Prussia
with fair words, until its partisans gained a complete mastery in the
United Provinces and forced the States-General to send to Paris a
formal demand for help, with which the Court of Versailles could not
but comply? Whether Montmorin was playing a double game, or whether
his hand was forced by other members of his Cabinet, is far from
clear.[564] Certainly the contrast between his fair professions and
French intrigues in Holland inspired increasing distrust, and served to
bring about the _dénouement_ which shattered the prestige of the French
monarchy.
It was long before the crisis came. Only by slow degrees did Pitt,
Carmarthen, and Harris shake off distrust of Prussia. The length
of time attending the transit of despatches between London and
Berlin (eleven days on the average even in summer) clogged the
negotiations. At Paris the Prussian envoy, Görtz, intrigued against the
Anglo-Prussian understanding, and represented Eden as minimizing the
insult to the Princess of Orange. At once Pitt sent to Eden a courteous
but firm request for an explanation of his words, which had caused a
sensation at Berlin. Of course Eden was able to explain them entirely
to Pitt’s satisfaction.[565] But it is clear that the mutual dislike at
London and Berlin could have been ended only by the fears aroused by
the action of France.
In order to remove the distrust prevalent at Berlin, Pitt and
Carmarthen sent to that Court full copies of their correspondence with
France, which convinced Frederick William of their good faith and the
duplicity of Versailles.[566] He saw that France was dragging on the
affair so that the approach of autumn might hinder the effective action
of his troops. Suspicion of this helped to bring England and Prussia to
accord. But the tidings which spurred on Pitt and Carmarthen to more
decisive action came from The Hague. On 20th August Harris reported
that a body of Free Corps was approaching that town, that he was
preparing to leave it in haste, and had sent all important papers away.
On hearing this news and perhaps that brought back by Grenville on 23rd
August, the Cabinet resolved to send General Fawcett to Cassel to hire
5,000 Hessians for the help of the loyal Dutch provinces, and others
for the British service--that detestable expedient which parsimony made
inevitable at every alarm of war. Harris was also empowered to order up
a British ship lying at Harwich, laden with gunpowder and stores for
the help of the Stadholder’s forces.[567] On the same day Carmarthen
instructed Ewart to warn the Prussian Court that, though we had agreed
with France to suspend warlike preparations, yet we were ready to send
out at least as large a fleet as France could possibly equip.[568]
Ewart, in his reply of 4th September, stated that but for this
encouraging news Frederick William might once more have wavered, owing
to the insidious intrigues of the French party, and the discouraging
reports which came from the Duke of Brunswick. The nerves of that
veteran were unstrung by visions of the spectral camp at Givet, and
he mourned over the unpreparedness of his own force at Wesel, which,
he declared, could not march before 7th September.[569] These tidings
had once more depressed the royal thermometer at Berlin; but the news
from London came just in time to send the mercury up again. On 3rd
September, then, Frederick William drew up an ultimatum to the Estates
of Holland, and bade Hertzberg come to a close understanding with
England. On 7th September he resolved to recall Thulemeyer, and urged
the British Government to declare what forces it would set in motion if
France attacked the Prussian army in Holland.[570]
* * * * *
Late on that day there arrived at Berlin news which ended the last
hesitations of Frederick William. The Porte, long fretting under
the yoke imposed by the Treaty of Kainardji, and irritated by the
proceedings of the Czarina, had declared war on Russia. This came
almost as a bolt from the blue. No one had believed the Sultan capable
of so much energy as to attack the Muscovites; and rumours spread
at Vienna and Petersburg that this was due to British gold. The
insinuation was probably false. As will appear in Chapter XXI, the
Turks had been goaded into war, and relied on help from Sweden, perhaps
also from Prussia. Undoubtedly their action greatly embarrassed Joseph
II, who was bound by compacts with Russia, the enemy of Turkey, and
with France, her friend. Late on 7th September Finckenstein pointed
this out to Ewart, and added that Prussia and England ought at once
to frame an agreement, and intervene effectively without fear of
France.[571] This time the decision was final. Ewart reported that
the news of Turkey’s challenge to Russia caused all the more joy at
Berlin as the party of Marie Antoinette had gained an ascendancy at
Versailles, which implied the strengthening of the Franco-Austrian
alliance and a proportionate loosening of the ties linking Joseph II
to Russia.[572] The reasoning was not sound; for it was probable that
France, acting in close concert with the two Empires, would partition
Turkey with a view to the seizure of Egypt and other commanding posts
in the East.
Nevertheless, Prussia looked on the war in the East as giving her a
free hand in the West; and on 7th September she decided to act in
the Netherlands. Four days later a French envoy, Groschlag, arrived
in Berlin with offers, partly enticing, partly threatening, which
might once more have drawn the wavering impulses of the King towards
Paris.[573] But now, after many months of uphill fight, all the omens
favoured the Anglo-Prussian cause.
On 13th September, before the refusal of the Prussian ultimatum by the
Estates of Holland had been received, the Duke of Brunswick crossed the
Dutch frontier. In Guelderland and parts of Utrecht the Prussians were
hailed as deliverers; even the city of Utrecht opened its gates, owing
to the cowardice of the Rhinegrave of Salm, who soon abandoned the
cause for which he had blustered so long. Nowhere did the Free Corps
make any firm stand. Even in Holland their excesses had turned public
opinion strongly against them. It is said that the weather prevented
the opening of the sluices; but the half-heartedness of the defence,
and the eagerness of the Orange party for deliverance, probably explain
the _débâcle_. When the Dutch have been united and determined, their
defence of their land has always been stubborn. Now it was not even
creditable; and this fact may be cited as damning to the Patriots’
claim that they stood for the nation. On 20th September the Prince of
Orange made his entry into The Hague amidst boundless enthusiasm. Sir
James Harris also received a striking ovation, which rewarded him for
the long months of struggle.
Now, while the Patriots were in consternation at their overthrow, our
envoy clinched his triumph by persuading the Estates of Holland to
reverse their previous acts against the Stadholder’s authority, and to
rescind a resolution which they had passed on 9th September appealing
for armed aid from France. The cancelling of this appeal on 21st
September was a matter of great importance, as it deprived France of a
pretext for armed intervention. The receipt of this news at Versailles
helped to cool the warlike ardour of the French Court.
There the temper of the Ministry had fluctuated alarmingly. The recall
of Vérac seemed to assure a peaceful settlement. But on 4th September
Montmorin sent to Eden a despatch which ran directly counter to the
British and Prussian proposals. It stated that the Dutch towns,
where the Free Corps had forcibly changed the magistrates, “_ont
déjà consommé la réforme; ... c’est une affaire terminée_.” As for
the Prince of Orange, he would do well to abdicate in favour of his
son.[574] Pitt of course indignantly rejected both proposals; and his
temper is seen in the phrase of his letter of 14th September to Eden,
that if France was determined to keep her predominance in the United
Provinces, she must fight for it.[575]
An acute crisis now set in. While Carmarthen warned Montmorin that
England would not remain a quiet spectator of French intervention, that
Minister on 16th September issued a Declaration that France could not
refuse the appeal for help which had come from the Estates of Holland.
He charged England with having plotted the whole affair with Prussia,
and asserted that, inconvenient though the time was now that the fate
of the Turkish Empire stood at hazard, France must in honour draw the
sword.[576]
This Declaration drew from Pitt an equally stiff retort. In a circular
despatch intended for all our ambassadors, which he himself drew
up, he declared that England could not admit the right of France,
owing to its treaty with the Dutch Republic, “to support a party in
one of the Provinces in a measure expressly disavowed by a majority
of the States-General; and His Majesty has repeatedly declared the
impossibility of his being indifferent to any armed interference of
France in the affairs of the Republic, which, if unopposed, must
necessarily tend to consequences dangerous to the constitutional
independence of those Provinces, and affecting in many respects the
interests and security of his dominions. His Majesty has therefore
found himself under the necessity of taking measures for equipping
a considerable naval armament and for augmenting his land forces.”
Nevertheless he still desired “an amicable settlement of the points
in dispute.”[577] As many as forty sail of the line were immediately
prepared for sea; and here we may notice that Pitt’s care for the navy
ensured a preponderance which virtually decided the dispute.
In order to see whether war might be averted, George III suggested,
on 16th September, that someone should be sent to Paris who could
deal with the French Ministers better than Eden did. Pitt therefore
decided, on 19th September, to despatch Grenville, charging him
distinctly to declare that Great Britain approved the action of the
King of Prussia, and would resist an armed intervention by France; also
that the settlement in the United Provinces must be such as to restore
to the Stadholder his constitutional powers, and prevent the ascendency
of the party hostile to Britain. A secondary aim of Grenville’s mission
was the forming of a friendly understanding with France for the
cessation of warlike preparations on both sides of the Channel--a proof
of Pitt’s watchful care over the exchequer.[578]
Montmorin received Grenville coldly on 28th September at Versailles;
but his reserve was merely a cloak to hide his discomfiture. Nine
days before he had assured Eden, in the confidence which followed on
a private dinner, that “if the Estates of Holland should prove so
defenceless, or so intimidated as to give way to whatever might be
forced under the present attack, he would advise His Most Christian
Majesty not to engage in war.” If matters went more favourably he
would advise him to draw the sword; but, as for his own feelings,
he was weary of the Dutch Question, and only sought the means for
getting rid of it creditably, so that France might turn her attention
to another quarter, obviously the East.[579] Grenville, after hearing
all this from Eden, and receiving the good news from The Hague, of
course put the right interpretation on Montmorin’s _non possumus_, and
sought to facilitate his stately retreat. He was at once waved back.
Montmorin would make no promise as to her course of action so long as
the Prussians were in Holland. Even on the question of disarmament
by the two Powers--a matter of the utmost moment to France--he would
make no pledge, though Grenville strongly urged him to do so. Two more
interviews passed with the same frigid negations; and on 3rd October
Grenville returned to London, harbouring a shrewd suspicion that the
actions of the Court of Versailles would on this occasion tally with
Montmorin’s words.
Such proved to be the case. France did nothing, to the unbounded
disgust of her partisans in Holland. Amsterdam shut its gates and
endured a short siege from the Prussians in the belief that help
must come from Paris. Our diplomatic agent, W. A. Miles, writing
from Liège on 1st October, reported that the burgomasters of Utrecht
and Gorcum had passed through that city on their way to Paris in the
conviction that “France would never leave them in the lurch, and that
her troops would certainly march to the relief of Amsterdam.”[580]
Their consternation must have been great on reaching Givet to find that
there was no camp there.[581] The truth then flashed upon them that the
French agents had relied on bluster and the Free Corps. Disappointment
at the inaction of the French Court probably hastened the surrender
of Amsterdam, which opened its gates on 10th October. The capture by
the Prussians of many French soldiers, who declared that they were
acting for that Government, revealed the sinister conduct of some,
at least, of the French Ministers, and of Vérac.[582] A letter of
Grenville to Eden on 26th October 1787 shows the surprise and disgust
of our Ministers at this flagrant bad faith. He says he is “mortified”
at finding that Ségur, Minister for War, had sent signed orders for
parties of French artillerymen to march north to the frontier, and
put themselves under the command of an adventurer named Esterhazy.
“His (Ségur’s) orders again expressly direct the march into Holland in
disguise, and point out the places where the men are to be equipped
with _habits de paysan_ for this purpose.”[583]
The surrender of Amsterdam gave the last blow to the war party at
Versailles. Up to 14th October Pitt felt the utmost concern, as appears
in his letter of that date to Eden; but the reply of that envoy three
days later showed that Ségur and his colleagues now bowed to the
inevitable. Their peaceful mood was doubtless confirmed by the evasive
and discouraging answer sent by Austria to the appeal for help.[584]
The Emperor had a large force in Belgium, but none too large to hold
down that people. Moreover, the prospect of war with Turkey imposed
caution at Vienna.
The chief danger now was that France would join Russia and Austria
in the dismemberment of Turkey. Fear of such a step haunted Pitt, who
always surveyed the Dutch Question from the standpoint of India. Thus
we find him on 8th October charging Eden to watch most carefully the
attitude of France to the events in the East. The replies of that envoy
were, as usual, reassuring. France, according to Eden, only desired
peace, and the scheme of seizing Egypt was “wholly wild.”[585] Pitt
therefore decided to press forward, and to persuade France to give
an unequivocal assurance of her pacific intentions, as a prelude to
disarmament on both sides. His letter of 14th October to Eden on this
topic shows a grip of essentials, together with a surprising _finesse_.
While anxious to induce France to disarm at the earliest possible
moment, he advised Eden to humour Alvensleben, the special Prussian
envoy at Paris, and to convince him that we were giving Prussia firm
support and were not disposed to patch up a premature settlement.[586]
Evidently Pitt’s interest in diplomacy, though belated, was keen.
After long correspondence with Berlin, and much demurring at
Versailles, a Declaration and Counter-Declaration were drafted and
signed by the British envoys and Montmorin on 27th October. The French
document averred that, as it had never been the intention of the King
of France to intervene in Dutch affairs, he now retained no hostile
views in any quarter respecting them, and therefore consented to
disarm.[587] This public denial of what had notoriously been the aim of
his Government, and this promise to renounce all ideas of revenge on
Prussia, sent a thrill of astonishment through the diplomatic world.
Never had France so openly abandoned her partisans or so publicly
proclaimed her impotence. If Pitt (as French historians have asserted)
had persistently sought to humiliate the Court of Versailles, he could
not have succeeded more completely. But this Counter-Declaration was
merely the climax of a diplomatic game which had taken a threatening
turn only since the beginning of September. The fact is that the French
Ministers, and still more their agents in Holland, had precipitated
the crisis by the actions of the Free Corps at the very time which
proved to be most unfavourable for them. By their conduct they courted
failure; but it was the outbreak of war in the East which made that
failure complete and crushing.
On the other hand, the conduct of the friends of the House of Orange,
after long delays and blunders, was singularly astute when the crisis
came. The conduct of the Princess deserves the highest praise. The
diplomacy of Harris and Ewart was a marvel of skill. As for Eden, he
had little more to do than to obey orders, though he sometimes toned
down the harsh phrases of Pitt and Carmarthen.[588] The action of the
Prussians was trenchant, but it could not have been so but for their
confidence in the promised support of the Sea Power. Pitt’s fostering
care of the national resources, and his rehabilitation of the navy had
made it virtually impossible for the semi-bankrupt French State to
enter single-handed on a war with Great Britain and Prussia. This was
the determining factor in the problem; and every statesman at Paris,
London, and Berlin knew it.
But something more than sound finance is needed in a complex and
critical situation. There the qualities of foresight, tact, and
determination are of priceless worth; and on all sides it was admitted
that Pitt displayed them to a high degree. The restraint which kept
Harris strictly within bounds until the fit moment arrived is not more
remarkable than the boldness which reaped all possible advantages
from the daring _coup_ of the Princess of Orange. Eden wrote on 1st
November, that he had _shuddered_ at the courage of Pitt in braving the
chances of a war with France.[589] But the young statesman knew how far
he could go with safety; he discerned the essential fact that France
could not fight, and that Montmorin adopted his negative attitude in
order to hide that important secret. If Montmorin chose to justify her
disarmament by assertions which were equally false and humiliating,
that was a matter for him, not for the statesmen of Great Britain.
Pitt’s conduct of this, his first great diplomatic campaign, shines
all the more brightly by contrast with the vacillations of Frederick
William and the stupendous blunders of the French Government. Adverting
briefly to these last, we may note that France had little ground for
interference so long as a majority of the States-General deprecated
such action; and, thanks to Harris, that majority, except for a few
days, held firm. The French Government therefore founded its hopes
on the majority in the Province of Holland, and on the high-handed
proceedings of the Free Corps, which it secretly abetted. Montmorin
repulsed two overtures from Berlin because of the insistence of Prussia
that those corps should be suppressed. This action it was, more perhaps
than the resentment of Frederick William at the insult to his sister,
which helped to bring Prussia and Great Britain into line. France also
finally denied the right of Frederick William to gain reparation for
that insult, though she at first recognized the justice of his claim.
Further, when he sent forward his troops, she made ready for war, and
then adopted the attitude of sullen resentment, which rendered a joint
mediation by the three Powers impossible. This conduct in its turn
implied the lapse of the Franco-Dutch treaty of 1785, and the triumph
of British and Prussian influence in the United Provinces. Frenchmen
also saw in this event another proof of the uselessness of the Austrian
alliance on which Marie Antoinette had staked her popularity; and
the _débâcle_ in Holland was a deadly blow at the influence of that
unfortunate Queen. Finally France admitted her defeat in terms at which
friends and foes alike scoffed. Not without reason, then, did Napoleon
afterwards assert that the French Revolution was due to three causes,
the Battle of Rossbach, the Diamond Necklace scandal, and the ousting
of French influence from the United Provinces in 1787. The judgement is
curiously superficial in that it passes over the fiscal and agrarian
evils which potently conduced to the great upheaval; but it reflected
the opinion of that generation, which looked on deficits, dearths, and
bread-riots as dispensations of Providence, of trifling import when
compared with the decay in prestige of an ancient monarchy. Something
may be said for this view of things in the case of France. For years
that monarchy had lived on prestige. The surrender of October 1787 now
proclaimed to the world its decrepitude.
* * * * *
With the events attending the restoration of the Stadholder’s power
and the constitution of the year 1747 we are not here concerned. Pitt
had rightly refused to interfere until the efforts of the Patriots to
establish French influence had become a positive danger to England.
His interest in those troubles was largely grounded on naval and
colonial considerations. If the United Provinces became an annexe of
France, their fleet, their valuable colonies, and their once prosperous
East India Company, would be cast into the balance against us. Now
that this danger was past, he sought to remove all chance of its
recurrence by suggesting the formation of a treaty of alliance with the
Republic. On 5th October the first proposal to this effect was framed
at Whitehall on condition that the two States should assist one another
in case of attack, and guarantee the possession of their territories;
but from the outset the Foreign Office set its face sternly against any
concession such as “Free Ships, Free Goods,” on which the Dutch were
likely to insist.
There was, however, another stumbling stone in the way. The Dutch
felt keenly the surrender of Negapatam to Great Britain, and they
urged that, as that sacrifice had been forced on them in 1784 for the
greater security of our settlements in the Carnatic, its retrocession
was a natural consequence and a pledge of the friendship now happily
restored. The Pitt Ministry, however, viewed the matter in the
cold light of self-interest, and rejected the demand, in spite of
the reiterated assurances of the Prince of Orange, the new Grand
Pensionary, Van der Spiegel, and other friends of England, that they
could not otherwise accept the proffered treaty. Even Harris finally
confessed his inability to bend their will, and he advised Pitt and
Carmarthen not to imperil the alliance on this single detail. Prussia,
he said, had given way at some points in her negotiations with the
Dutch; and it was impolitic for us to be too stiff.[590]
Pitt, however, would not give way. Probably he considered that the
Stadholder’s party, now in power, needed our support more than we
needed his; or he may have grounded his decision on the need of
preventing the rise of any Power other than that of England in South
India, where Tippoo Sahib was always a danger. He refused to do more
than offer to negotiate on this question within the space of six
months after the signature of the treaty. The negotiation was never
even begun; and thus the treaty signed at The Hague on 15th April
1788 was always viewed with disfavour by the Dutch. The guarantee of
the restored Stadholderate by Great Britain, and the promise of each
State to assist in the defence of the possessions of the other, were
in themselves quite satisfactory; but the compact lacked the solidity
which comes only from entire confidence and goodwill.[591]
The formation of an alliance with Prussia in the same year also came
about in a manner more brilliant than sound. Of course, in all such
affairs each Power tries to bring the other over to its own standpoint;
and much tugging must needs take place between a military and a naval
State. Frederick William and his chief statesman, Hertzberg, had just
achieved the first success of their careers, and largely owing to the
firmness of Pitt. Assured of their supremacy in Germany and Holland,
they now sought to guard against the dangers threatening them from the
East. The news which came in the month of November 1787, that Austria
would join Russia in her war with Turkey, caused the gravest concern
at Berlin, and therefore enhanced the value of a British alliance. The
growing weakness of France and the power of Pitt to handle a crisis
firmly therefore put a new face on Prussian policy. Instead of waiting
on Paris, the Berlin Cabinet looked more and more expectantly towards
London.
Already Frederick William had signified his desire for a union with
the Dutch “in order to pave the way to a Triple Alliance between
England, Prussia, and Holland as soon as it may be possible to
accomplish it.”[592] But the Pitt Ministry, distrustful of an alliance
with Prussia unless Russia also came in, treated this overture very
coyly. From a letter which the first Earl Camden wrote to Pitt on
18th October, we gather that the Earl was far more inclined to such
an alliance than Pitt had shown himself to be at a recent meeting of
the Cabinet. Camden favoured the plan as tending to consolidate our
influence in Holland--a matter of the utmost moment. “We have escaped
miraculously,” he writes, “from the most perilous situation we ever
experienced, and shall be mad if we slip the opportunity of rooting
out the French interest in that country for ever ... and that will
be compleatly effected by a Prussian alliance.” It would also free
Prussia from slavish dependence upon France. As for the fear that it
would drive France to a close compact with Russia and Austria, the Earl
treated that danger as remote.[593]
Carmarthen, and probably Pitt also, looked on the danger as real
enough to give them pause. Not till 2nd December did Carmarthen return
any specific answer; and then he expressed the doubt whether it was
desirable to form a Triple Alliance then, as there were rumours of
a projected union between these three Powers, which might become a
reality if England, Prussia, and Holland coalesced.[594] If that
hostile league were formed, it would then be desirable to come to
terms, and even to include Denmark, Sweden, and the lesser German
States. It is curious that he did not name Poland; but here we find the
first definite sign of that league of the smaller States with Prussia
and Great Britain which afterwards played so important a part in Pitt’s
foreign policy.
The caution of Pitt was justified. In a few days’ time Sweden came
knocking at our door, asking for admittance along with Denmark. The
adventurous character of Gustavus III will appear in the sequel. Here
we may note that Carmarthen politely waved aside this offer of alliance
from a suspicion that he was planning a blow at Russia.[595] The blow
did not fall until the middle of July 1788; but then the sudden summons
of the Swedish King to the Empress Catharine to hand back part of
Russian Finland, and to accept his mediation in the Russo-Turkish War,
showed the meaning of his proposal at Christmas 1787.
Only by slow degrees did the eastern horizon clear. But when France
showed her resentment at the participation of Austria in the Turkish
War, the spectre of a hostile Triple Alliance was laid; and then, but
not till then, Pitt showed more favour to the Prussian proposals. Yet
here again there was need of caution. The Eastern Question touched
Prussia far more closely than England. If Joseph II gained his heart’s
desire--Moldavia and Wallachia--and Catharine extended her boundary to
the River Dniester, the greatness and even the safety of Prussia and of
Poland would be hopelessly compromised.[596] Accordingly Prussia sought
by all means short of drawing the sword to help the Turks in their
unequal struggle. She cantoned large forces near the Austrian border,
hinted that she would be glad to offer her mediation for the purpose
of securing a reasonable peace, and sent an official disguised as a
merchant by way of Venice to Constantinople in order to encourage the
Sultan to a vigorous prosecution of the war.[597] Hertzberg also urged
the formation of a league between Prussia, England, and the smaller
States with a view to the guarantee of the Turkish possessions in
Europe.[598]
To this proposal the British Government gave no encouragement. So
far as appears from the despatches of this year, the fate of Turkey
was not a matter of much concern to Pitt and Carmarthen. Indeed, not
until 2nd April did they vouchsafe an answer to the Prussian proposal
of alliance; and then they based their acceptance on the need of
safeguarding the situation in Holland. Other States, it was added,
might be invited to join the Triple Alliance in order effectively to
counterbalance the jealous efforts to which it might give rise; but
Great Britain declined to bind herself to any guarantee of the Sultan’s
dominions. If he were in sore straits, Great Britain would support
Prussia in gaining reasonable terms for him, but she would not favour
any active intervention on his behalf. Still less would she support the
notion (outlined by Hertzberg) that Prussia should acquire an indemnity
for any gains that Austria might make in the present war.[599] The
keynote of British policy was firmly struck in this sentence: “The
great object which we have in view is the continuance of peace, as far
as that is not inconsistent with our essential interests. It is with
that view that the alliance of Holland has been thought so material,
as rendering any attack upon us less probable. With the same view we
are desirous of cultivating the closest connections with the Court of
Berlin.”[600] That is to say, the proposed Triple Alliance was to be a
purely defensive league for the safeguarding of the three States and
their colonies.
At Berlin, however, now that Catharine had finally waved aside the
friendly offers of British and Prussian mediation, the Eastern crisis
eclipsed all other topics. By degrees Hertzberg laid his plans for the
aggrandizement of Prussia, whatever might befall the Turks.[601] As
will appear more fully in a later chapter, he expected that Joseph II
would gain the whole, or large parts, of Moldavia and Wallachia. The
armed mediation of Prussia was to lessen these acquisitions; and as a
set-off to them Austria must cede Galicia to the Poles; while their
gratitude for the recovery of that great province, torn from them in
1772, was to show itself in the cession to Prussia of the important
fortresses and districts, Danzig and Thorn, so necessary for the
rounding off of her ragged borders on the East. Such was the scheme
which took shape in Hertzberg’s fertile brain, and dominated Prussian
policy down to the summer of the year 1791.
The watchful Ewart forwarded to Whitehall details of this gigantic
“deal” (if we may use the Americanism); and as the scheme came to light
it aroused deep distrust at Whitehall. At once the Prussian proposal
wore a new aspect; and the draft of a treaty drawn up in this sense in
the middle of April left little hope of a settlement between the two
Powers. In reply to its proposals Pitt and Carmarthen pointed out the
vagueness of the Prussian suggestions respecting Turkey, but hinted
that an opportunity might come for befriending the Sultan if he were
too hard pressed. Further, while promising to help Prussia if she were
attacked, they again demanded the like succour from her if any of our
colonies were assailed. They also desired to bring into the league
Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal. For the present, however, they sought to
limit the Anglo-Prussian understanding to the Dutch guarantee, though
a closer compact was to be discussed during the visit of the Prussian
monarch to his sister at Loo.[602]
This last suggestion was for Ewart himself. The others he was to pass
on to Hertzberg. That Minister chafed at this further rebuff to his
plans, which now comprised the offer of the armed mediation of Prussia,
England, and Holland to Catharine and Joseph. The fondness of Frederick
William for France once more appeared; and the French party at Berlin
venomously raised its head. England, they avowed, would gain everything
from this one-sided compact; for her colonies were to be found in every
sea. Why should the troops of the great Frederick be set in motion to
help the islanders every time that one of their colonial governors lost
his temper? Finally the King declared that he would not send his troops
beyond the bounds of Germany and Holland.[603]
There seemed little chance of an agreement between the two Courts,
until Frederick William set out for his visit to the Prince and
Princess of Orange at Loo, and let fall the remark that he hoped to see
Sir James Harris there. Already that envoy had asked permission to come
to London; and, with the zeal of a convert to the Prussian alliance,
he convinced Ministers of its desirability, even if they gave way on
certain points. The Instructions drawn up for him on 6th June set forth
the need of an Anglo-Prussian alliance in order “to contribute to
the general tranquillity.” He was also to sound the Prussian monarch
as to the inclusion of other Powers, especially Sweden and Denmark;
but discussions on this matter were not to stand in the way of the
signature of the treaty.[604] George III, now a firm supporter of peace
principles, favoured the scheme, as appears from his letter of the same
date to the Princess of Orange. He there stated that he approved of
an alliance with Prussia, though there might not be time to gain the
adhesion of other States; and he expressed the hope that this compact
would lead Austria and France to desire the continuance of peace, and
thereby conduce to the termination of war in the East.[605]
Fortified by these opinions of the King and Cabinet, Harris prepared to
play the game boldly. His handsome person, grand air, and consciousness
of former victories gave him an advantage in the discussions with
Frederick William, who, thanks to the tact of the Princess, laid aside
his earlier prepossessions against the “dictator,” and entered into his
views. In order to keep the impressionable monarch free from disturbing
influences, Harris paid the sum of 200 ducats to a chamberlain if he
would ensure the exclusion of a noted partisan of France, Colonel
Stein, from the royal chamber during a critical stage in the healing
process. The climax came during a ball on 12–13th June. After midnight
the King sought out Harris, invited him to walk in the garden, admitted
the force of his arguments in favour of an immediate signature of the
proposed treaty, and allowed him to speak to his Minister, Alvensleben.
While fireworks blazed and courtiers danced, the two Ministers drew
up a provisional treaty, to which the King assented on the following
morning, 13th June 1788.
The news of the signature of the Provisional Treaty of Loo was received
at Berlin with an outburst of rage, when it appeared that nearly all
the aims and safeguards striven for by Ministers and Francophiles had
disappeared. Further negotiations ensued at Berlin; but they brought
no material change to the Loo compact. The treaty signed at Berlin by
Hertzberg and Ewart on 13th August 1788 was defensive in character.
Each State promised to help the other, in case of attack, by a force of
20,000 men; but Great Britain was not to use such a force of Prussians
outside Europe or even at Gibraltar. That contingent might be increased
if need arose; or it might be replaced by a money equivalent. As was
stipulated at Loo, the two Powers pledged themselves to uphold the
integrity of the United Provinces and of their present constitution,
and to defend that State by all possible means, in case of attack,
the Dutch also affording armed help to either ally, if it were
attacked. Two secret articles were added to the Berlin Treaty, the one
stipulating that no military aid should be given to the party attacked
unless the latter had on foot at least 44,000 men; the second provided
that a British fleet should assist Prussia if the latter applied for
it.[606]
Thus was formed an imposing league. The splendid army of Prussia,
backed by the fleets and resources of Great Britain and the Dutch
Republic, constituted a force which during three years was to maintain
peace and assure the future of the smaller States. If we remember the
state of woeful isolation of England up to the summer of 1787, the
contrast in her position a year later is startling. It came about owing
to the caution of Pitt in a time when precipitate action would have
marred everything. His wise delay in the early stages of the Dutch
crisis, and his diplomatic coyness in the bargaining with Prussia are
alike admirable.[607] The British envoys, Ewart and Harris (Keith at
Vienna deserves also to be named) were men of unusual capacity and
courage; but then as now success depended mainly on the chief; and it
has been shown that the guiding hand at Whitehall was that of Pitt.
His diplomatic triumphs recorded in this chapter were to have a marked
influence on the future of Europe. It is not generally known how acute
was the danger arising from the schemes of Catharine II and Joseph
II. In popular imagination the premonitory rumblings of the French
Revolution rivet the attention of the world to the exclusion of all
else; but a perusal of the letters of statesmen shows that nine-tenths
of their time were given to thwarting the plans of the imperial
revolutionists. In truth French democracy could not have gained its
rapid and easy triumphs had not the monarchies of Central and Eastern
Europe shaken the old order of things to its base, so that even the
intelligent conservatism of Pitt failed to uphold the historic fabric
from the attacks that came from the East and the West. Well was it for
Great Britain that her diplomatic position was fully assured by the
autumn of the year 1788. For at that time lunacy beset her monarch,
paralyzed her executive government, and threatened to place her
fortunes at the mercy of a dissolute prince.
CHAPTER XVII
THE PRINCE OF WALES
Our Ministers like gladiators live;
’Tis half their business blows to ward or give.
The good their virtue would effect, or sense,
Dies between exigents and self-defence.
POPE.
He [the Prince of Wales] has so effeminate a mind as to counteract
his own good qualities, by having no control over his weaknesses.
THE EARL OF MALMESBURY, _Diaries_, iv, 33.
A Prime Minister of Great Britain needs to be an intellectual Proteus.
Besides determining the lines of foreign and domestic policy, he must
regulate the movements of a complex parliamentary machine, ever taking
into account personal prejudices which not seldom baffle the most
careful forecast. It is not surprising, therefore, to find statesmen at
Westminster often slow and hesitating even when there is need of prompt
decision. The onlooker may see only the public questions at issue. The
man in the thick of the maze may all the time be holding the personal
clue which alone can bring him to the open. How often has the fate of
Europe turned on the foibles or favouritism of Queen Elizabeth, Louis
XIV, Queen Anne, Charles XII, Catharine II. In the present age this
factor counts for less than of yore. Hence it comes about that many
modern critics assess the career of Pitt as if he were in the position
of a Gladstone. In point of fact he was more under royal control than
Walpole or Godolphin. He had to do with a Sovereign who in the last
resort gave the law to his Ministers, and occasionally treated them
like head clerks.
True, George III interfered with Pitt less than with his predecessors.
That masterful will had been somewhat tamed during the “bondage” to the
Coalition, and almost perforce accepted the guidance of his deliverer.
The King even allowed Pitt to go his own way respecting Reform,
Warren Hastings, and the Irish Commercial Treaty. Family scandals and
family debts for a time overshadowed all other considerations, a fact
which goes far to explain the bourgeois domesticity of his outlook
on Dutch affairs. In these years, then, he acquiesced in the lead of
the heaven-sent Minister who maintained the national credit and the
national honour. But in the last resort George III not only reigned but
governed. Thus, apart from the Eastern War, which we shall consider
later, everything portended a time of calm in the year 1788, when
suddenly the personal element obtruded itself. There fell upon the
monarch a strange malady which threatened to bring confusion in place
of order, and to enthrone a Prince who was the embodiment of faction
and extravagance.
The career of the Prince of Wales illustrates the connection often
subsisting between the extremes of virtue and vice. Not seldom the
latter may be traced to the excess of the former in some primly
uninteresting home; and certainly the Prince, who saw the light on 12th
August 1762, might serve to point the moral against pedantic anxiety
on the part of the unco’ guid. His upbringing by the strictest of
fathers in the most methodized of households early helped to call out
and strengthen the tendencies to opposition which seemed ingrained in
the heirs-apparent of that stubborn stock. In the dull life at Kew or
Windsor, bristling with rules and rebukes, may we not see the working
in miniature of those untoward influences--fussy control and austere
domination--which wearied out the patience of Ministers and the loyalty
of colonists?
Moreover this royal precisian was not blessed with a gracious
consort. Queen Charlotte’s youthful experiences at the ducal Court of
Mecklenburg predisposed her to strict control and unsparing parsimony.
Many were the jests as to her stamping with her signet the butter left
over at meals. It was even affirmed that apple charlottes owed their
name to her custom of using up the spare crusts of every day. These
slanders (for the latter story fails before the touchstone of the term
_Charlotte Russe_) owed their popularity largely to her ugliness.
One of her well-wishers, Colonel Disbrowe, once expressed to Croker
the hope that the bloom of her ugliness was going off.[608] This sin
revealed a multitude of others; and it is fairly certain that Queen
Charlotte has been hardly judged. Some there were who accused her of
callousness towards the King during his insanity; and the charge seems
in part proven for the year 1804.[609] Others, again, charged her
with unmotherly treatment of the Prince of Wales. Who can suffice for
these things? Aristophanes coined a happy phrase to denote lovers of
the trivial in politics. He calls them “buzzers-in-corners.” Those who
essay to write the life of a great statesman must avoid those nooks.
One thing is certain. The Prince of Wales grew to dislike both his
father and mother. His temperament was far gayer and more romantic than
theirs. Some imaginative persons have ventured to assert that a more
generous and sympathetic training would have moulded him to a fine type
of manhood. Undoubtedly his education was of the narrow kind which had
stunted the nature of George III; and when the King, with ingrained
obstinacy, continued to keep the trammels on the high-spirited youth
of eighteen, he burst them asunder. At that age the Prince had his
first amour (was it his first?), namely, with the actress, “Perdita”
Robinson.[610] The gilded youth of London, long weary of the primness
of Windsor, cheered him on to further excesses, and Carlton House set
the tone of the age. In vain did the King seek to regain the confidence
and affection of his son.[611] His efforts were repulsed; and the
debasing influence of Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, inured the
Prince to every kind of debauchery.
As if this were not enough, the heir to the throne made a bosom friend
of the man whom his father most detested, Charles James Fox. Through
that charming libertine the Prince became an _habitué_ of the Whig
Club, Brooks’s;[612] and, as we have seen, he helped to defeat the
King’s eager electioneering in the great fight of 1784 at Westminster.
Thenceforth the feud between father and son was bitter and persistent.
The Prince had all his father’s wilfulness, and far more than his stock
of selfishness. So far as is known, he showed no sign of repentance,
but argued himself into the belief that the King had always hated him
from his seventh year onward.[613] There is nothing that corroborates
this petulant assertion. The King had been a kind and even doting
father, his chief fault being that of guiding too long and too closely
this wayward nature.
By the summer of 1783 the quarrel had waxed warm on the subject of the
immorality and extravagance of the Prince. At that time the Coalition
Ministry startled the King by proposing to grant the sum of £100,000
a year to the Prince of Wales, exclusive of the revenues of the Duchy
of Cornwall, which amounted to about £13,000 a year.[614] The King,
having formerly received far less than that amount, considered it
exorbitant. As we saw in Chapter VI, the Ministry would probably have
fallen had not the Prince required his favourite to waive the proposal.
Parliament then voted £30,000 to pay his debts, £30,000 to start his
new establishment (Carlton House) and £50,000 a year out of the Civil
List.
By the autumn of the next year the Prince defiantly proposed to travel
abroad in order to ease his finances by evading his creditors. This
the King forbade, and requested him to send in a detailed list of his
expenses and debts. The result was a statement clear enough in most
items, but leaving a sum of £25,000 unaccounted for. The King required
an explanation of this, which the Prince as firmly refused to give,
though he assured Sir James Harris it was a debt of honour. As the King
refused to pass this sum, the whole matter dragged on, until in April
1785 the debts reached the total of £160,000. To escape the discomforts
of his position, the Prince proposed to his friend, Harris, who was
then in London, a term of residence at The Hague. The true reason for
this proposal lies in the fact that the Prince had for some time been
desperately in love with a fair young widow, Mrs. Fitzherbert, who
was a Roman Catholic. In vain had he wounded himself as a sign of his
undying passion for her: in vain had four of his friends sought to
inveigle her into a mock marriage. In order to escape his importunities
she had fled to the Continent; and the King refused him permission to
pursue her.
Here, in truth, was the crux of the relations between father and son.
King George saw no hope for the youth but in marriage with a Protestant
princess. Prince George as firmly declared that he would not marry
“some German frow,” and racked his brains with designs to secure the
Roman Catholic of his choice. Mrs. Fitzherbert’s religion, her position
as a commoner, and the anomaly of a morganatic marriage in these
islands, rendered any connection with her odious in the eyes of the
King. Besides, the Royal Marriage Act of 1772 forbade the marriage of
any prince or princess of the blood under the age of twenty-six without
the consent of the King. On all sides, then, the King had the Prince in
his toils.
The Prince, realizing this fact, seems to have behaved as recklessly
as possible in the hope of compelling the King to allow him to live
abroad and marry Mrs. Fitzherbert. Such at least is the most charitable
explanation of his early prodigalities. The debts, surely, were a means
of forcing the hand of his father. But George was not to be gulled
in this way. He, too, held firmly to his views, and the result was a
hopeless deadlock. Pitt and Carmarthen sought to end it in May 1785.
They threw out hints to Harris that the income of the Prince might be
increased by Parliament if he would become reconciled to the King,
cease to be a party man, and set about the discharge of his debts.
Accordingly Harris waited on the Prince at Carlton House on 23rd May
1785, and suggested that on these conditions the Ministry would double
his income, provided also that he set apart £50,000 a year for the
discharge of his debts. To this the Prince demurred, on the ground that
he could not desert Fox, and that the King’s unfatherly hatred would be
an obstacle to any such proposal. In support of the latter statement he
requested Harris to read the King’s letters to him, which were couched
in severe terms, reprobating his extravagance and dissipation.
We cannot censure this severity. The gluttonous orgies of Carlton
House were a public scandal, especially in hard times, when Parliament
withheld the money necessary for the protection of Portsmouth and
Plymouth. Both as a patriot and a father, George was justified in
condemning his son’s conduct; and it is clear that the hatred of the
Prince for his father led him to put the worst possible construction on
the advice from Windsor. At the close of his interview with Harris he
declared vehemently that he never would marry, and that he had settled
with his brother Frederick, Duke of York, for the Crown to devolve on
his heirs.[615]
As illustrating the relations of father and son, I may quote an
unpublished letter from Hugh Elliot to Pitt, dated Brighthelmstone,
17th October 1785, and endorsed by Pitt--“Shewn to the King.”[616] In
it Elliot states that he went to Brighton merely for bathing, but was
soon honoured by the Prince’s company and confidence. He had combated
several of his prejudices, and this had not offended him; but the
Prince asked him to discuss matters with the King’s Ministers, who
would then report to the King. He then adds:
There is so much difficulty in putting upon paper the secret
circumstances I have learnt, or in detailing the imminent danger
to which H.R.H. is exposed from a manner of life that can be
thoroughly understood only by those who are eye-witnesses of it,
that, out of respect to the Prince, I shall be justified in not
dwelling upon so distressing a subject, but that I may be allowed
to advance, that in my opinion H.R.H. risks being lost to himself,
his family and his country if a total and sudden change does not
take place. I will even venture to add that the Prince is at this
moment not insensible that such a change is necessary and that
it is one of the motives which make him desirous of visiting the
Continent under such restrictions as the King may think proper to
advise.
Elliot adds that the Prince would travel only with Colonels Lee and
Slaughter and himself, if the King and Pitt approved of his going with
him. The Prince hoped to economize and so win back the good opinion of
the King and country. He (Elliot) would rejoice if he could further
this course.
The desire of the Prince for foreign travel ended with the return of
Mrs. Fitzherbert from her secret tour. The Prince’s pursuit of her now
became more eager than ever, and he succeeded in inspiring her with
feelings of love. Consequently, on 15th December 1785, he secretly
married her, having four days previously assured his bosom friend,
Fox, that there was no “ground for these reports which of late have
been so malevolently circulated.” It is now proved beyond possibility
of doubt that the marriage was legal (except in the political sense
above noticed), and that the Prince did his wife grievous wrong in
persistently denying the fact.[617] She, with all the proofs in her
possession, refrained from compromising him, and therefore had to
endure endless slights. Many persons had the good sense to place her
dignified silence far above his unblushing denials, and Society was
rent in twain by the great question--“Was he married or not?” In view
of these facts, is it desirable to present a full-length portrait of
His Royal Highness? The wonder is that even in his Perdita days his
name could ever be compared with the tenderest and most faithful of
Shakespeare’s lovers, Prince Florizel. That he allowed himself to be
painted in that guise argues singular assurance. Was not Cloten more
nearly his prototype?
It would be interesting to know whether the King and Queen were aware
of the secret marriage. The Queen in a private interview pressed him
to tell the truth; but he probably equivocated. Their action bespeaks
perplexity. In private they treated Mrs. Fitzherbert kindly, but never
received her at Court.[618] That Pitt was not ill-informed on the
subject appears from the following hitherto unpublished letter from his
brother, the Earl of Chatham. It is undated, but probably belongs to
the month of December 1785:
Hanley, Wednesday.[619]
MY DEAR BROTHER,
I have had a good deal of conversation with Sir C---- on the
subject you wished some information upon. The result of which
leaves no doubt on my mind of the P[rince] having not only offered
to marry Mrs. F., but taken measures towards its accomplishment.
Many circumstances confirm this opinion, but this much is, I think,
certain information, which is that the letters from the P. offering
it were shown by himself to Mrs. S---- L----, the mother, from whom
Sir Carnaby has it immediately, and the letter from Mrs. F. to her
mother, in which she informs her of her consent. Sir C---- has seen
an extract of, and is promised a copy of [it], which I shall see.
It must, however, I think, still remain very doubtful, till the
step is absolutely taken, whether it ever will, or whether it is
more than a last effort to gain her without; but Sir C. and all
her family seem perfectly convinced that he seriously and at all
events intends it. They are averse to it; but the person in the
P’^s confidence upon it and most employed in it is Mr. Errington,
husband of Lady Broughton. He is supposed to be the person who is
to go over as her relation to be present at the ceremony. I have
endeavoured to learn what I cou’d as to the point of whether she
wou’d change her religion or not. She at present says she will not;
but Sir C---- seems to think that she might be brought to that
whenever the marriage was declared. The present intention seems to
be that it should be kept secret, but that, her conscience thus
satisfied, she is to appear, and be received as, his mistress; and
I believe it is pretty certain that he has a promise from a certain
duchess to visit her and go about with her when she comes....
Clearly the Earl of Chatham came very near the truth. Sir Carnaby
Haggerston knew the secret, and chose to reveal a good deal of it.
Mr. Errington was the bride’s uncle, and gave her away at the secret
ceremony at her house in Park Lane on 15th December.[620] The Duchess
of Devonshire early recognized Mrs. Fitzherbert, and frequently
entertained her along with the Prince.
The _liaison_ with Mrs. Fitzherbert (for it was ostensibly nothing
more) of course did not lessen expenses at Carlton House. The Prince
insisted on her moving to a larger residence and entertaining on a
lavish scale. As for Carlton House, it “exhibited a perpetual scene
of excess, unrestrained by any wise superintendence.”[621] It was
therefore natural that the Prince’s friends should ply Parliament with
requests for larger funds in the spring of 1786. The matter came up,
not inappropriately, during debates on the deficiency in the Civil
List. That most brilliant of wits and most genial of boon companions,
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, had now espoused the Prince’s cause. With
his customary charm he dragged in the subject of the monetary woes
of his patron, pointing out that the dignity of the Crown demanded
an ampler provision and the payment of the existing debts. Pitt
replied that this matter was not before the House, and added that, as
he had received no instructions on the subject, he would not be so
presumptuous as to offer any private opinion on it.
Undeterred by this freezing rebuke to Sheridan, Fox on the next
day raised the same question, maintaining that it was a national
advantage for the Heir-Apparent to be able to live not merely in
ease but in splendour. This patriotic appeal fell on deaf ears. The
country gentlemen who on the score of expense had lately decided to
leave Portsmouth and Plymouth open to attack, were not likely to
vote away on the orgies of Carlton House an extra sum of £50,000 a
year, which in fourteen years would have made the two great dockyard
towns impregnable. Fox wisely refrained from pressing his demand, and
vouchsafed no explanation as to how the nation would benefit from the
encouragement of extravagance in Pall Mall.[622] Clearly the Prince’s
friends were in a hopeless minority. Accordingly he began more stoutly
than ever to deny his marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert; but in such a
case character counts for more than oaths and asseverations.
So the miserable affair dragged on. The King refused every request
for help for the Prince, doubtless in the hope that debt would compel
him to give up his mistress. The debts therefore grew apace, until
in the summer of 1786 Carlton House was in danger of being seized by
the brokers. It is clear that Pitt sided with the King. George III
frequently commended him for his wise advice; but unfortunately nearly
all the letters from Pitt to his sovereign, especially on this topic,
long ago disappeared from the Library at Windsor, a highly suspicious
circumstance. We know, however, that, as early as March and April 1785,
the King approved the messages drawn up by Pitt from the Sovereign to
the Prince. In general they seem to have been drafted by the Minister;
and the following draft, in Pitt’s writing, but dated by the King
and with one slight correction, remains as proof that Pitt was the
mouthpiece for the royal rebukes. It is endorsed “Draft of Letter from
the King to the Prince of Wales”:
WINDSOR, _July 8, 1786_.[623]
After so often repeating to the Prince of Wales the same sentiments
on the subject of his applications, and with so little effect,
I should add nothing further at present. But I must express my
surprise at receiving a letter from him in which he states himself
to be convinced that he has no reason to expect either at present
or in future the smallest assistance from me. A reference to
my last letter[624] and to the former correspondence might shew
him what it was I expected before I could enter further on the
consideration of the business. If he chooses to interpret what has
passed into a refusal on my part to take measures in any case for
his assistance, the consequence of his doing so can be imputed only
to his own determination.[625]
That the details of the expenditure at Carlton House were laid before
Pitt is clear from the evidence contained in the Pitt Papers. The
packet entitled “Prince of Wales’s Debts,” affords piquant reading.
For, be it remembered, at the very time when Pitt was straining every
nerve to lessen the National Debt, to rebuild the navy, and to enable
England to look her enemies once more in the face, the Prince was
squandering money on rare wines, on gilding, ormolu, and on jewellery
for Mrs. Fitzherbert, £54,000 being considered a “not unreasonable
bill” by her latest biographer.[626] An official estimate fixes the
total expenditure of the Prince for the years 1784–86 at £369,977 (or
at the rate of £123,000 a year) and yet there were “arrears not yet
to hand.” Parliament had voted £30,000 for the furnishing of Carlton
House; but in 1787 the Prince consulted the welfare of the nation
by accepting an estimate of £49,700 for extensions and decorations;
and late in 1789 he sought still further to strengthen the monarchy
by spending £110,500 on further splendours. They included “a new
throne and State bed, furniture trimmed with rich gold lace, also
new decorations in the Great Hall, a Chinese Drawing-Room, etc.” The
Pitt Papers contain no reference to the sums spent on the Pavilion at
Brighton in the years 1785, 1786; but, even in its pre-oriental form,
it afforded singular proof of the desire of the Prince for quiet and
economy at that watering-place.
Much has been made of the retrenchments of July 1786, when the works
on Carlton House were suspended, and the half of that palatial
residence was closed. Whatever were the motives that prompted that
new development, it soon ceased, as the foregoing figures have shown.
The Prince’s necessities being as great as ever, he found means to
bring his case before Parliament in the debates of 20th, 24th, and
27th April 1787. Thereupon Pitt clearly hinted that the inquiry, if
made at all, must be made thoroughly, and that he would in that case
be most reluctantly driven “to the disclosure of circumstances which
he should otherwise think it his duty to conceal.” The House quivered
with excitement at the untactful utterance--one of Pitt’s few mistakes
in Parliament. Sheridan, with his usual skill and daring, took up the
challenge and virtually defied Pitt to do his worst. Pitt thereupon
declared that he referred solely to pecuniary matters.
Everyone, however, knew that the Fitzherbert question was really at
stake; and the general dislike to any discussion, even on the debts,
was voiced by the heavy Devonshire squire, who was to find immortality
in the “Rolliad.” Rolle asserted on 27th April that any such debate
would affect the constitution both in Church and State. Undaunted by
Sheridan’s salvos of wit, he stuck to his guns, with the result that on
the 30th Fox fired off a seemingly crushing discharge. As Sheridan had
declared that the Prince in no wise shrank from the fullest inquiry,
the Whig chieftain now solemnly assured the House that the reported
marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert was a low and malicious calumny. When
the tenacious Devonian plied him with the final inquiry whether he
spoke from direct authority, Fox replied with the utmost emphasis that
he did.
We now know that Fox had been cruelly deceived by the Prince. But in
that age the assertion of Fox was considered as almost final, save by
those who marked the lofty scorn poured by Mrs. Fitzherbert on her
unwitting traducer. In Parliament the victory lay with the Prince; but
even there Rolle firmly refused to comply with Sheridan’s challenging
request and declare himself satisfied. To the outside world it was
clear that either the heir to the throne or Fox had lied.
The letters of George III to Pitt in May 1787 and Pitt’s suggestions
for a settlement of the dispute, show that the perturbed monarch placed
absolute confidence in his Minister. Very noteworthy is the King’s
assertion that there could be no reconciliation until his son consented
to marry and to retrench his expenditure. His letter of 20th May 1787
to Pitt further proves that the proposal to add £10,000 to the Prince’s
income emanated from Pitt, and was acquiesced in somewhat reluctantly
by the King.[627]
This expedient brought about a partial reconciliation between father
and son. On the strong recommendation of Pitt, Parliament allowed the
extra £10,000 a year, besides granting £20,000 on behalf of the new
works at Carlton House, and paying £161,000 towards the extinction of
the Prince’s debts, on his express assurance that he would not exceed
his income in the future. The vote was unanimous. Thereupon the King
waived the question of the Prince’s marriage; so at least we may infer
from the fact that they had a long interview on 25th May 1787 at the
Queen’s House (Buckingham House), at the close of which the Prince
proceeded to greet his mother and sisters. The parents had few happier
days than that; and their joy was crowned a little later by the return
of Frederick, Duke of York, after a long residence in Germany. Fanny
Burney describes the radiant gladness of the King and Queen as they
paced along the terrace at Windsor with their soldier son; and the
inhabitants of the royal city crowded to witness the pleasing scene.
It speaks well for the Prince of Wales, that he posted off from
Brighton on the news of his brother’s home-coming, in order to double
the pleasure of his parents. For a time, too, the Prince thought more
kindly of Pitt; so we may infer from the statement of St. Leger to the
Marquis of Buckingham that his feelings towards him had altered since
the negotiation on the subject of his debts.[628] But these sentiments
of gratitude soon vanished along with the virtuous and economical mood
of which they were the outcome. Those who break their word naturally
hate the man to whom they had pledged it.
In the winter of 1787–8 the two Princes again abandoned themselves to
drinking and gambling. The dead set made against Pitt over the Warren
Hastings trial and Indian affairs so far weakened his position that
the Princes counted on his fall and hoped for the advent to power of
the Fox-Sheridan clique. Certain it is that they drank and played very
deep. General Grant, writing to Cornwallis, 6th April 1788, says:
The Prince [of Wales] has taught the Duke [of York] to _drink_ in
the most liberal and copious way; and the Duke in return has been
equally successful in teaching his brother to lose his money at
all sorts of play--_Quinze_, Hazard, &c--to the amount, as we are
told, of very large sums in favour of India General Smith[629] and
Admiral Pigot who both wanted it very much. These play parties have
chiefly taken place at a new club formed this winter by the Prince
of Wales in opposition to Brooks’s, because Tarleton and Jack
Payne, proposed by H.R.H., were blackballed.[630]
At this new club, called the Dover House or Welzie’s club, the Prince
often won or lost £2,000 or £3,000 at a sitting. In other ways
Frederick sought to better his brother’s example, so that his company
was thought _mauvais ton_ by young nobles.[631]
Compared with these buffooneries, political opposition was a small
matter. But the King deeply resented the nagging tactics of his son
at any time of crisis. Such a time came in March 1788, when a sharp
dispute arose between Pitt and the East India Company. It originated
in the Dutch troubles of the previous summer. The prospect of war with
France was so acute that the India Board sent out four regiments in
order to strengthen the British garrisons in India. At the time the
Directors of the Company fully approved of this step; but when the
war-cloud blew over, they objected to pay the bill. Pitt insisted that
the India Act of 1784 made them liable for the transport of troops when
the Board judged it necessary; and in February 1788 he brought in a
Declaratory Bill to that effect.
At once the Company flung to the winds all sense of gratitude to its
saviour, and made use of the men who four years previously had sought
its destruction. Fox and Erskine figured as its champions, and the
Prince of Wales primed the latter well with brandy before he went in to
attack Pitt. The result was a lamentable display of Billingsgate, of
which Pitt took no notice, and the Ministry triumphed by 242 against
118 (3rd March).
But the clamour raised against the measure had more effect two nights
later, when Fox dared Pitt to try the case in a court of law. Instead
of replying, Pitt feebly remarked that he desired to postpone his
answer to a later stage of the debates. This amazing torpor was
ascribed to a temporary indisposition; but only the few were aware that
the Prime Minister had drunk deeply the previous night at the Marquis
of Buckingham’s house in Pall Mall in the company of Dundas and the
Duchess of Gordon--that spirited lady whose charms are immortalized in
the song, “Jenny o’ Menteith.”[632] Wit and joviality were now replaced
by a heaviness that boded ill for the Ministry, whose majority sank
to fifty-seven. Two days later, however, Pitt pulled himself and his
party together, accepted certain amendments relating to patronage, but
crushed his opponents on the main issue. To the annoyance of the Prince
of Wales and Fox, the Government emerged triumphant from what had
seemed to be certain disaster. Wraxall never wrote a truer word than
when he ascribed Pitt’s final triumph to his character. Even in his
temporary retreat he had commanded respect, so that Burke, who hurried
up exultingly from the Warren Hastings trial, was fain to say that the
Prime Minister scattered his ashes with dignity and wore his sackcloth
like a robe of purple.
The prestige of the Ministry shone once more with full radiance on the
Budget night (5th May 1788). Pitt pointed out that the past year had
been a time of exceptional strain. The Dutch crisis and the imminence
of war with France had entailed preparations which cost nearly
£1,200,000. The relief of the Prince of Wales absorbed in all £181,000.
The sum of £7,000,000 had been expended in the last four years on
improvements in the naval service. He had raised no loan and imposed
no new taxes. Nevertheless, the sum of £2,500,000 had been written
off from the National Debt, and even so, there was a slight surplus
of £17,000. The condition of the finances of France supplied the
Minister with a telling contrast. It was well known that, despite many
retrenchments, the deficit amounted to £2,300,000. In these financial
statements we may discern the cause of the French Revolution and of the
orderly development of England.
In vain did Fox and Sheridan seek to dissipate the hopes aroused by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. So experienced a financier as Pulteney
justified his statement, and the country at large felt assured of the
advent of a time of abounding prosperity. As for France, the inability
of her statesmen, even of Necker, to avert the crisis caused by
reckless borrowing and stupid taxation, seemed to be the best possible
guarantee for peace. Pitt’s concern at the re-appointment of Necker in
August 1788 appears in a letter to Grenville in which he describes it
as almost the worst event that could happen--a curious remark which
shows how closely he connected the power of a State with its financial
prosperity.[633] Thus the year 1788 wore on, with deepening gloom for
France, and with every appearance of calm and happiness for the Island
Power, until a mysterious malady struck down the King and involved
everything in confusion.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE REGENCY CRISIS
Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair
That thou wilt needs invest thee with mine honours
Before the hour be ripe?
SHAKESPEARE, _Henry IV_, _Part II._
The line which bounded the royal prerogative, though in general
sufficiently clear, had not everywhere been drawn with accuracy and
distinctness.--MACAULAY.
The causes of insanity are generally obscure. In the case of George
III the disease cannot be traced to a progenitor, nor did it descend
to his issue, unless the moral perversity of his sons be regarded as
a form of mental obliquity. It is highly probable that the conduct
of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York produced in their father
a state of nervous tension conducive to, if not the actual cause of,
madness. No proof of this is possible; but having regard to the King’s
despotic temper, his love of plain living, and his horror of gambling
and debauchery, we may plausibly refer to a private cause the sudden
breakdown of a strong constitution at a time when public affairs had
become singularly calm.
Throughout the summer of 1788 he became steadily weaker. A stay at
Cheltenham was of no avail. Indeed, an enemy of that place tried to
assign the King’s malady solely to its waters. The King had to forego
the long walks and rides which had formerly tired out all his suite;
and in October he returned to Kew much aged and broken. Nevertheless
the indomitable will asserted itself in one curious detail. He always
remained standing during interviews with his Ministers; and he is
stated by George Rose to have kept on his feet for three hours and
forty minutes during a portentous interview with Pitt, which must have
strained his strength to the breaking point.[634] At the levee of 24th
October at St. James’s, he made a praiseworthy effort to appear well in
order “to stop further lies and any fall of the stocks.” But the effort
was too great, as Pitt perceived afterwards during a private interview.
Nevertheless, on the following day the King removed to Windsor. There
the decline in health continued, so that, after attending a hunt, he
exclaimed to Lady Effingham: “My dear Effy, you see me all at once an
old man.”[635] Even so he continued his correspondence with Pitt much
as usual, until on 5th November there came a sudden collapse.
Again we have to confess ignorance as to the final cause. Mrs.
Papendiek, wife of the royal barber, ascribes it to the King’s
annoyance at the endeavour of the Duke of York to introduce Turkish
military instruments into the band of the Guards. Rose mentions a
discussion with the Duke at dinner on the 5th, relative to a murder.
All, however, are agreed that the merest trifles had long sufficed to
make the King flurried and angry, as had frequently appeared during
the drives with the princesses. This peculiarity now suddenly rose to
the point where madness begins. It is even said that at that dinner
he without provocation suddenly rushed at the Prince of Wales, pinned
him to the wall, and dared him to contradict the King of England.
The Prince burst into tears, the Queen became hysterical, and it was
with some difficulty that the King was induced to retire to his room.
During that evening and night he raved incessantly, and the chief
physician, Sir George Baker, feared for his life. A curious incident
is mentioned by Mrs. Papendiek. She avers that on the following night
the King arose, took a candle, and went to look at the Queen as she
slept. She awoke in an agony of terror, whereupon he soothed her and
seemed to take comfort himself. We may doubt the authenticity of the
incident, as also the correctness of Mrs. Papendiek’s narrative when
she describes the offensive air of authority which the Prince of Wales
at once assumed, his demand of an interview with the Queen, even on
political affairs, and his striking the floor with his stick to express
displeasure.[636]
It is certain, however, that the behaviour of the Prince was far
from seemly. He took the direction of affairs in the palace with an
abruptness which caused the Queen much pain. “Nothing was done but by
his orders,” wrote Miss Burney; “the Queen interfered not in anything.
She lived entirely in her two new rooms, and spent the whole day in
patient sorrow and retirement with her daughters.” Worst of his acts,
perhaps, was the taking possession of the King’s papers, a proceeding
which his apologists pass over in discreet silence. Among those
documents, we may note, were several which proved that Pitt had not
seldom drafted the royal rebukes. In other respects the exultation
of the Prince at least wore the veil of decency, therein comparing
favourably with the joy coarsely expressed by his followers at Brooks’s
Club.[637]
Secret intrigues for assuring the triumph of the Whigs began at once.
It is significant that that veteran schemer, the Lord Chancellor,
Thurlow, proceeded to Windsor on 6th November, at the Prince’s command,
and dined and supped with him. The ostensible object of their meeting
was to consider the mode of treating His Majesty, who had been violent
during the night.[638] But the design of the Prince was to detach from
Pitt the highest legal authority in the land. To this he was instigated
by Captain Payne, Comptroller of his Household, who wrote to Sheridan
that Thurlow would probably take this opportunity of breaking with his
colleagues, if they proposed to restrict the powers of the Regent.[639]
Payne augured correctly. Thurlow had his scruples as to such a
betrayal; but they vanished at the suggestion that he should continue
in his high office under the forthcoming Whig Ministry.
This bargain implied the shelving of Lord Loughborough, who for five
years had attached himself to the Whigs in the hope of gaining the
woolsack. Had Fox been in England, it is unlikely that he would have
sanctioned this betrayal of a friend in order to gain over an enemy.
But, with Sheridan as go-between, and the Prince as sole arbiter,
the bargain was soon settled. Light has been thrown on these events
by the publication of the Duchess of Devonshire’s Diary. In it she
says: “He [Sheridan] cannot resist playing a sly game: he cannot
resist the pleasure of acting alone; and this, added to his natural
want of judgment and dislike of consultation frequently has made him
commit his friends and himself.”[640] Perhaps it was some sense of
the untrustworthiness of Sheridan which led Fox, in the midst of a
Continental tour with Mrs. Armstead, to return from Bologna at a speed
which proved to be detrimental to his health. After a journey of only
nine days, he arrived in London on the 24th. It was too late to stop
the bargain with Thurlow, and he at once informed Sheridan that he had
swallowed the bitter pill and felt the utmost possible uneasiness about
the whole matter.[641]
The Whigs now had a spy in the enemy’s citadel. At first Pitt was not
aware of the fact. The holding of several Cabinet meetings at Windsor,
for the purpose of sifting the medical evidence, enabled Thurlow to
hear everything and secretly to carry the news to the Prince. Moreover,
his grief on seeing the King--at a time when the Prince’s friends knew
him to be at his worst[642]--was so heartrending that some beholders
were reminded of the description of the player in “Hamlet”:
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit.
Such at least was the judgement of the discerning few, who, with Fanny
Burney, saw more real grief in the dignified composure of Pitt after
that inevitably painful interview. Authority to “inspect” the royal
patient was entrusted to Thurlow, who thus stood at the fountain head
of knowledge. Yet these astute balancings and bargainings were marred
by the most trivial of accidents. After one of the Cabinet Councils
at Windsor, Ministers were about to return to town, when Thurlow’s
hat could not be found. Search was made for it in vain in the council
chamber, when at last a page came up to the assembled Ministers and
exclaimed with boyish frankness: “My Lord, I found it in the cabinet
of His Royal Highness.” The flush which spread over the Chancellor’s
wrinkled visage doubled the effect of the boy’s unconscious
home-thrust.[643]
The question of the Regency has often been discussed on abstract
constitutional grounds. Precedents were at once hunted up, namely,
those of the years, 1326, 1377, 1422, and 1455, the last being
considered on a par with the present case. But of course the whole
question turned primarily on the probability of the King’s recovery.
Here it should be noted that George III had been afflicted by a mental
malady for a few weeks in the year 1765, and that a Regency Bill was
drafted but the need for it vanished.[644] This fact was not widely
known, but it must have come to the knowledge of the Prince of Wales.
In view of the sound constitution and regular life of the King, there
were good grounds for hoping that he would a second time recover.
Nevertheless, the reports of Sir George Baker, on behalf of Dr. Warren
and the other physicians, as sent to Pitt, were at first discouraging.
As they have not before been published it will be well to cite them
here almost _in extenso_ from the Pitt Papers, No. 228. They are dated
from the Queen’s Lodge, Windsor:
_Nov. 6._ 9 o’clock:--Sir George Baker presents his comp^{ts} to
Mr. Pitt. He is very sorry to inform Mr. Pitt that the King’s
delirium has continued through the whole day. There seems to
be no prospect at present of a change either for the better or
worse. H.M. is now rather in a quiet state. _Nov. 8, 1788._ 8
o’clock:--The dose of James’s powder which the King had taken
before Mr. Pitt left Windsor produced a gentle perspiration but no
diminution of the delirium; a second dose taken six hours after
the first, is now operating in the same manner but with as little
effect upon the delirium. _Nov. 10, 1788._ 8 p.m.:--H.M. has but
little fever, is very incoherent, but without vehemence or bodily
efforts, though his strength appears to be very little impaired.
_Nov. 12, 1788_:--H.M. talked in a quiet but incoherent way the
whole night and is this morning just as he was yesterday. He has
eaten a very good breakfast. _Nov. 15, 1788._ 10 p.m.:--H.M. has
been deranged the whole day, in a quiet and apparently happy way
to himself. _Nov. 16._ 10 a.m.:--This morning his discourse was
consistent, but the principle upon which it went for the most part
founded in error. _Nov. 18_, 10 a.m.:--H.M. had a good night, but
the disorder remains unabated. _Nov. 21_:--H.M. has been ... more
than once under the influence of considerable irritation. _Nov.
22._ 10 a.m.:--H.M. is entirely deranged this morning in a quiet
good humoured way. _Nov. 22_:--H.M. shewed many marks of a deluded
imagination in the course of the day. In the evening he was more
consistent.
* * * * *
[A letter follows from the Queen, that she consents to the calling
in Dr. Addington.]
* * * * *
_Nov. 24, 1788_:--His Majesty passed the whole day in a perfectly
maniacal state.[645] _Nov. 25, 1788_:--His Majesty was not enraged
nor surprised at the strict regimen under which he was put at
5 o’clock this evening, but grew quieter and went to bed at 9
o’clock, and is now asleep.
From the outset Pitt viewed the case with grave concern, but by no
means hopelessly. This will appear from the following new letters
of Pitt, the former to Bishop Pretyman (Tomline), the latter to the
Marquis of Buckingham:
Sunday, _Nov. 10, [1788]_.[646]
MY DEAR BISHOP,
You will have heard enough already of the King’s illness to make
you very uneasy. The fact is that it has hitherto found little
relief from medicine, and, what is worst of all, it is attended
with a delirium the cause of which the physicians cannot clearly
ascertain. On the whole there is some room to apprehend the
disorder may produce danger to his life, but there is no immediate
symptom of danger at present. The effect more to be dreaded is on
the understanding. If this lasts beyond a certain time it will
produce the most difficult and delicate crisis imaginable in making
provision for the Government to go on. It must, however, be yet
some weeks before that can require decision, but the interval will
be a truly anxious one....
[Private.]
* * * * *
Downing Street, _Nov. 15, 1788_.[647]
MY DEAR LORD,
I have not half time [_sic_] to thank you sufficiently for your
very kind and affectionate letter, and for the communication thro’
Grenville. You will learn from him that our last accounts begin
to wear rather a more favourable aspect, tho’ there is not yet
ground for very confident hope. There is certainly now no danger to
his life, but the other alternative, which there was some danger
to apprehend, was, if possible, more distressing. It seems now
possible that a total recovery may take place, but even on the
best supposition there must still be a considerable interval of
anxiety....
Grenville, a man of singularly calm and equable temperament (which
procured for him the Speakership of the House of Commons on the decease
of Cornwall early in the next year) waxed indignant as he described
to his brother the tactics of the Opposition. On 20th November he
declared: “The Opposition have been taking inconceivable pains to
spread the idea that his [the King’s] disorder is incurable. Nothing
can exceed Warren’s indiscretion on this subject.”[648] The conviction
gained ground that the Royal physicians were in league with the Prince;
and so high did feeling run that shouts were flung at them--“So much
the worse for you if he does not recover.” This exasperation of spirit
waxed apace as the jubilation of the Prince’s friends became insolently
patent. Indeed more terrible than the lunacy itself was the spectacle
of the intrigues to which it gave rise.
As the reports privately sent to Pitt by the physicians were far from
hopeless, he determined to await developments as long as possible
before taking any decided step. On 12th November he proposed to the
Prince of Wales that Parliament, instead of meeting in the following
week, should be adjourned for a fortnight, to which there came a ready
assent.[649] On the 17th he asked leave to inform the Prince of what
he proposed to do on the meeting of Parliament, but an interview was
not accorded. Eight days later the Prince inquired whether he had any
proposal to make, but was answered by a polite negative. The uneasy
truce between them evidently neared its end.
In his resolve to sift to the bottom the nature of the disease and the
probability of a cure, Pitt advised the calling in of his father’s
doctor, Addington, and he carried his point. On the 28th and 29th
the Prime Minister himself saw the Monarch, who was pleased to see
him, referred to questions discussed at their last interview, and
showed incoherence chiefly in wandering incessantly from one topic
to another,[650] a characteristic of the converse of polite Society,
which, if judged severely, would warrant the consignment to Bedlam of
half of its most cherished talkers.
All observers are agreed that the King conversed quite rationally at
times, as was also the case in the attack of 1804.[651] Pitt therefore
resolved to do nothing which would distress the King in the event
of his recovery. This it was which led him to decline all idea of a
coalition with the Whigs, and to insist on restricting the authority of
the Regent in regard to personal matters on which the King laid stress.
The removal of the monarch to Kew House seems to have been the wish of
the Prince as well as of the Cabinet; and it took place without mishap
on 29th November.
* * * * *
Six days later Parliament re-assembled, and rarely has it had to face
problems so novel and delicate. In contrast with other nations, England
had been singularly free from the perplexities attendant on a Regency;
but now she had to face them in an acute form. The monarch was not
unpopular, and his heir was distrusted. Yet it was indisputable that,
as Regent, he could choose his own Ministers; and his hatred of Pitt
implied the dismissal of that Minister and the triumph of Sheridan,
Fox, and the roystering set at Brooks’s. Pitt felt little doubt on this
point and calmly prepared to resume his practice at the Bar. The sequel
must have been a sharp conflict between the Prince’s friends and the
nation; so that the fateful year 1789 would have seen the growth of a
political crisis, less complex than that of France, it is true, but
fully as serious as that from which the nation was saved by his timely
decease in the summer of the year 1830. All this was at stake, and
much more. For who shall measure the worth to the nation of the frugal
and virtuous life of George III, and who can count up the moral losses
inflicted on the national life by his son in his brief ascendancy?
The King’s physicians having been examined by the Privy Council on 3rd
December, their evidence was laid before Parliament on the following
day. While differing at many points, they agreed that recovery was
possible or even probable, but they could not assign a limit of time.
Adopting a suggestion of Fox, Pitt moved for the appointment of a
Committee of the House for the examination of the physicians. It
comprised twenty-one members selected from two lists suggested by the
Ministry and the Opposition. The reading out of the final list led to
a singular scene. Not much comment was made on the twenty names, but
before reading out the last name, Pitt paused for a moment. At once
the Opposition raised cries of “Burke.” Still Pitt remained silent.
The cries were renewed more loudly. He then very quietly proposed
Lord Gower. Burke threw himself back in his seat, crossed his arms
violently, and kicked his heels with evident discomposure.[652] The
annoyance of the great Irishman was natural, as Pitt had evidently
prepared to inflict the slight. The Upper House appointed a similar
committee.
The report based on this inquiry was presented by Pitt to the House
of Commons on the 10th. It comprised the evidence, not only of the
royal physicians, but also of an outsider, the Rev. Dr. Francis Willis
who, during twenty-eight years had supervised some 900 cases of lunacy
at his residence near Boston. Everyone admitted his success in this
trying work, which may be ascribed to the influence of a commanding
personality, and the firm and judicious treatment which he substituted
for the frequently violent methods then in vogue. He at once pronounced
the case far from hopeless; and, if we may trust the stories told of
the King and his new physician, there was even at the outset very much
of method in the madness. Thus, on being informed that Willis was
a clergyman, the patient remarked that he could not approve of his
taking to the practice of medicine. This drew from Willis the remark
that Christ went about healing the sick, whereupon the retort at once
followed--“Yes; but I never heard that he had £700 a year for doing
so.” The acuteness of the King’s faculties also appears in his remark
that a letter which he had written to the Queen would not reach her, as
his recent missive to the Duke of York had not been answered. Thereupon
Willis offered to take it himself, and caused great joy to the sufferer
by bringing back an affectionate letter in reply.
Yet the King soon felt the domination of his will. This appeared
when the royal patient refused to go to bed. As the King petulantly
resisted, Willis raised his voice in commanding tones which ensured
complete submission. The trust which Willis reposed in the King led
him to lengths that were sharply censured. When the sufferer expressed
a desire to shave himself and complained that a razor and even a knife
had been withheld from him, Willis at once replied that he was sure
His Majesty had too strong a sense of what he owed to God and man to
make an improper use of it. He therefore brought a razor, and kept the
monarch under his eye until the growth of five weeks was removed. This
tactful treatment speedily wrought a marked change. Willis was far more
sanguine than the other attendants.[653] In his evidence before the
Committee on 9th December, he stated that the irritation was already
subsiding, and that nine-tenths of his patients who had been similarly
afflicted recovered, generally within three months from their first
seizure.[654]
Willis’s words aroused the liveliest hopes. In vain did the Prince’s
party and the physicians scoff at the assurance of the “quack” or
“interloper.” The Queen and the nation believed in Willis; and his
report greatly strengthened Pitt’s hands in dealing with the Regency.
The more we know of the motives that influenced votes in Parliament
the more we see that they turned on the opinions of the doctors. The
desertion of the Duke of Queensberry to the Prince’s party was due to
a long conversation which he had at Windsor with the pessimistic Dr.
Warren.[655]
The conduct of the Prime Minister was cautious and tentative. On
10th December, after presenting the medical evidence, he moved the
appointment of a committee to investigate precedents. At once Fox
started to his feet and poured forth a vehement remonstrance. What need
was there for such an inquiry? It was merely a pretext for delay. The
heir-apparent was of mature age and capacity. He had as clear a right
to take the reins of government and to exercise the sovereign power
during the King’s illness as he would have in case of death. Parliament
had only to determine when he had the right to exercise it; and as
short a time as possible should elapse before the Prince assumed the
sovereignty.
Here, as so often, Fox marred his case by his impetuosity. Pitt
watched him narrowly, and remarked exultantly to his neighbour: “I’ll
_un-Whig_ the gentleman for the rest of his life.” With eyes flashing
defiance, he denounced his assertions of the right of the Prince to
assume the Regency as a breach of the constitution, implying as they
did that the House could not even deliberate on the question. They must
therefore in the first place assert their own rights.
Fox at once rose, not to soften, but to emphasize his previous
statements. He questioned whether Parliament had the power of
legislating at all until the royal power were made good. Now that
the King had been admitted to be incapable, their assembly was a
Convention, not a Parliament. He next asserted that the Regency
belonged of right to the Prince of Wales during the civil death of
the King; and “that it could not be more legally his by the ordinary
and natural demise of the Crown.” This was tantamount to saying that
English law recognized lunacy as death, in which case an heir could at
once possess the property of a lunatic father, and a wife be divorced
from an insane husband. Of course this is not so.[656] Fox concluded
by asserting that, if Parliament arrogated to itself the power of
nominating the Regent, it would act “contrary to the spirit of the
constitution and would be guilty of treason.”
Pitt, on the contrary, affirmed that the Prince had no such claim to
the Regency as would supersede the right of either House to deliberate
on the subject. He even ventured on the startling assertion that apart
from the decision of Parliament “the Prince of Wales had no more right
(speaking of strict right) to assume the government than any other
individual subject of the country.”[657] This phrase is generally
quoted without the qualifying clause, which materially alters it.
Pitt surely did not mean to deny the priority of the claim of the
Prince, but rather to affirm the supreme authority of Parliament; the
statement, however was undeniably over-strained. In the main he carried
the House with him. In vain did Burke declaim against Pitt, styling
him a self-constituted competitor with the Prince. “Burke is Folly
personified,” wrote Sir William Young on 22nd December, “but shaking
his cap and bells under the laurel of genius.”[658] The sense of the
House was clearly with the Prime Minister, and the committee of inquiry
was appointed.
At the outset, then, Fox and his friends strained their contentions to
breaking-point. In a technical sense their arguments could be justified
by reference to the dead past; but they were out of touch with the
living present. Fox himself had admitted that no precedent could be
found for this problem. A practical statesman would therefore have
sought to adapt the English constitution (which is a growing organism,
not a body of rigid rules) to the needs of the present crisis. By his
eager declarations he left this course open for Pitt to take; and
that great parliamentarian took it with masterly power. He resolved
to base his case on the decisions arrived at in the Revolution of a
century earlier which had affirmed the ascendancy of Parliament in all
questions relating to a vacancy in the Crown or a disputed succession.
Men said that he was becoming a Republican, and Fox a Tory.[659]
Fortunately he had to do with singularly indiscreet opponents. After
Fox had prejudiced the Prince’s cause, Sheridan rushed in to mar its
prospects still further. In the debate of 12th December he ventured to
remind Pitt of the danger of provoking the assertion of the Prince’s
claim to the Regency. Never did Sheridan’s hatred of Pitt betray him
into a more disastrous blunder.[660] His adversary at once turned it to
account:
I have now [he said] an additional reason for asserting the
authority of the House and defining the boundaries of “Right,”
when the deliberative faculties of Parliament are invaded and an
indecent menace is thrown out to awe and influence our proceedings.
In the discussion of the question I trust the House will do its
duty in spite of any threat that may be thrown out. Men who feel
their native freedom will not submit to a threat, however high the
authority from which it may come.[661]
We must here pause in order to notice the allegations of Mr. Lecky
against Pitt. That distinguished historian asserted that the conduct of
the Prime Minister towards the Prince “was from the first as haughty
and unconciliatory as possible”; he claims that the plan of a Regency
should have been submitted to the Prince before it was laid before
Parliament; further, that, in defiance of the expressed wish of
the Prince, “Pitt insisted on bringing the question of the Prince’s
right to a formal issue and obtaining a vote denying it.”[662] It is
difficult to see on what grounds this indictment rests. Surely it was
the duty of the Privy Council and Parliament first to hear the medical
evidence and to decide whether the need for the Regency existed. That
was the purport of the debate of 10th December, the details of which
prove conclusively that it was Fox who first, and in a most defiant
way, brought up the question of the Prince’s right to assume the
Regency. Pitt, in a temperate and non-committal speech, had moved
for a “Committee of Inquiry,” whereupon the Whig leader flung down
the gauntlet for the Prince; and two days later Sheridan uttered his
threat.[663] Their auditors must have inferred that they acted with the
sanction of Carlton House. In any case, the Prince’s friends, not Pitt,
provoked the conflict. When the glove was twice cast down, the Prime
Minister could do nothing else but take it up and insist on having
that question disposed of; otherwise Parliament might as well have
dissolved outright. We may admit, however, that the intemperate conduct
of Fox and Sheridan led Pitt to assert the authority of Parliament with
somewhat more stringency than the case warranted.
To the contention, that the Prince ought first to have been consulted
on the proposed measure, I may reply that such a course would have
implied his right to dictate his terms to Parliament; and that was the
very question which Pitt wished to probe by the Committee of Inquiry.
Further, the historian’s assertion, that Pitt laid the Regency plan
before Parliament before submitting it to the Prince, is disproved by
the contents of Pitt’s letter of 15th December, published in full by
Bishop Tomline.[664] In it the Prime Minister expressed his regret that
his words and intentions had been misrepresented to His Royal Highness;
for on several occasions he had offered to wait on him but had received
an answer that he (the Prince) had no instructions for him. He denied
the accuracy of the report that he was about on the morrow to submit
to Parliament his plan for the Regency. His motion merely affirmed the
right of Parliament to deliberate on the present emergency; but the
course of the recent debate had compelled him to outline his ideas.
They were these: that the Regency should be vested in the Prince,
with the power of freely choosing his Ministers, unrestrained by any
Council. He had declined, and begged still to decline, to detail the
other powers, because the House might reject his opinions as to its
right to deliberate on the present crisis. If he gained its approval,
he would be honoured by the Prince’s permission to state to him the
opinions which, after due inquiry, Ministers were able to form on the
further proposals that might be submitted to Parliament.
Was this language “arrogant” and “unconciliatory”? Could a Minister
show more tact in seeking to harmonize the functions of the monarchy
and of Parliament? Far from bringing his scheme cut and dried before
Parliament and then foisting it upon the Prince, Pitt was compelled by
the attack of Fox to outline his plan in Parliament, but he stated his
views to the Prince courteously, and at the earliest opportunity. The
only other possible alternative was to allow the Prince to take the
matter into his own hands and override the powers of Parliament. It is
also noteworthy that not until the next day (16th December) did Pitt
move three Resolutions on the subject, and these were of a preliminary
character, affirming the right and duty of Parliament to take steps for
meeting the present emergency.[665]
It should further be noted that the declaration of the Prince of Wales
of his wish not to press his right was not made until the debate of
15th December in the House of Lords. The Duke of York, in a very
tactful speech, said that his brother “understood too well the sacred
principles which seated the House of Brunswick on the throne of Great
Britain ever to assume or exercise any power, be his claim what it
might, not derived from the will of the people, expressed by their
representatives and their Lordships in Parliament assembled.”[666] If
Fox and Sheridan had treated the question in this way, there would
have been no dispute. On the other hand the Prince does not seem to
have sent a reply to the Prime Minister’s missive; and his discourtesy
probably led to the discontinuance of further communications from Pitt
until that of 30th December, soon to be noticed.
The debates in the House of Lords were generally of small interest. But
that of 15th December was memorable, not only for the tactful speech
of the Duke of York noticed above, but also for the astute balancings
of Thurlow. By the middle of December that political Blondin had seen
the need of retracing his steps. As has already appeared, Fox strongly
disapproved of shelving Loughborough in order to win Thurlow; and the
clamour of the Whig peer, added to the arguments of Fox, led the Prince
of Wales to retract his promise to the Chancellor. Even this, perhaps,
would not have turned him had he not come to believe that Warren was
wrong and Willis was right. Discerning a balance of gain in favour of
fidelity to the King, he played that part with an emotion peculiarly
affecting in so rugged a nature. His shaggy eyebrows rose and fell with
great solemnity, as he deprecated these discussions on the “right” of
this or that member of the constitution. They should await the inquiry
into the precedents of the case. Meanwhile their duty was to preserve
the dignities of the monarch intact until he should recover. Feelings
of loyalty and gratitude imposed that duty, and particularly on
himself, the recipient of so many benefits, “which whenever I forget,
may God forget me.”[667] Two men who listened to that climax expressed
their feelings with diverse emphasis. Pitt, who knew all but the latest
developments of the Thurlow-Sheridan intrigue, exclaimed, “Oh! the
rascal.” In Wilkes a sense of humour, unclouded by disgust, prompted
the witticism: “Forget you! He’ll see you damned first.”
On 30th December, that is, seven days before the preliminary proposals
for a Regency came before the House of Commons, Pitt drafted his
suggestions in a most deferential letter to the Prince of Wales. In
brief they were as follows. Ministers desired that the Prince should
be empowered to exercise the royal authority, the care of the King
and the control of his household being, however, vested in the Queen.
The Regent, also, could not assign the King’s property, grant any
office beyond His Majesty’s pleasure, or bestow any peerage except
on the King’s children after attaining their majority--restrictions
which merely registered the belief that the King’s illness was only
temporary. At this time (the dawn of 1789) there were clear signs to
this effect; and Willis drew up a report laying stress on his partial
recovery; but, on his pressing Warren to sign it, the Whig practitioner
refused.
Thus opened the most fateful of all years of modern history. The
Whigs, the erstwhile guardians of popular freedom and the rights of
Parliament, were straining every nerve to prove the King hopelessly
insane, to foist upon the English people a hated Prince with
unrestrained powers, as if Parliament had no voice in the matter,
and to discredit the Prime Minister by representing his conduct as
unconstitutional, and his letter to the Prince as insolent.
The best brains of the party were also concentrated on the task
of inventing for the Prince a telling and dignified rejoinder.
Political philosophy, law, and wit, came to his aid in the form of
Burke, Loughborough, and Sheridan. Or, rather, the first two drafted
the reply, which Sheridan then touched up. The brilliant Irishman
pronounced the effusion of his sager compatriot “all fire and tow,”
and that of the jurist “all ice and snow.” Fox, it seems, was to have
revised the result; but the charms of Devonshire House on New Year’s
Day detained “Sherry” far into the night; and the document, hastily
copied by Mrs. Sheridan, was hurried off to Carlton House without the
promised recension at Holland House or Brooks’s Club. Fox was furious
at this neglect, and called his friend names which the latter preferred
not to repeat to the Duchess.[668]
Such was this famous concoction. Connoisseurs, unaware of the facts,
have confidently pronounced it the mellow vintage of Burke. Indeed, it
is probable that the body of it may be his, while the bouquet may be
Sheridan’s and the dregs Loughborough’s; but, the personal ingredients
being unknown, it is useless to attempt a qualitative analysis. One
thing alone is certain, that the Prince wrote not a word of it, but
merely signed the fair copy when made out by Mrs. Sheridan. Thereupon
the expectant Junto planned its public tapping, as an appetizing
foretaste of the political wisdom of the new _régime_, Pitt meanwhile
being dubbed a Republican and an insidious weakener of the executive
power.
In more ways than one the situation was piquant. The _volte face_ of
parties was odd enough. Pitt seemed about to impair the strength of the
hereditary principle and to exalt the power of Parliament; while the
Whigs, who vehemently assailed the kingly prerogative in 1784, now as
ardently belauded it in the person of the Prince. This contradiction
extended even to details. Amidst all his appeals to precedents
respecting a Regency, Pitt must in reality have resolved to discard
them; and all research into the customs of the then almost absolute
monarchy must have strengthened the case of those who scolded him for
resorting to this device. But, in truth, all these inconsistencies
vanish when we remember that the questions at issue were primarily
medical and personal. Pitt’s whole policy was therefore one of delay.
Owing to the death of the Speaker, Cornwall, and the subsequent
election of William Grenville as his successor, the debates on the
Regency were not resumed until 6th January; and ten more days elapsed
before other preliminary questions were disposed of and the ministerial
proposals were laid before the House. They were in substance the
same as those submitted to the Prince on 30th December, except that
a Council was now suggested for the purpose of assisting the Queen
in the guardianship of the King and the regulation of the royal
household.[669] It would be tedious to follow the course of the very
lengthy debates which ensued. Ministers carried the Resolutions in both
Houses; and the Prince somewhat grudgingly consented to act as Regent
on the terms now proposed.
At the end of January Ministers proposed to legalize the proceedings
of Parliament by the issue of letters patent under the Great Seal.
A Commission was also appointed for the purpose of giving the royal
assent and affixing the Seal to measures passed by the two Houses.[670]
In spite of a vehement protest by Burke, that he worshipped the gods
of our glorious constitution, but would never bow down to Priapus
(Thurlow), these proposals were carried. Not until 5th February were
preliminaries disposed of; and Pitt then produced his Regency Bill. As
it happened, the Opposition marred its own prospects by these dilatory
tactics; for in a fortnight’s time it was known that the need for the
Bill had vanished.
The importance of these debates centres in the treatment of a very
complex question by the two great rivals, Pitt and Fox. The conduct
of the former has been sufficiently outlined. It remains to say a few
words on that of Fox. Few of his speeches are more ingenious than
those on the Regency. As a forcible handling of a weak case they have
few equals. But the House of Commons is rarely won over by a dazzling
display of “tongue-fencing.” It demands to see the applicability
of arguments to the needs of the time. This has been its peculiar
excellence. Its deliberations are rarely lit up with the radiance of
immortal truths; but they are suffused with the comforting glow of
the domestic hearth. Fox forgot this. In contrast with the accepted
Whig doctrine, he put forth claims which, if pressed to their natural
conclusion, would have implied the restoration of monarchy of the
pre-Revolution type. If it was true that the Prince of Wales could
demand the Regency as a right, or even as a “legal claim,” free from
all restrictions, how much more could the King govern independently of
Parliament? A Regent is to a King what the moon is to the sun--a merely
borrowed and temporary splendour. Apart, then, from an inconsistency of
conduct highly damaging to a statesman, Fox committed the mistake of
pledging himself to a scheme of government which was not only obsolete
but unworkable.
Those who plod through the wearisome debates on the Regency must be
conscious of an air of unreality. The references on both sides of the
House to the cases of Edward VI or Henry VI were, after all, illusory;
for in those times the powers of Parliament were ill defined. The
nearest parallel to the present case was supplied by the events of
1688; and though pedants might appeal to certain forms observed by the
Convention of that year, the significance of those events undoubtedly
lay in the assertion of the supremacy of Parliament in all cases of a
temporary lapse of the royal power. The argument for the supremacy of
Parliament in all doubtful cases acquired redoubled strength from the
Act of Settlement of 1701, which set aside hereditary right in favour
of the House of Brunswick.
The arguments of Fox as to the inherent right of the Prince of Wales to
the Regency must therefore be pronounced archaically interesting but
inconclusive for any member of the reigning dynasty. The fact that they
were adopted by the Irish Parliament adds nothing to their force; for
that body was known to act more from corrupt motives or from opposition
to George III and his Lord-Lieutenant, the Marquis of Buckingham, than
from monarchical zeal.[671]
The divisions in the Parliament at Westminster were also much
influenced by similar considerations. The numbers of those who went
over to the Prince’s side were surprisingly large. Among the Peers, the
cases of the Marquis of Lothian and the Duke of Queensberry attracted
especial notice, as they had received many benefits from the King. Of
those helped on by Pitt, Lord Malmesbury and Gerald Hamilton (commonly
known as “Single-Speech” Hamilton) were the worst defaulters. The
former, after calling on Pitt to assure him of his devotion, suddenly
“ratted” to the Prince and sent a very lame letter of excuse. To this
Pitt replied that he had certainly misunderstood every expression in
their late interview, and begged his Lordship to act in any way he
thought fit without troubling to send an apology.[672] Malmesbury
sought to appease his friend Carmarthen by offering to call and discuss
things in the old way; but, if he had lost his esteem, he would prefer
to retire and feed goats on a mountain “out of the reach of d--d Kings
and d--d Regents.”[673] What Carmarthen thought of the defaulters
appeared in his witty reply to someone who asked how it came about
that Fox had let the cat out of the bag so soon--“To catch the rats, I
suppose.”
The pamphlet literature that sprang up at this crisis is highly
interesting. The hacks employed by the Opposition persistently accused
Pitt of aiming at dictatorial power--a theme on which they richly
embroidered, despite the well-known fact that he was preparing to
resume his position as a barrister. It is somewhat significant that,
while the nation warmly supported Pitt, he was bitterly assailed by
Grub Street and Soho. Anonymous writers confidently foretold his
ascendancy and the ruin of England. “A few years, perhaps, and our
boasted commonwealth may be numbered among the governments that
cover the earth--the awful ruins of edifices once consecrated to the
rights and happiness of the human kind.”[674] A “Private Citizen”
urged the drawing up of an address to the Prince begging him to take
the full regal power as a “simple and obvious mode of restoring the
constitutional government to its full vigour.”[675] A flurried patriot
declared that he knew of “but one alarming Regency, which is that of
ambitious Ministers voting themselves in power.”[676] Another citizen,
surely of Jacobite tendencies, proved that no power in the universe
could appoint a Regent; for he assumed that office solely by hereditary
right. As for “Regent Ministers,” they would every day prostitute the
dignity of the Crown in the animosities of debate, and the state of
England would soon be worse than that of Poland.[677] Similar in tone
is an “Address to those Citizens who had resisted the Claim of the
late House of Commons to nominate the Ministers of the Crown.” The
writer asserts that only sophistry can deny that the sole question now
is whether Pitt and his colleagues shall be invested with the regal
authority with unlimited powers and for an indefinite period.[678]
These insinuations harmonize with those which Buckingham found in
circulation at Dublin; that the King had long been insane, but Pitt
had concealed the fact in order to govern without control; and that
the plan of a restricted Regency was the outcome of the same lust for
power.[679]
The falsity of these charges is obvious. Whether the Regency were
a right or a trust, the Prince of Wales in the middle of February
was about to become Regent; and if he chose to risk a conflict
with Parliament he might at once dismiss Pitt and summon Fox to his
counsels. On this all-important question there were no restrictions
whatsoever. The restrictions solely concerned the relations between the
Regent and the King, with two exceptions. These were the entrusting the
Great Seal to a Commission, and the forbidding the Regent to create
Peers except among the royal family; and here the aim obviously was to
prevent the Prince obstructing legislation and swamping the House of
Lords with his own nominees.
That the Prince did not dismiss Pitt was due, not to the lack of legal
power to do so, but to the opportune recovery of the King. As appears
by the reports of Dr. Willis, his health steadily improved throughout
February. It is clear that Fox, who was drinking the waters at Bath,
disbelieved the official bulletins on this subject and looked forward
to a lease of power; for he wrote to Fitzpatrick on 17th February
in terms of jubilation at the decision of the Irish Parliament, and
added: “I hope by this time all idea of the Prince or any of us taking
action in consequence of the good reports of the King are at an end:
if they are not, do all you can to crush them.... I rather think, as
you do, that Warren has been frightened. I am sure, if what I hear is
true, that he has not behaved well.... Let me know by the return of
the post on what day the Regency is like to commence.”[680] From this
it is obvious that the pessimism of Dr. Warren was not uninfluenced by
political considerations.
The Prince was either better informed or more cautious than his
favourite. On that same day a bulletin appeared announcing the King’s
convalescence. The signatories included Dr. Warren, who speedily fell
into disgrace with the Prince’s friends. On the 19th, at the request of
the King, Thurlow had an interview with him and informed him of what
had happened during his illness. We may be sure that the Chancellor’s
narrative illustrated that power of language to conceal thought which
Talleyrand held to be its choicest function. Thurlow, on his return to
town, moved the adjournment of the debate on the Regency Bill, which
proved to be the beginning of the end of that measure.
A still severer test of the King’s powers was afforded by his
interview four days later with the Prince of Wales and the Duke of
York. The Queen was present the whole time, and political topics
were of course avoided. Grenville asserts that after that interview
the Princes drove straight to Mrs. Armstead’s house in Park Street in
hopes of finding Fox there and informing him of the King’s condition.
Certain it is that, according to Willis’s report to Pitt, “the Princes
expressed great astonishment and satisfaction to Colonel Digby after
their interview with the King, remarking only one or two trifling
circumstances in which they thought His Majesty was not perfectly
right. The King has been perfectly composed since, and his anxiety
to see Mr. Pitt increases to that degree that probably Mr. Pitt will
receive a message to that purport to-morrow morning.”[681] Accordingly
Pitt saw his sovereign on the 24th, and found him calm and dignified,
without the slightest sign of flurry or disorder of mind. He spoke
of his illness as a thing entirely past, and with tears in his eyes
thanked all those who had stood by him. Even his emotion did not
derange his faculties or mar his equanimity.[682]
Meanwhile at Westminster the Opposition sought to vie with their
rivals in expressions of loyal joy at the King’s recovery. Viscount
Stormont and other deserters to the Prince’s side hastened to avow
their satisfaction; and the Duke of York displayed some skill in
depicting the heartfelt joy which filled his heart and that of his
royal brother--sentiments which they further proceeded to illustrate
by plunging into a round of orgies.[683] In the Commons Fox sought
decently to draw a veil over the disappointment of his partisans.
The Providence which watches over the affairs of mortals sometimes
wills that the _dénouement_ of a problem shall come with dramatic
effect. It was so now. The recovery of the King occurred in the very
week to which the Prince’s friends were eagerly looking forward as the
time of entry into his enchanted palace.[684] Their chagrin, at the
very moment when the paeans of triumph were on their lips, recalls
the thrilling scene in “Paradise Lost,” where the fiends are about to
acclaim Satan at the end of the recital of his triumph over mankind,
and raise their throats for the shout of victory, when, lo, the sound
dies away in
A dismal universal hiss
issuing from thousands of forms suddenly become serpentine.[685]
Such (if we may compare small things with great) was the swift change
from exultation to disgust which came over the Prince’s friends.
Shortly before the critical day, the 19th, they had declared that,
were the Regent in power only for twelve hours, he would make a clean
sweep of all official appointments. Indeed, from the outset, he and his
followers had let it be known that no mercy would be shown to the Pitt
Administration and its officials.[686] There is a manifest absurdity in
the assertion of Sir Gilbert Elliot, that Ministers and their adherents
looked on the Prince’s following “as a prey to be hunted down and
destroyed without mercy.”[687] Up to the 19th of February this phrase
aptly described the aim of their rivals. So early as 13th December
1788 Sheridan informed the Marquis of Buckingham that the Prince
intended to dissolve Parliament both at Westminster and Dublin; for the
Opposition “could not go on with the old one in England; and the choice
of a new one in Ireland would give them a lasting advantage, _which
is true_.”[688] The large powers of patronage entrusted to the Regent
would have influenced very many votes at the General Election, just as
the prospect of princely rewards caused many place-hunters to change
sides in the two Houses.
The lavishness of this form of bribery appears in a letter written
by Sydney to Cornwallis about 20th February, wherein he asserts
that the following promotions in the army were all but officially
announced. Four Field-Marshals, thirty-one Generals, twenty
Lieutenant-Generals, twelve Major-Generals, besides many Colonels and
lower grades; also ten new Aides-de-camp--almost all for political
reasons. It was further known that Portland would be Prime Minister;
Stormont and Fox, Secretaries of State; Loughborough, Chancellor;
Sandwich or Fitzwilliam, First Lord of the Admiralty;[689] Spencer,
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; Northumberland, Master-General of the
Ordnance; Fitzpatrick, Secretary at War; Sheridan, President of the
Board of Control.[690] We may note here that Northumberland and Lord
Rawdon (afterwards the Earl of Moira) with some followers had formed a
group standing somewhat apart, but acting with the Prince’s friends on
consideration of gaining office. They were called the Armed Neutrality;
and their proceedings bore no small resemblance to a political auction,
in which the Prince of Wales knocked down offices at discretion.[691]
The abrupt ending to these intrigues and bargains brought intense
relief to every patriot. Independent observers, like Cartwright and
Wyvill, had felt deep concern at the prospect of the rule of the
Prince and Fox. “I very much fear,” wrote the former to Wilberforce,
“that the King’s present derangement is likely to produce other
derangements not for the public benefit. I hope we are not to be sold
to the Coalition faction.” Wyvill also wrote to Wilberforce: “Cabal
I doubt not is labouring under his [Fox’s] direction to overturn the
present Government, while you and the other firm friends of Mr. Pitt
are making equal exertions to prevent a change of men and measures.
I think the general opinion is that the Prince has acted like a rash
young man, that he is capable of being led into dangerous measures, and
that men whom the nation greatly distrusts have all his confidence and
esteem.”[692]
Public opinion was, however, influenced by something more definite than
distrust of the Prince and his favourites. By this time the nation
confided entirely in the good sense and disinterestedness of Pitt. The
Marquis of Buckingham expressed the general opinion when he called
Pitt “the honestest Minister he ever saw.”[693] Those qualities never
shone more brightly than during the perplexing problem of the Regency.
If he trammelled the Prince, it was in order to assert the supremacy
of Parliament, and to prevent personal changes at Windsor which would
probably have brought about a return of the King’s malady. For himself,
he prepared quietly and with dignity to resume his practice at the Bar.
Had the recovery of George III been delayed another week, the Minister
would have been found once more at Lincoln’s Inn, looking on with his
wonted serenity at the wholesale changes in the official world brought
about by the vindictiveness of his rivals. So near was England then to
the verge of a political crisis which would have embattled the nation
against a Government foisted upon it by an unscrupulous Prince and a
greedy faction.
Fortunately the crisis was averted; and, thanks to the wise measures
taken by Pitt, the recovery of the royal patient was not interrupted
by the sight of new faces around him at Kew and Windsor. Long and
laboured explanations were afterwards offered to the King by the Prince
of Wales, in which he had the effrontery to refer to the pain caused
him when he “saw Her Majesty set up by designing men as the head of
a system” which was “a device of private ambition.”[694] After this
he never was trusted or fully forgiven either by the King or Queen.
Their confidence and that of the nation was heartily accorded to the
Minister whose conduct had been as loyal and consistent as that of
Laurentius in Pitt’s early dramatic effort. Friends pointed to his
simple and earnest regard for the public welfare throughout the whole
dispute. By those qualities he peacefully solved a tangled problem and
bound together the King and the people in a union of hearts such as had
not been known since the accession of the House of Brunswick. On the
evening of the day when George III resumed his regal functions, London
was ablaze with illuminations which extended from Hampstead to Clapham
and Tooting.[695] The joy of all classes of the people brimmed over
once more at the Thanksgiving Service held at St. Paul’s Cathedral on
23rd April, when the demonstrations of loyalty were such as to move
the King to an outburst of emotion. The part played by Pitt was not
forgotten. With difficulty he escaped from the importunities of his
admirers, who had to content themselves with dragging his carriage
back to his residence in Downing Street. Outwardly, this day marks the
zenith of his career. True, he was to win one more diplomatic triumph
over the House of Bourbon, the importance of which has been strangely
under-rated. But already there was arising on the horizon a cloud,
albeit small as a man’s hand, which was destined to overcloud the sky
and deluge the earth. Only ten days after the Thanksgiving Service at
St. Paul’s there assembled at Versailles the States-General of France,
whose actions, helped on by the folly of the French princes, led to the
subversion of that august monarchy. By so short an interval did the
constitutional crisis in Great Britain precede a convulsion which was
destined to overturn nearly every Government in the civilized world.
CHAPTER XIX
AUSTRALIA AND CANADA
The outcasts of an old Society cannot form the foundation of a new
one.--_Parl. Report of 28th July 1785._
The more enormous of our offenders might be sent to Tunis, Algiers,
and other Mahometan ports, for the redemption of Christian slaves;
others might be compelled to dangerous expeditions, or be sent to
establish new colonies, factories, and settlements on the coast
of Africa and on small islands for the benefit of navigation.--W.
EDEN, _A Discourse on Banishment_.
The first settlement of the white man on a Continent where all was
strange might seem to be a topic more engaging, as well as more
important, than the escapades of a selfish young prince and the
insanity of his father. But the piles of printed paper respecting
the affairs of Carlton House and the Regency attest the perennial
preference of mankind for personal topics; and its disregard of wide
issues that affect the destinies of nations is seen in the mere scraps
of information concerning the early colonization of Australia. The
statement of the late Sir John Seeley that the British people founded
an Empire in a fit of absence of mind is nowhere more true than of the
events of the years 1787, 1788, which marked the beginning of a new
epoch of expansive energy.
There is a curious periodicity about the colonizing efforts of
the British race. At one time the islanders send forth swarms of
adventurers and make wide conquests. At another time the colonies
languish for lack of settlers; so that one is tempted to compare these
movements, albeit slow and irregular, with those of the blood in the
human organism. They have had beneficial results. The contracting
impulse has prevented that untimely diffusion of the nation’s energies
which leads to atrophy of the essential organs. But when these are
once more in full vigour they can do naught else but send forth their
vitalizing streams. By this systole and diastole the nation recovers
strength and makes use of that strength. The variation of effort is
doubly beneficent. It prevents the too great effusion of life-blood
which enfeebled Portugal in the sixteenth century; and the recurrence
of the colonizing instinct has saved England from the undue absorption
in domestic affairs which until recently narrowed the life of France.
The terrible drain of the American War naturally concentrated the
attention of Britons for some time on home affairs. The most imperious
need of the body politic was rest; and, as we have seen, Pitt used all
his tact and energy to bestow and prolong that boon. Fortunately, the
loss of life had been slight. Lack of money rather than of men put a
stop to colonizing efforts and induced the belief that they weakened
the State. But the life-blood was there in abundance, ready to flow
forth as soon as confidence returned and the will was quickened.
Meanwhile, for want of a firm and intelligent lead, the experiment
began slowly and awkwardly. As is well known, it was excess of
population, of a particular type, which led the authorities to take
action. The savage penal code of that age hanged or immured in gaol
numbers who would now escape with a small fine. As many as 160 offences
were punishable with death, and this gives the measure of the code, in
its less Draconian enactments. Indeed, but for sleepy Dogberries, and
reluctant jurymen, a tenth part of the population might have lodged
in the filthy gaols which formed the fruitful seed-bed of crime.
Goldsmith in his “Vicar of Wakefield” asks whether the licentiousness
of our people or the stupid severity of our laws was responsible for
the numbers of our convicts doubling those of continental lands. The
question impelled John Howard and Romilly to their life-long efforts.
Meanwhile the State continued to avert the need of building
more gaols by extending its time-honoured methods, hanging and
transportation.[696] During the years 1714–65 those two cures for
overcrowding enjoyed increasing favour. Under the first George any
one found guilty of larceny, either “grand” or “petit,” might be
transported to America for seven years. The same penalty was inflicted
in the next reign on poachers who were caught, with arms in their
hands, in the act of chasing or taking deer in unenclosed forests;
or, again, it fell to be the lot of those who assaulted magistrates
or officers engaged in salving wrecks, and likewise on all who were
married without banns or licence. It was reserved for the law makers
of George III to allot seven years of transportation to all who stole
or took fish “in any water within a park, paddock, orchard or yard,
and the receivers, aiders and abettors.” Sir William Eden, in his
“Discourse on Banishment,” cites these offences as about the average
of the crimes punishable by transportation; but he hints that many
less heinous offences led to the same dreary goal. That philanthropist
apparently did not think it an ingenious means of torture to send some
of these convicts to Algiers to rescue from life-long slavery the
Christians caught by the Barbary rovers.
Meanwhile, the United States having closed their doors against
poachers, thieves, and those who married in too great haste, a paternal
Government found it necessary either to relax the penal code, to
build more prisons, to commission more hulks, or to found new penal
settlements. Georgian legislators, being practical men, turned their
thoughts to the last alternative. The subject was brought up in the
House of Commons by Burke on 16th March 1785. He asserted that as
many as 100,000 convicts were then liable to transportation; and
protested against the rigour, cruelty, and expense attending that
mode of punishment. Lord Beauchamp again called the attention of the
House to that topic on 11th April, when Pitt admitted the importance
of finding a new penal settlement. The Gambia River in West Africa had
been used for that purpose; and Burke now rose to protest against the
inhumanity of sending convicts to any part of that deadly coast. He was
interrupted by the Prime Minister, who assured him that such a plan was
not in contemplation, and that a Report would soon be issued.[697]
Parliamentary Papers on this subject appeared on 9th May and 28th
July. The latter is remarkable for the statesmanlike utterance, quoted
as a motto at the head of this chapter, which shows that at least
some of our politicians looked on a new settlement as something more
than a chapel-of-ease of our prisons. In other respects the Report is
somewhat puerile. It recommended the need of strict discipline in the
new settlement, and pointed out the district of the River das Voltas
as desirable. If this were the same as the River Volta of the Gold
Coast, the Committee evidently regarded fever as the most effective of
governors.
It is curious to speculate on the results that might have attended
these weak and stumbling moves. Probably the strenuous opposition of
Burke vetoed the Gambia and Gold Coast schemes; but the Government,
still intent upon the Atlantic coast of Africa, sent a sloop, H.M.S.
“Nautilus,” to survey the south-west coast between 15° 50´ and 33°.
Very fortunately for the future of the British people the whole coast
was found to be inhospitable. If the _hinterland_ of Walfisch Bay or
Angra Pequeña had been less barren it is almost certain that the new
penal colony would have been formed at one of those spots. Ministers
also turned their attention to the coasts adjacent to Cape Town; for
we find Pitt writing to Grenville on 2nd October 1785: “I have desired
Devagnes also to send you some papers relative to a scheme of a
settlement on the Caffre coast, to answer in some respects the purposes
of the Cape, and to serve also as a receptacle for convicts, which I
hope you will have time to look at.”[698]
This points to a plan for settling some point of the coast of
Caffraria, possibly Algoa Bay or what is now East London. There were
special reasons for gaining a foothold in that quarter, seeing that the
Dutch Republic was falling more and more under the control of France,
and the union of those two Powers in the East would have threatened
the existence of our Indian Empire. A British stronghold on the South
African coast was therefore highly desirable; but perhaps matters were
too strained in the years 1786 and 1787 for this menacing step to be
taken.
Whatever may have been the cause, Pitt and his colleagues failed to
find a point on the African coast suitable for their purpose, which
was to found a penal settlement furnishing relief alike to the prison
system and to British ships midway on the voyage to India. Had they
discovered such a place the course of history might have been very
different. The English-speaking race would early have taken so firm
a hold of South Africa as to press on a solution of the Anglo-Dutch
question. But in the meantime the Pacific coast of Australia would
have gone to France. The one study in which Louis XVI shone, and in
which Pitt was most deficient, was geography. The lord of Versailles
found his chief mental recreation in maps and books of travel. Already
he had sent out expeditions to rival that of Captain Cook; and, as we
shall see, only by the infinitesimal margin of six days did Britons
secure a foothold in Australia in advance of their rivals.
The honour of turning the attention of Ministers to the Pacific coast
of “New Holland” belongs to Sir Joseph Banks, James Matra, and Admiral
Sir George Young. In his description of the voyage of Captain Cook
along the coast of New South Wales, Banks had spoken of the rich
soil and wealth of vegetation around Botany Bay, a description which
undoubtedly led Matra and Young to take up the matter. Sir Joseph Banks
did not pursue the theme. At least in his letters and papers in the
British Museum there is no hint that he induced Pitt or Lord Sydney
to people that terrestrial paradise. Perhaps the work of the Royal
Society, of which he was President, engaged all his attention.
James Maria Matra, a Corsican who had long been in the British service
and had accompanied Banks in the memorable voyage of Captain Cook,[699]
was the first to formulate a definite scheme for the colonization of
Botany Bay. In a long letter, dated 23rd August 1783, he pointed out
to the Coalition Cabinet the great extent of the land, the fertility
of the soil, and the paucity of the natives as marking it out for
settlement, especially by the American Loyalists, whose dire distress
then aroused deep sympathy. He also declared that the nearness of
New South Wales to the Spice Islands, India, China, and Japan, was
favourable for commerce; that the growth of New Zealand flax would
provide endless supplies of cordage for shipping; and that, in case of
war, the harbours of New South Wales would furnish a useful base of
naval operations against the Dutch and Spanish settlements in the East.
In his original scheme Matra did not mention settlement by convicts. He
desired to found a colony either by means of United Empire Loyalists,
or “marines accustomed to husbandry,”[700] a suggestion which recalls,
not very felicitously, the Roman plan of planting veteran soldiers on
the outposts of the realm.
The discredit of making the first suggestion in favour of a convict
settlement at Botany Bay probably belongs to Lord Sydney, Secretary of
State for Home Affairs in the Pitt Cabinet. Matra had a conversation
with him on 6th April 1784, in which the Minister hinted at the
desirability of relieving the congestion in the prisons, which was
giving trouble to the authorities. The details of the conversation
are not known; but apparently it led Matra to add a postscript to
his scheme, in which he referred to the interview and remarked on
the frightful mortality among the convicts sent to the West Coast of
Africa. Out of 746 sent there in 1775–6, 334 died, 271 deserted, and
nothing was known of the remainder. Obviously in a distant and healthy
climate like Botany Bay, men must either work or starve; certainly they
could not return.[701] Nothing definite seems to have come of Matra’s
conversation with Sydney or his plan, even as now modified.
Scarcely more successful were the efforts of Admiral Sir George Young
to interest Ministers in the subject. His scheme was sent by the
Attorney-General, Sir Richard Pepper Arden, to Sydney on 13th January
1785. The admiral called attention to the facilities which New South
Wales would enjoy for a lucrative trade with New Spain, China, and
the East Indies. He laid stress on the fertility of the soil and the
variety of climates in the new possession, which would ensure the
growth of all tropical and sub-tropical products. New Zealand flax
would by itself furnish several requisites for ship-building and
repairing, thereby freeing us from dependence on Russia. Metals would
probably be found; and thus at a small expense (about £2,000) an
important commercial mart might be founded. Sir George Young deprecated
any plan of emigration from Great Britain as weakening to her; but he
suggested that the distressed American Loyalists should be transferred
to New South Wales, and that labourers might be collected from the
Society Islands and China. “All the people required from England are
only a few that are possessed of the useful arts, and those comprised
among the crews of the ships that may be sent on that service.” He,
however, added that convict settlements might most suitably be planted
there. Finally, he claimed that the whole scheme would further the
cause of religion and humanity, and redound to the prosperity and glory
of King George III.[702]
The ideas and the phraseology of the Memorandum are so similar to those
used by Matra as to suggest that Sir George Young founded his plan on
that of the Corsican; and the Admiral at the end of his Plan introduced
three sentences on the suitability of parts of New South Wales for
convicts. Possibly this was inserted in order to attract Ministers.
Nevertheless they took no action on the matter; and possibly, but for
the pressure exerted by Lord Beauchamp and Burke on 11th April 1785,
this vitally important question would have remained in abeyance. Pitt,
however, then promised that Government would take it up. The “Nautilus”
was accordingly sent to the African coast, with the result that we have
seen; and the humiliating truth must be confessed that the Ministry
showed no sign of interest, if we except the single sentence in Pitt’s
letter of 2nd October 1785, quoted above, respecting a settlement in
Caffraria.
Not until 18th August 1786 do we find any sign that the Government
sought to redeem its promise to Parliament. The Pitt Papers, however,
afford proof that Ministers had before them at least one other
scheme for the disposing of convicts elsewhere than in New Holland.
On 14th September 1786 William Pulteney wrote to Pitt an important
letter (quoted in part in Chapter XIV), which concluded as follows:
“I mentioned to Mr. Dundas that a much better plan had been proposed
to Lord Sidney [_sic_] for disposing of our felons than that which
I see is advertised, that of sending them to Botany Bay; but his
Lordship had, too hastily I think, rejected it; if you wish to know the
particulars, Mr. Dundas can in great measure explain them, and I can
get the whole in writing.”[703]
Pitt gave no encouragement to his correspondent, and the official plan,
already drafted, ran its course. On 18th August 1786, Sydney sent to
the Lords of the Treasury a statement that, considering the crowded
state of the prisons and the impossibility of finding a suitable site
for a settlement in Africa, the King had fixed on Botany Bay, owing to
the accounts given by those who had sailed with Captain Cook. As many
as 750 convicts would therefore be sent out, along with 180 marines,
provisions for two years, seeds, tools, and other necessaries for the
founding of a settlement. The importance of growing New Zealand flax
was named,--a sign that Ministers had consulted the reports of Matra
and Sir George Young, and saw the need of having a naval station in the
Pacific. A fortnight later Sydney sent a similar letter to the Lords of
the Admiralty.[704]
In this halting and prosaic way did Ministers set their hands to one
of the most fruitful undertakings of all time. We do not know which
member took the initiative. Probably it was Sydney, as Minister for
Home Affairs; but Pitt certainly gave his approval, and there are two
letters which show that he took interest in details. One is his letter
to Evan Nepean, Under Secretary for Home Affairs, requesting him to
obtain from the Secretary of the Admiralty, Sir Charles Middleton,
an estimate of the expenses of the expedition.[705] The second is a
letter from the Lord Chief Justice, Earl Camden, to Pitt, who must have
consulted him about the legal questions involved in the formation of
the colony:
Hill St., _Jany. 29, 1787_.[706]
DEAR PITT,
... I have looked over the draught of the Bill for establishing a
summary Jurisdiction in Botany Bay. I believe such a jurisdiction
in the present state of that embryo (for I can’t call it either
settlement or colony) is necessary, as the component parts of it
are not of the proper stuff to make jurys [_sic_] in capital cases
especially. However, as this is a novelty in our constitution,
would it not be right to require the Court to send over to England
every year a report of all the capital convictions, that we may be
able to see in what manner this jurisdiction has been exercised?
For I presume it is not meant to be a lasting jurisdiction; for if
the colony thrives and the number of inhabitants increase, one sh^d
wish to grant them trial by jury as soon as it can be done with
propriety.
Clearly, then, Pitt had a distinct share in the drafting of the Bill
for establishing the settlement. The general plan had been decided at
a Council held at St. James’s Palace on 6th December 1786.[707] The
Letters Patent forming the Courts of Law were issued on 2nd April
1787; but it was not until 12th May that H.M.S. “Sirius” and “Supply,”
escorting the transports “Alexander,” “Charlotte,” “Scarborough,”
“Prince of Wales,” “Friendship,” and “Lady Penrhyn,” set sail from
Spithead on their dreary voyage of eight months. On 20th January
1788 Governor Phillip landed at Botany Bay, and a few days later he
transferred his strange company to the land-locked and beautiful Port
Jackson, on an inlet of which he founded the infant settlement of
Sydney. He was just in time to anticipate the French expedition under
La Pérouse, which sailed into the harbour only six days after Phillip
landed at Botany Bay. Thus, by extraordinary good luck, despite all
the delays at Westminster, the British narrowly forestalled their
rivals in the occupation of that magnificent coast. Captain Cook, it is
true, had claimed it for the British Crown; but in international law
effective occupation is a necessary sequel to so vague and sweeping a
declaration. The choice of the name “Sydney” for the infant settlement
attests the conviction of Governor Phillip that the whole plan owed
very much to the initiative of that nobleman. It is, however, strange
that the name of Pitt was not given to some town or river of the
colony; for he certainly played an important part in the undertaking.
Nevertheless, the whole question reflects no great credit either on
Pitt or Sydney. Neither of them had shown much insight or eagerness in
the matter. Especially may they and their colleagues be blamed for not
having resolved, though at slightly increased cost, to found the colony
worthily by means of the American Loyalists who had suffered so much
for their devotion to King and Fatherland.
The question of the American Loyalists will be referred to later
in this chapter; and it is not here suggested that those Loyalists
who had migrated to the lands soon to be known as New Brunswick and
Ontario should have been sent to the Southern Seas. There were many
others, who had set sail with the British garrisons leaving New York
and other towns, now available for that experiment. They were living
in England in penury and with hope deferred, while the question of the
indemnity in honour due to them from the United States slowly petered
out. The British Parliament was investigating their claims and finally
acknowledged its obligations to them; but in the meantime they were in
want. Would not the Ministry have consulted their interests and the
welfare of the Empire by offering to them to commute their pecuniary
claims for grants of land and expenses of settlement in New South
Wales? The possible objection, that their claims had not been entirely
investigated by the year 1787, is trifling. The offer might surely have
been made to those whose cases and characters were well known, and who
were suited to a life of hardship and adventure. There must have been
very many who would have preferred a free and active life to one of
wretchedness in London; and when we reflect on the great accession of
strength brought by the Loyalists to Canada and New Brunswick, it will
ever remain a matter of regret that Ministers acted on the motive which
appealed so forcibly to Lord Sydney, that of easing the pressure on
prisons.
For the time, it is true, their experiment was highly economical, the
cost of the expedition and settlement at Sydney from October 1786 to
October 1789 being only £8,632, or one-eighteenth part of the sum which
in the year 1787 Parliament unanimously voted for the discharge of the
debts of a spendthrift prince.[708] It is scarcely fair to read the
ideas of our age into one from which we have moved very far away, or
to censure Pitt for his complaisance to the future George IV, while
he pared down the expenses of the greatest colonial experiment of his
generation. No one could foresee the splendid future of the “Isle of
Continent.” Even Matra and Sir George Young, who gazed far ahead,
believed that the work of the settlement must be done mainly by Chinese
and South Sea Islanders.
Nevertheless, seeing that the advantage of utilizing the energies of
American Loyalists was clearly laid before Ministers, it is astonishing
that they paid no heed to a plan which might ultimately have proved to
be more economical even than the export of convicts. Certainly it would
have furnished the new land with the best of colonists. The kith and
kin of the men who built up Ontario and New Brunswick would have laid
broad and deep the foundations of New South Wales. The greatest good
fortune of North America was the advent of Puritan leaders as founders
of a State; and the transfer to the Southern Continent of their
descendants, who rivalled them in the staunchness of their fidelity
to principle, would have been an Imperial asset of priceless worth.
There are times when the foresight and imagination of a statesman
mean infinitely much to the future of the race; and no action is more
fruitful in results than the settlement of a new Continent. The Greeks
did well to solemnize the sending forth of colonists by the honours
of the State and the sanction of religion. And what they did for the
founding of one more Greek city, Great Britain ought to have done for
the occupation of a coast-line known to possess vast possibilities of
growth.
The painful truth must be faced that in this matter Pitt lacked the
Imperial imagination. Despite vague assertions to the contrary by
professed panegyrists, I cannot find a word in his speeches or letters
which evinced any interest in the Botany Bay experiment. Thus, in the
debate of 9th February 1791, on the condition of the young settlements
and the question of stopping the transportation of 1,850 more convicts,
Pitt spoke of that experiment as if it were an improved and economical
prison. His speech did not rise to the level of that of Sir Charles
Bunbury and Mr. Jekyll, the mover and seconder of the motion for an
inquiry into the whole subject of transportation. They both pleaded
for more rational methods of punishment, wherein the depraved would
cease to contaminate the less guilty. Bunbury commented on the alarming
increase of crime of late years, the number of sentences of death
having been doubled, while convictions for felony had quadrupled. Both
he and Jekyll pressed for the construction of penitentiaries where the
system of “that good and useful citizen, Mr. Howard,” might be better
enforced; and they mentioned the report that the settlements in New
South Wales were ill-suited to this purpose, owing to the sterility of
the soil.
To this last charge Pitt made no effective answer. So far as we
can judge from the semi-official reports, he sought refuge in the
miserable reply that “in point of expense no cheaper mode of disposing
of the convicts could be found,” and that, as the chief cost of
starting that settlement had been already incurred--how paltry the
cost we have seen--it would be foolish to seek for some other place
where those expenses must again be met! He expressed his approval of
penitentiaries, said nothing about that fruitful mother of crime,
the penal code, and declined to take any steps for stopping the
transport of the 1,850 convicts. It was something that, amidst these
frigid negations, he did not oppose the motion for an inquiry into
the condition of Botany Bay. Curiously enough, he did not once name
the only considerable settlement, Sydney,[709] so limited was his
outlook on social and colonial problems. Wide as were his views on most
questions, it must be admitted that here was his blind side; and he
must be held partly responsible for spreading over new lands a social
taint which long blighted their progress.
That taint was to vanish; and its disappearance in a few generations
is a signal proof that, under fit conditions, the human race does not
degenerate but wins its way to higher levels. Nevertheless, in view of
the power of historic ideas and traditions, we must ever regret that
Pitt and his colleagues did not resolve to make the new settlement a
living proof of Britain’s care for the staunchest and truest of her
children.
* * * * *
By a transition which, however abrupt in a geographical sense, is
slight in the sphere of politics, we pass from the settlement of New
South Wales to the adjustment of affairs in Canada. Both questions
resulted from the American War. The refugees from the old American
colonies, who now huddled with their families in the purlieus of Soho,
formed the tough nucleus of what had been a very large and influential
band of men in the States. Writers of the school of Bancroft used
to treat the Loyalists as traitors who richly deserved the hanging
or shooting in cold blood which not seldom befell them at the hands
of righteous patriots. Those, however, who regard history, not as a
means of enforcing certain opinions, but of reflecting the life of
the time, are generally agreed that the Loyalists acted from sincere
conviction, which led them deliberately to face cruel and prolonged
persecution. At the outset of the war they numbered about one third of
the population of the States; and, at least 20,000 of them joined the
British forces.[710] By the end of the war about 60,000 Loyalists were
compelled to leave the States, of whom nearly one half settled in the
future province of New Brunswick; some 10,000 went to found the British
population in Upper Canada (Ontario); but many sailed with the retiring
garrisons to Great Britain.[711]
It is with these last that we are here at first concerned. Their number
was given as 428 in the official inquiry of 1782–3,[712] but that list
was probably incomplete. Their condition soon became pitiable. By the
Treaty of Versailles (September 1783) the American Congress pledged
itself to recommend the States of the Union to restore the property
confiscated from the Loyalists. The States ignored the recommendation.
Pitt has sometimes been blamed for not doing more to press the
fulfilment of this treaty obligation, which was carried out only by
South Carolina. But he seems to have taken the only means possible,
namely, of refusing to surrender certain of the western forts of the
States, until satisfaction was accorded on this head.[713] John Adams,
who arrived in London as ambassador from the United States in 1786,
received that answer to his protest, a fact which suffices to disprove
the statement that the clause of the treaty relating to the Loyalists
was inserted merely for effect.[714]
Pitt further sought to carry out the stipulations for the collection
of debts due to the Loyalists before the beginning of the war. He sent
out a Mr. Anstey to deal with these thorny and almost hopeless claims.
The matter dragged on; and a letter forwarded to the Prime Minister on
30th January 1787 refers to the inquiry as still incomplete.[715] In
1785 Pitt offered to grant due compensation to the American Loyalists;
but long and most discreditable delays ensued. Several petitions
forwarded to Pitt show that payments were either inadequate or were
often deferred, and that the petitioners were in much distress.[716]
The letter above referred to states that from £60,000 to £80,000 a
year had been granted in pensions; but that in 1787, owing to deaths
and other causes, the amount fell to £50,000. Even this exceeds
the average of the official amount by some £7,000.[717] The writer
goes on to assert that the utmost possible had been done to relieve
the distress, and shows the unreasonableness of the claim of some
Loyalists for compensation for the loss of their professions. Finally
the whole matter was cleared up by the proposal of Pitt to the House
of Commons on 6th June 1788 to vote the sum of £1,228,239 to the
Loyalists in proportion to the merits of their cases, and £113,952
to the claimants from West Florida. To this the House agreed, Burke
commending the proposal as “a new and noble instance of national bounty
and generosity.”[718]
Pitt evidently considered the question as settled by the distribution
of this sum and of certain grants of land in Canada; for in the year
1792, when other claims were forwarded to him through the medium of Sir
Henry Clinton, he replied as follows in a letter of 29th May 1792:
On the fullest consideration of the subject, I have not thought
myself justified in proposing to open the Commission again for
inquiry into those cases which were not brought forward within any
of the periods before limited; and under these circumstances it
seems impossible to give any compensation for particular losses.
The plan has therefore been adopted of giving some provision by
grants of land in Canada, to such persons of this description
as may be willing to accept it; and of advancing them certain
sums of money (according to the classes in which they have been
distributed) for the purpose of assisting them in removing and
in settling themselves. With respect to the three persons whom
you particularly mention of the name of Plater, Harding and
Williams, the granting to them the sums recommended by Col.
Delaney was delayed from its appearing that they had formerly had
an advance for the purpose of enabling them to go to America; but
notwithstanding this circumstance it has been determined from the
nature of their cases and your strong testimony in their favour,
to comply with this recommendation, which will be immediately
carried into effect.[719]
The settlement of the Loyalists in Canada and Nova Scotia produced
far-reaching results. About 28,000 settled in Nova Scotia, the larger
portion of them selecting the banks of the River St. John. Besides
being far removed from Halifax, the seat of government, they found
themselves absolutely without influence in the administration, as
the Governor refused to enlarge the Legislative Council by admitting
one of their number. They therefore petitioned the Home Government
for separation from Nova Scotia--a request which was at once granted
(1784). Pitt thus showed his complete confidence in the Loyalists and
in the policy of according full liberty in local affairs to a community
which obviously needed such a boon.
Not very dissimilar were the results of the influx of the Loyalists
into Canada Proper. About 10,000 of them crossed Lake Ontario or the
Niagara River, and formed a thin fringe of settlements along the Upper
St. Lawrence and Lakes Ontario and Erie. In 1784 Governor Haldimand
granted to them large tracts of land, generally in proportion to the
services rendered during the war.[720] In many cases, the settlement
was of a semi-military character; and everywhere the colonists took a
pride in adding to their names “U.E.,” to denote the United Empire for
which they had fought and suffered. The lot of many of them was hard
in the extreme; but it seems that even those who had been reared in
luxury preferred the rigours of the Canadian winter in a log-hut to the
persecutions which would have been their lot in the United States.
A settlement of a very different kind was that of de Puisaye and some
fifty French royalists in the autumn of 1798. Puisaye was a man of
fine physique and perseverance, as appeared in his continuance of the
Breton revolt long after the unmanly departure of the Comte d’Artois
from the Ile d’Yeu in 1795 (see Chapter XXXVI). But by the year 1798 he
wearied of that fell work, and proposed with other adventurous spirits
to settle in Canada. The Duke of Portland and Windham favoured the
scheme; and a district named Windham was allotted to them between York
(Toronto) and Lake Simcoe. But the ill-fortune of the French noblesse
dogged them in the New World. They arrived too late. Probably they
knew nothing of the work required of them. Even more probably they
quarrelled, intrigued, and formed factions. Puisaye left the place and
settled for a time near the Niagara River, until at the Peace of Amiens
he went back to England. The Windham settlement went to pieces, thus
once more revealing the incompetence of that product of the _ancien
régime_, the French _seigneur_.[721]
* * * * *
The arrival of the United Empire Loyalists altered the political
situation in Canada in two ways: it provided for the first time a
relatively large body of English-speaking settlers, and it brought to
the front the question of representative institutions. Hitherto the
French _habitans_, scattered sparsely along the Lower St. Lawrence and
the Richelieu Rivers, had shown little or no desire in that direction;
but questions arising out of the war caused some stir in those
primitive communities. A time of much unrest followed. The British
merchants and traders at Quebec and Montreal also had their grievances
against the Government and the French majority; so that in 1784 a
Committee comprising men of those towns petitioned the Governor for an
elective House of Assembly.
In order to understand the meaning of this request, we must remember
that election had no place in the Canadian Government. By the Quebec
Act of 1774, which regulated public affairs for the colony, the
administration of affairs rested with a Governor representing the
King, an Executive Council consisting of members selected by him, and
a Legislative Council formed on the same basis. The framers of that
measure had also frankly recognized the fact that the population of
the colony was overwhelmingly French. They therefore provided for the
continuance of French law and French customs, both religious and
agrarian--a well-meant measure which, while ensuring the loyalty of the
Canadians during the American War of Independence, aroused the anger of
British settlers and merchants. The United Empire Loyalists in Upper
Canada found these French customs insufferable. They had not left the
United States in order to merge themselves in a community modelled on
the France of Louis XIV.
Moreover, in other respects, the Quebec Act failed to meet the needs
of the colonists; so that Fox described Canada as having no settled
government.[722] Here he erred. The bane of that land was too much
government. The settlers were beset by too many decrees, several
of which were inapplicable to the needs of the growing mercantile
communities at Quebec and Montreal, who found themselves hampered
by the French laws and were in constant friction with the “ancient”
colonists. They therefore sent the petition of 1784, requesting the
bestowal of representative institutions and of British law, both
mercantile and criminal; but they admitted the need of retaining French
laws for agriculture, property, religion, and social life. Such an
admission was repugnant to settlers in the upper districts, who in 1785
petitioned for entire exemption from French laws and customs.[723]
As was but natural, Pitt and his colleagues seem to have been perplexed
by the difficulty of this problem, which certainly was one of infinite
complexity. It soon appeared, as the outcome of official inquiries,
that, taking Canada as a whole, there was only one English-speaking
colonist to fifteen French. The small British population was centred
almost entirely in Quebec and Montreal (even there it was only a third
of the population), or else straggled along the Upper St. Lawrence into
the almost unknown wilds between Lakes Ontario and Huron. How was it
possible, at the bidding of so insignificant a minority, to repeal the
French laws and enrage the majority? Would not France and the States be
certain to intervene and thus fill to the full the cup of disaster?
For the present the Pitt Cabinet limited its efforts to the
strengthening of the executive powers at Quebec by enlarging the
powers of the new Governor-General, Lord Dorchester (1786) so that
they extended over the upper districts, and also over New Brunswick
and Nova Scotia. Meanwhile Pitt and Sydney awaited the results of the
inquiries set on foot in Canada; and, though the resulting delay was
irritating at the time, it proved to be beneficial; for before the
Ministry at home could frame its Bill, the outbreak of the French
Revolution had minimized the danger of intervention from France.
Mishaps to the despatches, the substitution of Grenville for Sydney
as Home Secretary, in June 1789, and the General Election of 1790,
further retarded legislation on this subject. Twice in the year
1790 Grenville had to apologize to the House for delays due to the
terrible weather of the winter of 1789–90.[724] On the latter occasion
he described his endeavours to get at the truth of the situation in
Canada, his conferences with his colleagues, and his assiduity in
drafting the Bill which he promised to place before them as soon as he
received Dorchester’s replies to certain questions. This declaration
is interesting as showing that the famous Act of 1791 was really
drafted by Grenville, and that he considered it his own. In view,
however, of his very recent appointment to the Home Office, and of his
intimate relations to Pitt, we may be sure that the spirit informing
the measure was that of the Prime Minister. We now know, however, that
Grenville was responsible for the proposal to confer hereditary titles
on the members of the Governor’s Legislative Council;[725] and it is
significant that, while Pitt acquiesced in it, no such creation of a
colonial nobility ever took place.
Grenville having been raised to the peerage in November 1790, Pitt
moved for leave to bring in the Canada Bill to the Lower House (4th
March 1791). In an explanatory speech, he stated the aim of the measure
to be “to promote the happiness and internal policy [progress?] of the
province and to put an end to the differences of opinion and growing
competition that had for some years existed in Canada between the
ancient inhabitants and the new settlers from England and America
[_sic_] on several important points, and to bring the government of
the province, as near as the nature and situation of it would admit,
to the British Constitution.” He therefore proposed to divide Canada
into an Upper and a Lower Province, “the former for the English and
American settlers, the lower for the Canadians.” The inconveniences
that might result to the minority in the latter province would, he
hoped, be averted by the election of a House of Assembly, which
would propose measures, acting therein conjointly with a Legislative
Council, of members nominated for life. As it has been stated that Pitt
avowed his intention to create two provinces whose mutual jealousies
would prevent rebellion, it is desirable to notice that in this first
speech he insisted that separation would be the only means of ending
the existing strifes and of according to each of them the blessings
of the English Constitution.[726] We may also remark that Pitt seems
to have paid no heed to the suggestion that the Lower Province might
be governed autocratically, while Upper Canada had representative
institutions. This would become impossible when the French _habitans_
gained political consciousness; and Pitt was surely right in rejecting
that makeshift.
His policy was, however, to be sharply criticized, especially by
the British minority in Lower Canada. In a petition dated London,
15th March 1791 (which is printed in full in “Pitt and Napoleon
Miscellanies”), seven firms engaged in the Canada trade pointed out
the defects of the measure; and it is highly significant that some of
their objections foreshadowed those which were to be so ably set forth
in Lord Durham’s Report on Canada (1839). The petition was drafted
by Lymburner, a Quebec merchant who had drawn up that of 1784. The
Memorialists declared that the Bill before Parliament would perpetuate
many of the worst evils of the Quebec Act, which sprang from the
attempt to impose one code of laws on two peoples differing widely in
their manner of life, customs, and needs. They asserted that the only
means of soothing the strifes was to apply English law to the English
population and French law to the French; that any division of the
colony would be artificial and would debar Upper Canada from maritime
trade. The petition concluded with the statesmanlike suggestion that
the only cure for the ills of Canada was to merge her two peoples in a
self-governing community.
Already Dorchester had offered objections to the proposed division of
Canada; but Grenville in his despatch of 20th October 1789 set aside
his arguments on the ground that, while weighty as against the present
non-representative system, they did not apply to that which was about
to be proposed.
When (he wrote) the resolution was taken of establishing a
Provincial Legislature, ... to be chosen in part by the people,
every consideration of policy seemed to render it desirable that
the great preponderance possessed in the Upper Districts by the
King’s antient subjects, and in the lower by the French Canadians,
should have this effect and operation in separate Legislatures,
rather than that these two bodies of people should be blended
together in the first formation of the new Constitution, and
before sufficient time has been allowed for the removal of antient
prejudices, by the habit of obedience to the same Government and by
the sense of a common interest.[727]
These words imply not so much distrust of the colonists as a sense of
the need of proceeding tentatively with what was a novel departure. It
is clear that Ministers looked on the proposed arrangements as more or
less provisional, and in the last phrases we seem to catch a glimpse
of a more peaceful future when reunion would be the natural step. For
the present, Grenville continued, it would be well to strengthen the
Governor’s Legislative Council by according to its members some title
of honour (a baronetage was first hinted at) which would attach them
to the new institutions. Another desirable step was the reservation of
Crown Lands in the new districts, in order to provide the Government
with a fixed and improving revenue. Grenville even suggested that, had
this been done in the original thirteen colonies, a cause of friction
and revolt would have been removed.
Ministers must have had a deep sense of the advantages of their
proposal when they disregarded the advice of the Governor-General and
the firm opposition of the British settlers in Lower Canada and of
their connections in London. The measure was pushed on, despite a long
speech against it by Lymburner at the bar of the House, in which he
asserted that the division of the provinces, when once accomplished,
could never be reversed--an assertion falsified by facts in 1841. The
debates on the subject were rendered memorable by an incident which
will be described later (Chapter XXIV). Burke had persisted in dragging
the French Revolution into the discussion, and, when interrupted by
Fox, passionately declared that the friendship between them was at an
end. As for the question before the House, Fox opposed, while Burke
defended, the proposed division of Canada. The Whig leader further
objected to the proposal to make a legislative councillorship an
hereditary honour; and he urged Ministers to increase the size of the
Houses of Assembly. Pitt carried his proposal that they should number
sixteen for the Upper Province and fifty for the Lower. Finally the
House agreed to leave open the question of the hereditary tenure of
councillorships; and it is noteworthy that no hereditary title was
conferred. The Bill became law on 14th May 1791.
To discuss the suitability of this measure to Canada would involve a
recital of events in that colony down to the time of Lord Durham’s
famous Report of 1839. All that concerns us here is the question of
Pitt’s attitude towards those complex problems. His conduct cannot be
pronounced hasty or doctrinaire. Not until official evidence and advice
were forthcoming did he and his colleagues sketch the first outlines
of the scheme. But when he had made up his mind, he held on his way
with resolute purpose. This will appear if we remember that three
Ministers were successively responsible for the Bill. Sydney drafted
it. Grenville revised the evidence and recast the Bill;[728] but it
fell to Henry Dundas to amend it and carry it into execution. As the
Bill was but little changed, we may infer that one mind was at all
times paramount.
Canadian historians have generally allowed that the motives of Pitt
were enlightened; and, the assertion sometimes made, that they were
based on a resolve to make use of the hostility of French and British
settlers so as to prevent revolt, is contradicted by all that is known
of his manly and hopeful nature. His speeches ring with a feeling of
confidence in the healing effect of representative institutions; and it
should be remembered that, if in 1837 they were found inadequate to the
needs of the progressive Upper Province, they yet nursed that little
community into youth. This is all that can be expected from a measure
which was necessarily tentative.[729] The chief objections against his
division of the provinces were that it tended to weaken the British
community in the Lower Province, while it also cut off the Upper
Province from the sea and placed it at the mercy of the Customs’ laws
framed at Quebec.
To this it may be replied that, even if the infant settlements of the
Upper St. Lawrence had remained bound up with the French districts,
the English-speaking population would still have been in a decided
minority, and that it was better to allow the United Empire Loyalists
to carve out their own destiny, as they were doing in New Brunswick,
in the hope that time would bring about an equipoise between the two
peoples. The erection of a new Customs’ barrier was truly a serious
matter; but it resulted from geographical and racial conditions which
were irreversible, save by the Act of Union, which, under happier
auspices, came exactly half a century later. In the period 1791–1841
Upper Canada grew from a population of about 10,000 to 465,000; and
in that fact may be found the best justification for Pitt’s Canadian
policy. When looked at from the point of view of 1791, it seems to
deserve higher praise than has generally been its meed.
CHAPTER XX
THE SLAVE TRADE
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall;
That’s noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein
Of all your Empire--that where Britain’s power
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.
COWPER.
Great movements are too often connected with the names of one or two
prominent men, to the neglect of others whose services are highly
meritorious. Laziness rather than unfairness may be assigned as the
cause of this mistake. The popular consciousness, unable to hold
together names, according to gradation of merit, settles on one or two
as convenient pegs for the memory, and discards the remainder. Hence
it comes about that commanders acquire undying fame which may be due
to their chiefs of staff; and statesmen are reputed the authors of
measures which they accepted doubtfully from their permanent officials.
It is by some such process of hasty labelling that the name of
Wilberforce is often affixed alone to the movement for the liberation
of the slaves. True, he deserves to hold a very high place in the
roll-call of the champions of philanthropy. But the following short
summary will suffice to suggest that many other names, now wellnigh
forgotten, deserve to be held in equal honour. Of those who helped
to arouse public opinion on this question George Fox and William
Edmundson come first in point of time. They lifted up their voice
in and after the year 1671 against the cruelties inflicted on negro
slaves in Barbadoes and elsewhere; but we do not find that their views
on slavery affected a large number of their co-religionists until
the year 1727, when the Society of Friends in their annual meeting
at London passed a resolution condemning both the slave trade and
the owning of slaves.[730] This conviction spread to the Quakers of
Pennsylvania (the “Quaker State”) where worthy members of the Society
succeeded in arousing public opinion even against the institution of
slavery.
Reverting to England, with which alone we are concerned, we find the
Quakers striving to stop the worst abuses of the Slave Trade. The
Treaty of Utrecht (1713) had handed over to England a great part
of that traffic; and Chatham himself boasted that his conquests in
Africa during the Seven Years’ War had placed almost the whole of it
in British hands. When a man of his elevation of thought held this
language, we can imagine that the many looked on the trade as a pillar
of the Empire, and derided its few opponents as lunatics.
Not that public opinion was wholly blind to its evils. In the year 1750
Parliament had passed an Act forbidding the kidnapping of negroes; but
it proved wholly ineffective; and, as the horrors connected with the
Slave Trade became better known, the Society of Friends warned all
its members to abstain from any connection whatever with so unholy
a traffic (1758). Three years later it resolved to disown any who
should disregard this warning.[731] Thus, to the religious zeal and
consistency of the Friends we are indebted for the first attempts to
abolish this traffic. No small community has ever rendered a greater
service to the cause of religion and humanity.
It should be noted in passing that their action and that of later
abolitionists helped to link together these two ideals in a manner
which was to be infinitely fruitful. In this connection Granville
Sharp, John Wesley, Clarkson, Paley, Wilberforce, Buxton, Zachary
Macaulay, and many others may be named as proving the close union
that subsisted between religious conviction and the philanthropic
movement. The power of religion to impel to good works shone forth in
all of them. Wilberforce gave scarcely a thought to the slaves until
the work of grace began in his own heart. In 1774 Wesley published his
work, “Thoughts upon Slavery,” which greatly furthered the cause.
Indeed, it should be noticed as one of the influences marking off the
philanthropic movement in England from that of France that here for
the most part it was an offshoot of the Evangelical Revival, whereas
in France the efforts of Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists imparted
to similar efforts a strongly anti-Catholic bias. These facts were
destined to mould the future of religion and politics in the two lands.
Here philanthropists and statesmen were the mainstay of religion. There
the slow cessation of persecution and the reluctant abandonment of
privileges by the Roman Church ranged social reformers against her,
with results that were to appear in the Revolution.
Fortunately, in England law reinforced the efforts of philanthropists.
In 1772, Chief Justice Mansfield gave a decision that a slave who
landed on English soil became a free man. The case arose out of the
conduct of a West India merchant settled in London, who by sheer
brutality had rendered a slave useless for work, had turned him
adrift, but again claimed him when healed by a kind-hearted physician.
Granville Sharp thenceforth made it the business of his life to see
justice done to the negro race, and was chiefly instrumental in
bringing the whole question to a practical issue by founding in 1787
the first Abolitionist Society.
Before adverting to its labours, with which Pitt so deeply sympathized,
we may notice a few facts connected with the traffic in human flesh.
The evidence of Robert Norris, of Liverpool, before a Parliamentary
Commission in the year 1775 showed that of the 74,000 negroes believed
to be taken annually from Africa to the New World, British ships
carried about 38,000; French, 20,000; Portuguese, 10,000; Dutch, 4,000;
Danish, 2,000. The greater part came from Bonny, New Calabar, the
Gold Coast, and Loango. Gambia is credited with exporting only 700,
a suspiciously low estimate. The same witness asserted that only one
slave in twenty-seven died on the voyage, while one seaman in sixteen
succumbed.[732] Estimates, however, varied very greatly. Macpherson
gave 97,000 as the number of slaves imported into the New World from
Africa in the year 1768.[733] Efforts were made by merchants to depict
the passage on the ocean as pleasant, amusements being provided on the
way. But it soon transpired that the chief amusement was compulsory
singing, while the “dancing” proved to be jumping in chains at the
sound of the lash. It was also known that very many negroes died soon
after landing during the process known as seasoning to the climate and
work; that the whip was freely used in the plantations; and that the
mortality among the slaves was extremely heavy. In this connection the
name of Burke deserves to be held in honour; for he proposed that the
Attorney-General in each colony should be empowered to act as Protector
of the negroes.
Thus, even before the Abolitionist Society began its labours, public
opinion was beginning to brand the traffic with infamy. The year 1783
saw efforts made in Parliament to repress some of its worst abuses;
and the Society of Friends then sent up the first petition for the
total abrogation of the traffic in British vessels.[734] The year 1785
witnessed the publication of Clarkson’s Latin essay on the subject; and
a twelvemonth later it came out in English. In 1783 also the efforts of
the Rev. James Ramsay, Rector of Teston, Kent, who had seen the evils
of slavery during his residence at St. Kitt’s, brought the subject
home to the mind of his neighbour, Lady Middleton; and she in her
turn impressed it as a Christian duty on Wilberforce to bring forward
a motion in Parliament. As this appeal harmonized with the strong
religious convictions now swaying the nature of the young member for
Yorkshire, he felt strongly moved to take up the cause of the negroes.
In the year 1786 he made many inquiries among African and West India
merchants, and found much error in their information. After probing the
matter, he resolved to consult Pitt as to his making this question the
chief object of his life.
The conversation took place under an old oak-tree in Pitt’s grounds
at Holwood, above the steep descent into Keston vale. The opinions
of the two friends, as we have seen, had somewhat diverged. Pitt
did not sympathize with the pietism which now dominated the life of
Wilberforce; but his religion was of a working type, and he may have
welcomed the growth of convictions of a more practical kind, which
would wean his friend from excessive introspection. Certain it is that
he urged him to take up the cause of the slaves as one well suited
to his character and talents. Wilberforce therefore resolved to give
notice of his intention to bring the subject before Parliament. Would
that we knew the details of that conversation illustrative of the
character of two of the most interesting men of the age. Even so, the
resolve there formed renders illustrious the tree under which it was
formed, fitly called “Wilberforce’s oak.”[735]
The three strands of effort which we have traced from their feeble
beginnings, viz., those originating with the Quakers, Granville Sharp,
and Ramsay, were now to combine. In 1787, as we have seen, Granville
Sharp, in connection with London Friends, formed a “Committee for
procuring Evidence on the Slave Trade,” which was to become the famous
Abolitionist Society. At the first meeting on 22nd May 1787, only ten
were present. Their names deserve to be recorded. Granville Sharp
(Chairman), J. Barton, Thomas Clarkson, W. Dillwyn, S. Hoare (junr.),
J. Hooper, J. Lloyd, R. Phillips, P. Sanson, J. Woods. All but two were
Quakers, and the minutes and letters abound in “thous” and “thees.”
One of the aims of the Committee was to distribute Clarkson’s and
other pamphlets on the subject. In October 1787 the Committee received
a letter from Brissot and Clavière, the future leaders of the French
Girondins, expressing the wish to promote their views in France, where,
as is well known, the abolitionists achieved a speedy but illusory
triumph in 1790.
[Illustration:
_Emery Walker Ph. sc._
_William Wilberforce_
_from an unfinished painting by Sir T. Lawrence_
]
As there has been some controversy respecting the initiation of this
movement, it is well to note that not until 30th October 1787 did
the Committee receive a letter from Wilberforce. He then asked for
information as speedily as possible. The Minutes of the Committee
show that he was not a member until the year 1794, and it is an
exaggeration to say that “he directed their endeavours.”[736] Their
aim was to stir up the great towns to petition to Parliament. In this
they achieved a marked success. Indeed, it was rather the formation
of a strong public opinion by the labours of the Committee, than the
many motions in Parliament, which at last brought triumph to the cause.
Manchester and Birmingham soon displayed great interest in the subject.
A kindred society was formed at the latter town. That at London grew
in importance, and funds came in rapidly. Wilberforce wrote to
Eden on 18th January 1788: “The fire is kindled in various parts of
the Kingdom and the flame spreads wider and wider.”[737] One of the
petitions resulting from the labours of the parent committee deserves
mention here. It came from 769 freemen cutlers of Sheffield, was dated
24th April 1789, and stated that, though the exports of petitioners to
the African coast might fall off if the Slave Trade were abolished, yet
they were so convinced of its inhumanity that they begged Parliament to
sweep it away.[738]
Petitions of the same tenour had long been coming in, and Pitt
therefore instituted an inquiry by the Privy Council respecting
the whole question, including the condition of the slaves in the
colonies.[739] One of the replies, that from Bermuda, of 10th June
1788, is typically optimistic. Governor Browne affirmed that the slaves
in those islands were exceedingly well treated. Out of 4,900 slaves not
more than five a year deserted. During the late war many had served on
privateers and, when captured and taken to the United States, nearly
all managed to make their way back to their masters. This report is a
specimen of the arguments which compelled Ministers to some measure of
caution.[740]
There is, however, abundant proof that Pitt, though a recent recruit
to the movement, espoused it with enthusiasm. During the difficult
negotiations with France in the autumn of 1787, we find Wilberforce
informing Eden, our envoy at Paris, of Pitt’s interest in the endeavour
to stop the Slave Trade, a matter which would be greatly facilitated
if France would agree to take the same step.[741] On 2nd November Pitt
followed up his friend’s letter by another appeal to Eden to induce the
French Government “to discontinue the villainous traffic now carried on
in Africa.”[742] The following letter, hitherto unpublished, from Pitt
to Eden, further shows his hope that Eden, who was soon to take the
embassy at Madrid, would be able to influence that Court also:
Downing Street, _Dec. 7, 1787_.[743]
Mr. Wilberforce has communicated to me your last letter respecting
the African business. The more I reflect upon it, the more anxious
and impatient I am that the business should be brought as speedily
as possible to a point; that, if the real difficulties of it can
be overcome, it may not suffer from the prejudices and interested
objections which will multiply during the discussion. Of course it
cannot yet be ripe for any official communication; and when you
transmit the memorandum, which I see you were to draw up, I hope
it will be quite secret for the present. If you see any chance
of success in France, I hope you will lay your ground as soon as
possible with a view to Spain also. I am considering what to do in
Holland, but the course of business there makes the secrecy, which
is necessary at least for a time, more difficult.
The reply of the French Government in January 1788 was discouraging.
Montmorin and his colleagues avowed their sympathy with the cause,
but, fearing that it would not succeed in England, refused to commit
themselves.[744] The advent of Necker to power in August aroused Pitt’s
hopes;[745] but he too temporized, thereby prejudicing the success of
the cause in these islands. Spain refused to stir in the matter.
Meanwhile Wilberforce had given notice of a motion on the subject, but
a severe illness in February and March 1788 left him in a state of
weakness which precluded the least effort. Before leaving for Bath, he
begged Pitt to bring forward the motion for him. The Prime Minister
consented, says Wilberforce, “with a warmth of principle and friendship
that have made me love him better than I ever did before.” Nevertheless
he acted with caution. Up to the beginning of the year 1788, at least,
he had not brought the matter before the Cabinet, probably because he
knew that most of its members would oppose him. In the country also
a formidable opposition was arising, and, as usually happens in such
cases, enthusiasts clamoured at delay as treason to the cause.[746]
Perhaps it was this which led him to request a conference with Sharp.
It took place on 21st April, and is thus reported in the Minutes of the
Committee:
He [Granville Sharp] had a full opportunity of explaining that
the desire of the Committee went to a full abolition of the Slave
Trade. Mr. Pitt assured him that his heart was with us, and that
he considered himself pledged to Mr. Wilberforce that the cause
should not sustain any injury from his indisposition; but at the
same time that the subject was of great political importance,
and it was requisite to proceed in the business with temper and
prudence. He did not apprehend, as the examination before the Privy
Council would yet take up some time, that the subject could be
fully investigated in the present session of Parliament, but said
he would consider whether the forms of the House would admit of any
measures that would be obligatory on them to take it up early in
the ensuing session.[747]
On 9th May Pitt brought his motion before the House, but pending the
conclusion of the official inquiry, he offered no opinion on the
subject, for which he was sharply twitted by Fox and Burke. His conduct
was far from pleasing to the more ardent spirits. One of them, the
venerable Sir William Dolben, member for the University of Oxford,
after inspecting a slave-ship in the Thames, determined to lose no
time in alleviating the misery of the many living cargoes that crossed
the ocean. He therefore brought in a Bill for temporarily regulating
the transport of slaves in British ships. In the course of the
discussions Pitt declared that, even though the proposed regulations
involved the trade in ruin, as was maintained, he would nevertheless
vote for them; and if the trade could not be regulated, he would vote
for its abolition as “shocking to humanity, abominable to be carried
on by any country, and which reflected the greatest dishonour on the
British Senate and the British nation.” He further startled the House
by proposing that the regulations should become operative from that
day--10th June. The hold which he had on members was shown by the
division, fifty-six voting for the measure and only five against it.
In the Upper House no minister save the Duke of Richmond ventured to
defend this unusual enactment; and the Chancellor, Thurlow, spoke
strongly against it. Sydney also opposed it, though with moderation
(25th June). Pitt’s feelings when he heard of their action are shown
in a phrase of his letter to Grenville, dated Cambridge, 29th June,
that if the Bill failed he and the opposers would not remain members
of the same Cabinet. This declaration does honour to his heart and his
judgement. It proves the warmth of his feelings on the subject and
his sense of the need of discipline in the Cabinet. Had the measure
failed to pass the Lords, a Cabinet crisis of the gravest kind would
have arisen. As it was, however, the great efforts put forth by Pitt
among his friends sufficed to carry the day against Thurlow by a
majority of two. We catch a glimpse of what an average man thought of
this incident in the pages of Wraxall. After adverting to the nobility
of Pitt’s motives and the strength of Thurlow’s arguments against the
retrospective action of the Bill, the chronicler thus passes judgement:
“Thurlow argued as a statesman, Pitt acted as a moralist.” We also have
the warrant of Wraxall for stating that, not until George III gave his
assent to the measure, did Pitt “allow” him to prorogue Parliament.[748]
Ship-owners and slave-owners had, however, been driven only from the
first outwork of their citadel, and had time to strengthen their
defences before the matter came up again in 1789. After a delay, caused
by the King’s malady and by the length of the inquiry into the Slave
Trade by a committee of the Privy Council, Wilberforce brought the
question before the House on 12th May in one of the ablest and most
eloquent speeches of that age. For three and a half hours he held the
attention of the House as he recounted the horrors which slave-hunting
spread through Africa, and the hell of suffering of the middle passage.
He showed how legitimate trade would increase with the growth of
confidence between man and man in that Continent, and he asserted
that the sympathies of King Louis XVI, Necker, and the French nation
would probably lead that country to follow our example in abolishing a
traffic degrading to all concerned in it. He then proved from official
information concerning the slaves in our West India islands, that wise
treatment of them and suppression of vice would ensure a sufficient
increase of population to meet the needs of the planters. He concluded
by moving twelve resolutions setting forth the facts of the case as
detailed in the Report of the Privy Council. This mode of procedure
earned general approval. Burke bestowed his blessing on the proposal
(for such it was in effect) to abolish so hateful a traffic. Pitt gave
the measure his warm approval, but stated that he was prepared to give
a hearing to all objections. One such he noticed, namely, that foreign
nations would step in and secretly supply our West India islands with
slaves. He declared that Great Britain was strong enough to prevent
so insidious a device; but he hoped, rather, that other peoples would
desire to share in the honour of abolishing the trade; and we might
confidently negotiate with them to that end, or wait for the effect
which our example would produce. Fox followed in the same strain, and
prophesied that France would soon “catch a spark from our fire and run
a race with us in promoting the ends of humanity.”[749]
But these unanswerable arguments were of no avail against shippers,
slave-owners, and colonial traders. In vain did Wilberforce point
out that the prosperity of Liverpool did not depend upon the Slave
Trade; for the tonnage of the slave-ships was only one-fifteenth of
that of the whole port. Liverpool saw nothing but ruin ahead; and it
must be admitted that that class of traffic was then by far the most
lucrative to the growing city on the Mersey. It has been computed
that in the decade 1783–93, Liverpool slave-ships made 878 “round
voyages” (_i.e._ from Liverpool to the Guinea Coast, thence to the
West Indies, and back to the Mersey), carried 303,737 slaves and sold
them for £15,186,850.[750] It is not surprising, then, that Clarkson
was mobbed when he went there to collect evidence as to the terrible
mortality of our seamen engaged in the trade,[751] and was known to be
purchasing “mouth-openers,” those ingenious devices by which slavers
forced open the mouths of those of their victims who sought release by
voluntary starvation. Bristol, though it had only eighteen ships in the
trade, was also up in arms; for it depended largely on the refining of
sugar and the manufacture of rum. Even the veteran reformer, Alderman
Sawbridge, foresaw ruin for his constituency, the City of London, if
the trade were further interfered with. Persons of a rhetorical turn
depicted in lurid colours the decay of Britain’s mercantile marine,
the decline of her wealth, and the miseries of a sugar famine. Others
sought to frighten the timid by declaring that, as shippers and
planters had embarked large sums of money in the trade in reliance
on Parliament, they were entitled to absolutely full compensation
for the heavy losses which must result from its abolition or further
curtailment.[752] In short, all the menaces, based on assumed legal
rights, were set forth with vehemence and pertinacity.
The result was seen in the increasing acrimony of the opponents of
abolition in Parliament. They poured scorn on the evidence adduced
before the Privy Council in a way which brought from Pitt a sharp
retort, but they insisted, and with success, on the hearing of evidence
at the bar of the House. These dilatory tactics protracted the
discussion until it was necessary to postpone it to the next year.
Before the end of the session of 1789 an important change came about in
the Cabinet. Sydney had long disagreed with Pitt respecting the Slave
Trade, and therefore, early in June, offered his resignation. There
could be but one opinion as to his successor. William Wyndham Grenville
had long shown high capacity both in diplomatic affairs and more
recently in his conduct of the Speakership of the House. His speech
on the trade marked him out as a strong supporter of Pitt; and on 5th
June he became Secretary of State for Home Affairs with a seat in the
Cabinet. His accession was a gain for the Administration and a further
source of strength for Pitt, who had long felt great confidence in his
judgement and tact.[753] Henry Addington, son of the physician who long
attended the first Earl of Chatham, was chosen Speaker of the House of
Commons by a large majority over the Whig nominee, Sir Gilbert Elliot.
One other change ought to have taken place. The language used by
Lord Thurlow against Pitt had long been petulant, and his irritation
against the abolitionists led him to strange lengths in the summer
of 1789.[754] Their differences caused an almost complete rupture.
But, for the present, Pitt could not insist on his resignation. On
the question now at issue George III agreed with Thurlow.[755] He
also seems to have been quite unaware of the shifty course adopted
by the Chancellor at the beginning of his late malady and believed
him to be thoroughly devoted to his person. It argues no small amount
of self-restraint and honourable reticence in Pitt that he should
have taken no steps to inform the King of the meditated defection of
Thurlow. George III therefore continued to believe in the whole hearted
devotion of the Lord Chancellor; and on two occasions during the year
1789 he wrote to Pitt expressing his desire that the two Ministers
should endeavour to work together cordially for the good of the
realm.[756] It is consonant with what we know of Thurlow’s character
that he presumed on the King’s partiality towards him, and played the
part of the one necessary man in a way highly exasperating to Pitt.
But the precarious state of the King’s health and his known dislike
of dismissing old servants availed to postpone the inevitable rupture
until the year 1792. The retention of Thurlow may be considered one of
the causes of the failure of the abolitionists at this time.
In the spring of the year 1790 the champions of the Slave Trade
believed that they saw signs of waning enthusiasm on the part of the
public, and on 23rd April sought to stop the further examination of
witnesses at the bar of the House. Wilberforce, Fox, and Pitt protested
against these tactics, but Pitt intimated that he did not consider the
question one which Ministers were pledged to support. The case for a
free and full inquiry was overwhelming, and it was continued. That Pitt
acted in close connection with Fox on this whole question appears by
his letter to Wilberforce on 22nd April, which further shows that he
also considered the evidence so voluminous and important as to afford
little hope of the question being disposed of in that session.[757]
This was most unfortunate. The friends of abolition never had a better
opportunity than in the early part of 1790. Later on in that year the
risk of war with Spain (see Chapter XXIV) and the prospect of a revolt
of the slaves in the French West Indies began to turn Britons against a
measure which, they were told, would weaken the mercantile marine and
lead to the loss of the West Indies. In this case, as in many others,
the influence of the French Revolution militated against the cause of
steady reform in England. The National Assembly had early declared the
principle of freedom of the slaves in the French colonies; but owing
to the violent opposition of the planters and merchants, the decree
remained a dead letter. In the spring of 1790 the question came up once
more; but again the majority sought to shelve the question. Lord Robert
Stephen Fitzgerald, the British envoy at Paris, commended the prudence
and self-restraint of the Assembly “in not agitating the two great
questions concerning the emancipation of the negroes and the abolition
of the Slave Trade, which had at the first setting out raised so
violent a spirit of party.”[758] The planters and West India merchants
still threatened that the Colonial Assemblies (established in the year
1787) would declare their independence if those decrees were passed, on
the ground that they were not bound by the acts of the French Assembly.
Mirabeau, along with all practical statesmen, forebore from pressing
the point; and it is highly probable that the politic caution of the
French reformers, despite their sensibility and enthusiasm, told upon
public opinion in England.
Such were the discouraging conditions amidst which a General Election
was held in the summer of 1790. It increased Pitt’s hold on the House
of Commons; but, as he had refrained from making the Slave Trade
a ministerial question, the result did not imply the victory of
abolition. In the month of November he took a step which furthered
the prospects of the cause. He recommended Grenville for the peerage
as Baron Grenville, partly in recognition of his services, but mainly
because he needed a trusty friend and capable debater in the Upper
House as a check on Thurlow. He assured Wilberforce that distrust of
the Lord Chancellor was the true reason that prompted the transfer of
Grenville to the Lords.[759] We find Pitt writing on 24th November
1790 to his mother in high spirits. He hoped for great things from
Grenville in the Upper House. As for “prophets of schisms,” they would
be refuted. The opening of the new Parliament would find the Ministry
in “more strength than has belonged to us since the beginning of the
Government.”[760]
The question came before Parliament on 18th and 19th April 1791, when
Wilberforce in a masterly way summarized the official evidence and
moved for leave to bring in a Bill abolishing the Slave Trade. Some
of the arguments on the other side were curious. Grosvenor admitted
that the trade was an “unamiable” one, but he declined to “gratify his
humanity at the expense of the interests of his country, and thought we
should not too curiously inquire into the unpleasant circumstances with
which it was perhaps attended.” Less finnikin was the objection raised
by Lord John Russell and others, that, if we suppressed the trade,
France, Spain, and Holland would step in to take it up. This and the
question of vested interests formed the only reply to Wilberforce,
Fox, and Pitt. The Prime Minister declared that he had never been more
interested in the fate of any proposal than the present one. He brushed
aside the pleas of opponents, as wholly untenable, “unless gentlemen
will in the first place prove to me that there are no laws of morality
binding upon nations, and that it is no duty of a Legislature to
restrain its subjects from invading the happiness of other countries
and from violating the fundamental principles of justice.” He then
proved from the statistics then available that the numbers of the
slaves in the West Indies would under proper treatment increase in such
a degree as to supply the labour needed for the plantations, without
bringing ruin upon Africa. But argument and reasoning were useless.
Mammon carried the day by 163 to 88.[761]
The events of the year 1791 further depressed the hopes of
philanthropists. After much wobbling on the subject the National
Assembly of France passed a decree liberating the slaves in French
colonies, and granting to them the full rights of citizenship (15th
May). The results were disastrous. Already there had been serious
trouble in the French West Indies, owing to the progress of democratic
ideas among the mulattos and slaves; and the news that they were
thenceforth politically the equals of planters and merchants, who had
ever resisted their claims, led to terrible risings of the slaves,
especially in the west of St. Domingo, where plantations and cities
felt the blind fury of their revenge. By the end of the year the most
flourishing colony of France was a wreck.[762]
The heedless haste of French reformers worked ruin far and wide.
Extremes are fatal to the happy mean; for the populace rarely takes
the trouble to distinguish between reckless innovation and the healing
of a palpable grievance. Among the unfortunate results of the French
Revolution not the least was the tendency to extremes of feeling
produced by it in France and all neighbouring peoples. Those who
approved its doctrines generally became giddy with enthusiasm; those
who disapproved turned livid with hatred. Burke in his “Reflections
on the French Revolution” had lately set the example of treating the
whole subject in a crusading spirit. The flood of sentimentality,
unloosed by that attractive work, was now near high-water mark; and for
a space the age of chivalry seemed about to return.
The news of the horrors at St. Domingo came opportunely to double
the force of his prophecies. The cause of the slaves suffered untold
harm.[763] Any change in existing customs was dubbed treason to the
Commonwealth. Men did not stop to contrast the rash methods of the
_Amis des Noirs_ with those advocated by Pitt. Still less did they ask
how the stoppage of the importation of infuriated negroes into the West
Indian colonies, and the more humane treatment of those who were there,
could lead to a servile revolt. Wilberforce was fain to exclaim that
nothing was so cruel as sensibility. His campaign against the Slave
Trade made little or no progress in the early part of 1792. “People
here,” he wrote, “are all panic-struck with the transactions in St.
Domingo and the apprehension, or pretended apprehension, of the like in
Jamaica.” Many friends advised him to postpone all further action for
a year until the panic was over. Among these was Pitt, so we may judge
from the curt reference of Wilberforce to what went on at an informal
committee meeting on the subject: “Pitt threw out against Slave motion,
on St. Domingo account.” He also speaks of a slackening of their
cordiality.
The folly of Clarkson in advocating Jacobinical ideas at a meeting
held at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand further damaged the
cause. Nevertheless, detestation of the Slave Trade was still very
keen. Friends of the slaves began to forswear sugar and take to
honey. Petitions against the traffic in human flesh poured in at St.
Stephen’s; and those who spoke of delay were held to be backsliders.
This is the sense which we must attach to a phrase in a letter sent
to Wilberforce: “From London to Inverness Mr. Pitt’s sincerity is
questioned, and unless he can convince the nation of his cordiality in
our cause, his popularity must suffer greatly.”[764] The questioning
was needless. Pitt considered the time inopportune for bringing the
motion before a Parliament which had already rejected it. When,
however, Wilberforce persisted, he gave him his enthusiastic support.
The debate of 2nd April 1792 was remarkable in more ways than one.
The opponents of the measure now began to shift their ground. Colonel
Tarleton, member for Liverpool, continued to harp on the ruin that
must befall his town; but others, notably Dundas, and the Speaker
(Addington) admitted the evils of the trade, and the probability that
in a few years the needs of the planters might be met from the negro
population already in the islands. Dundas therefore moved an amendment
in favour of a “moderate” reform, or a “gradual” reform. Fox manfully
castigated this proposal, which assumed that there might be moderation
in murder. Nevertheless Jenkinson (the future Earl of Liverpool) made a
trimming speech in favour of regulating, not abolishing, the trade.
Pitt then arose. The rays of dawn were already lighting up the windows
on the east when he began his memorable speech. First, he expressed his
satisfaction that members were generally agreed as to the abolition
of the traffic being only a question of time. Mankind would therefore
before long be delivered “from the severest and most extensive calamity
recorded in the history of the world.” Grappling with the arguments of
Jenkinson and Dundas, he proceeded to show that the immediate abolition
of the Slave Trade would in many ways be an advantage to the West
Indies, as it would restrict the often excessive outlay of the planters
and deliver our colonies from the fear of servile insurrections like
that of St. Domingo. Planters must rely upon the natural increase of
the black population which would accelerate under good treatment. If,
said he, that population decreases, it can be only from ill treatment.
If it is increasing, there is no need for a trade which involves a
frightful loss of life both on sea and in the process of “seasoning”
the human freitage in the West Indies.
Adverting to the Act of 1750, which was claimed as authorizing the
trade, Pitt proved from its wording that the supply of negroes for our
colonies was then deemed to be essential, and that a clause of it,
which was continually violated, expressly forbade the use of fraud or
violence in the procuring of the cargo. But, even if that law rendered
the trade legal, had any Legislature a right to sanction fraud and
violence? As well might a man think himself bound by a promise to
commit murder. He next scouted the argument that, if we gave up the
trade, other peoples would rush in and take our place. Would France,
now that she had abolished slavery? Would Denmark, seeing that she had
resolved gradually to abolish the trade? As to other lands, it was more
probable that they would follow the example soon to be set by this land.
Having traversed the statements of opponents, Pitt raised the whole
question to a higher level by reminding the House of the export of
slaves from Britain to Rome, and by reconstructing with mordant
irony the arguments of Roman senators on its behalf, as a legitimate
and useful device for using the surplus population of a hopelessly
barbarous people. Warming to his theme, he thrilled his hearers by
contrasting the state of these islands, had they continued to supply
the Roman slave-mart, with the freedom, happiness, and civilization
that now were their lot. He besought members, as they valued these
blessings, to see to it that they were extended to Africa; and,
catching inspiration from the rays of the sun which now lit up the
Hall, he pictured the natives of Africa in some not distant future
“engaged in the calm occupations of industry, in the pursuits of a
just and legitimate commerce. We may behold the beams of science and
philosophy breaking in upon their land, which, at some happy period
in still later times may blaze with full lustre; and, joining their
influence to that of pure religion, may illuminate and invigorate the
most distant extremities of that immense Continent. Then may we hope
that even Africa, though last of all the quarters of the globe, shall
enjoy at length in the evening of her days, those blessings which have
descended so plentifully upon us in a much earlier period of the world.
Then also will Europe, participating in her improvement and prosperity,
receive an ample recompense for the tardy kindness (if kindness it
can be called) of no longer hindering that Continent from extricating
herself out of the darkness, which, in other more fortunate regions,
has been so much more speedily dispelled:
Nos ... primus equis Oriens afflavit anhelis,
Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper.”[765]
Continuing in this lofty strain, in which enthusiasm and learning,
reason and art, voice and gestures, enforced the pleadings of a noble
nature, he avowed his faith in the cause of immediate abolition of
the Slave Trade. The House thought otherwise. By 192 votes to 125 it
accepted Dundas’s amendment in favour of gradual abolition.[766] So
far do the dictates of self-interest outweigh with many men those of
righteousness and mercy, even when these are reinforced by the most
moving appeals. Fox, Grey, and Windham agreed that Pitt’s speech was
one of the most extraordinary displays of eloquence ever heard. If such
was the opinion of opponents, we may imagine the impression produced
on friends. Wilberforce declared that the speaker was as if inspired
when he spoke of the hope of civilizing Africa--a topic which he
(Wilberforce) had suggested to him on the previous morning.[767]
* * * * *
The outcome was not wholly disappointing. Three weeks later Dundas
brought forward his resolutions for a gradual abolition of the trade.
Wilberforce and Pitt failed to induce the House to fix 1st January
1795; but they carried it with them for 1st January 1796, though Dundas
proposed a date four years later. The House of Lords, however, in
deference to the speeches of the Duke of Clarence, and Lords Hawkesbury
and Thurlow, proceeded to involve the whole question in uncertainty by
deciding to hear the evidence on it at their own bar (8th May, 1792).
Some votes were decided by Thurlow’s asseveration that this would
not involve delay. The Archbishop of Canterbury soon came to see his
mistake; and after a sleepless night he wrote on 9th May to Pitt that
he was tortured by doubts as to the outcome of the affair. “My vote was
given under a strong impression from the Chancellor’s solemn statement
that an examination before a committee of the whole House would not be
a cause of delay.... My conviction of the necessity of the abolition of
the horrid trade is firm and unshaken.” He adds that he will explain
his vote on the first possible occasion, and hopes that Pitt will show
this letter to Grenville and Wilberforce.[768]
The Archbishop ought to have known that, with Thurlow, solemnity was
often the cloak of maliciousness. It was so now. The examination of
witnesses proceeded very slowly. On 5th June, after hearing only five
of them, the Lords decided to postpone the hearing of others until the
following year.[769] The dismissal of Thurlow, which (as we see in a
later chapter) followed on 15th June 1792, was due in the last instance
to his pert censures of Pitt’s finance; but it may be ascribed also to
his acrimonious opposition to Pitt on the question of abolition, and to
his underhand means of defeating him in the House of Lords.
Other events also seemed to tell against the philanthropists. The
connection of some of them with the Radical clubs, and their use of
addresses and petitions to overbear the opposition in Parliament
clearly made a bad impression on Pitt. After issuing the royal
proclamation against seditious writings in May 1792 he showed his
disapproval of their methods; and during the subsequent negotiations
for a union with the moderate Whigs, in order to form a truly national
administration, he confessed to Loughborough that he must make some
concession to the Whig Houses on the question of abolition.[770] This
is the first clear sign of his intention to shelve the measure until
the return of more settled times.
They were not to come for wellnigh a decade. The declaration of war
by the French Republic on 1st February 1793 turned men’s minds away
from philanthropy to destruction. The results were soon visible. A
measure proposed by Wilberforce, to prohibit the supply to foreigners
of slaves in British ships, failed to pass the Commons, despite the
able speeches of Pitt, Fox, and Francis in its favour (5th June 1793).
In the Lords meanwhile the Duke of Clarence (the future William IV)
spoke against the original proposal with great bitterness, denouncing
the abolitionists as fanatics and hypocrites, and expressly naming
Wilberforce among them. This insolence was far from meeting with the
chastisement that it deserved; but his words were taken as a sign that
the royal family was pledged to the support of the odious traffic.
It may be well to notice here a remarkable effort of the chief
abolitionists, and to add a few words about the men themselves. Early
in the year 1791 some of them sought to show that under favourable
conditions negroes were capable of self-government. Accordingly they
formed a Sierra Leone Committee for the purpose of settling liberated
slaves on that part of the coast of West Africa. In the Pitt Papers is
a letter of 18th April 1791, from the first overseer, Falconbridge,
to Granville Sharp, which the latter forwarded to Pitt, giving a
heartrending account of the state of the thirty-six men and twenty
women who formed the settlement. Fevers and ulcers were rife. Outrages
by white men had made the tribes defiant, and a native chief hard by
was far from friendly. Falconbridge adds: “That lump of deformity, the
Slave Trade, has so debauched the minds of the natives that they are
lost to every principle of honor and honesty. The scenes of iniquity
and murder I daily hear of, occasioned by this damnable traffic, make
my nature revolt.” He had named the bay and village Granville Bay and
Town; but, as the latter was already overgrown with bushes, he was
planting another at Fora Bay. He concludes--“For God’s sake send me a
ship of force (warship).”[771] Such were the feeble beginnings of a
colony of which Zachary Macaulay was to be the first Governor.
Here, as in other parts of this philanthropic movement, Pitt displayed
little or no initiative. To the cause of abolition he gave the support
of his eloquence and his influence in Parliament; but he gave no
decided lead in these and cognate efforts, a fact which somewhat
detracts from his greatness as a statesman in this formative period.
The merit of starting the movement and of utilizing new openings
belongs to the Quakers, to Granville Sharp, Clarkson, Wilberforce and
his friends. The member for Yorkshire had grouped around him at his
abode, Broomfield, Clapham Common, or at his town house in Palace Yard,
Westminster, a number of zealous workers, among whom Henry Thornton,
James Stephen (his brother-in-law), Thomas Babington, and Zachary
Macaulay were prominent. His chief correspondents were Dr. Milner (Dean
of Carlisle), Lord Muncaster, Sir Charles Middleton, Rev. John Newton,
and Hannah More. With these and other members of the Abolitionist
Society he was in constant touch; and their zeal for social reform and
for the evangelical creed (which led to his Clapham circle being styled
the “Clapham Sect”) led to great results. In the religious sphere
Wilberforce and his friends were largely instrumental in founding the
Church Missionary Society (1798) and the Bible Society (1803). Their
efforts on behalf of the poor and the mitigation of the barbarous penal
code (a matter ever associated with the name of Romilly) were also to
bear good fruit.
For the present all their efforts against the Slave Trade seemed to
be in vain. It was pressed on feverishly in the year 1792. Between
5th January and 4th May of that year there sailed from London 8 slave
ships, from Bristol 11, from Liverpool 39. The total tonnage was 11,195
tons. Another official return among the Pitt Papers (No. 310) gives the
following numbers of slaves taken in British ships from West Africa to
the West Indies in the years 1789 to 1795 (the figures for 1790 are
wanting):
-------+---------------+--------------------
YEAR. | SLAVES TAKEN. | DIED ON THE VOYAGE.
-------+---------------+--------------------
1789 | 11,014 | 1,053
1791 | 15,108 | 1,397
1792 | 26,971 | 2,468
1793 | 11,720 | 869
1794 | 14,611 | 394
1795 | 7,157 | 224
-------+---------------+--------------------
Total | 86,581 | 6,405
-------+---------------+--------------------
These figures suggest a reason for the falling off of interest in
the question after 1792. The trade seemed to be falling off; and the
mortality at sea declined as the cargo was less closely packed. This,
however, was but a poor argument for not abolishing a trade which was
inherently cruel and might revive with the return of peace. In 1794 the
Commons seemed friendly to abolition. Pitt, Fox, Whitbread, and other
friends of the cause pleaded successfully on behalf of Wilberforce’s
Bill of the previous year. Once more, however, the influence of the
Duke of Clarence, Thurlow, and Lord Abingdon availed to defeat the
proposal. Grenville also voted against it as being premature. The Lords
proceeded to illustrate the sincerity of their desire for further
information on the topic by shelving the whole inquiry.
A sense of despair now began to creep over many friends of the
movement. If abolitionist motions could only just pass the Commons, to
be at once rejected by the Lords, what hope was there for the slaves?
Their cause was further overclouded by the sharp disagreement of
Wilberforce and Pitt respecting the war with France. As we shall see in
a later chapter, Pitt and the majority of his supporters, together with
the Old Whigs, believed that the war must go on until a solid peace
could be obtained. Wilberforce and many of the abolitionists thought
otherwise. During the latter part of the year 1794 and the first weeks
of 1795 the two friends were scarcely on speaking terms; but even
during that sad time Pitt wrote to Wilberforce (26th December 1794):
“Nothing has happened to add either to my hopes or fears respecting
the Slave Question with a view to the issue of it in the next session,
but I think the turn things take in France may be favourable to the
ultimate abolition.” Pitt spoke powerfully against Dundas’s amendment
in favour of gradual abolition at some time after the conclusion of
the war; but these procrastinating tactics carried the day by 78 to 61
(26th February 1795).
In the following year matters at first seemed more hopeful. Twice
did Pitt and Wilberforce beat the supporters of the trade by fair
majorities; but on the third reading of the Abolition Bill it was
lost by four votes. Wilberforce noted indignantly that enough of its
supporters were at the Opera to have turned the scale. The same apathy
characterized the session of 1797, when the mutinies in the fleet and
the sharp financial crisis told heavily against a measure certain to
entail some losses in shipping and colonial circles. At this time Pitt
seems to have lost heart in the matter. This appeared in his attitude
towards a plausible but insidious proposal, that the Governors of
Colonies should be directed to recommend the local Assemblies to adopt
measures which would improve the lot of the negroes and thus prepare
the way for the abolition of the Slave Trade. Than this nothing could
be more futile; for the Governors and Assemblies were known to desire
the continuance of the trade. Yet Pitt urged Wilberforce to accept the
motion if it were modified; but, on Wilberforce refusing, he “stood
stiffly by him.” They were beaten by a majority of thirty-six--a proof
that the House wished to postpone abolition to the distant future.[772]
The negotiations for peace with France, which went on at Lille during
the summer of that year, offered an opportunity for including a mutual
guarantee of the two Powers that they would abolish the Slave Trade.
Pitt seems to have disapproved of introducing this question into the
discussions, either from a fear of complicating them, or from a belief
that it would be treated better after the conclusion of peace.[773] His
reluctance was misconstrued by Wilberforce, who sent him the following
letter:
Hull, August 1, 1797.[774]
... I am afraid the negotiation is not in such a state as to render
the idea I started of negotiating unconditionally for the abolition
of the Slave Trade a practical question very necessary to be just
now discussed. But if the negotiation should wear a more promising
aspect, let me beg you seriously to weigh the matter. Dundas is
friendly to the notion, as indeed I must do him, and myself too,
the justice to say that I believe he would. Grenville ought to be
so, and all the rest except Lord Liverpool are either neutral or
friendly. I must honestly say, I never was so much hurt since I
knew you as at your not receiving and encouraging this proposal,
which even Lord Liverpool himself ought to have approved on the
ground on which he used to oppose.[775] Do, my dear Pitt, I entreat
you reconsider the matter. I am persuaded of your zeal in this
cause, when, amidst the multitude of matters which force themselves
on you more pressingly, it can obtain a hearing; but I regret that
you have so been drawn off from it. Indeed regret is a very poor
term to express what I feel on this subject. Excuse this, from the
fulness of my heart, which I have often kept down with difficulty
and grief.
My dear Pitt let me intreat you, as I see another bishop is dead,
to consider well whom you appoint. I am persuaded that if the
clergy could be brought to know and to do their duty, both the
religious and civil state of this country would receive a principle
of life.
The rupture of the Lille negotiation by the French falsified these
hopes and served to justify Pitt for not weighting it with a
contentious proposal. But for the present at least, he had lost hope
in the cause. It is true that he always spoke strongly on its behalf
during the ensuing efforts put forth by Wilberforce.[776] But the
buoyancy of his belief was gone, and some even of his friends accused
him of apathy.[777] This is probably unjust. A man may believe firmly
in a measure, and yet be convinced that it cannot pass under present
conditions. In that case he will do his best, but his efforts will be
those of an overburdened horse unable to master the load.
More than once he annoyed Wilberforce by preventing a useless
discussion of the question.[778] Insinuations of insincerity were
therefore hurled at Pitt. Indeed they seem to have gained wide
credence. We find his young admirer, Canning, writing at Brooksby,
near Leicester, on 15th December 1799, that very many friends doubted
whether he now desired to carry abolition, while some even commended
his prudence in doing less than he professed in the matter. Canning
found it far from easy to eradicate this notion from the minds of his
hosts, the Ellises, by informing them of the object of a secret mission
to the West Indies then undertaken by Smith.[779]
* * * * *
It may be well to postpone to a later chapter the question of Pitt’s
attitude towards abolition in his second Ministry, that of 1804–6. But
we may notice here certain criticisms which apply mainly, of course,
to the years 1788–1800. He has been censured for not making abolition
a Cabinet question.[780] But how could he do so when the majority
of Ministers opposed it? For a short time only the Duke of Richmond
and he favoured abolition. The substitution of Grenville for Sydney
strengthened his hands; but even then he was in a minority in the
Cabinet on this question. Further, the House of Lords consistently,
and by increasing majorities, scouted the measure; and the House of
Commons, even under the spell of Pitt’s eloquence, refused to decree
immediate abolition, and that, too, before the shadow of the great
war shrouded the whole subject in disastrous eclipse. After the last
year of peace of Pitt’s ministerial career, other considerations came
uppermost. The need of keeping up the mercantile marine, both as a
source of wealth and as a nursery for the royal navy, cooled the zeal
of many friends of the movement. Windham opposed it in a manner that
earned him the title of Machiavelli. Others also fell away; and even
the eloquence of young Canning on its behalf did not make up for
defections. The better class of West India planters and merchants
tacitly agreed to the limitation of the Slave Trade; and with this
prospect in view many friends of the cause relaxed their efforts.
Further, when the King, a decided majority both in the Cabinet and
in the House of Lords, and a wavering majority in the Commons, were
unchangeably opposed to immediate abolition, what could a Minister
do? The ordinary course of conduct, resignation, would have availed
nothing. As nearly all the Ministerial bench disliked the proposal, no
coherent Cabinet could have been formed. True, a Ministry composed of
Pitt, Grenville, Fox, Burke, Sheridan, and Wilberforce might perhaps
have forced the measure through the Commons (to see it fail in the
Lords); but so monstrous a coalition could scarcely have seen the
light; certainly it could not have lived amid the storms of the war.
Besides, the first duty of a Minister after 1792 was to secure for
his country the boon of a solid peace. As we shall see, that was ever
Pitt’s aim; and grief at seeing it constantly elude his grasp finally
cost him his life. Further, the assumption that he could have coerced
the members of his Cabinet because they differed from him on this
question is untenable. He was able to secure the retirement of Sydney
because he was not highly efficient, and of Thurlow on the ground
of contumacy. But to compel useful and almost necessary Ministers
like Dundas or Camden to retire, when the majority in both Houses
agreed with them, would have set at defiance all the traditions of
parliamentary life.
The criticisms noticed above are based on the assumption that Pitt
was all-powerful and could bend the Cabinet and Parliament to his
will. This is an exaggeration. Where, as in the case of pocket
boroughs and the Slave Trade, members felt their interests at stake,
they somnolently resisted the charms of his oratory and trooped
into the opposite lobby. The British people is slow to realize its
responsibilities, but in the end it responds to them; and in these
years of defeat at Westminster the efforts of Clarkson, Granville
Sharp, and others spread abroad convictions which were to assure an
ultimate triumph.
The failure of Pitt to carry the abolition of the Slave Trade or
materially to improve the condition of the negroes was to have a
sinister influence on our position in the West Indies. While the slave
owners and shippers and their friends at Westminster refused to budge
an inch, the French Jacobins eagerly rushed forward and proclaimed the
equality of all mankind. Therefore early in the course of the Great War
the slaves rallied to the tricolour; and Toussaint l’Ouverture, the
ablest of negro leaders, enthusiastically marshalled their levies in
Hayti for the overthrow of British rule. In a later chapter we shall
trace the disastrous sequel. Colonel (afterwards Sir John) Moore noted
in his Diary that the negroes were for the most part fanatical for
liberty; and, after committing deeds of desperation in its name, died
defiantly with the cry _Vive la République_ on their lips.[781] Here
we touch on one of the chief causes for the frightful waste of British
troops in the West Indies. With discontent rife in our own colonies,
the struggle against the blacks, especially in Hayti, placed on our
men a strain unendurable in that pestilential climate. The Hon. J. W.
Fortescue, the historian of the British Army, estimates its total
losses in the West Indies during the war of 1793–1802 as not far short
of 100,000 men. Whatever the total may be, it is certain that at least
half of that woeful sacrifice resulted from the crass stupidity and
brutal selfishness displayed by mercantile and colonial circles on this
question.
* * * * *
In the last four chapters we have taken a survey of questions of
great interest in British and colonial history, and have therefore
interrupted the story of Pitt’s dealings with continental affairs.
It is time now to recur to events of world-wide import, namely, the
ambitious schemes of the Sovereigns of the East and the great popular
upheaval in France.
CHAPTER XXI
THE SCHEMES OF CATHARINE II
I came to Russia poor; but I will not die in debt to the
Empire; for I shall leave her the Crimea and Poland as my
portion.--CATHARINE II.
In the spring of the year 1787 the ablest potentate in Europe set
out on a State progress to the newly annexed provinces in the South
of her Empire. It was carried out with an energy and splendour which
illustrated the union of the forethought of the West with the barbaric
splendour of the East. A great flotilla of galleys bore the Sovereign,
her chief courtiers, the ambassadors of Great Britain, Austria, and
France, and numerous attendants down the course of the Dnieper to
the city of Kherson near its mouth. By day the banks were fringed
with throngs of the peasants of Little Russia, brought up to order,
while ever and anon the shouts of Cossacks, Calmucks, and Circassians
impressed the beholders with a sense of the boundless resources of
that realm. By night the welkin flared with illuminations; and the
extent of the resting-places, which had arisen like exhalations at the
bidding of her favourite, Prince Potemkin, promised the speedy inroad
of civilization into the lands over which the Turk still held sway. In
truth, far more impressive to the mind’s eye was the imperious will
of which these marvels were the manifestation, the will of Catharine
II.[782]
At her invitation there joined her near Potemkin’s creation, the
city of Ekaterinoslav, another monarch of romantic and adventurous
character. Joseph II of Austria, head of the Holy Roman Empire, now
reluctantly turned towards the eastern conquests to which she had
long beckoned him. Together they proceeded on the progress southwards
to Kherson, which they entered under a triumphal arch bearing the
inscription in Greek, “The way to Byzantium.” A still more impressive
proof of the activity of her masterful favourite awaited them. Potemkin
had pushed on the work of the new dockyard at Kherson; and as a result
they witnessed the launch of three warships. The largest, of 80 guns,
was christened by Catharine herself, “Joseph II.”[783]
Thence the imperial procession wended its way to the much-prized
acquisition, the Crimea. In that Tartar Khanate the fertile brain
and forceful personality of Potemkin had wrought wonders. It was but
four years since the Empress, in her joy at the annexation of that
vantage-ground, had pointed on the map to the little township of
Akhtiar, re-named it Sevastopol, and ordered the construction of a
dockyard and navy. Now, in June 1787, as the allied sovereigns topped
the hills which command that port, the Hapsburg ruler uttered a cry of
surprise and admiration. For there below lay a squadron of warships,
ready, as it seemed, to set sail and plant the cross on the dome of St.
Sophia at Constantinople.
Hitherto Joseph II had not shown the amount of zeal befitting an ally
and an admirer. True, he had not openly belied the terms of the compact
of the year 1781, which had been his sheet-anchor amid the storms of
his reign. But that alliance had been the prelude to vast schemes
productive at once of longing and distrust. They aimed at nothing less
than the partition of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. The glorious days
of Prince Eugène were to be recalled, and, on the expulsion of the
Tartar horde over the Bosphorus, Austria was to acquire the Turkish
lands which that warrior had gained for her by the Peace of Passarowitz
(1718), namely, the Banat of Temesvar, the northern half of Servia, and
the districts of Wallachia as far as the River Aluta. The only direct
gain to Catharine was to be the Tartar territory north of the Black Sea
as far as the Dniester. As for Moldavia and Wallachia, they were to
form an independent kingdom under a Christian Prince (a plan finally
realized in 1858); and the remainder of the Balkan Peninsula was to be
ruled by the favourite grandson of the Empress, Prince Constantine.
Outwardly this partition seemed to offer a fair share to Austria. But
it was soon clear that the grasping genius of Muscovy would transform
the nominally independent kingdoms of Constantinople and Roumania into
feudatories and bar to Austria the way to the Lower Danube, the Aegean,
and the Lower Adriatic. Not yet were the lessons of the first partition
of Poland forgotten at Vienna.[784] Then, too, the Austro-Russian
compact had but slightly advanced the interests of Joseph II in
Germany. Catharine had done little to further his pet scheme of the
Belgic-Bavarian Exchange; and, apart from feminine fumings, she had not
seriously counteracted the formation of the League of German Princes
whereby Frederick the Great had thwarted that almost revolutionary
proposal (1785). Probably this accounts for the reluctance of Joseph
to give rein to the southward impulses of the Czarina in that year.
At its close Sir Robert Murray Keith, British Ambassador at Vienna,
reported that the Czarina’s tour to Kherson was postponed, and four
days later he recorded a remarkable conversation in the course of
which the Emperor revealed his dislike of the dangerous schemes then
mooted for the partition of the Turkish Empire. “I can tell you for
certain,” he said, “_que si jamais tous les coquins se rompent avec
l’Empire Ottoman_, France is firmly determined to strike a bold stroke
by making herself mistress of Egypt. This I know with certainty from
more quarters than one; and M. Tott himself told me at Paris that he
had travelled through all Egypt by order of his Court to explore that
country in a military light and to lay down a plan for the conquest of
it.”[785]
In these words we have probably the reason for the deferring of the
Russian schemes against Turkey. They are also noteworthy, as they must
have tended to deepen the distrust which Pitt and Carmarthen felt
for France. Her chief Minister, Vergennes, figured as the protector
of Turkey against Russia, recalling thereby the policy of Louis XV’s
reign, which in 1739 availed to tear away from Austria the conquests
of Prince Eugène and restore them to the Sublime Porte. But under this
show of championship there seems to have lain an alternative policy,
that of furthering the partition of Turkey, provided that France
acquired Egypt, and some other vantage posts in the Levant. As we have
already seen, France was busy in Egypt and the Orient with schemes
which probably would have startled the world had she rivetted her hold
on the Dutch Netherlands in the year 1787.
The accession of the facile and dissolute Frederick William to the
Prussian throne in 1786, and the preoccupation of England and France in
the Dutch crisis which followed, now left Joseph free to comply with
the request of the Czarina that he would join her in the journey to the
Crimea. After long hesitations he reluctantly gave his assent. His aged
Chancellor, Prince Kaunitz, the champion of the connection with Russia
and France, advised him to direct the imperial conferences towards the
Bavarian Exchange and the dissolution of the Fürstenbund. Catharine
willed otherwise. Under her influence the views of Joseph underwent a
notable orientation. He came back to Vienna virtually pledged to a war
for the partition of Turkey.
The change in Joseph’s policy was a tribute to the potency of the
Czarina’s will. In her personality, as we have already seen, there were
singular powers of fascination and command. Her vivacity and charm,
varied by moods of petulance or fury, made up a character feminine in
its impulsiveness and of masculine strength. The erstwhile Princess of
Anhalt-Zerbst, who by a series of audacious intrigues, and probably by
the murder of her consort Peter III, had become the greatest autocrat
of the century, still retained the intellectual freshness of youth.
Her character and career present a series of bizarre contrasts. The
poverty of her upbringing, the dissolute adventures of her early life,
and the outrageous crimes of her womanhood would have utterly tainted
a personality less remarkable and attractive. But in the loose society
of St. Petersburg it had long been customary to gloze over lapses of
virtue by easy descriptions, like that which the stately rhetoric of
Burke applied to the chivalry of Versailles, that “vice itself lost
half its evil by losing all its grossness.”
Certainly the intellectual keenness and social witcheries of the
sorceress threw a charm over her rout. French and German philosophers
praised her learning and wit, but innate shrewdness kept her from more
than a passing dalliance with the unsettling theories which were to
work havoc in France. Here as in her amours she observed some measure
of worldly prudence; so that no favourite could count on a long reign
of pillage. Thus, whether by whim or by design, she kept devotion and
hope ever on the stretch; and one might almost apply to her, even at
the age of fifty-nine, Shakespeare’s description of Cleopatra:
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety; other women cloy
The appetites they feed; but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.
Like the “serpent of old Nile,” Catharine had many weaknesses; and they
might have worked her ruin in the more strenuous age which followed;
but fortune brought her to the front at a time when Frederick the Great
desired the friendship of Russia, and when Hapsburg policy vacillated
between the conservatism of Maria Theresa and the viewiness of her son
Joseph. Thus the Czarina could work her will on the decaying Powers,
Turkey and Poland, and raised the prestige of her Empire to unimagined
heights.
A few shrewd observers were not dazzled by this splendour. Sir James
Harris, who went as British envoy to Russia in 1778 to cultivate the
friendship, and if possible the alliance, of Catharine, rightly probed
the inner weakness of her position. It lay in the suddenness of her
rise, the barbarousness of her people, the unblushing peculations
of Ministers and officials, and the shiftiness of Muscovite policy.
This last defect he traced to the peculiarities of the Empress
herself, which he thus summed up: “She has a masculine force of mind,
obstinacy in adhering to a plan, and intrepidity in the execution of
it; but she wants the more manly virtues of deliberation, forbearance
in prosperity, and accuracy of judgment, while she possesses in a
high degree the weaknesses vulgarly attributed to her sex--love of
flattery and its inseparable companion, vanity; [and] an inattention
to unpleasant but salutary advice.” Six years later he sharpened his
criticism and described her as led by her passions, not by reason
and argument; her prejudices, though easily formed, were immovable;
her good opinion was liable to constant fluctuations and whims; and
her resolves might carry her to any lengths.[786] Such, too, was the
opinion of the Comte de Ségur, the French ambassador, who wrote about
the Turkish schemes renewed in 1787: “We are so accustomed to see
Russia throw herself offhand into the most risky affairs, and Fortune
has so persistently helped her, that there is no accounting for the
actions of this Power on the rules of a scientific policy.”[787]
This peculiarity was far from repelling Joseph II. While pluming
himself on the application of reason to politics, that crowned
philosopher forgot to take counsel of her twin-sister, prudence. On
his polyglot Empire, which already felt the first stirrings of the
principle of nationality, he imposed centralizing laws, agrarian,
social, and religious, which speedily aroused the hostility of those
whom he meant to uplift. Along with all this he pushed on schemes which
unsettled Germany, Belgium, and Poland; and now, as if all this were
not enough, he was drawn into the vortex of the Turkish enterprises of
Catharine.
It is a mistake to assume that Joseph had no practical aims in view. He
hoped to acquire from Turkey territories which would open up trade on
the Adriatic and the Lower Danube, and he counted on strengthening the
Russian alliance to which he trusted for the furtherance of his aims
in Germany and Belgium. Yet rarely has a monarch formed a resolution
more fraught with peril. In truth it resulted from the mastery gained
by an abler and more determined nature over one that was generous
but ill-compacted, daring but unsteady. Had the Emperor surveyed the
situation with care, he must have seen that it favoured Catharine
rather than himself. She was beset by no troubles at home; while his
lands, especially the _Pays Bas_, heaved with disloyal excitement. She
had appeased the Turcophile feelings of France by granting a favourable
commercial treaty; and Montmorin, the successor of Vergennes, was
weaker in himself and less able to support the Sultan. In short,
Catharine had her hands free, while Joseph had them full.[788]
The alliance between Russia and Poland at this time acquired new
vitality. During her triumphal tour Catharine received the homage of
her former lover, Stanislaus, King of Poland, and received from him
the promise of the help of 100,000 Polish troops for the Turkish war,
and “likewise for any other contest”--a phrase aimed against Prussia,
if she dared to intervene. The value of the promise soon became open
to doubt. The monarch in Poland had long been a figure-head, while
the real power lay with the powerful and ambitious nobility, which,
under the lead of the Czartoryski and Potocki families, ever chafed at
Muscovite ascendancy, and now declined to help Catharine in humbling
their natural ally, the Sultan. In 1790 their views were to prevail;
but, for the present, the resources of Poland seemed at her beck and
call.
The prospects of Catharine therefore were brilliant in the extreme. But
for once Fortune played her false. After the departure of the Emperor
from the Crimea, and while she still fondly surveyed the warlike
preparations at its new dockyard, there came news of the alarming
prospects for the harvest in Russia. “The Empress,” wrote Fitzherbert
on 24th July, “almost immediately after leaving the Crimea fell under
a great and visible depression of spirits, accompanied at times with
violent gusts of ill humour; and in this state remained with very
little intermission till our arrival here [Czarko-zelo].” He ascribed
these moody humours to the failure of the corn crop, which necessitated
the immediate purchase of 5,000,000 roubles’ worth of foreign grain,
and the distribution of Potemkin’s army in widespread cantonments.
To wage a great campaign while bread stood at famine prices was
impossible. In this predicament the Empress decided to hide her
retirement by a parade of diplomatic bluster. She despatched to
Constantinople a special envoy, Bulgakoff, to lay claim to the
Principality of Georgia, and to submit this and other matters in
dispute to the mediation of France and Austria. The move was dexterous;
but in such a case the success of a game of bluff depends on the
adversary not perceiving the weakness of which it is the screen. Now,
the Sublime Porte, though usually inert, divined the secret, and
resolved to withstand these endless affronts. During thirteen years
orthodox Moslems had writhed under the humiliations of the Treaty of
Kainardji (1774), which acknowledged the complete independence of the
Tartar Khans of the Crimea and the Kuban valley, and in vague terms
admitted the Czarina to be the protectress of the Christian subjects of
the Porte. In 1783, thanks to Austrian support, Catharine seized the
Crimea; and now she laid claim to Georgia. The cup of humiliation was
full; and the pride of Moslems scorned to drink it.
The despatches of Sir Robert Ainslie, British ambassador at
Constantinople, show clearly enough the motives that prompted that
Government to strike an unexpected blow. On 25th June 1787 he reported
to Carmarthen that the Porte looked on the journey of the Czarina and
her warlike preparations as designed to wear out the patience and the
resources of the Turks, who already were said to have 240,000 men ready
near the Danube, and others in Asia. If, he added, she did not explain
her present conduct, “I am afraid they will commence hostilities,” and
“strike a home blow in the Crimea.” On 10th July he stated that there
could be no solid peace so long as Russia held the Crimea in defiance
of the Treaty of Kainardji. “The honour of the Sultan, the security of
this Empire, the interest of the Mahometan religion, and those [_sic_]
of justice all require that ... the independence of the Crimea should
be re-established. It is true, the Porte agreed to the cession; but
that act, torn from her weakness, was involuntary and unjust. In short,
it can only be binding until a good opportunity offers to cancel its
effect. This, my Lord, seems the opinion of the Cabinet and the motive
of their extensive preparations, but they are diffident of success and
afraid to attack unless Russia herself furnishes pretext.” He adds that
the Turkish Ministers believed Bulgakoff’s mission to be designed to
“spin out the summer”; but that the Turkish levies could scarcely be
kept together.[789]
As for the temporizing offers of mediation from France and Austria,
the Porte would have none of them, and refused to accept any in which
Great Britain had no share. The Grand Vizier cherished the hope that
Austria and Russia were not really united by treaty, and seemed to
desire, rather than to avoid, a rupture. On 30th July the Reis Effendi
asked our ambassador what England would do in case of a Russo-Turkish
War. Ainslie replied that she would “keep strict neutrality,” and
strongly urged the need of peace. “Never will we purchase peace on the
dishonourable terms held out by Russia,” replied the Turkish Minister,
and he added with oriental subtlety that, unless she gave way, war
must come “before many months are elapsed.” Ainslie thought that this
portended war in the spring of 1788.[790]
But on 16th August the Sultan struck swiftly and hard. Doubtless
he had heard news of the famine in Russia and the dispersion of
Potemkin’s forces. It was clear that for a time the would-be aggressor
was reduced to the defensive. Was it not well, then, to deliver the
blow rather than wait for it to fall in the next year, and perhaps
from both Austria and Russia? True, the Turks were not ready--they
never were so. But their recent successes over the Mameluke Beys in
Egypt and the rebellious Mahmoud Pacha in Albania emboldened them to
take a step which completely surprised all the Cabinets of Europe. On
16th August, after a long conference with the Grand Vizier, Bulgakoff
and five members of his suite were apprehended and marched off to
the Seven Towers, there to be kept in close custody. This was the
Turkish way of declaring war to the knife. The Porte defended it on
the ground of outrages to its flag at Kinburn and Sevastopol;[791] but
the incident added rancour to the hatred of Catharine, and she swore
to glut her revenge upon the insolent infidels. Her rage was all the
greater because for once she was outwitted. Fitzherbert, on hearing of
the novel declaration of war by the Turks, stated to Carmarthen[792]
that it must have upset all her calculations, for he knew that the
blustering language used by Bulgakoff “was in fact intended to produce
the contrary effect.”[793]
* * * * *
These events were destined potently to influence the career of Pitt.
In one respect they affect his reputation; for Catharine in her fury
accused him of inciting the Turks to attack her.[794] The charge
was not unnatural. She had long shown her spleen against England
in bitter words and hostile deeds. More than once she thrust aside
Pitt’s overtures for an alliance; and she rejected his proposals for
a commercial treaty while she granted that boon to France (January
1787). Further, the outbreak of war in the East came very opportunely
for Great Britain and Prussia at the crisis of the Dutch embroglio and
enabled the Court of Berlin confidently to launch its troops against
the Patriots in Holland. The tilt given from Constantinople to the
delicately poised kaleidoscope of diplomacy had startling results. The
mobile Powers--Russia, Austria, and France--were fixed fast, while the
hitherto stationary States, Prussia and England, were set free for
swift action.
Nevertheless it is untrue that the tilt came from Pitt and Carmarthen.
They still clung to the traditional British policy of befriending
Russia, which Fox had enthusiastically supported. Our Government
instructed Fraser at St. Petersburg to express regret at the outbreak
of war and to offer, conjointly with Prussia, our good services for the
restoration of peace. Pitt also informed Vorontzoff, Russian ambassador
in London, of his desire for a good understanding with Russia, and
stated that he would not oppose acquisitions of Turkish territory. All
the evidence tends to prove that he strove to prevent hostilities,
which must upset the existing order in the East and probably end in
a general war. As the concern of Prussia was equally great (it being
certain by the end of 1787 that Austria would join in the war) the two
Protestant Powers drew together for joint action though not, as yet,
for actual alliance.[795]
In fact, we find here the reason of the coyness of Pitt in framing that
compact. He still preferred to have Russia, rather than Prussia, as an
ally. But his advances to Catharine ended with the impossible retort
that he must recall Ainslie from Constantinople. Nevertheless it was
not till the middle of March 1788 that Pitt took a step displeasing
to her by forbidding her agents to hire Russian transports in
England.[796] The Empress showed her annoyance at these strict notions
of neutrality by publicly receiving the famous American privateer, Paul
Jones.[797]
Pitt’s attitude towards Austria was at first equally friendly. On
14th September 1787 Carmarthen sent to Vienna assurances that the
Russo-Turkish War would make no difference to the friendship of George
III for Austria, and that we should maintain “the determined system
of this country to contribute as far as possible to the continuance
of the public tranquillity, or to its speedy restoration if unhappily
it should be interrupted.” By these and other proposals Pitt and
Carmarthen vainly sought to detach Austria from Russia, and also to
conjure away the spectre of a Triple Alliance between France, Russia,
and Austria, which long haunted the courts of Whitehall. Early in
1788, that ghost was laid by the Austrian attack upon the Turks, which
France had striven to avert, and Pitt felt free to accept the proffered
alliance of Prussia which, as we saw in Chapter XVI, finally came about
in August 1788.[798]
The campaign of that year is devoid of interest. Scarcity of bread on
the Russian side and the usual unpreparedness of the Turks clogged
the operations, which led to a sharp conflict only at one point. The
fortress of Kinburn, recently acquired by the Russians, commanded the
estuary formed by the converging Rivers Dnieper and Bug. It stood
opposite the Turkish fortress, Oczakoff, which was deemed the chief
bulwark of the Ottomans in the East. Early in October 1788 they made
an attempt to seize Kinburn as a prelude to the hoped-for conquest of
the Crimea. But in that fortress was a wizened little veteran, who ate
bread with the soldiers, startled them at dawn by his cock crows, and
summarized his ideas on tactics by the inspiriting words: “At them with
the cold steel.” The personality of Suvóroff was worth an army corps,
for it was bound up with triumph. He now waited within the walls of
Kinburn until the Turkish fleet landed 5,000 choice Janissaries below
the town. Then by a furious sally, flanked by a charge of ten squadrons
of horse on the wings, he broke up that fanatical band and drove it
into the sea. Only 700 Turks survived. The affair was not of the first
importance, but it heartened the Russians for the greater enterprises
of the next year.
Meanwhile Catharine, fuming at the sorry beginning of her war of
conquest, upbraided her ally with his tardiness in coming to her help.
But Joseph was in a difficult situation. The ferment in the Netherlands
and Hungary was increasing. The close union of England and Prussia
in Dutch affairs caused him much concern; and, as we have seen in
Chapter XIV, the French Ministry was fain to huddle up the disputes in
Holland, partly in order to be free to support the Sultan. Montmorin
resolved to thwart the partition of the Turkish Empire and brought
pressure to bear upon Kaunitz, who ever looked askance on oriental
adventures.[799] Nevertheless, by the month of November Joseph had
decided on war. The Austrians made a discreditable attempt to surprise
Belgrade; and in February 1788 war was declared.
The ensuing campaign was fertile in surprises. As often happens, the
Allies waited for one another to start the campaign, and thus lost the
early part of the summer. The Russians, owing to the armament of the
Swedes and the incapacity of Potemkin, did far less than was expected;
and the brunt of the Ottoman onset finally fell upon the Austrians.
Joseph was compelled to fall back towards Temesvar on the night of
20th September; and a panic seized the Imperialists. That motley host,
mistaking the shouts of its diverse races for the war cry of the Turks,
fired wildly upon the supposed pursuers; and the Ottomans, hearing
the babel din, finally pressed on the rout and captured 4,000 men and
a large part of the artillery and stores. Pestilence completed the
work begun by the Moslems; and thus it came about that the efforts of
200,000 Austrians effected nothing more than the surrender of Chotzim
and three other frontier strongholds of the second rank. The disgrace
dimmed the lustre of their arms, undermined the health of the Emperor,
and gave new heart to Hertzberg and the numerous enemies of the
Hapsburg realm.
* * * * *
The chief cause of this ignominious failure is ultimately traceable to
an influence that had long been at work far away, namely, the restless
ambition of Gustavus III of Sweden. In the summer of the year 1788 that
monarch suddenly drew the sword against Catharine, and from the vantage
ground of his Finnish province marched towards St. Petersburg. This
threatening move compelled the Empress to recall part of her forces,
condemned the rest of them to the defensive, and thus exposed the
Austrians to the spirited attack above described.
Seeing that Pitt was held to be ultimately responsible for these
events, we must pause here to sketch the character and career of
Gustavus III. Of the three monarchs dealt with in this chapter he
is not the least interesting. Rivalling Catharine in intellectual
keenness and moody waywardness, he excelled her in generosity, virtue,
and chivalry. There is in him the strain of romance which refines
the schemes, and adds pathos to the failures, of Joseph II; but the
Swede excelled the Hapsburg alike in grit, fighting power, charm, and
versatility. He was a bundle of startling opposites. Slight of figure,
naturally delicate and pensive, he threw himself eagerly into feats
of daring and hardihood. By turns poet and humourist, playwright and
warrior, devout but an incorrigible intriguer, he lured, enthralled,
browbeat, or outwitted the Swedish people as no one had done since
the days of Charles XII. In truth he seemed a re-incarnation of that
ill-starred ruler, especially in his power of calling forth the utmost
from his people, and leading them on to feats beyond their strength.
From the midsummer day of 1771 on which the young King opened his
Estates with a speech from the throne, it was clear that his iron will
and captivating address might regain for the Crown the power torn from
it some years before by the Caps, the faction of the opposing nobles
and burghers. Fourteen months later Gustavus struck his blow. Despite
the Russian gold poured in for the support of the Caps, the King gained
the people and the army to his side, locked the recalcitrant Senate
in their Chamber, overthrew the usurped authority of the Riksdag,
and thenceforth governed in the interests of his people. It was
characteristic of him that he prefaced his _coup d’état_ by the first
performance of a Swedish opera, the libretto of which he had himself
revised.[800]
Thenceforth “the royal charmer” governed at will, and Sweden regained
much of her old prestige. The traditional alliance with France was
renewed; and for a time the jealous Catharine seemed to acquiesce in
the new order of things at Stockholm. In reality she never ceased to
intrigue there, as also at Warsaw, seeking to recall the days of schism
and weakness. The extravagance of Gustavus played into her hands.
Little by little the factions regained lost ground; the Riksdag of 1786
threw out all but one of the royal measures; and the King was fain to
govern more absolutely.
The Russo-Turkish War now gave him the chance for which his restless
spirit longed, namely, to attempt to recover part at least of
the trans-Baltic lands ceded to Russia, and to dissolve a secret
Russo-Danish alliance which aimed at the overthrow of the present
_régime_ in Sweden. He therefore allied himself with the Sultan on
condition of receiving a yearly subsidy of 1,000,000 piastres. He
further sounded the Courts of Berlin, Warsaw, and Paris, but received
no encouragement. At London, as we have seen, his overtures at
Christmas 1787 were set aside. They were renewed in the spring of 1788,
and received more attention, it being then the aim of Pitt to bring
some of the secondary States into the projected Triple Alliance. But
the ardent spirit of Gustavus far outleaped the mark. His demands for
money were suspiciously large. “Sweden,” so Carmarthen wrote to Harris
on 20th June 1788, “has a most voracious appetite for subsidies, but
from the enormous extravagance of her demand has put it out of our
power to proceed further at present on that head.”[801]
This was fortunate; for Gustavus was then preparing to throw down the
gauntlet to Russia. Early in July he set sail for Helsingfors, and
launched at Catharine a furious ultimatum, bidding her cede Carelia and
Livonia to the Swedes, and restore the Crimea to the Sultan. On the
receipt of that astonishing missive the imperial virago raged, wept,
and swore by turns. The crisis was indeed serious. In and near St.
Petersburg were only 6,000 troops.
Nevertheless she acted with her wonted vigour. She called up the
Militia; and her fleet, commanded by Admiral Greig and officered
largely by Britons, prepared to dispute with Gustavus the mastery
of the Gulf of Finland.[802] In this it succeeded. It dealt the
smaller naval force of the Swedes a severe check, and soon cooped
it up in Sveaborg. Meanwhile the advance of the Swedes from their
Finnish province on the Russian capital was stopped by a mutiny of
the officers, which soon spread to the rank and file. The causes of
this event are still obscure. The admirers of Gustavus ascribed it to
the factiousness of nobles and the bribes of Catharine. The Swedish
Opposition, and also Charles Keene, British envoy at Stockholm,
explained it as the natural outcome of the extravagance and ambition
of the monarch who, not content with violating the constitution and
ruining the finances of his realm, wantonly plunged it into a struggle
for which he had not prepared. Consequently, when his ill-clad and
ill-fed militia found that the Russian raids into Finland were a myth,
and that the only enemies were royal ambition and famine, they at once
thwarted the former by constituting the army as a “confederation,” and
declaring their resolve for peace. If there must be war with Russia,
let it be declared legally by a freely elected Diet at Stockholm.[803]
The Swedish crews at Sveaborg, where food and warlike munitions were
alike wanting, partly joined in the movement; and the universality
of the discontent, which compelled Gustavus to return helplessly to
Stockholm, is perhaps sufficient proof that influences were at work
more widespread than party spirit and more potent than foreign gold.
However the fact may be explained, it is certain that the Swedes, when
almost within striking distance of the Russian capital, halted, sent
offers of an armistice, and then retreated into Finland. Catharine was
saved; but after the capture of Oczakoff from the Turks she vented her
spleen in one of her icily brilliant _mots_: “As Mr. Pitt wishes to
chase me from St. Petersburg, I hope he will allow me to take refuge at
Constantinople.”
It was natural for the Empress to suspect England and Prussia of
complicity in the Swedish enterprise; for she herself in a similar
case would have egged on Gustavus. But the evidence in the British
archives proves that neither George III nor Frederick William, Pitt
nor Hertzberg, had a hand in the matter. George III and Pitt loved
peace because it was economical. Through the spring and summer they
were trying to effect a pacification. On 16th May 1788 the Foreign
Office sent off a despatch to Ainslie urging him to co-operate with
Dietz, the Prussian Minister at the Porte, in order, if possible, to
pave the way for a joint mediation of England and Prussia with a view
to a pacification in the East; but he was to beware of entering into
other plans that the Court of Berlin might have in view, a hint against
the ambitious scheme of exchanges now forming in Hertzberg’s brain.
On Swedish affairs the despatch continued thus: “The Swedish armament
causes much speculation both in Russia and elsewhere: the avowed
purpose is the necessity of having a respectable force in that Kingdom
while Russia is fitting out so formidable a fleet.”[804] From this and
other signs it is clear that Pitt and Carmarthen, far from expecting
war in the Baltic, were intent on plans for stopping it on the Danube
and Black Sea.
As for Frederick William, he did not desire war in the North, because
it must curtail his pleasures; and Hertzberg, because peace would
leave him free to weave his plans more systematically. Ewart, our
active and zealous envoy at Berlin, who knew Hertzberg thoroughly,
informed Carmarthen on 19th June that Prussia was very cautious as to
forming any connection with Sweden.[805] Nine days later he reported
that Gustavus had made an alliance with Turkey, but probably would not
attack Catharine unless she sent a fleet from Cronstadt round to the
Mediterranean. On 25th July, after referring to the Swedish declaration
of war against Russia, he added that the Court of Stockholm hoped for
the support of Prussia only so far as to keep Denmark quiet. As for
himself, he had rebuked the Swedish envoy.[806]
In truth the action of Gustavus annoyed both England and Prussia.
They expressed to him their disapproval of his conduct in strong
terms. On 29th August Carmarthen wrote to Ewart censuring the action
of Gustavus, but adding that the Allies must intervene to stop the
war in the Baltic.[807] Pitt also, on hearing of the Danish armament,
resolved to save Gustavus from utter ruin. On 1st September he wrote
as follows to Grenville (not, be it noted, to Carmarthen): “We had
before written to Berlin with power to Ewart to send an offer of our
joint mediation if the King of Prussia agreed, and this seems now the
more necessary. Our intervention may prevent his [Gustavus] becoming
totally insignificant, or dependent upon Russia, and it seems to me
an essential point.”[808] Eight days later Carmarthen assured the
Prussian Court of his satisfaction that it would join in the proposed
mediation.[809]
The crisis was indeed most urgent. Catharine was thinking far less of
flitting to Constantinople than of ousting Gustavus from Stockholm. Her
treaty with Denmark contained secret clauses which bound that Court to
alliance with her in case of a Russo-Swedish war; and the young Prince
Royal of Denmark, though by marriage a nephew to Gustavus, was only too
eager for a campaign which promised to lead to the partition of the
Swedish kingdom. The excellent navy of the Danes, and their possession
of Norway, gave them great facilities for the invasion of the open
country near the important city of Gothenburg; and, that once taken,
they could easily master the South, and leave the factions at Stockholm
to complete their work.
Fortunately there was at Copenhagen one of the ablest of British
envoys. Hugh Elliot, brother of Sir Gilbert Elliot, was a man of spirit
and resource. His demeanour and habits of mind were as much those of
a soldier as of a diplomatist; and nature had endowed him with the
stately air and melodramatic arts which avail much at a crisis.[810]
For some time past he had suspected the ambitious views of the Prince
Royal of Denmark, who despite his minority, ruled the land through
the all-powerful Minister, Count Bernstorff. Their conduct was now
sinister. Ostensibly they regretted that their treaty with Russia
compelled them to attack Sweden, and welcomed Elliot’s suggestion
of British mediation as a means of preventing such a calamity.[811]
Possibly this was Bernstorff’s real conviction; for Elliot found out
later that the Russian party had sworn to ruin him unless he favoured a
warlike policy.
Certain it is that Bernstorff had instructed Schönborn, the Danish
envoy in London, to use honeyed words to Carmarthen, which virtually
invited England’s friendly mediation. In reply Carmarthen “told him
that the King lamented extremely the rupture which had taken place
between Russia and Sweden, and assured him of His Majesty’s earnest
desire to contribute as far as possible to the restoration of the
tranquillity of the North.” Carmarthen sent off a special messenger to
Elliot to enable him to propose immediately the mediation of England,
Prussia, and Holland between Denmark and Sweden.[812] Bernstorff
received this offer on 25th August in the friendliest manner, and
promised to check the warlike ardour of the Prince Royal. Four days
later Elliot had an interview with the Prince in the hope of refuting
the persistent rumours that England had incited both the Sultan and
the King of Sweden to attack Russia. The Prince accepted his denials,
but assured him that the Danes must fulfil their treaty obligations to
Russia.
This serious news led Pitt once again directly to intervene in
diplomatic affairs, and to draft the despatch of 9th September to
Elliot. He there stated that the instructions already sent off to him,
and to Ewart at Berlin, manifested the earnest desire of the British
Government for the ending of hostilities in the Baltic, “which might
be injurious to the balance of power in that part of the world.” He
deplored the aggressive intentions of the Danish Court, as being alike
opposed to its real interests and certain “to extend the mischiefs
of the present war in a manner which cannot fail to excite the most
serious attention, and to have a great effect on the conduct, of all
those Courts who are interested in the relative situation of the
different Powers of the Baltic.”[813]
Pitt, then, deeply regretted the outbreak of war in the North, but
none the less resolved to prevent the threatened dismemberment of
Sweden. The Prussian Court held even stronger views on the subject,
and expressed its indignation at the Danish inroad into Sweden “after
the repeated assurances given by the Danish Minister of pacific and
moderate dispositions.”[814] So keen was the annoyance at Berlin
that Frederick William resolved to draw up a Declaration that, if
Denmark attacked Gustavus, 16,000 Prussians would forthwith invade the
Danish Duchy of Holstein. Ewart at once informed Elliot of the entire
concurrence of Prussia with England, and thus enabled him to play a
daring game. On the evening of 17th September, acting on the advice
of Ewart, he resolved to take boat for the Swedish shore, and proceed
to the headquarters of Gustavus. The news which finally prompted
this decision was that the Swedish monarch had decided to accept the
proffered mediation not of the Allies, but of France.[815] Elliot
hoped to reverse this decision and to secure the triumph of British
and Prussian influence at the Swedish Court. He had not, it appears,
received Pitt’s despatch cited above, or even the special Instructions
sent a little earlier; but he knew enough to warrant his speaking in
lofty tones, which were destined to dash the hopes of Catharine and the
Prince Royal of Denmark.
We left Gustavus at Stockholm. There he did his best to quell the
discontent of the burghers; but it is probable that a Revolution
would have broken out but for the threat of a Danish invasion and the
impending loss of Gothenburg. The national danger tended to still the
strife of parties; and the King, commending his queen and children to
his people, rode away to Dalecarlia in order to arouse the loyal miners
and peasants of that region against the invaders. Though he harangued
them on the spot where Gustavus Vasa made his memorable appeals, their
response was doubtful; but, having raised a small band, he proceeded
towards the threatened city.[816]
On his way he met the British envoy at the town of Carlstadt. For
eleven days Elliot had searched for the King, and now found him without
troops, without attendants, and with a small following of ill-armed
peasants (29th September, 1788). Bitterly the monarch exclaimed that,
like James II, he must leave his kingdom, a victim to the ambition of
Russia, the treachery of Denmark, the factious treason of his nobles,
and his own mistakes. Thereupon Elliot replied: “Sire, give me your
Crown; I will return it to you with added lustre.” He then told him of
the offer of mediation by England and Prussia on his behalf. At first,
mindful of his engagements to France, Gustavus hesitated to accept
it. Had he known that Elliot was acting without official instructions
he might have slighted the offer. In truth, Elliot was acting only
on the general direction, that he was “to prevent by every means any
change in the relative situation of the Northern nations.” If this
formula was vague, it was wide; and it sufficed, along with the more
definite support from Berlin, to decide the fate of Sweden. Gustavus
at once resolved to place himself wholly in Elliot’s hands. The
latter therefore made his way to the Danish headquarters; while the
King proceeded to Gothenburg.[817] At that fortress the spirit of the
defenders was as scanty as the means of defence. But affairs took on
a new aspect when, at nightfall of 3rd October, a drenched and weary
horseman sought admittance at their gate. A tumult of joy arose in the
town when it was known that Gustavus was in their midst, the precursor
of succouring bands. Now there was no thought of surrender.
Nevertheless, things would have gone hard with the burghers had the
Danes pushed their attack home. This they seemed about to do. Elliot
in his interview at their headquarters made little impression on the
Prince Royal and the Commander-in-Chief, the Prince of Hesse. Their
kinship to Gustavus seemed but to embitter their hostility; and they
undoubtedly hoped, after the reduction of Gothenburg, to dismember the
Swedish realm, and aggrandise the closely related houses of Russia and
Denmark. They pressed on to Gothenburg and made ready for an assault.
But in the meantime Gustavus, receiving help from seamen on British
vessels in the harbour, encouraged the citizens to make ready and man
the guns. So firm a front did the defenders present that the Danes on
9th October assented to Elliot’s offer of an armistice of eight days.
Within that time the Prussian Declaration reached their headquarters,
and lust of conquest now gave way to fear of a Prussian invasion of
Jutland. Again therefore Elliot succeeded in prolonging the armistice,
which finally was extended to six months (13th November–13th May 1789).
It is clear, then, that the initiative boldly taken by Ewart and
Elliot, backed by the threats from Berlin, saved Sweden from a position
of acute danger. The King of Sweden himself confessed in a letter to
Armfelt that Elliot’s _grand coup_ in effecting an armistice had saved
his kingdom, had restored the balance of Europe, and covered England
with glory. Erskine, British Consul at Gothenburg, also declared that
but for “the spirited and unremitted exertions of Mr. Elliot, there is
not a doubt but this city and province would have fallen into the hands
of the enemy on their first advancing.”[818] Elliot also described
his achievements in flamboyant terms, which were called forth by an
unmerited rebuke of our Foreign Office, that his instructions were
to restore peace, not to threaten the Danes with war.[819] His reply
of 15th November ran as follows: “The success of my efforts has been
almost miraculous.... Had I arrived at Carlstadt twenty-four hours
later than I did; had I negotiated with less _energy_ or success at
Gothenburg than what has drawn upon me the resentment of Russia and the
abettors of the boundless ambition of that Court, the _Revolution_ in
Sweden was compleated, and a combination formed in the North equally
hostile to England and Prussia.” He then charged Bernstorff with
duplicity in expressing a desire for peace, “while the Danes were
marching on an almost defenceless town, the capture of which decided
irrevocably the fate of Sweden and the Baltic.”... “Six weeks after
my arrival in Sweden a victorious army of 12,000 men, animated by
the presence of their Prince, in sight of a most brilliant conquest,
were checked in their progress by my single efforts; were induced to
evacuate the Swedish territories, and consented to a truce of six
months.... Perhaps in the annals of history there is not to be found
a more striking testimony of deference paid by a foreign prince to a
King of England than what the Prince Royal of Denmark manifested upon
this trying occasion.” He then stated that the efforts of the Prussian
envoy were of no avail owing to the dislike in which he was held; and
that only his [Elliot’s] influence availed to undo the harm caused by a
violent action of Gustavus III in the middle of October.
It would be interesting to know what Pitt thought of this bombast;
but on 5th December Carmarthen guardedly commended the magniloquent
envoy, and urged him to gain over Denmark to the Triple Alliance;
for, as Catharine had now declined the mediation of the Allies, while
Gustavus had accepted it, Denmark could justly refuse her demands for
help in the next campaign. Ostensibly Denmark refused; but, owing to
the profuse expenditure of the Russian Embassy at Copenhagen (estimated
by our _chargé d’affaires_, Johnstone, at £500 a day[820]), Catharine
gained permission to have fifteen warships from the White Sea repaired
in that dockyard.
Gustavus III no sooner found himself safe than he laid his plans for
humbling his enemies both at home and abroad. He summoned a Diet, and
proceeded to educate the electors in their duties by drawing up a list
of the ten deputies whom the men of Stockholm should choose. They held
other opinions, and sent up six declared opponents of the King.[821]
On the whole, however, the Estates were with him, and he imposed a
constitution on the recalcitrant Order of the Nobles, whereby he gained
absolute control of foreign policy. This triumph for autocracy took
place at the end of April 1789, only a week before the assembly of the
States-General at Versailles, which sounded the knell of the House of
Bourbon. Gustavus informed Elliot of his resolve to keep at peace with
Denmark, because a war with her “would turn me from my great aim--the
safety of the Ottomans and the abasement of Russia.” He therefore
begged Elliot to assure the prolongation of the Danish armistice for
six months. That envoy had now come to see that the chief danger of
Sweden lay in “the romantic projects of glory and aggrandisement formed
by the Sovereign himself”; and he pointed out the need for the Allies
to prescribe the terms of peace before he succumbed to the superior
forces of Russia.[822] Already Catharine had announced her resolve in
the words--“When Gustavus has had his say to his Diet, I will have my
say to him.”
With Elliot’s view of things Pitt and the Duke of Leeds (formerly
Marquis of Carmarthen) were in complete accord. On 24th June they
informed him that Gustavus must not expect the Allies to make peace for
him on his own terms, but only on that of the _status quo ante bellum_.
In this effort England would cordially join in order to keep the
balance of power in the Baltic. “I cannot,” continued Leeds, “too often
repeat the earnest desire of this Government to conciliate the Court of
Denmark in the first instance; nor do we lose sight of another material
object--I mean, a cordial and permanent connection with Russia.” Above
all, England would not go to war unless the balance of the Baltic
Powers were seriously endangered, to the detriment of the commercial
States.[823]
Here, then, we have another proof of the peaceful and cautious
character of Pitt’s policy. He distrusted the crowned Don Quixote of
the North, was resolved to save him only on England’s terms, viz.,
the _status quo_, and hoped that the pacification might lead up to an
alliance with Denmark and finally with Russia. In fact, he kept in view
the Northern System which had guided British statesmen of the earlier
generation. His aims were frustrated by the shifty policy of Denmark
and the vindictiveness of Catharine. “Hamlet” and “Semiramis,” as
Harris once termed them, thought lightly of England and longed for the
partition of Sweden. Accordingly the Danish fleet convoyed the fifteen
Russian men-of-war, long refitting at Copenhagen, into the Baltic,
until they joined the Cronstadt squadron of twenty-six ships near
Bornholm, and thereby secured for it a superiority in that sea. The
Duke of Leeds sent a sharp protest to Copenhagen, with the hint that
furthur actions of this kind might entail disagreeable consequences for
Denmark.[824] Even with this unfair help accorded to Russia, the Swedes
sustained no serious reverse either by land or sea. Gustavus summed up
the results of the campaign in the words: “After fighting like madmen
about every other day for two months, here we are at the same point at
which we started.” Nevertheless he had clogged the efforts of Catharine
against the Turks, and thus enabled his allies to prolong the unequal
struggle against two great empires. Neither the loss of Oczakoff,
nor the accession of the less capable Sultan, Selim III, daunted the
resolve of the Ottomans to continue a war which was for them an affair
of religious zeal and national honour.
CHAPTER XXII
PARTITION OR PACIFICATION?
He who gains nothing, loses.--CATHARINE II.
We cannot be considered as in any degree bound to support a system
of an offensive nature, the great end of which appears to be
aggrandisement rather than security.--PITT and the DUKE OF LEEDS,
24th June 1789.
The excess of an evil tends to produce its own cure. The resources
of two great Empires were being used for a partition of the Turkish
dominions, in a way which must have led to a succession of wars
without benefiting the Christians of the East. But the prospect of
the aggrandisement of Russia speedily led the hardy Gustavus to
strike a blow at her northern capital; and when Catharine incited the
Danes to deal a counterstroke at his unguarded rear, Great Britain
and Prussia intervened to prevent the overthrow of Sweden and of the
balance of power in the Baltic. Thus, forces which pressed on towards
Constantinople produced a sharp reaction in widening circles and
prompted States to attack or arm against their neighbours--Sweden
against Russia, Denmark against Sweden, and England and Prussia against
Denmark. Consequently Gustavus III might claim to have saved the
Turkish Empire; for his action brought into the arena England and, to
some extent, the Dutch Republic.
Less obvious but more potent was the influence of Prussia. Her forces,
cantoned along the Austrian and Russian borders, halved the efforts of
those Empires against the Turks and encouraged the Polish nationalists
to resist Russian predominance at Warsaw. Thus, by the year 1789,
instead of moving the forces of two Empires and of Poland against the
Turks, Catharine found her energies clogged, her resources strained,
and only one important conquest achieved, that of Oczakoff. Over
against this triumph she had to set the menacing attitude of the
Triple Alliance lately framed by Great Britain, Prussia, and the Dutch
Republic.
For a time the Czarina cherished the hope that the insanity of George
III, and the accession of the Regent, would lead to the downfall
of Pitt and the reversal of British policy. On 8/19 December 1788
she wrote to her ambassador at London, Count Vorontzoff (Woronzow),
charging him to make overtures to Fox and the Dukes of Portland and
Devonshire for the renewal of the Anglo-Russian alliance, which for the
last five years she had spurned. With a vehemence of style, in which
feelings figured as facts, she inveighed against Pitt for slighting her
many offers of friendship, for allowing Ainslie and Elliot to incite
Turkey and Sweden to attack her, and for entangling himself in the
dangerous and visionary schemes of Hertzberg. All this, however, would
be changed when the Prince of Wales and Fox came to power.
On 19/30 January Vorontzoff replied that he had seen Fox, who accorded
him a hearty welcome, and said that in a fortnight the Regency would
be established. He (Fox) would then be Foreign Secretary, and would
be able to speak of England’s treaty obligations to Prussia. The
language of Fox showed some measure of caution, and partly palliated
the gross imprudence of according an interview at all. A little later
(perhaps before receiving Vorontzoff’s answer) the Empress expressed
her admiration of the reply sent by the Prince of Wales (it was really
Burke’s and Sheridan’s) to Pitt, as it argued distinguished talents.
The Prince and Fox, she said, would certainly prevent their people
being dragged at the heel of Prussia. As for herself, she declared
her wish to grant them a commercial treaty, which she had refused
two years before. The correspondence throws a curious light on the
feline diplomacy of Catharine and on the singular folly of Fox.[825]
It also prepares us for the unpatriotic part which he played in the
Anglo-Russian dispute of the year 1791. The recovery of George III,
about the time when Catharine indited the latter epistle, pricked the
bubble, and left Pitt in a position of greater power than ever.
Thus, in the spring of 1789, the general position was somewhat as
follows. England, Prussia, and Holland, acting in close concert, were
resolved to prevent any revolutionary changes in the Baltic. This
implied that Denmark could not attack Sweden, and that Gustavus might
war against Catharine until she chose to accept the mediation of the
Allies for the re-establishment of the _status quo ante bellum_. As for
the other Powers, France was almost a nullity owing to the internal
troubles which were leading up to the Revolution. Spain was friendly to
the Allies and favoured the cause of Sweden and Turkey.[826] Moreover
the Poles, acting on hints from Berlin, were beginning to shake off
Russian tutelage and to feel their way towards a drastic reform of
their chaotic polity. Early in 1789 the Prussian Court sought for a
close political and commercial union with Poland. The ensuing compact
freed the Poles from the obligations contracted by King Stanislaus
with his former mistress, Catharine II; it further promised to bind
their realm to England and Holland; above all, it opened up vast
possibilities for the regeneration of that hapless people.
As for the concert of the two Empires, discords were already heard.
Joseph II, alarmed at the turmoil in Hungary and Belgium, as well
as disgusted at the results of his first Turkish campaign, talked
of waging merely a defensive war, and of offering easy terms to the
Ottomans. Potemkin, puffed up by the capture of Oczakoff, announced
his resolve that Moldavia and Wallachia should never fall to the
Hapsburgs--an aim that had been distinctly formulated at Vienna.
Russia herself, a prey to the greedy gang who fawned on the Empress
and drained her treasury, seemed unable to bear for long the strain of
war on two frontiers, and of precautionary measures against Prussia.
The Court of Berlin, as Mirabeau had pointed out, was honeycombed by
intrigues and favouritism; but it was sound at the core compared with
Russia. The French author of the “Secret Memoirs of the Court of St.
Petersburg” states that in the declining years of Catharine the Russian
finances were exploited in a way more disgraceful than even France
had seen; that none were so little as the great; and that officers
notoriously lived on the funds of their regiments. Catharine herself
once jauntily remarked about a colonel--“Well! If he be poor, it is his
own fault; for he has long had a regiment.” It speaks volumes for the
patriotism and stupidity of the troops that they still had enough of
the old Muscovite staunchness to carry them to victory over the Turks.
But such was the case. In the campaigns of 1789 the army of Suvóroff
gained several successes, and the troops of Joseph II, once more urged
onwards by that ruler, also had their meed of triumph.
This was partly due to the death of Abdul Hamid I, which brought to the
Ottoman throne a feebler successor, Selim III (April 1789). The Grand
Vizier, the soul of the war party, was soon overthrown, and the next
commander-in-chief, the Pacha of Widdin, impaired by his slothfulness
the fighting power of the Ottomans.[827] Belgrade and Semendria were
lost. But even more serious, perhaps, than these reverses was the
emergence of plans at Berlin which portended gain to Prussia at the
expense of Turkey. We are concerned here with European affairs only so
far as they affected British policy, and must therefore concentrate
our attention on the statecraft of the years 1789 and 1790, which
threatened sweeping changes on the Continent and brought into play the
cautious conservatism of Pitt. The French Revolution and its immense
consequences will engage our attention later.
As we saw in Chapter XVI, the Prussian statesman, Hertzberg, had long
been maturing an ingenious scheme for the aggrandisement of Prussia, by
a general shuffling together of boundaries in the East of Europe.[828]
On 13th May 1789 he presented it in its complete form to Frederick
William, who, after long balancings on this question, now accorded his
consent. The Prussian monarch thereby pledged himself, at a favourable
occasion, to offer his armed mediation to Russia, Austria, and Turkey.
If the two Empires overcame the Sultan, as seemed probable, Prussia was
to threaten their frontiers with masses of troops and, under threat of
war, compel them to accept her terms. If, however, victory inclined
to the crescent, Dietz, the Prussian envoy at Constantinople, was to
remind the Sublime Porte that the triumph was largely due to Prussia’s
action in enabling Sweden to continue the war against Russia, and in
thwarting Catharine’s plan of an invasion of Turkey by the Poles.
Dietz was also to hint “in a delicate and not threatening manner,”
that if Prussia threw her weight into the scales against the Turks,
the new Coalition must speedily overwhelm her. “Therefore the Porte
will do well not to balance on that point,” but will accept Prussia’s
terms.[829] There was a third alternative, that the war would drag on
indecisively, in which case the exhaustion of the belligerents must
enable Prussia to work her will the more readily.
Accordingly Hertzberg hoped that, however the fortunes of war inclined,
he would gain his ends. They were as follows. The Turks, if victorious,
must sacrifice their gains (the Crimea, etc.) at the demand of Prussia,
and thus enable her to compel Austria to restore to the Poles the great
province of Galicia, torn from them in the partition of 1772. The Poles
in their turn were to reward Frederick William by ceding to him the
fortresses of Danzig and Thorn, along with part of Great Poland, which
so inconveniently divided Prussia’s eastern lands.
The same general result was to follow in the event of Russia and
Austria driving back the Turks to their last natural barrier, the
Balkans. Prussia was then to draw the sword on behalf of Turkey and
Sweden, restore the balance in the South-East, and give the law to all
parties. In that case, it appeared (though Hertzberg wavered on this
point), Austria might acquire Moldavia and Wallachia from Turkey, and
thereby close against Russia the door leading to the Balkans. At times
Hertzberg stated that Austria must in any case gain those commanding
provinces, which would sever her friendship with Russia.[830] As for
Catharine, she might retain the Crimea, and gain land perhaps as far as
the Dniester. On the whole, however, Hertzberg hoped that Prussia need
not go to war, but that the Turks would make a good enough stand at the
Danube to enable the mere appearance of the splendid army of Prussia on
the frontiers of the two Empires to enforce his demands.
Much has been written for and against this scheme. Among the many
projects of that time it holds a noteworthy place. Certainly it would
greatly have simplified the boundaries of Eastern Europe. The recovery
by Poland of her natural frontier on the south-west, the Carpathians,
would strengthen that State, and enable her, with the help of her
Prussian ally, to defy the wrath of the two Imperial Courts. Hertzberg
believed that the Poles would gladly accept the offer. For was not
the great province of Galicia worth the smaller, though commercially
valuable, districts on the lower Vistula which would go to Frederick
William? Further, would not a good commercial treaty between the Allies
(in which England, it was hinted, might have her share) make up for the
loss of the prosperous city of Danzig? In truth, the proposal reminds
one of the schemes for scientific frontiers which Rousseau outlined and
Napoleon reduced to profitable practice.
It might have succeeded had nations been mere amoebae, divisible at
will. Traders and philosophers might acclaim Hertzberg as the Adam
Smith of Prussia and Poland. In truth, his plan was defensible, even
on its Machiavellian side--the aggrandisement of Prussia, ultimately
at the expense of the Turks. For it might be argued that the ultimate
triumph of the crescent was impossible, and that only the action of
Sweden, Prussia, and to a less extent England, could avert disaster.
Hertzberg also claimed that Prussia and her Allies should guarantee to
Turkey the security of her remaining possessions, and deemed this a
set-off to the disappointments brought by his other proposals.
Nevertheless the balance of argument was heavily against the scheme. As
the Pitt Cabinet pointed out in a weighty pronouncement on 24th June,
Hertzberg proposed to use Turkey as a medium for the attainment of his
ends, which were the depression of Austria and the aggrandisement of
Prussia. However well and successfully the Turks fought, the gain was
to accrue to Frederick William, not to the Swedes, who were fighting
desperately for the Ottoman cause. True, Prussia promised in the last
resort to help the Sultan to recover some of his lost provinces; but
even then, the acquisitions of the two Empires at the end of costly
campaigns were scarcely to balance those of Prussia and Poland. Well
might the British Cabinet say of the Turks: “It seems very doubtful
whether either their power or their inclination would answer the
expectations of the Court of Berlin.”
After this ironical touch the verdict of the Pitt Ministry was given to
Ewart as follows:
You will not fail to assure the Ministers at Berlin of the
satisfaction with which the King will see any real and solid
advantages derived to His Prussian Majesty by such arrangements
as may be obtained by way of negotiation and without the danger
of extending those hostilities [which] it is so much the interest
of all Europe to put an end to. We cannot but acknowledge the
friendly attention manifested by His Prussian Majesty towards his
Allies in taking care not to commit them in the event of the Porte
acceding to the proposed plan of co-operation, the operations of
which go so much beyond the spirit of our treaty of Alliance,
which is purely of a defensive nature, and by which we cannot of
course be considered as in any degree bound to support a system
of an offensive nature, the great end of which appears to be
aggrandisement rather than security, and which from its very nature
is liable to provoke fresh hostilities instead of contributing to
the restoration of general tranquillity.
In discussing these points, and indeed upon every other occasion,
I must beg of you, Sir, to remember that it is by no means
the idea of His Majesty, or of his confidential servants, to
risk the engaging this country in a war on account of Turkey,
either directly or indirectly; and I am to desire you would be
particularly careful in your language, to prevent any intention
of that nature being imputed to us. I think it necessary to
mention this distinctly, as I observe in one of your dispatches,
you state the continuance of the Northern War _as in some degree
advantageous_, as it would be a powerful _diversion in case the
Allies should take part in the Turkish War_. This I must again
observe to you is an object by no means in our view.
With respect to any future guarantee of the Ottoman Empire it is
impossible for us to commit ourselves at present. The consideration
will naturally arise how far such a guarantee is either necessary
or beneficial when the terms of peace come under discussion. The
effect which a guarantee of the Turkish possessions might create
in Russia likewise deserves some consideration; and I cannot but
observe that the whole tenor of these Instructions [those sent to
Dietz] seems likely to throw at a greater distance the chance of
detaching Russia from Austria and connecting it with us; whereas
hitherto it has been our object, and, as it appeared to us, that
of Prussia, while we made Russia feel the disadvantage of being
upon distant terms with us, and avoided doing anything which looked
like courting her friendship, still to avoid pushing things to an
extremity or precluding a future connection.[831]
At several points this pronouncement challenges attention. Firstly,
it does not once refer to the feelings and prejudices of the peoples
who were to be bartered about. Only four days previously the Commons
of France had sworn by the Tennis Court Oath that they would frame a
constitution for their land--a declaration which rang trumpet-tongued
through England; but not the faintest echo of it appears in the
official language of Pitt and the Duke of Leeds. Their arguments
are wholly those of the old school, but of the old school at its
best. For, secondly, they deprecate changes of territory forced by a
mediating Power on the people it ostensibly befriends, which tend to
their detriment and its own benefit. They question whether Prussia can
press through these complex partitions without provoking a general
war--the very evil which the Triple Alliance has sought to avoid.
Certainly England will never go to war to bring them about; neither
will she draw the sword on behalf of Turkey. On the contrary, she hopes
finally to regain the friendship of Russia. Most noteworthy of all is
the central criticism, that the aim of Hertzberg is “aggrandisement
rather than security.” We shall have occasion to observe how often Pitt
used this last word to denote the end for which he struggled against
Revolutionary France and Napoleon; and its presence in this despatch
bespeaks the mind of the Prime Minister acting through the pen of the
Duke of Leeds.
The defensive character of Pitt’s policy further appears in a despatch
to Ewart, also of 24th June, cautioning that very zealous envoy that
all possible means are being taken to win over Denmark peacefully to
the Triple Alliance, in order that it may “command the keys of the
Baltic.” Gustavus is to be warned that the Allies cannot help him
unless he agrees to forego his hopes of gain at the expense of Russia,
and “to act merely upon the defensive.” The _status quo ante bellum_
would be the fairest basis of peace in the Baltic, and it would prove
“that the real object of our interference was calculated for general
views of public utility, and not founded upon any motives of partiality
for one Power or resentment to another.”
For a time events seemed to work against the pacific policy of Pitt and
in favour of the schemes of Hertzberg. The summer witnessed not only
the advance of the Russians and Austrians into the Danubian Provinces,
but also the wrigglings to and fro of the Danish Court, which enabled
the Russian squadron at Copenhagen to join the Cronstadt fleet and
command the Baltic. Nevertheless, Prussia felt that she had the game
in her own hands, however much her Allies might hold aloof; for the
Austrian Government was distracted by news of the seething discontent
of the Hungarians, of the Poles in Galicia, and, above all, of the
Brabanters and Flemings. Joseph II, too, was obviously sinking under
these worries, which seemed to presage the break up of his Empire.[832]
The Prussian Court therefore resolved to concentrate its efforts on
wresting Galicia and the Belgic Provinces from the Hapsburg Power,
especially as the Porte, despite its recent defeats, refused to listen
to Dietz when he mentioned the cession of Moldavia and Wallachia to the
infidels.[833] Until the Moslems had learnt the lessons of destiny,
it was obviously desirable to set about robbing Austria by more
straightforward means.
* * * * *
The folly of Joseph II favoured this scheme of robbery. His reforms
in the Belgic Provinces had long brought that naturally conservative
people to the brink of revolt, so that in the spring of the year 1789
plans were laid not only at Brussels but also at Berlin for securing
their independence. Hertzberg sought to work upon the fears of Pitt by
hinting that Austria might call in the French troops to stamp out the
discontent--a contingency far from unlikely, were it not that France
was rapidly sliding into the abyss of bankruptcy and revolution. By a
curious coincidence the repressive authority of Joseph II was exerted
on 18th June, the day after the Third Estate of France defiantly styled
itself the National Assembly. While Paris was jubilant at the news of
this triumph, the mandates of the Emperor swept away the Estates and
ancient privileges of Brabant. As this action involved the suppression
of the ancient charter of privileges, quaintly termed _La Joyeuse
Entrée_, the Brabanters put into practice its final clause, that the
citizens might use force against the sovereign who infringed its
provisions. “Act here as in Paris” ran the placards in Brussels and
other cities. The capture of the Bastille added fuel to the fire in
Belgium; and the nationalist victory was completed by a rising of the
men of Liége against the selfish and deadening rule of their Prince
Bishop.[834]
The likeness between the Belgian and French Revolutions is wholly
superficial. Despite the effort of Camille Desmoulins to link the
two movements in sympathy--witness the title of his newspaper “Les
Révolutions de France et de Brabant”--no thinking man could confound
the democratic movement in France with the narrowly national and
clerical aims of the majority in Brabant and Flanders. True, an attempt
was made by a few progressives, under the lead of Francis Vonck, to
inculcate the ideas of Voltaire and Rousseau; but the influence of
the Roman Church, always paramount in Flanders, availed to crush this
effort. Van der Noot and the clericals gained the upper hand, and
finally compelled the Vonckists to flee over the southern border.
In the month of July Van der Noot declared in favour of a Belgian
Republic under the guarantee and protection of England, Prussia, and
Holland. He set on foot overtures to this end which met with a friendly
response at Berlin and The Hague.[835] The Prussian Court sent General
Schliessen to discuss the matter with the British Government; but Pitt
and Leeds behaved very guardedly on a question involving a recognition
of the Belgian revolt and the end of the Barrier System on which we had
long laid so much stress. Their despatch of 14th September to Ewart
emphasized the difficulties attending Van der Noot’s proposal, even if
his statements were correct. At the same time Ministers asserted that
the Allies must at all costs prevent the Belgians becoming dependent on
France, a noteworthy statement which foreshadows Pitt’s later policy of
resisting the annexation of those rich provinces to the French Republic
or Empire. For the present, he strongly advised Prussia and Holland to
await the course of events and do nothing “to threaten the interruption
of that tranquillity it is so much their interest, and, I trust, their
intention, to preserve.” Above all, it would be well to wait for the
death of Joseph II, already announced as imminent, seeing that his
successor might grant to the Belgians the needed concessions.[836]
The Belgians seem to have trusted the Pitt Cabinet far more than
Hertzberg, whose restless policy aroused general distrust. They made
two overtures to the British Court. The former of these, strange to
say, came through a French nobleman, the Comte de Charrot, who called
on Lord Robert Fitzgerald, our envoy at Paris, on or about 21st
October, and confided to him his resentment against France, his warm
sympathies with the Belgians (he was a descendant of the old Counts of
Flanders), and his fear that France would dominate that land after the
downfall of Austrian authority. He besought Fitzgerald to forward to
the Duke of Leeds a letter warning the Cabinet of the efforts of the
National Assembly to form a party among the Brabanters and Flemings,
who, however, were resolved not to accept the rule of a foreign prince,
but to form a Republic under the protection of Great Britain. To this
end they were willing to place in her hands the city of Ostend as a
pledge of their fidelity to the British connection. A German prince, he
added, would never be tolerated, save in the eastern provinces, Limburg
and Luxemburg. His letter, dated Antwerp, 15th October, to the Duke of
Leeds, is couched in the same terms.[837]
The proposal opens up a vista of the possibilities of that strange
situation. By planting the British flag at Ostend, and by allowing
Prussia to dominate the eastern Netherlands, Pitt could have built up
once more a barrier on the north-east of France. All this was possible,
provided that Charrot’s proposals were genuine and represented the
real feelings of the Belgians. Evidently Pitt and Leeds distrusted the
offer, which seems to have been left unanswered.
Early in November, when the plans of the Belgian patriots for ousting
the Austrians were nearing completion, they sent as spokesman Count de
Roode to appeal for the protection of George III. Pitt laid the request
before the King; and the result will be seen in Pitt’s letter to the
Count:
Downing St. _Nov. 13, 1789_.
I have received the letter which you honoured me with, informing
me that you were employed on the part of the people of Brabant
to solicit the King’s protection, and desiring to see me for the
purpose of delivering a letter to me on that subject. I thought
it my duty to lay these circumstances before His Majesty, who has
not been pleased to authorize me to enter into any discussion in
consequence of an application which does not appear to be made by
any regular or acknowledged authority. I must therefore, Sir, beg
you to excuse me, if, on that account, I am under the necessity of
declining seeing you for the purpose which you propose.[838]
Somewhat earlier the Duke of Orleans had come on a mission to London,
ostensibly on the Belgian Question, but really for a term of forced
absence from Paris. It will therefore be well to describe his visit in
a later chapter.
Cold as were Pitt’s replies to de Roode, he certainly kept a watchful
eye on Belgian affairs. For, on the one hand, if Joseph II succeeded
in establishing despotic power at Brussels, he would gain complete
control over the finances and armed forces of that flourishing land,
with results threatening to the Dutch and even to Prussia. If, however,
the Brabanters succeeded as the Flemings had done, French democracy
might rush in as a flood and gallicize the whole of that land to
the detriment of England. Pitt therefore approved of the Prussian
proposal to send troops to occupy the Bishopric of Liége, seeing that
the deposed bishop had appealed to Austria for armed aid. With the
prestige gained by the military occupation of Liége, Hertzberg hoped
to dominate the situation both in the Low Countries and in the East.
Most pressingly did he urge the need of instantly recognizing the
independence of the Belgian provinces; but after long arguments Ewart
convinced him that it might be better, even for Prussia, to press for
the restoration of their old constitution, with all its limitations to
the power of the Emperor, under the guarantee of the three Allies. If
Ewart succeeded with Hertzberg, he failed with Frederick William, who
on that and other occasions showed himself “very elated” and determined
to tear from Austria that valuable possession, as well as Galicia.[839]
Hertzberg did his utmost to persuade England to combine the two
questions so as the more to embarrass Austria; but he met with steady
refusals.
On 30th November Pitt took the sense of the Cabinet. It was clearly in
favour of non-intervention and the restoration as far as possible of
the previous state of things. Nevertheless, the men of Brabant, in case
of defeat by the Imperialists, were encouraged to hope that the Allies
would declare for the restoration of the old constitution. On the other
hand, in case of victory, they were to be induced “to take steps for
preventing the prevalence of democratical principles.”[840] Obviously,
then, Pitt desired to keep out both Prussian and French influence,
and to leave the Belgians free to come to terms with the successor of
Joseph II after the imminent demise of that monarch. Events favoured
this solution. In December Brussels and all parts of Brabant shook off
the yoke of the Imperialists, who retired to Luxemburg. Early in the
year 1790 deputies from the nine Belgic provinces met at Brussels,
declared the deposition of Joseph, and formed a Federal Congress for
mutual protection. The clerical and conservative party, headed by Van
der Noot, sent to Paris an appeal for support, which found no favour
either with Louis or the National Assembly, the King desiring not to
offend Austria, and the French deputies distrusting the aims of the
majority at Brussels.
Pitt and his colleagues were equally cautious. On the news of the
successful revolt of Brussels, they seemed for a time to incline to the
Prussian plan of recognizing the independence of Belgium,[841] and on
9th January 1790 they framed a compact with Prussia and Holland with
a view to taking common action in this affair. But the most urgent
demands from Berlin in favour of immediate action failed to push Pitt
on to this last irrevocable step. It does not appear that the King
controlled his action; for at that time he was so far absorbed in the
escapades of his sons (those of Prince Edward were an added trouble) as
to be a cipher in all but domestic concerns. Pitt and Leeds therefore
had a free hand. They were influenced probably by the news that Joseph,
despite the progress of his mortal disease, had resolved to subdue
the Netherlands. The tidings opened up two alternatives--war between
Austria and Prussia, or the possibility of a peaceful compromise
after the death of Joseph and the accession of his far more tractable
brother, Leopold.
These seem to have been the motives underlying the decision of the
Pitt Cabinet, early in 1790, to defer any decisive action by the
Allies. The Duke of Leeds pointed out to Ewart on 9th February that
the feuds between the Belgic provinces made them useless as allies;
that any immediate recognition of their independence would have
“mischievous effects”; and that a reconciliation between them and their
future ruler seemed highly probable. They should, therefore, not be
encouraged to hope for recognition by the Allies. Leeds closed by very
pertinently asking the Court of Berlin “how far this new Republic, once
established, could be (and by whom) prevented from becoming indirectly,
if not directly, totally dependent upon France.” The argument derived
added force from the fact that a “French emissary” was then at Brussels
offering the recognition by France of the proposed Belgian Republic,
with the help of 20,000 troops against any who should oppose it.[842]
This offer was not official; but as the moods of the National Assembly
varied day by day, it might at any time become so. Certainly the chance
of French invervention added a sting to the reproaches soon to be
levelled at Pitt from Berlin.
They were called forth by the missive above referred to, and by a
“secret and confidential” despatch of the same date. In the latter Pitt
and Leeds warned Ewart that the proposed armed mediation of Prussia
against Catharine and Joseph was outside the scope of the Triple
Alliance. The British Government wished Prussia the success which might
be expected from the power of her army, the flourishing state of her
revenue, and the present doubtful condition both of Russia and Austria;
but it could not participate in “measures adopted without the previous
concurrence of the Allies.”[843]
A storm of obloquy broke upon Ewart when he announced these decisions.
The Court of Berlin insisted on the need of immediately recognizing
Belgian independence, adding a threat that otherwise those provinces
would do well to throw themselves upon France. Our ambassador partly
succeeded in stilling the storm, especially when news came of tumults
at Brussels and the uncertainty of the outlook throughout Brabant.
Frederick William then recognized the wisdom of waiting until affairs
were more settled, but he declared that he “was abandoned by his
Allies,” and that, unless Galicia could be detached from Austria, he
would prefer to see the Netherlands go to France.[844] This piece of
royal pettishness served at least to show that his friendship for
England depended on her serving his designs against Austria.
Here was the weakness of the Triple Alliance. The Allies had almost
nothing in common, except that the British and Dutch both wished to
live in peace and develop their trade. Prussia, on the contrary, saw
in this time of turmoil the opportunity of consolidating her scattered
Eastern lands by a scheme not unlike the Belgic-Bavarian Exchange.
On the score of morality we may censure such plans; but vigorous and
growing States will push them on while their rivals are abased, and
will discard Allies who oppose them. In this contrariety of interests
lay the secret of the weakness of the Anglo-Prussian alliance during
the upheavals of the near future. It also happened that the House of
Hohenzollern matured these plans at the very time when the fortunes
of the House of Hapsburg, after touching their nadir, began once more
to rise; and the revival of Austria under Leopold II helped Pitt
to maintain the existing order of things in Central Europe against
all the schemings of Hertzberg. The success of Pitt in this work of
statesmanlike conservation marks the climax of his diplomatic career;
and, as it has never received due attention, I make no apology for
treating it somewhat fully in the following chapter.
CHAPTER XXIII
PARTITION OR PACIFICATION (CONTINUED)
I want the trumpet of an angel to proclaim to the ears of
sovereigns that it is become their universal interest as well as
their moral duty to have a period of peace.--LORD AUCKLAND TO SIR
ROBERT MURRAY KEITH, 7th May 1790.
Probably at no time in the history of Europe have all the leading
States been so bent on plans of mutual spoliation as in the closing
weeks of the life of Joseph II of Austria. The failure of his schemes
and the probability of a break up of the Hapsburg dominions whetted
the appetites of all his neighbours and brought Europe to the verge
of a general war. In these circumstances it was providential that one
Great Power stood for international morality, and that its counsels
were swayed by a master-mind. The future of Europe depended on the
intelligent conservatism of Pitt and the duration of the life of his
political opposite, Joseph II. That life had long been wearing rapidly
away; and on 20th February 1790 he died, full of pain, disappointment,
and regret that crowned the tragedy of his career.
His death brought new life and hopes to the Hapsburg peoples. The
new sovereign, Leopold II, his brother, soon proved to be one of the
astutest rulers of that race. He has been termed the only ruler of
that age who correctly read the signs of the times.[845] If Joseph
was called the crowned philosopher, Leopold may be styled the crowned
diplomatist. Where the former gave the rein to the impulses of
Voltairian philosophy and romantic idealism, his successor surveyed
affairs with a calculating prudence which resulted, perhaps, from
the patriarchal size of his family--he had twelve children--and from
his long rule in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.[846] Certainly he knew
how impossible it was to thrust advanced Liberal ideas and central
institutions on the tough and unenlightened peoples of the Hapsburg
realm. Above all he discerned the folly of aggressive foreign policy
while all was turmoil at home. He therefore prepared to pacify his
subjects before the war cloud hanging over the Riesengebirge burst upon
Bohemia.
His caution and pliability opened up a new future for Central Europe.
Had the headstrong and pertinacious Joseph lived much longer (though
some gleams of prudence lighted on him in his last months) revolts
could scarcely have been staved off in Hungary and the Low Countries,
where even his belated concessions inspired distrust. Above all, he
could never have coped with the forceful policy of Prussia. There is
little room for doubt that the continuance of his life would have
involved the loss of the Belgic provinces, Galicia, and, perhaps, even
Bohemia. The Hohenzollerns would have leaped to heights of power that
would always challenge to conflict; and Europe, a prey to Revolution
in the West, must have been torn at the heart by deadly strifes, both
dynastic and racial.
In closing the sluices against the currents about to be let loose
at Berlin, Pitt had latterly counted on the well-known prudence of
Leopold of Tuscany. On 26th February, before the decease of Joseph was
known in London, the British Government stiffly opposed the Prussian
plan of acknowledging the independence of the Austrian Netherlands.
Great Britain--so ran the despatch to Ewart, our envoy to Berlin--had
covenanted merely to prevent the Emperor making “an unrestrained use
of the wealth and population” of those provinces, and to obviate the
possibility of their going to swell the power of France. England (added
Pitt in a side note of his own) must counteract French intrigues in
Brabant; but they were unofficial, and would probably fail.[847] He
therefore deprecated any action which must lead to a war with Austria;
but he offered to help Prussia in restoring the former state of
things in the Low Countries. Stress was then laid on “the necessity
of enabling Sweden to defend herself by another campaign against
Russia”; England would pay her part of the sum needed for the support
of Gustavus, and would also secure the neutrality of Denmark; but war
against Russia and Austria was denounced as altogether foreign to our
cardinal principle of restoring the former condition of things. Pitt
and Leeds closed their despatch with the following noteworthy words:
The commencement of hostilities against the Imperial Courts, either
indirectly by an immediate recognition of the Belgic Independence,
or directly by our joining in the measures of offensive operations
which Prussia may feel it her interest to adopt, would go beyond
the line which this country has uniformly laid down, and from which
it does not appear that the present circumstances should induce her
to depart. If either the joint representations of the Allies, or
the subsequent measures such as they have been here stated, should
be successful in bringing about a peace on the terms of the _status
quo_, this country would then be willing to include Turkey, Poland,
and Sweden in the alliance and to guarantee to them the terms of
that pacification.[848]
In order to understand the importance of this pronouncement, we must
remember that at this time the chances of success attending the
dismembering schemes of the two Empires and those of Prussia were
curiously equal. In bulk Russia and Austria had the advantage. Their
armies also seemed likely to drive the Turks over the Balkans in the
next campaign, unless potent diversions in the rear impaired their
striking power. But these diversions were imminent. The fate of the
Hapsburg dominions still hovered in the balance. Catharine was face to
face with another Swedish campaign which her exhausted exchequer could
scarcely meet. How then could these two Empires withstand the shock of
200,000 trained Prussians, with the prospect that an Anglo-Dutch fleet
would sweep the Russian warships from the sea? And this was not all.
Hertzberg had already detached Poland from the Russian alliance and was
on the point of adding the resources of that kingdom to his own;[849]
and the prospect of consolidating Poland, both politically and
geographically, opened up hopeful vistas for that interesting people
and the whole European polity. Above all it promised to strengthen
Prussia on her weakest flank.
It is not surprising, then, that the ambitious and enterprising Dietz
exceeded his instructions by signing a treaty with the Porte on
31st January 1790. He thereby pledged Prussia to make war on Russia
and Austria in the spring, and not to lay down her arms until she
secured for the Sultan an “honourable and stable peace,” which assured
safety for Constantinople against an attack by sea. If the Turks were
victorious, Prussia promised to secure the Crimea for them. The Sultan,
on his side, promised to compel Austria to restore Galicia to the
Poles, who were, if possible, to be brought into the Triple Alliance.
Finally Prussia, England, Holland, Sweden, and Poland were to guarantee
the Turkish possessions as then defined.
These grandiose designs were furthered by the Prusso-Polish treaty,
signed at Warsaw on 29th March. By it Frederick William, in case of
hostilities, would send 18,000 men to assist the Republic, which would
send 8,000 horsemen and half that number of footmen, or an equivalent
in money or corn.[850] In case of great need the numbers of troops
might be raised to 30,000 and 20,000 respectively. More important than
this material succour was the advantage of marching through Polish
Volhynia down the valley of the Dniester to cut the communications of
the Russian army on the lower Danube. Meanwhile the Poles would overrun
Galicia, and the Prussians invade Bohemia and Moravia for the purpose
of inciting the Czechs and Hungarians to open revolt. On the whole the
chances of war favoured Frederick William and his Allies, especially
when the British Government agreed to join with Prussia in subsidizing
Sweden for the campaign of 1790. The valour of the Swedes and their
nearness to the Russian capital compelled Catharine to concentrate
her efforts largely against them, and the prospect of a Prusso-Polish
alliance aroused grave fears at Petersburg. “Everyone here wears a
look of consternation,” wrote the Prussian envoy to his Court on 5th
February. Probably this explains the passing flirtation of Catharine
with England, which Pitt seems to have taken at its true value, in view
of the exorbitant terms previously offered by her to Gustavus.[851]
In fact, the air was charged with insincerity and intrigue. The
Prussian alliance with the Poles, which might have brought salvation to
that distracted people, was accompanied with extremely hard conditions.
Hertzberg saw in it the opportunity of once more forcing on his scheme
of gaining Danzig and Thorn in return for the halving of the Prussian
duties on Polish trade down the Vistula. His Shylock-like insistence
on these terms deprived the compact of all worth from the outset; for
the Poles claimed, and with reason, that the cession of those valuable
districts should be bought, not by the halving of certain customs dues,
but by the recovery of the whole of Galicia from Austria. In these
demands the Court of Berlin seemed to concur; but ultimately, as we
shall see, it allowed them to be frittered away under pressure from
Vienna. As a result, the Poles felt no less distrust of Prussia than
of the two Empires; and our envoy at Warsaw, Daniel Hailes, found that
British policy alone inspired a feeling of confidence, and that a keen
desire prevailed for a close alliance with England.[852]
Pitt also, guided by our naval experts, who wished England to be
freed from dependence on Russia for naval stores, saw the advantage
of a compact with Poland, provided her trade were freed from Prussian
shackles. But his hands were so far tied by his alliance with Prussia,
that he supported her demand for Danzig (not Thorn), if it were
accompanied by an enlightened commercial treaty in which England might
have a share. Events soon proved that greed rather than enlightenment
prevailed at Berlin. That Court clung to its demand for Danzig and
Thorn, and its envoy at Warsaw, the subtle, scheming, and masterful
Lucchesini, more than once showed a disposition to hark back to the
policy of Frederick the Great, and to choke the disputes with Austria
and Russia by a partition of Poland.[853]
For a time this seemed to be the natural upshot of an _entente_ which
unexpectedly came about between Berlin and Vienna. Not long after
his accession Leopold wrote to his brother of Prussia in the terms
of sensibility then in vogue. Frederick William answered in equally
effusive strains; and but for the austere domination of the old
Chancellor, Kaunitz, at Vienna, and the “turbulent genius” of Hertzberg
at Berlin, there seemed a faint hope of a reconciliation.[854] But
Kaunitz knew well how to keep up the bitterness against the upstart
Protestant State; and Hertzberg had resolved to keep his master up to
the high level of his own ambitions. Ingeniously he sowed the seeds
of discord between the Imperial Courts by suggesting that Catharine
should accept the mediation of the Allies with a view to a peace with
the Porte.[855] This would leave Austria at the mercy of Prussia, and
involve the loss of Galicia and the Netherlands. This last topic lay
near to the heart of his Sovereign. Lord Auckland wrote thus on 19th
March from his new Embassy at The Hague: “I have the fullest evidence
that nothing less than absolute and inevitable necessity will induce
him [Frederick William II] to contribute by word or deed to replacing
the Netherlands under their old Government.” And three weeks later he
expressed his astonishment that, in view of the widespread anarchy,
Prussia and all Governments should not feel it their prime duty to
restore those ideas of order and just subordination to legal authority
which the world so urgently needed. Otherwise the European fabric would
be sapped by French theories and succumb to a new series of barbarian
invasions.[856]
These were the views of Pitt, though he expressed them with less
nervous vehemence. His aim, and that of his colleagues, was to bring
Austria first, and afterwards Russia, to a pacification. They reminded
the Court of Berlin that Leopold had “neither the same predilection for
Russia, the same jealousy of Prussia, [n]or dislike to the mediation of
England” as Joseph had displayed, and that the _status quo_ might now
find favour at Vienna. Leopold, they added, could not possibly accept
the last proposal of Hertzberg, of ceding Galicia to the Poles on
condition of being allowed to regain the Netherlands.[857] The British
Cabinet also, on 30th March, charged Keith to press for an immediate
armistice between Austria and Turkey, with a view to summoning a
Congress of the Powers for a general pacification, which Great Britain
earnestly desired. But, they added, with a touch of guile, as it would
take much longer to communicate with St. Petersburg, they hoped that
Austria would act alone, and immediately grant an armistice to the
Turks. If Austria would further pledge herself to admit the restoration
of the old constitution in the Netherlands, Keith might accept this as
satisfactory, and send off a courier to Constantinople to warn Ainslie
to bring the Porte to reason.[858]
The aim of saving Austria from many dangers is here so obvious that
one learns with astonishment that Kaunitz received these offers most
haughtily. The belated concessions granted by Joseph on his death-bed
to his malcontent subjects had met with his approval, but only, as it
seems, in order to press on the war with Turkey _à outrance_, as if
that, and that alone, would impose on the Court of Berlin. With senile
obstinacy and old-world _hauteur_, he repulsed Keith, who thereupon
executed a skilful flanking move by appealing to the Vice-Chancellor,
Count Cobenzl. This astute diplomat saw the gain that might accrue
from the British proposals, and assured Keith that his Sovereign had
received them with “very great satisfaction.” Seeing his advantage,
the British envoy warned Cobenzl against the extravagant claims of
Potemkin, and urged him to work hard for a separate armistice with
Turkey, now that “the most upright Court in Europe” offered its good
services for that purpose. He further hinted that the recent treaties
of Prussia with Turkey and Poland were a serious menace to Austria, and
that the British proposal now made to her was “pointed and peremptory.”
Finally they agreed that Kaunitz should so far be humoured as to draft
the official reply, but that Cobenzl should be its interpreter on
behalf of Leopold II. With this odd arrangement Keith had to put up
for some weeks; and in that time the desire for peace grew apace at
Vienna.[859]
Any other way of looking at things was sheer madness. The ablest of
Austrian Generals, Marshal Laudon, warned Leopold of the terrible risks
of a war against both Prussia and Turkey. The Aulic Council also knew
full well that the almost unbounded influence of Prince Potemkin over
the Czarina was ever used against Hapsburg interests, that pampered
favourite having sworn vengeance against all who promoted the erection
of Moldavia and Wallachia, which he coveted for himself,[860] into an
independent principality. This scheme, so fatal to Hapsburg hopes,
played no small part in sundering the two Empires. While, therefore,
Leopold armed, as if for war with Prussia, he was secretly disposed to
treat for a separate peace with the Turks if they would cede to him the
limits of the Peace of Passarowitz, namely, North Servia and Wallachia
as far east as the River Aluta. On the other hand he was resolved (so
he told Keith on 9th May) to fight rather than lose the Netherlands,
and in that case intended to gain the alliance of France by a few
cessions of Belgian land. Still he hoped for a peaceful settlement
through “the wise and kind intervention of England.”[861]
The position was now somewhat as follows: Leopold had staved off a
general revolt in his dominions by soothing concessions or promises,
but he insisted on the continuance of hostilities against Turkey in
order, as he said, to predispose her to peace. To the Brabanters and
Flemings he granted an armistice, but seemed about to send forces
thither as if for the restoration of unlimited power. Meanwhile Sweden
and Turkey continued the unequal fight against Russia, and the Triple
Alliance imposed prudence on Denmark. In this uneasy equipoise England
offered her mediation, not only to the belligerents--Russia, Austria,
Turkey, and Sweden--but also to Prussia, with a view to a general
armistice for the discussion of a settlement.[862]
Nowhere did this proposal meet with a cooler reception than at Berlin.
Accordingly, on 21st May, Pitt and Leeds justified their conduct in a
despatch to Ewart, in which the hand of the Prime Minister is plainly
visible. He declared his earnest desire for the joint intervention of
the three Allies, but explained that it was possible only by adhering
to “that system of moderation to which he [His Majesty] has uniformly
endeavoured to adhere.” England desired to see the power of Sweden and
Turkey maintained, and would secretly advance a subsidy to Gustavus,
but did not feel justified in going to war with the two Empires. If
Prussia drew the sword, England would not only keep France and Denmark
quiet, but would also prevent the march of Austrian troops to the
Netherlands during the armistice there. The earnest hope was expressed
that Prussia would give up the Galician project, and limit her gains
to the restoration of the former boundaries, with a few reasonable
changes. Nothing was further from the wish of England than to sacrifice
the interests of Prussia to those of Austria.[863]
It soon appeared that Pitt and Leeds were prepared to meet the Court
of Berlin half way. On receiving the curt refusal of Catharine to the
British offer of mediation, they admitted that the Prussian plan of
exchanges of territory was not objectionable in itself, if Austria
agreed to it--a large assumption. The arrangement might be that Russia
should retain the Crimea and all her present conquests up to the
Dniester, that is, inclusive of Oczakoff. In that case she must restore
to Sweden the wider Finnish limits of the Peace of Nystadt. As for
Austria, she should gain North Servia and West Wallachia as far as the
River Aluta--the Passarowitz limits; and she ought to retain the whole
of Galicia except the districts about Brody, Belez, and Cracow. As a
reward for these services to Poland, Prussia would gain her heart’s
desire--Danzig, Thorn, and the Wartha territory. These would be “not
sacrifices, but exchanges of territory.”[864]
The British Cabinet would clearly have preferred the _status quo_; but
in this alternative scheme it sketched arrangements highly favourable
to Prussia, Austria, Russia, and Sweden, less so to Poland, but wholly
unfavourable to the Turks. Certainly it corresponded more nearly to
the actual or probable fortune of war, the prospects of the Moslems
being at this time gloomy, those of the Swedes doubtful, but those of
Prussia brilliant. The Sultan, it was hinted, might be soothed by the
guarantee of his possessions and the hope of admission to the Triple
Alliance along with Sweden and Poland.[865] This curious despatch shows
that Pitt and Leeds cared little about Turkey, and that their adhesion
to the _status quo_ was conditioned by a politic opportunism.
A sudden and perplexing change now came over Hapsburg policy. Possibly
Leopold relied on the wheedling assurances of support received from
Catharine. Certain it is that in the middle of June he demanded
“indemnities” for the proposed gains to Poland and Prussia; and his
haughty tone was not lowered by the news of a sharp defeat inflicted
by the Turkish garrison of Giurgevo on the Austrian besiegers. Bared
to the waist, and armed with sword and dagger, they suddenly burst
from the gates in three uncontrollable torrents, which swept the
Imperialists out of trenches and camp, and far on to the plain. In
vain also did Keith warn Cobenzl not to rely on Russia. The Hapsburgs
now seemed bent on dismembering Turkey and defying their northern
neighbours.[866] At the end of June Leopold declared his resolve not to
treat with the rebels in the Netherlands, and to denounce the armistice
with them. Probably this threatening tone was a screen to hide the
weakness of Austria’s position. On all sides her enemies held her fast.
The Hungarians and Flemings firmly demanded their ancient rights; and
persistence in the game of bluff must have led to the break up of her
dominions.
Another curious change also came over the scene on the arrival of
news at Berlin that Potemkin had offered to restore to the Porte all
the Russian conquests of the present war, on condition of peace. This
sudden adoption of the _rôle_ of peacemaker by that ambitious and
masterful favourite has never been fully explained.[867] It may have
been due either to Turkish bribes or to a crafty resolve to checkmate
Hertzberg’s scheme of making Turkey pay for Prussia’s gains. For how
could the professed friend and ally impose on the Porte sacrifices far
greater than those demanded by the enemy? The report that Leopold was
disposed to accept the _status quo_, finding it far less objectionable
than Hertzberg’s plan of exchanges, also gave food for thought.
Accordingly, Frederick William, before opening negotiations with
Austria, decided that this should form the general basis, but with
certain modifications. The Turks were to be warned that, as Prussia’s
armaments had saved them from destruction, they would now do well to
conclude an armistice with Austria and hope for admission to the Triple
Alliance. They should also humour their preserver by giving up Western
Wallachia to Austria, so that she in her turn might cede the outer
districts of Galicia to the Poles, who of course would yield to Prussia
her reward for these troublesome bargainings. As for Great Britain, she
was expected to favour these scientific readjustments because the trade
of the Vistula would then be freed from obstacles, and be opened to
her by favourable commercial treaties. Such was Hertzberg’s final plan
for the preservation of the _status quo_.[868] In order to secure the
acquiescence of the Turks, he had long kept the Porte on tenter-hooks
by delaying the ratification of Dietz’s treaty, and by ordering the
recall of that masterful envoy. On the other hand, the Turks were left
with a glimmer of hope of eventual assistance from Berlin.
Accordingly, Prussian policy seemed about to win a brilliant triumph at
the proposed Conference of Reichenbach, where the Triple Alliance and
Austria (Russia having refused Britain’s mediation) were to thrash out
these questions; and nothing is more curious than to watch the collapse
of Hertzberg’s ingenious web. In order at the outset to settle matters
separately with the Austrian envoy, Spielmann, the King of Prussia
held Ewart aloof because the British Ambassador consistently warned
Hertzberg against the complicated exchanges projected by him. Thereupon
Ewart drew up a Memorial insisting that England must be a principal
party, and that, as both Austria and Prussia had promised to admit the
_status quo_ as the basis of negotiation, the latter could not make
war on the former if she consented to it. In that case, or even if he
(Ewart) were excluded from the Conference, Great Britain must cancel
her engagements to Prussia. He further declared his conviction that
Austria would retract her extreme claims and listen to reason.[869]
This sharp protest had some effect on Hertzberg; but the chief
difficulty was now with Frederick William. At the head of his
splendid army, he seemed to court war. He sent a courier to the Porte
to ratify Dietz’s treaty; and he cut off all communications with
Austria as though hostilities had begun. At the first three sessions
of the Conference (27th-29th June) the Austrian and Prussian envoys
indulged in eager but vague wrangling; but the arrival of news from
Constantinople that the Turks would never concede the Prussian demands
sufficed to depress the bellicose ardour of the monarch. As there was
a serious risk of the Porte coming to terms with Russia and Austria,
he now harked back towards the _status quo_. This move, which the Duke
of Brunswick and Möllendorf heartily supported, gathered strength when
it appeared that Poland would accept none of Hertzberg’s benefits. The
arrival of the British note of 2nd July to the same general effect
ended the last efforts of Frederick William for Danzig and Thorn.[870]
He now gave Hertzberg written orders to abandon at once the whole
scheme of exchanges “since it could only serve to commit him with Great
Britain as well as with the Porte and Poland.” Whence it appears that
Hertzberg’s scientific and philanthropic plans fell through simply
because all the States concerned utterly repudiated them.
The renunciation, however, was made not unskilfully. The Prussian and
British Ministers were careful to keep secret Hertzberg’s change of
front and thus prepared a surprise for Spielmann. That envoy having
put forward some equally untenable schemes of aggrandisement, Ewart
rose and read out a Memorial, drawn up in concert with his Prussian and
Dutch colleagues, demanding an exact restitution of the old boundaries.
In vain did the Hapsburg Minister seek to wriggle out of the dilemma by
betraying Prussia into glaring inconsistency. Prussia stood firm; and
finally he reduced his demands to Orsova and district. Even this cold
comfort was denied him. The Triple Alliance was inexorable. Thereupon
he demanded the dissolution of Prussia’s compacts with Turkey and
Sweden, only to meet with the reply that the Austro-Russian alliance
must first be annulled.[871] Thus Hertzberg, even in the hour of
personal defeat, brought down the Hapsburg schemes in utter collapse;
and the result of the discussions at Reichenbach was the recurrence to
the _status quo_--the very same arrangement which Pitt and Leeds had
throughout declared to be the best of all solutions.
Hertzberg’s annoyance at the destruction of his pet plans must have
diminished when he heard from Vienna that Austria had secretly
empowered Potemkin to make her peace with the Turks on that same
basis. If this be true, each of the rivals was playing a game of bluff
at Reichenbach; and the sight of the two Ancient Pistols eating the
leek in turn must have filled Ewart with a joy such as falls to few
diplomatists. Even as regards the Belgians, the British suggestion
held good. They were to regain their ancient constitution together
with an amnesty for past offences, and a guarantee by the three Allied
Powers.[872] Frederick William, in complimenting Hertzberg on the end
of the negotiations at Reichenbach, added that they must now assure
themselves, through Ewart, of England’s support in imposing the _status
quo_ on Russia.[873] A new chapter in the relations of the Powers and
in the career of Pitt lay enfolded in this suggestion.
* * * * *
Shortly after this happy ending to the disputes in Central Europe
came the news of a settlement of the war in the Baltic. Once again
Gustavus III startled the world. After his sudden and furious attack
on Catharine, and her no less fierce counter stroke, it seemed that
the struggle must be mortal. But many circumstances occurred to allay
their hatred. The aims of the Czarina had always trended southwards;
and the war in Finland was ultimately regarded chiefly as an annoying
diversion from the crusade against the Turks. Moreover the valour of
the Swedes, who closed the doubtful campaign of 1790 with a decided
success at sea, added to the difficulties of campaigning in Finland,
left little hope of conquest in that quarter so long as the Triple
Alliance kept the Danes quiet and subsidized Gustavus. Catharine was
in fact fighting against the forces of nature and the resources of
England, Prussia, and Holland. Gustavus, too, even in the year 1789
felt the sobering influences of poverty. In 1790 they threatened him
with bankruptcy, and at that same time the outlook was far from bright
in Finland. Fortunately, the Russians were not in a position to press
Gustavus hard. But nothing could stave off the advent of bankruptcy
unless the Allies promptly advanced a considerable sum. This they were
not prepared to do, for his unceasing importunities had wearied them
out. The Dutch declined to help in a matter which concerned them but
little, and after long negotiations at Stockholm Great Britain and
Prussia agreed on 31st July to advance £200,000, or only two-thirds of
the minimum named by the King. By the month of August 1790 the treasury
at Stockholm was absolutely empty, so our envoy, Liston, reported.
While Gustavus was chafing at the restraints of poverty, Catharine
held out to him alluring hopes. So soon as she heard of the turn which
affairs were taking at Reichenbach she resolved to end her quarrel
with him in order the better to browbeat Prussia and England. Leopold
had early informed her of his resolve to conclude the Turkish war,
in accordance with the demands of the Allies; and he also warned her
of their intention to deprive Russia of her chief conquest. With a
quickness of insight and a magnanimous resolve instinct with the
highest statesmanship, she resolved to end the war in the Baltic by
offers which would appeal irresistibly to a knight-errant struggling
with debts and worries. She therefore despatched a courier to him in
Finland, holding out virtually the same terms which the Allies had
guaranteed to him.
Gustavus did not long hesitate. It is true that he had the promise of
seventeen British battleships, which were in the Downs ready to sail
to his succour; Prussia also had already sent one half of the subsidy
which he demanded; and he had pledged his troth to the Allies not to
make a separate peace with Russia. That step, however, he now decided
to take; and the impression afterwards prevailed at London and Berlin,
that Russian money had some influence on his decision.[874] However
that may be, he sent Baron Armfelt to treat for peace. Where both
sides were bent on a speedy settlement, difficulties vanished; and
thus on 14th August 1790, the Peace of Werela was signed. It restored
the few gains of territory which the belligerents had made, and gave
permission to the Swedes to buy grain in Russian ports. The treaty
was remarkable chiefly for its omissions. No mention was made of
previous Russo-Swedish treaties, which gave the Empire some right to
interfere in Swedish affairs. As Liston pointed out, the absence of any
such claim was a personal victory for Gustavus; for it increased his
authority and depressed that of the Russophile nobles. The King at once
asserted his prerogative by condemning to death, despite the entreaties
of Liston, the ringleader of the mutiny in Finland and by incarcerating
two others for life.[875] Events were to show that the faction was
cowed but not wholly crushed. The bullet of Ankerström repaid the debt
of vengeance stored up in September 1790.
Equally strange was the abandonment of the Turks by their headstrong
ally. Gustavus had gone to war ostensibly in order to prevent their
overthrow, and now he left them at the mercy of Catharine. It is true
that the signature of the Reichenbach Convention three weeks earlier
ended their conflict with Austria; but the indignation of the Sultan,
the wrath of the King of Prussia, and the quiet contempt of Pitt
manifested the general feeling of the time.[876] Gustavus had salved
his conscience by requiring Catharine to accord lenient treatment to
the Moslems. The Czarina was quite ready to make any promises to this
effect, if they formed no part of the treaty with Sweden. She assured
Gustavus of her desire to renew the Treaty of Kainardji rather than
continue the war; and Gustavus decided, so he informed Liston, “to
trust to the elevated and honourable character of the Empress” on this
point. Liston had his doubts. He ventured to express his surprise at
the generosity of the imperial promises, which implied the restoration
of the Crimea to Turkey, and he remarked that the combined pressure
of Great Britain and Prussia had not availed to extort so great a
boon. Gustavus, however, persisted in his estimate of the character of
Catharine, doubtless because she humoured his latest plan, a crusade
to Paris on behalf of the French monarchy, while she further promised
him the sum of 2,000,000 roubles for his immediate needs.[877] She,
too, sang loudly the praises of the man whom she had sworn to ruin. The
cause of this new-born enthusiasm will appear in due course.
From the Swedish point of view much might be said for the action of
Gustavus. He had rid himself and his land from the irksome tutelage of
Russia: he came out of the war with no loss of territory, the first
Russo-Swedish war of the century of which this can be said; his martial
energy had inspirited his people; and he had overthrown a corrupt and
unpatriotic aristocracy. But, from the standpoint which he took up
at the outset of the war, his conduct had proved him a shifty ally,
who merited the suspicion of his former comrades. Nevertheless he had
played no small part in checking the subversive schemes of Catharine
and Joseph. Thanks to him the Moslems maintained a struggle which
gave time for the army of Prussia and the diplomacy of Pitt to exert
themselves with effect. Had he stood by his promises, the Triple
Alliance would probably have brought Russia to terms favourable to the
interests both of Turkey and of Poland.
Even as matters stood at the end of that year of turmoil, 1790,
Pitt might reflect with something of pride that his efforts had
decisively made for peace and stability. He it was who had been
mainly instrumental in saving Sweden from ruin, the Hapsburg States
from partition, and Prussia from Hertzberg’s policy of exchange and
adventure. Moreover, at that same time British policy won another
success at a point which has always been deemed essential to the
maintenance of equilibrium in Europe.
* * * * *
The recovery of his authority in the Belgic provinces lay near the
heart of Leopold II. His letters and those of Kaunitz show that he
consented to patch matters up at Reichenbach largely in order that he
might be free to subdue Brabant and Flanders. True, he admitted the
mediation of the Triple Alliance in those affairs; but his missive to
Catharine shows that he acquiesced in that convention only in order to
prevent the disruption of his dominions, and that he hoped to evade
some at least of its provisions by means of an “eternal alliance” with
Russia. As will appear in a later chapter, fidelity to Russia involved
a policy of procrastination and trickery towards Turkey, Prussia,
England, and the Belgians. The conduct of Austria in the Eastern
Question helped to checkmate Pitt and secure a diplomatic triumph for
Catharine in the year 1791.
Here we may notice that Leopold and Kaunitz, so soon as the threat
of war from the Prussian side passed away, and their own troops in
Luxemburg were reinforced, took a stern tone with the men of Brabant
and Flanders. At the Conference held at The Hague for the settlement
of those affairs, the Austrian envoy, Count Mercy, refused to extend
the time of the armistice in those provinces, and warned the three
mediating Powers that their services would no longer be recognized
by the Viennese Court. Austrian troops also began to march towards
Brussels. Thereupon Lord Auckland hotly protested against this
high-handed proceeding; and the British Cabinet threatened to send a
large fleet to co-operate with the Prussians and Dutch in preventing
the re-conquest of Belgic lands by Leopold.[878] This threat,
formidable in view of the large armament kept up by England, even after
the end of the Spanish dispute, emanated largely from Pitt himself. For
Ewart, who was then in London on furlough, wrote to Auckland on 28th
November 1790 concerning the opinions of Ministers:
Some difference of opinion existed; but I trust Mr. Pitt will write
to your lordship himself in a satisfactory manner; and you know
better than I do of what consequence the opinions of others are. I
confess I am very uneasy about the explosion this affair must have
produced at Berlin; but I trust the explanations sent from hence
will have given satisfaction both there and with you on the great
principle of making the Emperor adhere--_bon gré_, _mal gré_--to
his engagements for re-establishing the [Belgic] Constitution: and
it appears impossible he should venture in his present situation to
risk the consequences of a refusal.[879]
Pitt’s firmness won the day. Leopold shrank from a contest with the
Allies, and consented to a convention which was signed on 10th December
at The Hague. The ancient customs and privileges of the Pays Bas were
to be restored (including those of the University of Louvain and the
Catholic seminaries), and an amnesty granted to all concerned in the
recent revolt. Leopold promised never to apply the conscription to his
Belgian subjects, and he recognized the guarantee of Great Britain,
Prussia, and Holland for the present arrangements.
The satisfaction of Pitt at this turn of affairs appeared in the order
to place the British navy on a peace footing--a measure which we can
now see to have been premature, in that it encouraged Catharine to
reject the demands of the Allies, and Leopold to display the duplicity
which often marred his actions. The failure of Pitt to coerce the
Czarina will engage our attention later; but we may note here that, on
various pretexts, Leopold refused to ratify the Hague Convention, and
left Belgian affairs in a state which earned the hatred of that people
and the suspicion of British statesmen.[880]
For the present, as the shiftiness of Leopold and the defiance of
Catharine could not be surmised, there seemed to be scarcely a cloud
on the political horizon. By the end of the year 1790, the policy of
Pitt, cautious at the beginning of a crisis, firm during its growth,
and drastic at the climax, had raised Great Britain to a state of
prosperity and power which contrasted sharply with the unending turmoil
in France, the helplessness of Spain, the confusion in the Hapsburg
States, and the sharp financial strain in Russia. In truth, the end
of the year 1790 marks the zenith of Pitt’s career. In seven years,
crowded with complex questions, he had won his way to an eminence
whence he could look down on rivals, both internal and external,
groping their way doubtfully and deviously.
Of these triumphs, those gained over foreign Powers were by far the
most important, except in the eyes of those who look at British history
from the point of view of party strife. To them the events of this
fascinating period will be merely a confused background to the duel
between Pitt and Fox. Those, however, who love to probe the very heart
of events, and to pry into the hidden springs of great movements, which
uplift one nation and depress another, will not soon tire even of the
dry details of diplomacy, when they are seen to be the gauge of human
wisdom and folly, of national greatness and decline.
In the seven years now under survey, England emerged from defeat,
isolation, and discredit which bordered on bankruptcy, until she soared
aloft to a position of prestige in the diplomatic and mercantile
spheres which earned the envy of her formerly triumphant rivals. Strong
in herself, and strengthened by the alliance of Prussia and Holland,
she had to all appearance assured the future of the Continent in a
way that made for peace and quietness. Pitt had helped to compose the
strifes resulting from the reckless innovations of Joseph II, strifes
which, had Hertzberg succeeded, must have led to a general war. The
importance of this work of pacification has escaped notice amidst the
dramatic incidents of the Revolution and Napoleonic Era. For in the
panorama of history, as in its daily diorama, it is the destructive and
sensational which rivets attention, too often to the exclusion of the
healing and upbuilding efforts on which the future of the race depends.
A more searching inquiry, a more faithful description, will reveal the
truth, that a statesman attains a higher success when he averts war
than when he wages a triumphant war.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken
together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else
is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.--BURKE,
_Reflections on the French Revolution_.
Ideas rule the world and its events. A Revolution is the passage of
an idea from theory to practice.--MAZZINI, _The French Revolution
of 1789_.
That the career of Pitt is divided into two very diverse portions by
the French Revolution is almost a commonplace. Macaulay in artful
antitheses has pointed the contrast between the earlier and the later
Pitt; poets, who lacked his art but abounded in gall, descanted on the
perversion of the friend of liberty into the reactionary tyrant; and
Jacobins hissed out his name as that of “the enemy of the human race.”
If we carefully study the attitude of Pitt towards the French
Revolution, we shall find it to be far from inflexible. It changed with
changing events. It was not that of a doctrinaire but of a practical
statesman, who judges things by their outcome. He has often been blamed
for looking at this great movement too much from the standpoint of a
financier; and the charge is perhaps tenable as regards the years of
the Jacobin ascendancy, when the flame kindled by Rousseau shrivelled
up the old order of things. But the ideas prevalent in 1793 differed
utterly from those of 1789, which aimed at reforms of a markedly
practical character.
There was urgent need of them. As is well known, the unprivileged
classes of France were entangled in a network of abuses, social,
fiscal, and agrarian, from which the nobles had refused to set them
free. Despite the goodwill of Louis XVI, the well-meant efforts of
his chief minister, Necker, and the benevolent attempts of many of
the clergy and some nobles, the meshes of Feudalism and the absolute
monarchy lay heavily on the land up to the time of the Assembly of the
States-General at Versailles in May 1789. It is of course a gross
error to assume that the French peasants were more oppressed than those
of other continental lands. Their lot was more favoured than that
of the peasantry of Spain, South Italy, Prussia, and most parts of
Germany, to say nothing of the brutish condition of the serfs of Poland
and Russia.[881] Those of France were more prosperous than Arthur Young
believed them to be. They kept on buying up plot after plot in ways
that illustrate the ceaseless land-hunger of the Celt and his elusive
stubbornness.
But he would be a shallow reasoner who argued that, because the poverty
of the French peasants was less grinding than it appeared, therefore
the old agrarian and fiscal customs were tolerable. The most brilliant
display of what Carlyle called “tongue-fencing” cannot justify a system
which compels millions of men to live behind a perpetual screen of
misery. To notice the case of that worthy peasant whose hospitality
was sought by Rousseau during his first weary tramp to Paris. The
man gave him only the coarsest food until he felt sure of his being
a friend of the people and no spy. Then wine, ham, and an omelette
were forthcoming, and Jacques Bonhomme opened his heart. “He gave me
to understand,” said Rousseau, “that he hid his wine on account of
the duties, and his bread on account of the tax; and that he would be
a lost man if he did not lead people to suppose that he was dying of
hunger. All that he told me about this subject--of which previously I
had not had the slightest idea--made an impression upon me which will
never be effaced. There was the germ of that inextinguishable hatred
which developed later in my heart against the vexations endured by
the poor, and against their oppressors.”[882] Multiply the case of
that hospitable peasant a million times over, and the outbreak of the
Revolution becomes a foregone conclusion. The only surprising thing is
that the _débâcle_ did not come far earlier.
But the old order rarely breaks up until the vernal impulses of hope
begin potently to work. These forces were set in motion, firstly, by
the speculations of philosophers, the criticisms of economists and
the social millennium glowingly sketched by Rousseau. Ideas which
might have been confined to the study, were spread to the street by
the French soldiers who had fought side by side with the soldiers of
Washington, and became on their return the most telling pleaders for
reform. Thus, by a fatal ricochet, the bolt launched by the Bourbons at
England’s Colonial Empire, glanced off and wrecked their own fabric.
The results, however, came slowly. It is often assumed that the
destructive teachings of the Encyclopaedists, the blighting raillery of
Voltaire, and the alluring Utopia of Rousseau would by themselves have
been the ruin of that outworn social order. But it is certain that no
one in France or England, up to the eve of the Revolution, anticipated
a general overturn. Ultimately, no doubt, ideas rule the world; but
their advent to power is gradual, unless the champions of the old order
allow decay to spread. Furthermore, constructors of ingenious theories
about the French Revolution generally forget that nearly all the ideas
given to the world by Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, were derived
from the works of Hobbes, Locke, and Bolingbroke. The sage of Ferney
drew his arrows from the quiver of English philosophy, and merely
added the barbs of his own satire; Montesquieu pleaded on behalf of
a balance of political powers like that of England; and all that was
most effective in the “Social Contract” of the Genevese thinker came
from Hobbes and Locke. The _verve_ of Frenchmen gave to these ideas an
application far wider than that which they had gained in their island
home. Here the teachings of Locke formed a prim parterre around the
palace of the King, the heir to the glorious Revolution of 1688. When
transferred to that political forcing-bed, France, they shot up in
baleful harvests.
It is the seed-bed which counts as well as the seed. The harmlessness
of philosophic speculation in England and its destructive activity in
France may be explained ultimately by the condition of the two lands.
In the Island State able Ministers succeeded in popularizing an alien
dynasty and promoting the well-being of the people. Retrenchment and
Reform were not merely topics of conversation in _salons_; they were
carried out in many parts of the administration. This was specially
the case after the peace of 1783, which left France victorious and
England prostrate. There the fruits of victory were not garnered;
and the political fabric, strained by the war, was not underpinned.
Thinking men talked of repair, but, thanks to the weakness of the King
and the favouritism of the Queen, nothing was done. Here the ablest
constructive statesman since the time of Cromwell set about the needed
repairs; and his work, be it remembered, coincided with the joyous
experiments of the Court of Versailles to maintain credit by a display
of luxury. The steady recovery of England and the swift decline of
France may be ascribed in large measure to Pitt and Calonne.
It was against definite and curable ills in the body politic that the
French reformers at first directed their efforts. In May–June 1789 the
ideals of Rousseau remained wholly in the background. The Nobles and
Clergy (as appears in their _cahiers_, or instructions) were, with few
exceptions, ready to give up the immunities from taxation to which they
had too long clung. Those of the Tiers Etat, or Commons, laid stress on
fair taxation, on the abolition of the cramping customs of Feudalism,
whether social, agrarian, or judicial, on the mitigation of service in
the militia, while some even demanded better lighting of the streets.
The Nobles and Clergy asked for a limitation of the powers of the
Crown; and the Commons desired a constitution; but it was to resemble
that of England, save that larger powers were left to the King, the
Ministers being responsible to him alone. Few of the _cahiers_ of the
Commons asked for a fusion of the three Orders in one Assembly; and not
one breathed the thought of a Republic.[883] Their bugbear was the game
laws, not the monarchy; the _taille à miséricorde_ and the _corvées_,
not the Nobles; the burdensome tithes, not the Church.
As at Paris and Versailles, so among the peasants. At first, even in
troublous Franche Comté, their thoughts did not soar beyond taxes and
feudal burdens. Arthur Young calmed a demonstration against himself by
telling excited patriots near Besançon of the differences between taxes
in England and France:
Gentlemen [he said] we have a great number of taxes in England
which you know nothing of in France; but the _tiers état_, the
poor, do not pay them, they are laid on the rich; every window in a
man’s house pays; but if he has no more than six windows, he pays
nothing; a Seigneur, with a great estate, pays the _vingtièmes_
and _taille_, but the little proprietor of a garden pays nothing;
the rich, for their horses, their carriages, their servants, and
even for liberty to kill their own partridges; but the poor farmer
nothing of all this; and what is more, we have in England a tax
paid by the rich for the relief of the poor.[884]
Who would not sympathize with these people! They were staggering under
burdens piled up by a monarchy absolute in name, but powerless in all
that made for reform and retrenchment. Where Louis XVI by his weakness,
and the Queen by her caprice, had failed to right the wrong, the nation
was bent in succeeding; and it is highly probable that, if the King had
shown more tact in dealing with the Commons, and they a little more
patience, the popular movement might have progressed peacefully for
a decade, with wholly beneficent results. We, who know how one event
led on to another, find it difficult to escape from the attractive but
fallacious conclusion that the sequence was inevitable. The mind loves
to forge connecting links, and then to conclude that the chain could
not have been made otherwise--a quite gratuitous assumption. At several
points it was the exceptional which happened. A perusal of the letters
of intelligent onlookers shows that they foresaw, and most naturally,
a wholly different outcome of events. They looked to see a few drastic
reforms, a time of unrest, and then the remodelling of the monarchy _à
l’Anglaise_.
As for Pitt, he waited to see whither all this would tend. His attitude
towards France in the early part of 1789 was distinctly friendly. He
assured the French ambassador, M. de Luzerne, that France and England
had the same principles, namely, not to aggrandize themselves and to
oppose aggrandizement in others, and he added that he hoped for the
assistance of France to assist Sweden and Turkey against the powerful
Empires that were seeking their overthrow.
This declaration bespoke his fixed resolve to save Europe from the
ambitious schemes of the other monarchs; and, now that France accepted
Anglo-Prussian ascendancy in Holland and abandoned her forward policy
in the Orient, she might serve to redress the balance of power. Such
views were consonant with Pitt’s lofty aim of winning over “the natural
enemy.” In truth, they were the outcome of common sense, even of
self-interest. The suspicion and dislike were all on the side of the
Court of Versailles. Montmorin and Luzerne were haunted by the fear
that Pitt meant to pour oil on the smouldering discontent in France,
and shrivel up the Bourbon power. There is not a shred of evidence
that he ever entertained these notions. That they were harboured
at Versailles merely showed that a Power which has rent another in
twain cannot believe in the goodwill of the injured nation; and this
suspicion was one of the many causes begetting irritation and alarm
in Paris. On the other hand it must be remembered, as one of Pitt’s
greatest services, that his protests against the American War and his
subsequent efforts for an _entente cordiale_ with France, had so far
effaced resentment on this side of the Channel, that the strivings
of Frenchmen after political freedom and social equality aroused the
deepest interest. The majority of our people sympathized with Fox,
when, on hearing of the fall of the Bastille, he exclaimed: “How
much is this the greatest and best event that has happened in the
world.”[885]
Official prudence or natural reserve kept Pitt silent on these affairs,
and on the horrors of the ensuing Jacquerie, which speedily cooled
the first transports of Britons. We know, however, that he must have
viewed the financial collapse of France with secret satisfaction; for
in August–September 1788 he wrote to Grenville in terms which implied
that the recovery of the credit of France, then expected under the
fostering care of Necker, would be a very serious blow, implying as it
did the resumption of her aggressive schemes in the East.[886] Now,
however, the disorders in France aroused his pity; and on 14th July,
before he can have heard of the fall of the Bastille, he wrote to his
mother that France was fast becoming “an object of compassion even to
a rival.”[887] There is no sign that he feared the spread of democratic
opinions into England. The monarchy had never been so popular as since
the mental malady of the King. On the whole, then, Pitt surveyed the
first events of the Revolution from the standpoint of a diplomatist
and financier. France seemed to him doomed to a time of chastening and
weakness which might upset the uneasy equilibrium of Europe.
Already he had come into touch with the French people at a very
sensitive point, and in a way which illustrated their eager expectancy
and his cool and calculating character. On 25th June Necker sent to him
an urgent appeal begging that he would sanction the export of flour
from Great Britain to France in order to make good the scarcity which
there prevailed. If the request must come before Parliament, he trusted
that the boon would speedily be granted by a generous nation, and by a
statesman “whose rare virtues, sublime talents, and superb renown have
long rivetted my admiration and that of all Europe.”[888]
* * * * *
In sharp contrast to this personal and effusive request was the cold
and correct demeanour of Pitt. He sent the following formal reply, not
to Necker, but to the French ambassador, the Marquis de Luzerne:
Downing Street, _3rd July, 1789_.[889]
Mr. Pitt presents his compliments to the Marquis de Luzerne. He
has felt the strongest desire to be able to recommend sending
the supply of flour desir’d by Mons^r Necker and had hopes from
the information at first given him by Mr. Wilson that it would
be practicable; but, having afterwards received some contrary
information, he thought it necessary that the subject should be
examined by the Committee of Council for the Affairs of Trade,
whose enquiry was not clos’d till this morning. Mr. Pitt has now
the mortification to find that, according to the accounts of the
persons most conversant with the corn trade, the present supply in
this country compar’d with the demand, and the precarious prospect
of the harvest render it impossible to propose to Parliament to
authorize any exportation.
Three days later Pulteney brought the matter before the House of
Commons and deprecated the export of 20,000 sacks of flour to France
which had been talked of. Pitt thereupon stated that skilled advice was
being taken as to the advisability of allowing such an export, in view
of the shortness at home, and the gloomy prospects for the harvest.
Wilberforce, Dempster, and Major Scott urged the more generous course
towards our suffering neighbours; but others pointed out that, as the
price of home wheat was rising (it rose seven shillings the bushel on
that very day), any such proposal would enhance that perilous tendency
at home without materially benefiting the French. Even at the present
figures export was forbidden under the existing Corn Law; but Pitt
mentioned that a curious attempt was on foot at Shoreham to depress the
price from forty-eight shillings to forty-four in order to procure the
export of 8,000 sacks of flour to Havre. As the transaction was clearly
fictitious, he had directed the Customs officers to stop the export. On
13th July Grenville, in the absence of Pitt, asked leave to introduce a
Bill for the better ascertaining and regulating the export of corn; and
the House at once agreed.[890]
Such, then, was the beginning of Pitt’s relations to French democracy.
They are certainly to be regretted. His reply to Necker’s request is
icily correct and patriotically insular; and his whole attitude was a
warning to the French not to expect from him any deviation from the
rules of Political Economy. Of course it is unfair to tax him with
blindness in not recognizing the momentous character of the crisis.
No one could foresee the banishment of Necker, the surrender of the
Bastille, on the very day after Grenville’s motion, still less the
stories of the _pacte de famine_, and their hideous finale, the march
of the _dames des halles_ to Versailles, ostensibly to get food.
Nevertheless, the highest statesmanship transcends mere reason. The
greatest of leaders knows instinctively when economic laws and the
needs of his own nation may be set aside for the welfare of humanity.
The gift of 20,000 sacks of flour outright would have been the best
bargain of Pitt’s career. It would have spoken straight to the heart
of France, and brought about a genuine _entente cordiale_. His conduct
was absolutely justified by law. The Commercial Treaty of 1786 with
France had not included the trade in corn or flour, which had long been
subject to strict regulations, and therefore remained so. Moreover, the
Dublin Government did not allow the export of wheat to Great Britain
until home wheat sold at more than thirty shillings the barrel; and
in that year of scarcity, 1789, when the harvest was extremely late,
and the yield uncertain even at the beginning of December, the fiat
went forth from Dublin Castle that no wheat must for the present cross
the Irish Sea to relieve the scarcity in England.[891] If that was the
case between the sister kingdoms, Pitt certainly acted correctly in
forbidding the export of flour to France.
Meanwhile, Anglo-French relations were decidedly cool. The Duke of
Dorset, our ambassador at Paris, reported that it was not desirable for
English visitors to appear in the streets amid the excitements that
followed on the fall of the Bastille; and an agent, named Hippisley,
employed by him, reported that “the prejudices against the English were
very general--the pretext taken being our refusal to aid the French
with grain, and our reception of M. Calonne, which, they contended,
was in deference to the Polignacs.”[892] The Duke of Dorset also
referred to the prevalence of wild rumours as to our efforts to destroy
the French ships and dockyard at Brest, and to foment disorders in
France.[893]
Certainly we were not fortunate in our ambassador. In the year 1786 the
Duke of Dorset had often shown petty touchiness in his relations with
William Eden, besides jealously curbing the superior abilities of his
own subordinate, Daniel Hailes. Now that they were gone, his despatches
were thin and lacking in balance. After the fall of the Bastille, he
wrote to the Duke of Leeds that “the greatest Revolution that we know
of has been effected with, comparatively speaking, ... the loss of very
few lives. From this moment we may consider France as a free country,
the King as a very limited monarch, and the nobility as reduced to a
level with the rest of the nation.” He described the tactful visit of
Louis XVI to Paris on 17th July as the most humiliating step he could
possibly take. “He was actually led in triumph like a tame bear by the
deputies and the city militia.” He added, with an unusual flash of
insight, that the people had not been led by any man or party, “but
merely by the general diffusion of reason and philosophy.”
Nevertheless, though the King’s youngest brother, the Comte d’Artois,
and his reactionary followers were scattered to the four winds, Dorset
had the imprudence to write to congratulate him on his escape. The
letter was intercepted, and the populace at once raised a hue and cry
against the British embassy, it being well known that the Duke was on
the most familiar terms with the highest aristocracy. Dorset thereupon
wrote to the Duke of Leeds urging the need of stating officially the
good will of England for France; and that Minister at once expressed
“the earnest desire of His Majesty and his Ministers to cultivate and
promote that friendship and harmony, which so happily subsists between
the two countries.” Dorset communicated this to the National Assembly
on 3rd August; but that was his last official act. He forthwith
returned to England, presumably because of the indiscretion related
above.
During the next months the duties of the embassy devolved upon Lord
Robert Stephen Fitzgerald (brother of the more famous Lord Edward), who
was charged to do all in his power to cultivate friendly relations with
the French Government, and, for the present at least, to discourage
the visits of English tourists.[894] The new envoy certainly showed
more tact than Dorset; but his despatches give the impression that he
longed for the political reaction which he more than once predicted
as imminent. We may notice here that the Pitt Cabinet showed no sign
of uneasiness as to the safety of its archives at the Paris embassy
until 5th March, when orders were issued to send back to London all the
ciphers and deciphers. The attitude of Pitt towards French affairs was
one of cautious observation.
In the meantime affairs at Paris went rapidly from bad to worse.
The scarcity of ready money, the dearness of bread, and the wild
stories of the so-called _pacte de famine_, for starving the populace
into obedience, whetted class-hatreds, and rendered possible the
extraordinary scenes of 5th and 6th October. As is well known, the
tactlessness of the Queen and courtiers on the one side, and on the
other the intrigues of the Duke of Orleans and his agents, led up
to the weird march of the market-women and rabble of Paris upon
Versailles, which brought the Royal Family captive into the capital.
The absence of the Duke of Orleans being highly desirable, he was sent
to London, ostensibly on a diplomatic mission, but really in order to
get rid of him until affairs should have settled down.[895] The pretext
was found in the troubles in the Austrian Netherlands. As we saw in
the previous chapters, nothing could be more unlike the growingly
democratic movement in France than the revolt of the Flemings and
Brabanters against the anti-national reforms of Joseph II of Austria.
Men so diverse as Burke and Dumouriez discerned that truth. The great
Irishman in a letter to Rivarol termed the Belgian rising a resistance
to innovation;[896] while to the French free-thinker it was _une
révolution théocratique_. Nevertheless, as many Frenchmen cherished the
hope of giving a prince to the Pays Bas, it was thought well to put
forth a feeler London-wards; and Philippe Egalité in fancy saw himself
enthroned at Brussels.
Such a solution would have been highly displeasing both at Westminster
and at Windsor; and there is no proof that the Duke even mentioned it
at Whitehall. In point of fact his mission was never taken seriously.
George III, with characteristic acuteness in all matters relating to
intrigue, had divined the secret motive of his journey and expressed it
in the following hitherto unpublished letter to the Duke of Leeds:
WINDSOR, _Oct. 19, 1789_. 9.55 a.m.[897]
The language held by the Marquis de Luzerne to the Duke of Leeds
on the proposed journey of the Duke of Orleans does not entirely
coincide with the intelligence from Lord Robert Fitzgerald of the
Duke’s message to the States General [_sic_] announcing his absence
as the consequence of a negotiation with which he is to be employed
at this Court. I confess I attribute it to his finding his views
not likely to succeed or some personal uneasiness for his own
safety....
The King argued correctly; and doubtless his suspicions ensured for
the Duke a chilly reception at the Foreign Office. On 22nd or 23rd
October Leeds saw him at his residence in London, but could get from
him no more than polite professions of regard for England. Leeds
thereupon urged Fitzgerald to find out whether the Duke’s “mission”
was a plausible pretext for securing his absence from Paris; to
which our envoy replied that everyone at Paris spoke of him with
indifference or contempt, and that Lafayette had discovered proofs of
his complicity in the outrages of 5th to 6th October, and therefore
had him sent away. On 6th November Fitzgerald added that Louis XVI had
given the Duke no instructions whatever. Leeds had already come to
much the same conclusion. On 30th October he saw Orleans, who merely
suggested a close understanding between England and France, especially
if the Emperor should march an army into his Belgic provinces. Leeds
coolly replied that the desire of Joseph II to crush the revolt was
most natural, and that France would do well to restore order at home
rather than look with apprehension on events beyond her borders. As he
accompanied these remarks with expressions of sincere commiseration for
Louis XVI, Orleans must have seen that the secret of his involuntary
mission was divined. This seems to be the only notice of it in the
British archives. His sinister reputation and his association with
loose company in London soon deprived him of all consequence.
Pitt’s attitude towards the Belgian Question has been already
described. He seems to have given more time and thought to it than
to the French Revolution--a fact which is not strange if we remember
that the future of the Belgic lands was of untold importance for Great
Britain. To secure their independence from France she had many times
poured out her blood and treasure; and Pitt was destined to spend his
last energies in the greatest of those efforts. Moreover, as we have
seen, the European polity was far more seriously menaced by the schemes
of Catharine, Joseph, and Hertzberg than by French reformers; and no
one expected that in a short time the shifting kaleidoscope of European
States would be altogether shivered by blows dealt from Paris. We, who
know the outcome of events, are apt to accuse Pitt of shortsightedness
for not concentrating his attention on France; but the criticism rests
on the cheapest of all kinds of wisdom--wisdom after the event. In
Pitt’s mind the advent of militant democracy aroused neither ecstasy
nor loathing. His royalism had nothing in common with the crusading
zeal of Gustavus III, and therefore did not impel him to rescue the
Bourbons from the troubles which resulted so largely from their
participation in the American War. Here, as everywhere, Pitt allowed
cold reason to rule; and reason suggested that the Bourbons might atone
for that stupendous blunder as best they could. Besides, the experience
of nations, as of families, forbade the interference of an outsider
in domestic quarrels. Apart from its bearing on Belgian affairs, the
French Revolution is scarcely named in Pitt’s correspondence of this
time.
Still more curious is it that the letters of George III to his
Minister contain not a single reference to the Revolution. This
silence respecting events of untold import for all crowned heads is
explicable if we remember that to most men they seemed but the natural
outcome of mismanagement and deficient harvests, which statesmanship
and mother Nature would ere long set right. The proneness of George
to look at everything from his own limited point of view was also at
this time emphasized by ill health and family troubles, which blotted
out weightier topics. Thus, on 1st May 1789, he declared his annoyance
at the sudden return of Prince William from the West Indies--a proof
that his paternal commands would never be obeyed. The Prince, he says,
must now have the same allowance as the Duke of York. “I have,” he
adds, “but too much reason to expect no great comfort but an additional
member to the opposite faction in my own family.” He concludes with
the desire that some arrangement may be made for the Queen and the
princesses in case of his death; for his whole nervous system has
sustained a great shock in the late illness. On 9th June the King again
expresses to Pitt his regret that Prince William declines to return to
sea. His letters during the rest of that exciting year are devoid of
interest if we except the effort to reconcile Pitt and Thurlow referred
to in Chapter XX.
The King’s domestic dronings are varied on 14th January 1790 by an
excited declaration that a frigate must be provided at once in order to
convey Prince Edward, afterwards Duke of Kent, to Gibraltar, as it was
of urgent importance that he should at once leave London.[898] On 3rd
March he records his heartfelt joy at the failure of Fox’s attempt to
procure the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts; and on the 28th of
that month occurs the first reference to the French Revolution which
I have found in the King’s letters. He then expresses to Pitt regret
that the papers forwarded by the Comte d’Artois (younger brother of
Louis XVI) and his political agent, Calonne, contain so little real
information about the affairs of France. He continues thus: “Mr. Pitt’s
answer should be very civil, and may be very explicit as to no money or
other means having been used to keep up the confusion in France; and
M. de Calonne ought to convey those assurances wherever he thinks they
may be of use.”[899] Readers who have an eye for the ironies of history
may notice that the first of the myriad stories thrown off by the
perfervid Gallic imagination, as to the ubiquitous potency of British
money in creating famines, arming assassins, and trumping up Coalitions
against France, originated with the royalist exiles, who saw in the
French Revolution the first manifestation of the wonder-working power
of “Pitt’s gold.”
That statesman’s opinion concerning the Revolution was first made
known during the debates on the Army Estimates (5th and 9th February
1790). Having inserted in the King’s Speech a reference to the friendly
assurances which he received from all the Powers, and a guarded
statement that the internal troubles in certain states engaged the
King’s “most serious attention,” he was twitted by champions of economy
with a slight increase in the army. True, the total provided for was
only 17,448 officers and men; and part of the increase was due to the
drafting of 200 men to keep order in the infant colony of New South
Wales. But even these figures, which
barely could defy
The arithmetic of babes,
aroused the compunctions of Marsham, Fox, and Pulteney. They complained
that, though most of our Colonial Empire had been lost, yet our army
had been increased by thirteen regiments since the disastrous peace of
1783. Marsham deemed this increase “alarming,” and wholly needless in
view of the paralysis of France. Fox did not repeat the stale platitude
that a standing army was a danger to liberty; for, as he pointed out,
the French soldiers had shown themselves to be good citizens; but he
opposed the present vote on the ground of economy, and because it was
urgently necessary to strengthen the public credit, which could be done
only by reductions of expenditure. He repeated these arguments in the
second debate, that of 9th February.
On both occasions Pitt defended the proposed vote for the army, on
the ground that “a small saving now might prove the worst economy,
by involving us in disputes which might be attended with greater
additional burthens to the kingdom.” In the latter debate he skilfully
used the admission of Fox, that any one who three years before had
foretold the present convulsions in France would have been deemed
a lunatic, in order to enforce the need of preparedness, it being
no excuse for responsible Ministers to exclaim in the midst of
disasters--“Who would have thought of it?” Then, as was his wont, he
opened up wider vistas in this noble but, alas, less prophetic strain:
The present convulsions of France must, sooner or later, terminate
in general harmony and regular order; and though the fortunate
arrangements of such a situation may make her more formidable, it
may also render her less obnoxious as a neighbour.... Whenever the
situation of France shall become restored, it will prove freedom
rightly understood; freedom resulting from good order and good
government; and thus circumstanced France will stand forward as
one of the most brilliant Powers in Europe; she will enjoy just
that kind of liberty which I venerate, and the valuable existence
of which it is my duty, as an Englishman, peculiarly to cherish;
nor can I, under this predicament, regard with envious eyes, an
approximation in neighbouring States to those sentiments which are
the characteristic features of every British subject. Easier, I
will admit with the right hon. gentleman, is it to destroy than
rebuild; and therefore I trust that this universally acknowledged
position will convince gentlemen that they ought, on the present
question, not to relax their exertions for the strength of the
country, but endeavour to regain our former pinnacle of glory, and
to improve, for our security, happiness and aggrandisement, those
precious moments of peace and leisure which are before us.[900]
This statesmanlike utterance was not prompted by considerations of the
mutability of human affairs. The bent of Pitt’s mind was too practical
to be influenced by copy-book maxims. Already, on 21st January, the
first rumours had reached the Foreign Office, which portended serious
friction with Spain. To this question we must devote the following
chapter.
It will be well, however, to conclude this chapter by a few remarks on
the standpoints from which Pitt and Burke viewed the French Revolution.
They were in truth so different as scarcely to admit of comparison.
The judgements of Pitt were those of a statesman of an objective order
of mind, who weighed events carefully, judged men critically, and
was content to change his policy as occasion required. In his view
institutions were made for men, not men for institutions. But his zeal
for Reform was tempered by respect for the verdicts of the past and by
the knowledge that the progress of mankind must be slow if it is to be
sure. He had lost much of his earlier zeal for Parliamentary Reform,
but only because the people had seemed to care little for it, and
were sincerely attached to their time-worn institutions. His attitude
towards this great question during the stormy years of the Jacobin
ascendancy will concern us later; and we need only notice here that,
even at that time of political ferment, he never declared that under
no circumstances would he bring in a Reform Bill, but always left open
a door of hope in that direction when quieter days should return. For
the present he repressed all movements which he considered seditious,
dangerous, or likely to cause divisions; and for that alone he may be
condemned by friends of progress.
From the other side he is censured for his lack of sympathy with
the woes of a distressed King and Queen. Certainly we miss in his
utterances any gush of genuine feeling on a subject which touched the
inmost springs of emotion in our people. True, he had small ground for
liking Louis XVI and his consort. The King of France had dealt the
British Empire a deadly blow in America; and Marie Antoinette was an
inveterate intriguer against England. Even up to the flight to Varennes
at midsummer 1791, she impelled her brother, Leopold II of Austria,
in his anti-English courses, which, as we shall see, cost us so dear.
What was worse, she even accused England of having instigated all the
disorders of which she was the victim. Nevertheless, it would have been
generous to attribute this spitefulness to her narrow training and
bitter sorrows. Pitt would have been a more engaging figure if he had
occasionally shown a spark of that indignation which burnt so fiercely
in Burke. If he had any deep feelings on the subject, he chose to
conceal them, perhaps from a conviction that the expression of them
would do more harm than good.
Well would it have been for the cause of peace if the champion of
French royalism in these islands had obeyed the dictates of reason
which held Pitt tongue-tied. Unfortunately sentiment and emotion at
this time reigned supreme in the great mind of Burke. Every student of
history must admire the generous impulses which were incarnate in the
great Irishman. They lent colour to the products of his imagination,
and they lit up his actions with a glow which makes his blunders more
brilliant than the dull successes of mediocre men. Where sentiment
was a safe guide, there Burke led on with an energy that was not less
conspicuous than his insight. Where critical acumen, mental balance,
and self-restraint were needed, the excess of his qualities often led
him far astray. The true function of such a man is to interpret the
half-felt impulses of the many. If he seek to guide them to definite
solutions, his ardent temperament is apt to overshoot the mark.
Observers noted how Burke’s vehement conduct of the Warren Hastings
affair injured his cause; and many more were soon to discern the same
failing when, with Celtic ardour, he rushed into the complex mazes of
the French Revolution.
Opinions will always differ as to the merits of his remarkable book on
that subject. Its transcendent literary excellences at once ensured
it an influence enjoyed by no other political work of that age; but
we are here concerned with his “Reflections” not as literature, but
as criticism on the French movement. Even in this respect he rightly
gauged some of the weaknesses of Gallic democracy. He was the first of
Britons to discern the peril to the cause of freedom when the brutal
fury of the populace broke forth in the hour of its first triumph,
the surrender of the Bastille, and still more in the Jacqueries that
followed. He also gave eloquent and imperishable expression to the
feeling of respect for all that is venerable, in which the French
reformers were sadly deficient; and, while he bade them save all that
could be saved of their richly-storied past, he truly foretold their
future if they gave rein to their iconoclastic zeal. In my judgement
the passage in which Burke foretells the advent of Bonaparte is grander
even than that immortal rhapsody on the fate of Marie Antoinette and
the passing away of the age of chivalry. The one is the warning of a
prophet; the latter is the wail of a genius.
Equally profound are his warnings to the French enthusiasts of the
danger of applying theories to the infinite complexities of an old
society. To quote some sentences:
The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or
reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be
taught _a priori_. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct
us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral
causes are not always immediate.... The science of government
being therefore so practical in itself, and intended for such
practical purposes, a matter which requires experience, and even
more experience than any person can gain in his whole life, however
sagacious and observing he may be, it is with infinite caution
that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice, which
has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes
of society, or on building it up again, without having models and
patterns of approved utility before his eyes.... The nature of man
is intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest possible
complexity; and therefore no simple disposition or direction of
power can be suitable either to man’s nature, or to the quality
of his affairs. When I hear the simplicity of contrivance aimed
at and boasted of in any new political constitutions, I am at no
loss to decide that the artificers are grossly ignorant of their
trade, or totally negligent of their duty.... The rights of men in
governments are their advantages, and these are often in balances
between differences of good, in compromises sometimes between good
and evil, and sometimes between evil and evil.... I cannot conceive
how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption
to consider his country as nothing but _carte blanche_, upon which
he may scribble whatever he pleases.
We are here reminded of the saying of Dumont, the friend of Mirabeau,
that the fear of being thought officious and interfering is as
universal among the English as is the desire of the French of taking
a prominent part and interfering in everything.[901] This home thrust
by the able Swiss thinker goes far to explain the difference between
the Revolution of 1688 in England and that of a century later in
France. Vanity, love of the sensational, and, a mania for wholesale
reconstruction on geometrical designs largely account for the failures
of the French revolutionists; and Burke’s warnings on these heads were
treated with the petulant disdain characteristic of clever children.
Burke also did good service by pointing out the fundamental differences
between the general overturn in France and the “glorious Revolution”
of 1688 in England. Slipshod comparisons of the two events were then
much in vogue, witness the sermon of Dr. Price in the Old Jewry, on
which Burke conferred the fame of a never ending pillory. The Whigs,
who formed a rapidly thinning tail behind their impetuous leader, were
never tired of discovering historical parallels; and it is possible
that Pitt’s sympathy with Whiggism, stunted but not wholly blighted by
Parliamentary friction, led him to the hopeful prophecy already quoted.
Certainly very many Frenchmen saw themselves in fancy entering on
peaceful paths of progress under a more genial William III. At the time
when Burke was completing his “Reflections,” Wordsworth and his friend
during a Long Vacation tour in France were met with warmest cheer by
_fédérés_ who had shared in the ecstatic Festival of the Federation
(14th July 1790):
And with their swords flourished as if to fight
The saucy air.
At once the Englishmen were greeted as brothers.
We bore a name
Honoured in France, the name of Englishmen,
And hospitably did they give us hail
As their fore-runners in a glorious course.
All this was very pleasing; but it could only end in bitter
estrangement when France was found to be concerned, not with
“preventing a Revolution” (as Burke finely showed that England did in
1688[902]), but in carrying through with unimaginable zeal a political
overturn, along with social, religious, and agrarian changes of the
most drastic kind. This was evident enough even by the summer of
1790. Feudalism had been swept away root and branch; copy-holders
had become freeholders; the old taxes were no more--and none had
definitely taken their place; titles of nobility were abolished; and
the Assembly declared war on the discipline and on one of the dogmas of
the Roman Catholic Church. Well might Burke stand aghast and declare
that this cataclysm had little or nothing in common with the insular,
conservative, and constitutional efforts of Englishmen a century
before.
Strange to say, the defects of his book arose largely from his
underrating the differences between the two movements. In his eagerness
to preserve Englishmen from the risk of hazily sympathizing with
French democracy, he inveighed against the new doctrines with a zeal
that was not always born of knowledge. Forgetting his earlier adage
respecting America--“I will never draw up an indictment against a whole
people”--he sought to convict Frenchmen of fickleness and insanity. He
calls the Revolution “this strange chaos of levity and ferocity, and of
all sorts of crimes jumbled together with all sorts of follies”; and
he even ventured to prophesy that in France learning would be “trodden
down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.” Coming nearer to facts,
he took the French to task for not repairing their old constitution.
He likened it to a venerable castle in which some of the walls and
all the foundations were still in existence, and added the surprising
statement--“you had the elements of a constitution very nearly as good
as could be wished.”
Here Burke went wholly astray. A constitution, which gave to the King
a power limited only by the occasional protests of the Paris and other
“Parlements”; under which the States-General (at best little more than
an advisory body) had not been summoned for 175 years; which assigned
to the “_Tiers Etat_” only one third of the legislative power and no
control over the executive, though the Commons of France paid nearly
all the taxation; and which promised to perpetuate the old division
into three classes,--such a constitution was merely an interesting
blend of the principles of Feudalism and Absolute Monarchy, but could
never satisfy a nation which had listened to Voltaire and given its
heart to Rousseau. Sir Philip Francis, with his usual incisiveness,
pointed out to Burke that the French could not act as we did in 1688,
for they had no constitution to recur to, much less one that was “very
nearly as good as could be wished.”
In truth, Burke did not know France. Hence his work is of permanent
value only where he praises English methods and launches into wise and
noble generalizations. For his own people it will ever be the political
Book of Proverbs. His indictments against the French people in the main
flew over their heads. On most insufficient knowledge he ventured on
sweeping assertions which displayed the subtlety and wide sweep of his
thought, but convinced only those who did not know the difficulties
besetting the men of 1789. Nevertheless, as readers are influenced far
more by emotion than by close and exact reason, the vast majority were
carried away by the rush of feeling of that mighty soul; and hence
in the view of a philosophic monarchist like Dumont, the publication
of the “Reflections” was destined to be “the salvation of Europe.”
Certainly it was the first noteworthy effort of a literary man to stem
the tide of democracy; and if the writer had advocated a practicable
scheme for saving the French monarchy--say, on the lines of that of
Mirabeau--he would have rendered an inestimable service. As it was,
even the voice of a genius failed to convince the French people that
they must build their new fabric on the lines laid down by Philip the
Fair and Louis the Fourteenth.
While the “Reflections” caused little but irritation in France,
they also worked some harm in England. Readers by the thousand were
captivated by the glamour of Burke’s style, and became forthwith the
sworn foes of the persecutors of Marie Antoinette. The fall of that
erstwhile “morning star, full of life and splendour and joy,” involved
in one common gloom the emotions and the reason of Britons. “It is the
noblest, deepest, most animated and exalted work that I think I have
ever read.” So wrote Fanny Burney. The superlatives are significant.
Thenceforth events in France were viewed through the distorting medium
of a royalist romance. The change was fatal in every way. England,
which heretofore had guardedly sympathized with the French reformers,
now swung round to antagonism; and the French princes who at Turin and
Coblentz were striving to frame a Coalition against their native land,
saw in fancy John Bull as the paymaster of the monarchist league, with
Burke as the chief trumpeter.
In truth the great writer ran some risk of sinking to this level. He
became the unofficial representative of the French princes in this
country, while his son, Richard Burke, proceeded to Coblentz to work on
behalf of that clamorous clique. Memoir after memoir appeared from the
pen of Burke himself. Now it was a protest, purporting to emanate from
George III, against despoiling the French monarchy of all its rights,
and asserting that, if this caution were unheeded, our ambassador
would leave Paris.[903] Now again it was a memorandum of advice to
the Queen of France, urging her to have nothing to do with traitors
(_i.e._, reformers), to maintain an attitude of silent disdain of their
offered help, and, above all, to induce her consort to refuse the new
democratic constitution.[904] Fortunately neither of these documents
went beyond the doors of Burke’s study; but they survive as curious
proofs of his now distracted mood.
It was the misfortune of Burke at this time that majesty of diction
deserted him at Westminster, where his speeches and demeanour bore the
imprint of petulance and sourness. This appeared most painfully in the
famous scene which marked his severance from Fox. It occurred during
the debates on the Canada Bill in the spring of 1791. The preoccupation
of men’s minds with the French constitution, then slowly taking shape,
had been apparent in the course of the session. Fox had often dragged
in the subject to express his warm sympathy with the democrats of
Paris, and now desired to assimilate the Canada Bill somewhat to the
French model. To this Burke offered vehement opposition, out-doing
Fox in iteration. On 6th May, when the subject at issue was Canada,
he defied the rules of the House by speaking solely on France. Six
times he was called to order. Still he went on, in more and more
heated tones, until he crowned his diatribe with the declaration that
the difference between him and his friend involved an end of their
connection; for with his latest words he would exclaim: “Fly from the
French Constitution.” Fox here whispered to him: “There is no loss of
friends.” “Yes,” retorted Burke, “there is a loss of friends; I know
the price of my conduct; I have done my duty at the price of my friend;
our friendship is at an end.” A little later, when Fox rose to reply,
words failed him and tears trickled down his cheeks.[905] No scene in
Parliament in that age produced so profound an emotion. It deepened the
affection felt for that generous statesman; while the once inspiring
figure of Burke now stood forth in the hard and repellent outlines of a
fanatic.
Far better would it have been had he confined himself to the higher
domains of literature, where he was at home. His “Appeal from the New
to the Old Whigs,” which appeared in July 1791, is a great and moving
production; and his less known “Thoughts on French Affairs” (December
1791) is remarkable for its keen insight into the causes that made for
disruption or revolt in the European lands, not even excluding Great
Britain.[906] In this one respect Burke excelled Pitt, just as nervous
apprehension will detect dangers ahead that are hidden from the serene
gaze of an optimist. Wilberforce judged Pitt to be somewhat deficient
in foresight;[907] and we may ascribe this defect to his intense
hopefulness and his lack of close acquaintance with men in this country
and, still more, on the Continent. Burke found that both the Prime
Minister and Grenville had not the slightest fear of the effect of
revolutionary ideas in this Kingdom “either at present or at any time
to come.”[908] Here Burke was the truer prophet. But how could Pitt
sift the wise from the unwise in the copious output of Burke’s mind?
They mingle so closely as to bewilder the closest observer even now,
when the mists of passion enveloping those controversies have partly
cleared away. Sentiment palpitated visibly in all Burke’s utterances;
and the teachings of the philosopher were lost amidst the diatribes of
the partisan.
In fact, it was difficult for a practical statesman to take the orator
seriously. In April 1791 he had furiously attacked Pitt’s Russian
policy; and, as we have seen, the differences between them were more
than political, they were temperamental. No characteristic of Pitt is
more remarkable than the balance of his faculties and the evenness
of his disposition. No defect in Burke’s nature is more patent than
his lack of self-control, to which, rather than to his poverty, I am
inclined to ascribe his exclusion from the Whig Cabinets. Irritability
in small things had long been his bane; and now to the solution of
the greatest problem in modern history he brought a fund of passion
and prejudice equal to that of any of the French _émigrés_ who were
pestering the Courts of Europe to crush the new ideas by force.
Yet, however much Pitt mistrusted Burke the politician, he admired
him as a writer; so at least we gather from a somewhat enigmatical
reference in Wilberforce’s diary. “22nd November (1790): Went to
Wimbledon--Dundas, Lord Chatham, Pitt, Grenville, Ryder. Much talk
about Burke’s book. Lord Chatham, Pitt and I seemed to agree: _contra_,
Grenville and Ryder.”[909] If this entry be correct, Wilberforce and
Grenville were destined soon to change their opinions. It may be that
Pitt and Wilberforce agreed with Burke owing to their dislike of the
iconoclastic methods of the French democrats, and that Grenville’s cold
nature was repelled by the sentimentalism of the book.
In their judgements on the French Revolution Pitt and Burke stood not
far apart. Pitt knew France no better than the great Irishman, and he
distrusted theorizers and rash innovators fully as much, especially
when their symmetrical notions were carried out by mobs. But the two
men differed sharply as to the remedy. Burke came to believe more and
more in armed intervention; Pitt saw in it ruin for French royalists
and turmoil throughout the Continent. Here again the difference was
in the main one of temperament. In Burke’s nature the eagerness and
impulsiveness of the Celt was degenerating into sheer fussiness, which
drew him toward the camp of the _émigrés_ who strutted and plotted at
Turin and Coblentz. Pitt’s coolness and reserve bade him distrust those
loud-tongued fanatics, whose political rhapsodies awoke a sympathetic
chord in no ruler save Gustavus of Sweden. True, Catharine of Russia
shrilly bade them Godspeed; but, as we shall see, her distant blessings
were the outcome of Muscovite diplomacy rather than of royalist zeal.
Pitt and Grenville, who saw other things in life besides the woes
of Marie Antoinette and Jacobin outrages, were resolved not to lead
the van of the monarchical crusade. They might approve Burke’s sage
production, the “Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs,” which won
the warm commendation of the King, as well as of Grenville, Camden,
and Dundas, but they were bent on maintaining strict neutrality on
the French Question. Pitt and his cousin met Burke more than once in
the summer and autumn of 1791; but they kept their thoughts veiled,
probably because Burke was working hard for the royalist league which
the French Princes hoped to form. The general impression produced on
Burke was that the Court of St. James would certainly not act against
the champions of monarchy, but would preserve a benevolent neutrality.
Other observers took a different view. The Russian ambassador,
Vorontzoff, declared that Pitt was a democrat at heart, and kept up
the naval armaments in order to intimidate the royalists, while he
sent Hugh Elliot to Paris to concert measures along with Barnave.[910]
These stories are of value merely because they illustrate Pitt’s
power of holding back his trump cards and thereby rehabilitating the
national prestige, which had recently suffered at the hands of the
Czarina. At such a crisis silence is often a potent weapon. The Arab
“Book of Wisdom” asserts that wisdom consists in nine parts of silence;
while the tenth part is brevity of utterance. If Burke had realized
this truth, his political career would not have ended in comparative
failure. By acting on it, Pitt disconcerted his interviewers and
exasperated his biographers; but he helped to keep peace on the
Continent for nearly a year longer; and he assured that boon to his
country for nearly two years. Had Burke been in power, the coalesced
monarchs would have attacked France in the late summer of 1791.
CHAPTER XXV
THE DISPUTE WITH SPAIN
It is bad economy to tempt an attack, from a state of weakness, and
thus by a miserable saving ultimately incur the hazard of a great
expense.--PITT, _Speech of 9th February 1790_.
On 21st January 1790 there arrived at Whitehall news of an outrage
committed by a Spanish officer on the crew of a British vessel trading
on the dimly known coast which was destined to be called Vancouver
Island. The affair became infinitely more serious on 11th February when
the Spanish ambassador in London, the Marquis del Campo, forwarded to
our Foreign Minister, the Duke of Leeds, an official demand that the
British Government should punish certain interlopers who had ventured
to trade and settle at Nootka Sound on that coastline, which Spain
then considered as part of her Californian domain and for ever closed
to outsiders. This demand produced a state of tension between the two
nations, and subsequent incidents threatened to involve us in war,
not only with Spain, but with her ally, France. As the outcome of
this Nootka Sound dispute was the acquisition by Great Britain of a
coastline of infinite value to Canada and the Empire at large, it will
be well briefly to describe its origin, its settlement, and its bearing
on the French Revolution.
Nootka Sound, a fine natural harbour on the western coast of what is
now called Vancouver Island, was explored and named by Captain Cook in
the course of his memorable voyage of the year 1778. He stayed there
one month, and bought from the Indians a number of furs which proved
to be of great value in the eyes of the Chinese. In the following
years British and Spanish ships touched at Nootka; but owing to the
American War, or to the torpor of mercantile enterprise in those days,
nothing definite came of the discovery until the year 1785. Certain
merchants of the British East India Company trading to China then
resolved to open up trade between that country and the west coast of
America. The commodities sought for the Chinese market were furs and
ginseng, a plant used as a drug by the celestials. In the following
year two small vessels, the “Sea Otter” and the “Nootka,” sailed to the
American coast, and though the former was wrecked, the latter carried
back to China a valuable cargo. The owners replaced her by the “Felice”
and “Iphigenia,” which in 1788 sailed to the same coast. The senior
captain, John Meares, a retired lieutenant of the royal navy, bought a
piece of land at Nootka from the Indian chief, Maquilla, formed a small
settlement, fortified it, and hoisted the British flag. His vessels
then traded along the coast as far as 60° and 45° 30´, that is, beyond
the Columbia River on the south, and as far as Mount St. Elias, in what
is now the United States territory of Alaska, but was then recognized
as belonging to Russia’s sphere of influence.[911]
At Nootka the adventurous pioneers built a sloop of 40 tons, the
“North-West America,” and bought from Indian chiefs the right of
“free and exclusive” trade with their subjects. As autumn drew on
Meares sailed away to China in the “Felice,” and there persuaded
other merchants to combine in order to form an Associated Company for
developing this lucrative commerce. Accordingly, three more ships,
the “Prince of Wales,” “Princess Royal,” and “Argonaut,” set sail for
Nootka in the spring of 1789 under the command of Captain Colnett,
who was to reside at that settlement. It is curious to note thus
early the emergence of the yellow question, for he carried with him
seventy Chinamen who were to settle there under the protection of the
Associated Company--a proof that the occupation of Nootka was to be
permanent.
Strange to say, the Spanish Government, acting through its Viceroy of
Mexico, was then bent on the acquisition of this very same district. By
virtue of the Bull of Pope Alexander VI, and the treaty of Tordesillas
(1494), which speedily followed, Spain claimed exclusive right over
the Pacific Ocean and all the western coast of America as far north as
latitude 60°, beyond which were the Russian settlements in Alaska. In
the year 1774, that is, four years before Cook’s enterprise, a Spanish
captain, Perez, had sailed to Nootka and as far north as latitude 55°.
But no account of his voyage, or of one made in the following year, had
been given to the world. Neither had the Spaniards made any attempt
to trade at Nootka, nor to form a settlement, until they heard of the
efforts of the Russians and English to open up trade with the natives.
Then, indeed, they took alarm; and the Viceroy of Mexico despatched
two vessels, under the command of Captain Martinez, with orders to
warn off intruders, and, in case of armed resistance, to use force in
vindicating the claims of Spain. The Viceroy and Martinez knew nothing
concerning the new developments at Nootka, and had in view the Russians
rather than the British.
Long before the arrival of Colnett, and while the “Iphigenia” alone
was at Nootka, there sailed in, on 5th May, a Spanish frigate, the
“Princesa.” Shortly after she was joined by a sloop. Meares had
previously provided Douglas, the captain of the “Iphigenia,” with
papers proving that she was a Portuguese ship, hailing from Macao,
the Portuguese settlement near Canton. In reality, however, she was a
British ship with a British cargo. Despite the arguments of Douglas,
Martinez soon divined the truth, and took possession of her as well
as the infant settlement of Nootka.[912] A little later he seized the
“North-West America”; and when the “Argonaut” arrived from China, she
too fell into his hands by a treacherous ruse, so Colnett averred.
The “Princess Royal” was the next victim. Fortune certainly favoured
Martinez in having to deal with the British ships as they dropped in
singly; and he played his game with skill and success.
The truth respecting the subsequent occurrences cannot be disentangled
from the false or exaggerated accounts of the disputants. Meares,
Colnett, and Douglas asserted on oath that they had been treacherously
seized and barbarously treated. Martinez declared that his behaviour
throughout was humane and considerate. His statements were backed by
those of certain American traders who were there present; but, as they
for a time made common cause with Martinez, their evidence is not
convincing. The assertions of Meares and Colnett on this point are
antecedently credible, it being the habit of Spain to treat interlopers
as little better than privateers. Martinez compelled his prisoners
(so they asserted) to assist in building a stockade, and subsequently
treated Colnett with so much indignity that he tried to commit suicide,
and Hanson, one of his petty officers, actually did so. The Spanish
commander then traded with the captured vessels, and finally collected
skins estimated by Meares to be worth about 7,500 Spanish dollars.
The British ships and crews were afterwards taken to the Spanish port
of San Blas, where the governor treated them with more consideration,
and, though regarding them virtually as privateers, released them and
submitted the fate of their ships to an official inquiry. The whole
truth of the Nootka incident will probably never be cleared up. What
concerns us here is the impression produced on Pitt by the statements
of Meares. They were set forth in a Memorial, dated London, 30th April
1790. Meares laid stress on the perfidy and cruelty of Martinez, and
estimated his own losses at 500,000 Spanish dollars, apart from the
ruin of the trade along the Nootka coast.[913]
Reports of these events filtered through to London very slowly. Merry,
British _chargé d’affaires_ at Madrid, sent the first vague rumours of
them in a despatch which, as we have seen, reached Whitehall on 21st
January; but the situation became fraught with danger on 11th February,
when the Spanish envoy in London handed in a despatch drawn up in terms
no less haughty than misleading. After presenting a distorted view of
the Nootka incident, del Campo asserted the right of Spain to absolute
sovereignty in those districts “which have been occupied and frequented
by the Spaniards for so many years.” He further requested the British
Government to punish such undertakings as those of Meares and Colnett,
but closed with the statement that the British prisoners had been
liberated through the consideration which the King of Spain had for His
Britannic Majesty.
Compliance with this demand was, of course, out of the question, for
it would have implied the closing of the north-west coast of America
to every flag but the red and yellow ensign of Spain; and the request
for the punishment of British seamen, whose ships had admittedly
been seized, added insult to injury. Pitt and his colleagues as yet
knew very little of the facts of the case. The dimness of the notions
then entertained about that region appears in a phrase used by Robert
Liston, our envoy at Stockholm, that the waters behind Nootka Sound
may be the opening to the long-sought North-West Passage.[914] In any
case the demands of Spain carried with them their own condemnation.
Accordingly, on 26th February, the Duke of Leeds replied to del Campo
that the act of violence committed by Martinez “makes it necessary
henceforth to suspend all discussion of the pretensions set forth in
that letter until a just and adequate satisfaction shall have been made
for a proceeding so injurious to Great Britain.”[915]
The writing here was that of Leeds, but the resolve was the resolve of
Pitt. The original draft of this despatch is in the handwriting of the
Prime Minister. As at so many crises, he took the conduct of affairs
directly into his own hands; and Leeds, though he doubtless agreed with
him, was only his mouthpiece. George III and Pitt were equally desirous
of peace; but on this occasion their determination was immutable.
Satisfaction must be given for the insult, or else war must ensue. In
his despatch of the same date to Merry at Madrid, the Duke stoutly
contested the right of Spain to the exclusive sovereignty, commerce,
and navigation of the coasts north of California, and asserted the
determination of the Court of St. James to protect its subjects trading
in that part of the Pacific Ocean.[916]
When the facts stated on oath by Meares were known by Ministers, they
realized the extreme gravity of the case. Their demand for satisfaction
having been ignored by the Court of Madrid,[917] they determined, at a
Cabinet Council held on the evening of 30th April, to demand “immediate
and adequate satisfaction for the outrages committed by Mr. de
Martinez,” and to back up that demand by the equipment of several ships
of the line. George III agreed with his Ministers, though with some
reluctance; and the press-gang set to work on 4th May to man the new
squadron. The affair came as a bolt from the blue. Most of the sailors
in the Thames were seized; and the prospect of war caused Consols to
drop three per cent. Ministers, however, were justified in taking this
step. After the Spanish note of 20th April they saw that Spain would
not renounce her exclusive right to the Pacific Coast of America save
under pressure of force.[918] The question of peace or war turned on
two things; the relative naval strength of the two Powers, and the
ability of the Court of Madrid to gain an ally, presumably France.
Deferring for the present the question of the Franco-Spanish Alliance,
we notice that on sea Great Britain had a decided superiority over
Spain. Though the Spanish marine was far from weak it could not cope
with the imposing force which the care and energy of Pitt had amassed
at our dockyards. As has been pointed out in Chapter IX, he frequently
inspected the details of construction, and held the Comptroller of the
Navy personally responsible to him for the due progress of new ships
and the efficiency of the fleet. Thanks to his close supervision, and
the large sums voted for the navy, there were at this time no fewer
than ninety-three sail of the line fit for active service.[919]
This gratifying result cannot be ascribed to the First Lord of the
Admiralty. In July 1788, on the resignation of Lord Howe, Pitt raised
his brother, Lord Chatham, to that responsible post, Lord Hood being
added to the Admiralty Board. Chatham was personally popular but proved
to be indolent as an administrator, his unpunctuality earning him the
nickname of “the late Lord Chatham.” That excellent administrator, Sir
Charles Middleton (the future Lord Barham), refused to serve under him
after the reforms recommended by a Commission of Inquiry were shelved,
and in March 1790 resigned office, pointing out, however, that the
Navy and dockyards were never better prepared for war.[920]
Despite the formidable strength of the British navy, Spain might have
entered on a contest with some chance of success. We are apt to forget
that her period of swift decline under Charles IV had only just begun.
His predecessor, Charles III, who died in 1788, had raised the credit
and power of that land almost to the lofty heights of ancient days. He
had helped to humble the might of England in the American war, and his
army and navy were kept in a state of efficiency which enabled Spain to
rank as one of the Great Powers. On his death there came an insidious
change. In place of vigour and even-handed justice there crept in
all the evils linked with sloth and favouritism. The statesman Count
Floridablanca, who had done much to promote the prosperity of Spain,
saw his influence sapped by the intrigues of the minions of the Queen,
who was to be the evil genius of the realm. But in the year 1790 the
dry-rot had not appreciably affected that imposing fabric. Outwardly
Spain appeared to be almost a match for the Island Power. Towards the
end of July 1790, she had at sea thirty-four sail of the line and
sixteen smaller craft.[921]
The pride of two of the most susceptible nations having been touched to
the quick, war seemed inevitable. On 10th May Pitt moved for a vote of
credit of a million sterling for the necessary armament; this was at
once agreed to.[922] Parliament also supported the Ministry by large
majorities whenever the Opposition attempted to censure their action
on points of detail. Several pamphlets appeared inveighing against the
monstrous claims of Spain to the control of the Pacific. There was
a weak point in her armour, and at this Pitt aimed a deadly shaft.
Already the Spaniards of South and Central America were restive under
the galling yoke of their colonial system, which was so contrived as
to enrich officials and privileged merchants in Spain at the expense
of the new lands. The result was that at Quito a pound of iron sold
for 4_s._ 6_d._, and a pound of steel for 6_s._ 9_d._[923] It is not
surprising that the stoutest spirits longed to break loose from a
Government by comparison with which that of England in the United
States had been mildness and wisdom personified.
The mouthpiece of the discontent of the land now called Venezuela was
a man of strongly marked personality, Miranda by name. An exile from
his native city of Caracas, he had spent several years wandering about
Europe, until the events at Paris drew him to that focus of enthusiasm
and effort. There he became acquainted with Brissot and others who
were interested in the emancipation of subject peoples. But now the
prospect of a war between England and Spain attracted him to London.
Pitt invited him to a first interview on the evening of 9th May. The
daring adventurer there unfolded his plan of revolutionizing Spanish
America; and, in case of war, his commanding personality and intrepid
spirit would have stirred up a serious ferment. Here was a formidable
weapon against Spain; and Pitt in the course of several interviews
with Miranda prepared to use it with effect. Hopes ran high in London
that Spain would be crippled by the action of her own sons in the
New World, a fitting return to her for assisting the revolt of the
English colonists a decade before. Auckland, our envoy at The Hague,
wrote on 29th June 1790: “It is believed there are serious troubles
in South America; but that circumstance seems to afford the strongest
reason for avoiding a quarrel with England. It is wonderful to a cool
bystander to see with what infatuated alacrity several sovereigns are
running towards the embarrassments which have brought Louis XVI and his
dominions to the distracted and desperate state in which we now see
them.”[924]
Meanwhile Pitt and Leeds had nailed their colours to the mast in the
despatch of 4th May, which dismissed the reply of the Spanish Court,
dated 20th April, as wholly inadmissible. By way of retort to its claim
of exclusive possession of the seas and coasts north of California
up to latitude 60°, the British Government asserted for its subjects
in those parts the “unquestioned right to a free and undisturbed
enjoyment of the benefits of commerce, navigation, and fishery, and
also to the possession of such establishments as they may form, with
the consent of the natives, in places unoccupied by other European
nations.”[925] In this declaration lies the charter of the future
colony of British Columbia. Alleyne Fitzherbert, who had already had a
creditable record in diplomacy, now proceeded on a special mission to
Madrid to make good these claims, if possible by peaceable means. Among
the twenty-two “Instructions” is one bidding him weaken the Family
Compact of 1761, which bound together the Kings of France and Spain in
close alliance, and point out to the Spanish Ministers the desirability
of substituting for it a friendly understanding with Great Britain both
in political and commercial affairs.
From the outset Pitt and his colleagues realized that the question
of peace or war depended largely on France. Had that Power been in a
condition to fight, the Bourbon States would certainly have contested
England’s claim, and in that case she might have been for ever excluded
from the Pacific Coast of America. Fitzherbert therefore stayed a few
days at Paris (an indisposition afforded a pretext for delay) in order
to fathom those turbid waters. The foreign policy of France was still
nominally in the hands of Montmorin; but that Minister, never strong,
had been almost cowed by events. Fitzherbert found him most gracious,
but he could not explain away the recent order for equipping fourteen
sail of the line at Brest. The most threatening symptom, however, was
the warlike attitude of the royalist side of the National Assembly,
which on 20th May he thus described to the Duke of Leeds:
... I can plainly perceive that many other members of the
aristocratical faction are anxious to avail themselves of the
opportunity to bring on a war, in the hope that the general
distress and confusion which must almost inevitably follow, might
ultimately tend to the re-establishment of the royal authority upon
its former footing. Many strong indications of this design have
appeared in the insidious language which they have held of late,
speaking of Great Britain both in the National Assembly and without
doors. However, their opponents begin to be aware of their drift,
and it seems to have been principally with a view of guarding
against such designs that the latter have chosen the present time
for carrying into execution their plan of transferring the power
of making War and Peace from the Crown to the National Assembly.
It also appears highly probable that, when this question shall
be disposed of, it will be followed up by some motion tending to
invalidate, if not entirely to annul, the Family Compact.
How curiously the wheels of human action act and interact! The outrage
on British sailors on the dimly known coast of Vancouver Island
furnished French democrats with a potent motive for driving another
nail into the coffin of the old monarchy. In any case the right of
Louis XVI to declare war and make peace would have been challenged--for
how can Democracy allow a Sovereign wholly to control its policy at the
most important of all crises--but now the need was overwhelming. If
the old prerogative held good, the rusty link that bound together the
fortunes of France and Spain would compel free Frenchmen to fight their
English neighbours whenever a Spanish captain thought fit to clap in
irons British voyagers to the Pacific.
The question aroused gusts of passion at Paris. Enormous crowds waited
outside the Tuileries while the deputies hard by were debating this
question (16th and 22nd May). To the surprise of the people the royal
prerogative was upheld by Mirabeau. The great orator descanted forcibly
on the need of energy and secrecy in the diplomacy of a great nation,
and reminded those who ascribed all wars to the intrigues of Courts
that popular assemblies had often declared war in a fit of passion.
He remarked that members had all applauded a speaker who advocated
war against England if she attacked Spain, and the expenditure of
their last man and their last crown in reducing London.[926] Few of
Mirabeau’s speeches were more convincing. Nevertheless, on coming forth
from the Chamber he was threatened with violence; and a pamphlet,
“Great Treason of Count Mirabeau” was hawked about the streets. His
reasoning, however, ensured the carrying of a compromise on 22nd May.
The right of declaring war and making peace was vested in the King:
and war was to be decided only by a decree of the Legislature, on “the
formal and necessary proposition of the King, and afterwards sanctioned
by him.”[927] The position was thus left far from clear; and Camille
Desmoulins, referring to the ups and downs of the debate, summarized
it thus: “The question was decided, firstly, in favour of the nation,
secondly, in favour of the King; thirdly, in favour of both.” The
royalists were highly displeased. Their best speaker, Cazalès, declared
that nothing was now left to the monarchy--an exclamation which
probably revealed his disgust at the passing away of the opportunity of
a war with England.
Meanwhile Pitt had worked hard to array his allies, Prussia and
Holland, against Spain. In this he succeeded. In particular, he
offered to the Dutch a considerable subsidy for arming a squadron as
if for war. To this topic he referred in a letter of 18th May 1790,
to Auckland. After informing him that the tellership of the Exchequer
would be reserved for him, or one of his sons, besides a pension of
£2,000 a year on retirement, he continued thus:
I cannot help adding how much satisfaction I have felt in your
account of everything at The Hague. You have done us a most
essential service in bringing the States into a disposition to act
at the present moment with a dispatch so unusual to them. This
messenger carries instructions to you to engage for the expenses
which you have stated to be likely to be incurred for fitting out
ten sail-of-the-line. You will, I am sure, take care that the
expense shall not be swelled beyond what is really necessary;
but, if even a greater sum should be really wanting, we shall not
scruple to give it; and, if you find that they can go on to prepare
a still greater number of ships, it will be so much the better.
I can hardly form at present a conjecture of the event of our
preparations, as I can hardly conceive either that the Spaniards
will ultimately persist, or that they can have gone so far without
a determination not to recede. I hope we shall be able to send an
answer about the commercial treaty very soon.[928]
Pitt’s economy is here seen to be far removed from the pennywise and
pound-foolish kind. If necessary, he was prepared to lavish subsidies
on the Dutch, and on Prussia as well, in order to overawe Spain. The
Duke of Leeds and he were of one mind as to the need of the most
energetic measures. On 2nd June the Duke wrote to him that the Spanish
proposals were quite inadmissible, and that Great Britain could
not possibly accept “any measure short of a direct and unqualified
satisfaction for the insult.” Spain of course would refuse, and
therefore war must follow: it could not be avoided without disgrace
to one side or the other.[929] This rigid attitude prepares us for the
part which the Duke played in the dispute with Russia nine months later.
In this case Pitt agreed with him, apparently because the point at
issue concerned our interests and our honour far more nearly. Indeed
the tone of the Spanish replies left small hope of peace. Count
Floridablanca protested against the British demand that full reparation
must be made to the victims of Captain Martinez, before the Spanish
claims could be considered. “The Spanish Minister,” wrote Merry from
Madrid on 24th May, “is persuaded that we have at all events taken
the resolution of breaking with this country.... Our tone of language
to this Court he represents as insufferable, and while on his part
he still wishes to preserve peace, he seems to think that Spain will
unavoidably be driven to the necessity of defending herself.” Spain, he
adds, was arming twenty-five warships, and had already two squadrons at
sea.[930]
Her pretensions appear in the despatch of the Spanish Governor of
Mexico, dated Mexico, 11th May 1790. After stating that he had released
the “Argonaut” and “Princess Royal” in order to maintain harmony with
England, he remarked that Martinez had “acted agreeably to the laws
and royal ordinances, which not only absolutely prohibit any kind of
navigation, establishment, or commerce of foreigners on our South Sea
Coasts of both Americas, but moreover strictly command they be looked
upon as declared enemies, without considering such treatment a breach
of national faith or contravention of the treaties of peace.” Whence it
followed that Martinez might with impunity have hanged Meares, Colnett,
and their crews on his yardarms. These claims were thus endorsed in the
Spanish circular note of 4th June, which based them on the Treaty of
Utrecht (1713):
It also appears that, in spite of the attempts of some adventurers
and pirates of various nations on the Spanish coasts of the said
South Sea and the adjacent islands, Spain has continued her
possession, recovering what has been endeavoured to be usurped from
her, and performing for this purpose the necessary reconnoitres
and voyages, by the means of which and of repeated acts she has
preserved her dominion, of which she has always established and
left signs, which reach to places the nearest to the Russian
establishments in that part of the world.
The efforts which the Court of Madrid then put forth at St. Petersburg
and Vienna showed its resolve to concert a league against England in
which Denmark was to be included. This scheme, as visionary as the
grandiose dreams of Alberoni, caused our Ministers some concern, until
they found that their Allies, Prussia and Holland, were resolved to
support them. On 20th May Hertzberg assured Ewart, that Prussia would
fulfil her engagements, if Spain pushed matters to extremes.[931]
Nevertheless, for a time everything portended war. Fitzherbert, after
reaching Aranjuez on 10th June, became convinced that Floridablanca,
for all his peaceful assurances, intended to force a rupture at the
first favourable opportunity. The Spanish Court absolutely refused
to grant satisfaction for the injury done to Meares and Colnett,
because that would imply the right of British subjects to be at
Nootka.[932] For the very same reason the Pitt Cabinet pressed its
preliminary demand. It also brushed aside the Spanish pretensions
of sole sovereignty on the Nootka coasts, because British and other
seamen had for some little time traded there--an assertion difficult to
maintain.[933]
The deadlock was therefore complete; and, if Spain could have looked
forward to help either from France, Russia, or Austria, war would
inevitably have ensued. It is of interest to observe that, as the
crisis became acute, Pitt adopted his usual habit of writing the drafts
of the most important despatches; and they were sent off without
alteration. He thus disposed of the suggestion of Floridablanca, that
the whole matter in dispute should be settled by arbitration. “Your
Excellency will not be surprised that they are such as cannot be
adopted. The idea of an arbitration upon a subject of this nature
must be entirely out of the question; and a reservation such as
that contained in the second proposal would render the satisfaction
nugatory, as it would refer to subsequent discussion the very ground on
which that satisfaction is demanded.”[934]
The outlook was not brightened by the suggestion of Floridablanca,
that Spain should keep the whole of the coast from California up to
and including Nootka; that from that inlet northwards to 61°, British
and Spaniards should have conjointly the right of trading and forming
establishments; and that British sailors should enjoy certain fishery
rights in the South Sea on uninhabited islands far removed from Spanish
settlements.[935] These proposals seemed, as they doubtless were, a
device to gain time until France, Austria, or Russia could step forth
and help Spain; and Pitt refused to admit these “chimerical claims
of exclusive sovereignty over the American Continent and the seas
adjacent,” which were to Spain herself “rather matter of useless pride
than of actual advantage.”[936] Towards the end of July more peaceful
counsels prevailed at Madrid, probably because the weak and luxurious
King, Charles IV, disliked war, and dreaded contact with Revolutionary
France. Further it must have transpired that Russia and Austria, owing
to their war with Turkey, were not likely to give more than good wishes
to Spain. Either for these reasons, or because he hoped that delay
would tell in favour of Spain, Floridablanca signed with Fitzherbert
on 24th July a Declaration that Spain would give satisfaction for the
seizure of British vessels and their cargoes at Nootka. On 5th August
Grenville informed the King of this auspicious turn of affairs.[937]
But now, while the Court of Madrid abated its pretensions, French
patriots began to rattle the sword in the scabbard. For reasons which
are hard to fathom, the Spanish request for armed assistance, which
reached Paris on 16th June, was not presented to the National Assembly
until 2nd August. On that day Montmorin informed the deputies of the
continuance of naval preparations in England, and declared that,
unless French aid were accorded to Spain, she would seek an ally
elsewhere. The statement was well calculated to awaken jealousy of
England; and members came to the conclusion that the islanders were
seeking, in the temporary weakness of France, to bully the Court of
Madrid out of its just rights. Consequently the whole matter was
referred to the newly appointed Diplomatic Committee which supervised
the work of the Foreign Office.[938] As this body now practically
controlled French diplomacy, everything became uncertain; and it is not
surprising that Pitt and Leeds declined to disarm now that the question
of peace or war depended on an emotional Assembly and its delegates.
At the head of this new controlling body was Mirabeau. As Reporter of
the Committee he held a commanding position, which was enhanced by his
splendid eloquence, forceful personality, and knowledge of the shady
by-paths of diplomacy. The Report which he presented to the Assembly
on 25th August was, in effect, his. While minimizing the importance of
the Nootka dispute, scoffing at the old diplomacy, and declaring that
Europe would not need any diplomacy when there were neither despots
nor slaves, he yet proposed that, pending the advent of that glorious
age, France must not abrogate her treaties but continue to respect
them until they had been subjected to revision. Further, in place of
the Family Compact of the Kings of France and Spain, he proposed to
substitute a National Compact, based on the needs of the two nations.
On the following day he continued his speech and moved that France
and Spain should form a national treaty in the interests of peace
and conformable to “the principles of justice which will ever form
the policy of the French.” What was far more significant, he himself
added a rider for the immediate armament of forty-five sail of the
line and a proportionate number of smaller vessels. This was carried
immediately.[939]
Seeing that the Assembly passed this vote at the very time when
the terrible mutiny at Nancy was at its height, the feelings of the
deputies must have been of the bellicose order which Mirabeau had
previously deprecated. Despite the pressing need for peace, France
seemed to be heading straight for war. On ordinary grounds her conduct
is inexplicable. Everywhere her troops were clamouring for arrears
of pay; her sailors could scarcely be kept together; and the virtual
bankruptcy of the State was a week later to be quaintly revealed by the
flight of Necker to Switzerland. The King and his Ministers disapproved
the arming of so large a fleet; for Montmorin confessed to Gower his
surprise and regret, adding the comforting assurance that it would
be done as slowly as possible. The mystery deepens when we know that
Floridablanca continued to speak in peaceful tones. On 19th August he
admitted to Fitzherbert that he desired help from Russia and Austria,
but felt complete indifference as to what France might do. Aid from
her, he said, would lead to the introduction of democratic principles,
which he was determined to keep out, if need arose, by a cordon along
the frontier, as one would exclude the plague.[940]
Here probably we have the key to the enigma. The recent action of
Mirabeau (for the arming of the French naval force was his proposal,
not Montmorin’s) rested on the assumption that Spain did not mean
to draw the sword. His agents at the various Courts kept him well
abreast of events, and doubtless he foresaw that Charles IV’s hatred of
democracy would bar the way to an alliance of the two peoples such as
was now projected. Why, then, should Mirabeau have threatened England
with war? His reasons seem to have been partly of a patriotic, partly
of a private, nature. He desired to restore the prestige of the French
monarchy by throwing its sword into the wavering balances of diplomacy.
As to the expense, it was justifiable, if it tended to revive the
national spirit and to quell the mutinous feelings of the sailors.
Work, especially if directed against “the natural enemy,” would be
the best restorative of order at the dockyards, and prevent the
deterioration of the navy. But apart from these motives Mirabeau may
have been swayed by others of a lower kind. His popularity had swiftly
waned during the previous debates. He might revive it by pandering
to the dislike of England now widely prevalent. Manufacturers who
suffered by English competition and Chauvinists who dreaded her
supremacy at sea were joining in a hue and cry against Pitt;[941] and
Mirabeau gained credit by posing as the national champion. Further,
by holding peace and war, as it were, in the folds of his toga, he
enhanced his value in the diplomatic market. His corruptibility was
notorious. Even the sums which he drew from the King were far from
meeting the yawning gulf of his debts.
In the present case there was much to tempt him to political
auctioneering. There were present in Paris two political agents to
whom Pitt had confided the task of humouring the French democrats
and dissolving the Family Compact. These were William Augustus Miles
and Hugh Elliot. The former was a clever but opinionated man, half
statesman, half busy-body, capable of doing good work when kept well in
hand, but apt to take the bit into his teeth and bolt. He had already
looked into the affairs of Brabant, Liége, and Frankfurt for Pitt; and
as early as 4th March the Prime Minister summoned him to Downing Street
for the purpose of sending him to Paris; but not till the middle of
July did he finally entrust to him the task of inducing French deputies
to annul the Family Compact. That this was to be done secretly appears
from the order that he was to have no dealings whatever with the
British Embassy.[942] Unfortunately the letters which passed between
Pitt and Miles at this time have all been destroyed.[943] But we know
from other sources that Miles was charged to prepare the way for an
Anglo-French _entente_. He certainly made overtures to Talleyrand,
Mirabeau, and Lafayette; he was also elected a member of the Jacobins
Club, and worked hard to remove the prejudices against England. These
he found exceedingly strong, all the troubles in the fleet being
ascribed to her. By 11th October he had fulfilled his mission, and
informed George Rose that Pitt might, if he chose, form a close working
alliance with the French nation. About the same time he conceived for
Mirabeau the greatest contempt, and asserted that it was “impossible to
know him and not to despise him.”[944]
Elliot was a man of far higher stamp than Miles. As we have seen, he
had had a distinguished diplomatic career, and might be termed the
saviour of Gustavus III in the acute crisis of 1788. He was brother of
Sir Gilbert Elliot (first Earl of Minto), and of Lady Auckland. In the
summer of 1790 he was home on furlough. On 7th August he wrote from
Beckenham, Auckland’s residence, congratulating Pitt on a favourable
turn in the Spanish dispute. When the outlook once more darkened he
requested leave to go to Paris in order to use his influence with his
friend, Mirabeau, in the interests of peace. Pitt must have referred
the proposal to the King, and received a very guarded reply, dated
Windsor, 26th October. George enjoined great caution, as we had
hitherto held entirely aloof from the French troubles, and must on no
account be mixed up in them. Yet, for the sake of peace, he did not
object to this attempt, so long as it was entirely unofficial; but
he was “not sanguine that Mr. H. Elliot and his French friend” would
succeed where so much caution and delicacy were necessary.[945]
As this affair is wrapped in mystery, and concerns not only the peace
of the world, but also that most interesting personality, Mirabeau, the
draft of an undated letter of Pitt to the King must be quoted in full:
Mr. P. takes the liberty of submitting to your Majesty’s Perusal
two private letters which he received to-day from Paris, one
from Lord Gower, and the other from Mr. H. Elliot. The latter
went thither a short time since, principally from curiosity, but
previous to his departure, mentioned to Mr. P. that he had formerly
happened to be in habits of much intimacy with M. de Mirabeau,
and might probably have an opportunity of learning something from
him respecting the views of the prevailing party in France on the
subject of the discussions with Spain. Mr. P. recommends to him to
be very cautious not to commit anybody by his conversation, but to
endeavour to find out whether there was any chance of making them
see in a just light the nature of our disputes with Spain, and of
thereby preventing or delaying their taking a part in the war, if
it should take place.
The suggestions in Mr. Elliot’s letter seem to furnish matter for
much consideration; possibly there may be found means of improving
this opening to some advantage with a view to preserving or
restoring peace, or to retarding the succours which France might
furnish to Spain.[946]
This letter is undated. George III’s missive of 26th October seems to
be a reply to it or to one very like it. But Pitt’s letter implies the
receipt of Gower’s and Elliot’s despatches of 26th October. I have
found no other despatch from Gower enclosing one from Elliot except of
that date. Four days previously Gower had written to Pitt:
Mr. Elliot’s communication with Mr. de Mirabeau has been more
successful than I imagined it was likely to be: it has procured
an easy means of maintaining a good understanding between His
Majesty’s Ministers and the prevailing party in the National
Assembly, if such a correspondence should be found necessary.[947]
In the letter of 26th October Gower informed Pitt:
Mr. Elliot has brought the prevailing party in this country to act
according to their true interest; and, if they meet with proper
encouragement from you, they seem ready to go any lengths towards
enforcing our claims with regard to Spain; and they are, I believe,
sincere in their desire to promote a real and effectual good
understanding between the two countries. I shall be extremely happy
to co-operate with Mr. Elliot in a negotiation which appears to me
so desirable.[948]
The words “proper encouragement” _donnent furieusement à penser_.
Elliot in a long letter of 26th October, recounted his interview with
a deputation from the Diplomatic Committee, and his success in winning
it over to the British side. In the former of two paragraphs, which
are omitted by Earl Stanhope,[949] Elliot describes the promise given
him by the Committee, that, even if Spain went to war, and formally
demanded the aid of France, such aid would not be forthcoming until
the British case had been fully investigated. The second of the two
passages deserves quotation in full. It occurs near the end of the
letter:
What has taken place in my more intimate conversations with
individuals cannot be committed to paper. But I have every reason
to believe that I am more master of the secret springs of action
here than anybody else could have been. Everything I have either
said or done has always been previously concerted and has ever
answered my most sanguine expectations.... I am inclined to believe
that, after the disturbances at Brest are known at Madrid, the
Spaniards will make peace rather than expose their fleets to any
junction with French ships.[950]
The hints here given imply that Mirabeau, and probably other patriots
as well, accepted British money, but both our envoys were discreet
enough to give few details in writing. It is quite probable that
Mirabeau first accepted Spanish gold for procuring the vote for the
arming of forty-five French sail of the line, and then accepted an
equivalent sum from Miles or Elliot for the decree which rendered that
step innocuous. His control over the Assembly was scarcely less than
Montmorin’s;[951] and that nervous Minister would certainly welcome
a course of action which enhanced the prestige of France, and yet
averted all risk of war. Nevertheless, Pitt did not set much store
by the help of Mirabeau. He decided to bring the whole dispute to an
immediate issue, without waiting for the issue of the golden proposals
of Elliot and Miles. Possibly he heard from other sources that France
would do no more than rattle the sword in the scabbard; or else he was
emboldened by the marked success and zeal attending the British naval
preparations, the mutinies in the French fleet, the readiness of our
Allies to play their part, and the unreadiness of Spain. A brief survey
of these considerations will reveal the grounds of his confidence.
The chance of hostilities with the two Bourbon Courts was threatening
enough to call forth all the energies of the race. Through the months
of August, September, and October naval preparations went on with
the utmost vigour. Officers and men vied with one another in zeal to
equip and man the ships with all possible speed and thoroughness. Sir
John Jervis afterwards assured the House of Commons that he had seen
captains paying out their own money by hundreds of pounds in order to
expedite the equipment; others sailed their ships down Channel with
mere skeleton crews in order to hasten the rally at Plymouth; and by
dint of drills from sunrise to sunset the crews were hardened to their
work.[952] In truth, the dominant fact of the situation was England’s
overwhelming supremacy at sea over Spain, and possibly over Spain and
France together.
The Triple Alliance also proved to be a reality. The prospect of a war
with Spain was, of course, distasteful both at Berlin and The Hague;
but our Allies admitted that Spain was the aggressor, and signified
their readiness to support us. This should be noted, for it imposed
on Pitt a debt of honour to support Prussia when her summons for
help against the Czarina arrived at Whitehall in the month of March
following.
Further, the ambitions of the Czarina already threatened the
equilibrium of Europe; and in this fact we find the last, and perhaps
the most cogent, of the reasons why Pitt and his colleague resolved to
have done with the Spanish dispute before the Eastern Question came to
a crisis. This appears very clearly in Leeds’ despatch of 2nd October
to our ambassador at Madrid, which was in effect an ultimatum to that
Court. He warned Fitzherbert that the Spanish proposals were quite
inadmissible, and that “neither the circumstances of the negotiation,
nor the relative situation of the two countries and of other Powers
in Europe can allow of any further delay”; he therefore pressed for
the immediate acceptance of the British demands. An explanatory note
accompanied the ultimatum, stating that Spain ought to desire the
preservation of the existing system in Europe, which was threatened
solely by the Empress Catharine, who spurned the counsels of moderation
offered by the Allies.[953]
It appears, then, that the threatening aspect of affairs in the East
in part accounts for Pitt’s sudden and imperious demand. He resolved
to finish with Spain so as to have his hands free for the Eastern
Question. As appeared in an earlier chapter, the Czarina, Catharine II,
had recently concluded peace with Sweden; and, despite the promised
negotiations of the Viennese Court for peace with the Turks, she seemed
determined to press them hard, and to wring from them a district then
deemed necessary to the defence of the Ottoman Power. Her dalliance
with Spain was far from serious; but she might, if allowed time,
concert a formidable league against England. The voice of prudence,
therefore, counselled the immediate coercion of Spain, while Russia was
entangled in a still doubtful strife. Machiavelli shrewdly remarked
that “the Romans never swallowed an injury to put off a war; for they
knew that war was not avoided but only deferred thereby, and commonly
with advantage to the enemy.”[954]
But Pitt needed not to go to Machiavelli. Facts spoke more convincingly
than words to a nature like his; and the news from Paris and Madrid
called aloud for a display of energy. The insubordination at the French
dockyards and the news from Paris had told on the nervous and pedantic
King of Spain. On 16th September Fitzherbert wrote to the Duke of Leeds
that that monarch had very decidedly expressed his resolve never to
have an alliance with France on the basis of a National Compact as
proposed by Mirabeau. It appears, then, that the great orator had a
decisive effect in working on the fears and scruples of His Catholic
Majesty, and thus assuring the isolation of Spain. If Mirabeau received
British money from Miles and Elliot a month or so later, he might
claim it as payment for valuable services already rendered. However
that may be, it is certain that Pitt, on receiving the glad news
from Fitzherbert on 27th September, decided to take vigorous action.
Fitzherbert advised tact and patience in dealing with that proud Court;
but Pitt and Leeds waived aside the advice and resolved to thrust their
adversary into a corner. In view of the more complaisant attitude of
the Spanish Government, their action was unchivalrous; but it was
justified by the tidings which had arrived of cruelties perpetrated by
a Spanish warship on the captain of a English merchantman in the Gulf
of Florida, who was set in the bilboes in the blazing sun.[955] Public
opinion would certainly have supported Pitt in case of a rupture with
an enemy whose claims and customs were still those of the fifteenth
century; and he was resolved to end the dominion of Spain in the North
Pacific with as little ceremony as Cromwell had shown in his expedition
against Jamaica in 1654.
Now there was little fear of war. The pride of Charles IV centred in
trophies of the chase; and his weak and slothful nature revolted at
the thought of an alliance with France on Mirabeau’s terms. Moreover,
Russia and Austria had paid little heed to the recent appeals of
Floridablanca, and there was war with the Moors outside Tangier. Was
not this enough? For a few days the Council of Ministers breathed
threats of war. Floridablanca struggled hard against the relentless
grip which had closed around him. But he was helpless, and he knew it.
Therefore on Sunday, 24th October, the Spanish Minister, after much
angry remonstrance, gave way, and agreed to the British terms.
Meanwhile, Pitt had allowed Fitzherbert to recede slightly on some of
the conditions, and urged that Spain should be invited to frame an
alliance with us, both political and commercial. As usual, in affairs
of great moment, he himself wrote the draft of this despatch, which
was sent off without alteration.[956] This skilful angling was of no
avail. Spanish pride was too deeply wounded to admit of any possibility
of alliance, whether political or commercial, for many years to come.
In other respects Pitt gained his point; and the following letter to
Bishop Pretyman (Tomline) shows his relief at the end to the long
strain:
Thursday, _Nov. 4, 1790_.[957]
DEAR BISHOP,
The decisive answer arrived this morning and is perfectly
satisfactory. The Spanish Minister at last agreed, on the 24th of
October, to a _projet_ of a Convention containing all we wish, and
it was settled that it should be actually signed in three days from
that time. The terms will be found to secure all that we could
demand in justice, or had any reason to desire.
Accordingly, on 28th October 1790 (after four days, not three), the
Court of Madrid signed the Convention which opened up a new future for
the North Pacific. By it Spain agreed to restore the buildings and
lands at Nootka to the British subjects whom Martinez had dispossessed.
Reparation was also to be made for any outrages committed by the
subjects of either Power against those of the other since April
1789.[958] Britons and Spaniards were to have full liberty to trade in
North-West America, that is, to the north of the Spanish settlements;
but of course all the coasts to the south of them were to remain closed
as heretofore. Spain, however, conceded entire freedom of navigation
and fishery in the Pacific Ocean and the South Seas, except that, in
order to preclude all intercourse with her colonies, British ships were
forbidden to approach within a limit of ten maritime leagues.
The British public greeted this happy issue of events with
characteristic reserve. As Spain stood for commercial monopoly and
political reaction, the rebuff dealt to her ought to have pleased the
Whigs. But party rancour increased in proportion to Pitt’s success.
Hope deferred made the hearts of his opponents sick; and to this cause
we may attribute curiously acrid verdicts like that of Auckland’s
correspondent, Storer, who exclaimed on 22nd October, with the
jauntiness of ignorance: “Here we are, going to war, and for what?
A place, the name of which I can scarcely pronounce, never heard of
till lately, and which did not exist till t’other day. Pitt is tired
of peace. He bullied France so effectually three years ago that he is
determined to try the same thing with Spain.” Storer also says that
our officers were in high spirits at the idea of a voyage to _Mexico_,
and were buying Ulloa’s “Voyage” so as to study the _South Sea_
coasts.[959] Whence it would appear that geography was not a strong
point with Storer, and that in his eyes wars were worth waging only on
behalf of well-known names. How curiously parochial is this habit of
mind. Yet Pitt was destined soon to find out its self-assertiveness
and tenacity in the case of another un-euphonious and dimly-known
place--Oczakoff.
The insular, matter-of-fact way in which the House of Commons viewed
Pitt’s diplomatic triumph received apt illustration in the debate of
14th December, when Duncombe and Alderman Watson moved and seconded a
resolution of thanks to His Majesty for the Convention with Spain. They
dwelt on the advantages of the peaceful settlement which it secured,
and augured well for the increase of British trade to the South Seas.
But Pulteney declared that we had won too much from Spain, and should
ever feel her ill will. Besides, a Pacific whale was worth only £90,
as against £170 for a Greenland whale. Alderman Curtis fell foul of
these statements in a maiden speech “which possessed all the blunt
characteristics of commercial oratory.” He said that he himself was
a fisherman, and gloried in the character. He rejoiced to state that
more ships than ever before were now fitting out for whaling in the
Pacific; and he himself had sold Pacific whale-oil for £50 a ton,
while the Greenland oil fetched only £18 or £19 a ton. Mr. (afterwards
Earl) Grey sought to raise the debate from these blubbery platitudes
to the levels of diplomacy; and, differing from his friend Pulteney,
censured the Convention because it gained us nothing; for it laid down
no definite limits in those new lands, and it granted us access to
them conjointly with the Spaniards. Consequently, where our traders
settled on one hill, the Spaniards might build a fort on another close
by. Windham then censured Ministers because they had secured neither
adequate reparation to our outraged honour nor definite rights to our
traders. Thereupon a General Smith opined that the Convention was of no
advantage to us, because the people of Nootka Sound were “a species of
cannibals.” In other respects it was “disgraceful to the real interests
of the country”--an assertion which Rolle and Ryder proceeded to
refute, on the ground that the result had been well worth the three and
a half millions spent on naval preparations. (In reality the sum was
£2,821,000.)
Fox also wandered deviously until he caught at a possible clue, that
offended honour was the only justifiable cause for war. In this case,
he declared, Ministers had not gained for us due reparation. It fell
infinitely short of what was obtained in the dispute about the Falkland
Islands in 1771.[960] Further, we now gained no material advantage from
Spain; for British ships had sailed into the South Seas despite the
Spanish laws; and the receipts from that trade had grown in five years
from £12,000 to £97,000. (He omitted to state that previously that
trade had been killed by the war with Spain.) He next asserted that
we secured little or nothing in the North Pacific, because the limits
of Spanish America were still left vague, and we gave up the right of
settlement on the coasts of South America. In fact, the treaty was
one of concessions, not of acquisitions. This, he added, was on a par
with our foreign policy as a whole; for our new ally, Sweden, had come
to terms with Russia behind our backs, thus lowering us in the eyes
of the world; and we had failed to coerce Russia. “In our words was
confidence: in our acts was fear.”
Pitt in his reply had little difficulty in proving that the present
case differed entirely from that of the Falkland Islands, and that the
treaty secured for us trading rights which Spain had hitherto always
contested. There was therefore every ground for hoping for a great
increase of trade to the Pacific. The House agreed with him by 247
votes to 123. But in Pitt’s speech, as in the whole debate, we find no
wide outlook on events. The arguments are of the Little Peddlington
type; and, after wandering through those teasing mazes, one feels a
thrill of surprise that the British people ever came out into a large
and wealthy place. The importance of Pitt’s triumph has received scant
notice at the hands of historians. Macaulay, in his brilliant sketch
of Pitt’s career, dismissed the affair in the clause--“England armed,
and Spain receded.” Lord Rosebery remarks that the settlement of the
affair was honourable for England, and not dishonourable to Spain. Even
Stanhope and Lecky on their far ampler canvases merely described the
terms of the settlement without revealing its momentous results.[961]
Far different were the judgements of enlightened Spaniards. They
saw in the treaty of 28th October the beginning of the end of their
world-empire. The official Junta at Madrid protested vehemently against
the surrender on the ground that it “conceded to England what has
always been resisted and refused to all Powers since the discovery
of the Indies.” Herein lies the significance of the Spanish defeat.
Their Empire rested on monopoly. It is little to the point to say that
English traders occasionally ventured into the Pacific. They did so
at their peril; and the recent revival of Spanish power threatened
to rivet once more the chains of privilege on that vast domain. Now
that they were shattered, the whole cramped system was doomed to fall.
Just as the irruption of Cromwell’s fleet into the Spanish West Indies
in 1654 sounded the knell of Spanish domination in those seas, so
too the signing of this Convention presaged the end of their Empire
in the Pacific. The advent of the Union Jack on equal terms with the
red and yellow flag of Spain has always implied the retreat of the
latter. In religion, commerce, and political life the two ensigns
represent ideals so utterly at variance that they cannot wave in
friendly neighbourhood. One or other must go: and the primacy of Pitt
and Godoy sufficiently explains the advance of the one and the retreat
of the other in the ensuing years. In one other respect the crisis was
important. The British archives show that the Courts of Madrid and St.
Petersburg were then making overtures which would probably have led to
the complete appropriation of that coast-line; and the interlocking of
those two rigid systems might have implied the exclusion for ever of
the British flag from the Pacific coast. No one, not even Pitt himself,
could foresee the rich harvest of results one day to be reaped from
his action in that summer and autumn. The winning of a few log huts
at Nootka Sound seemed a small thing then. But in this age of the
triumphs of steam and electricity we can discern its importance in
world politics. The infant settlement on Vancouver Island, and on the
mainland opposite, inspired the pioneers of Canada with hope as they
threaded their way through the passes of the Rockies and the Selkirks.
Possibly one of them
like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific,
caught a glimpse of a strange future, when Canada, the child of
Richelieu, would enter into the northern heritage of old Spain, and
become a Pacific Power.
All this lay enfolded in the winning of that inlet. Nay, more. We can
now see that British Columbia holds in the West a strategic position
not unlike that of Egypt in the Orient. Both are vital links in our
chain of communication. Pitt, could he have known it, helped to fashion
the keystone of the arch of Empire in the Occident. He played his part
manfully in preparing for a day when Canada would stretch hands across
the seas to India and Australia; when the vivifying forces of science
and commerce would endow with a common life the conquests of Wolfe and
Clive, and the lands discovered by Captain Cook.
CHAPTER XXVI
PITT AND CATHARINE II
Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_.
Up to the spring of the year 1791 Pitt had achieved a series of
remarkable triumphs in his foreign policy. After lifting his country
from the depths of penury and isolation, he seized favourable
opportunities for checkmating French influence in Holland, and framing
the Triple Alliance with that Republic and the Kingdom of Prussia.
During the years 1788–90 this alliance gave the law to Europe. It
rescued Gustavus III from ruin; it prescribed terms to Austria at the
Conference of Reichenbach, and thereby saved the Turks from the gravest
danger; it served to restore the ancient liberties of the Brabanters
and Flemings; it enabled England to overawe Spain and win the coast
of the present colony of British Columbia; last, but not least, Pitt,
by singular skill, thwarted the dangerous schemes of the Prussian
statesman Hertzberg at the expense of Poland.
Successes like these are apt to beget feelings of jealousy or fear;
for gratitude rarely figures among the motives that determine the
course of national policy. Certainly this is the case in the story now
before us, which tells of a rebuff dealt to Pitt, the unweaving of
his plans for the equitable pacification of Europe, and the formation
of new groupings which leave Great Britain isolated and her statesmen
discredited. The importance of the crisis, and the light which it
throws on the peace-loving character of Pitt, warrant a closer
examination of details than has yet been given to the subject. We
must remember that at every emergency the British Foreign Office was
directed by Pitt, not by its chief, the Duke of Leeds. This appears in
a sentence of Ewart’s letter of 28th November 1790 to Lord Auckland--“I
trust Mr. Pitt will write to your lordship himself in a satisfactory
manner; and you know better than I do of what consequence the opinions
of others are.” The imperious Minister was now to encounter a will as
tough, and a pride as exacting, as his own. Catharine of Russia stood
in his path, and defied him to apply to her his scheme of pacification,
to which Leopold of Austria had yielded grudging assent.
There were several reasons why Pitt should expect from the Czarina a
similar acquiescence. Her finances were utterly exhausted by four years
of war. Her favourite, Prince Potemkin, had won victories; but he and
his dependents had battened on the Treasury, and her triumph heralded
the approach of bankruptcy. The plague was devastating her armies in
the south; and even Russia seemed unable to endure the waste of another
campaign. The Muscovites placed their hopes in a dash of their fleet
on Constantinople; but how could that be effected if England sent a
strong squadron into the Black Sea to help the Turks? And while she
screened the Moslem capital, the presence of her warships in the Baltic
must complete the ruin of the Baltic provinces. Two fifths of their
exports by sea went to Great Britain; and they drew thence goods worth
7,308,000 roubles as against 2,278,000 from all other lands.[962] The
internal state of Russia also gave cause for concern. The extravagance
and licentiousness of the Court, flaunted in face of struggling traders
and half-starved peasants, were a perpetual challenge to discontent;
and the best informed observers believed that, if Prussia and England
held firm, the Empress must humble her pride and accept their terms.
They were by no means extravagant. Russia was to give up the conquests
of the present war, particularly the lands east of the Pruth, which
were virtually in her hands; but she might retain the Crimea--the
object for which the Sultan had cast down the gauntlet.
At the very time when the British demands were nearing the banks of the
Neva, victory crowned the efforts of the Russians on the Lower Danube.
Ismail, the stronghold which commanded the only available entrance into
Turkey, now that the Austro-Turkish armistice kept Wallachia neutral,
fell before the prowess of the assailants (22nd December 1790). After
some successes against the Turkish flotilla and the batteries fringing
the river banks, Potemkin began the siege of the city itself; but
its deep fosse, fed from the Danube, and its double line of ramparts
defied all his efforts. Then he bent his pride and sent for Suvóroff.
The advent of “the little father” put new heart into the 31,000
besiegers.--“To-day for prayer: to-morrow for drill: the next day
victory or a glorious death.”--By these words, and by the contagion of
his enthusiasm, he worked his men up to a pitch of fury. Skill came
to reinforce their fanaticism. By night a strong flotilla dropped
down stream to assail the town on that side, while on the other six
columns advanced stealthily against the walls. A sharp frost favoured
the enterprise; and under cover of a misty dawn the assailants rushed
forward at all possible points. The defenders met fury with fury. A
long day of carnage ensued, the Moslems, men and women alike, fighting
desperately for creed, country, life, and honour. At last Suvóroff’s
reserves gained a foothold and overwhelmed the exhausted garrison. Then
ensued a night of slaughter, plunder, and outrage. Some 30,000 Turks
perished. The consequences of this victory were great. The hold of the
Sultan on the Danube was loosened, while the Russians prepared to deal
a blow at the heart of the Ottoman dominions. Thus, once again, the
personality of Suvóroff proved to be worth an army. Indeed, it changed
the course of history. For now, when the proud Empress held the keys
of the Danube, how could she consent to give back to the infidels
Suvóroff’s former conquest, Oczakoff? Diplomacy also furthered the aims
of Catharine, and told against those of Pitt. Much depended on the good
faith of Leopold II in keeping his promises to the Triple Alliance,
pledged at the Conference of Reichenbach in July 1790. He had agreed to
accept the _status quo ante bellum_ as a basis of settlement for his
disputes with the Belgians and for his war with Turkey. Now, nothing
ought to have been simpler than the restoration of his conquests to the
Porte, provided that the plenipotentiaries of the Powers, who met at
Sistova late in 1790 to reduce them to treaty form, were inspired by
good faith and pacific desires.
But distrust and intrigue soon enveloped in mystery phrases that were
clear as day. The Turks opposed to the superior force of Austria all
the chicanery of oriental delays. Their astrologers discovered that
very many days were unsuitable for the conduct of business; and their
envoys often fell ill. Hopes ran high at the Porte that England and
Prussia would draw the sword against the Czarina. The Emperor Leopold
and his equally wily Chancellor, Prince Kaunitz, also saw in delay an
opportunity of wriggling out from the engagements so reluctantly made
at Reichenbach.[963] Scarcely was the ink of that compact dry before
Kaunitz bemoaned to his envoy in London the lack of any conquests at
the end of “a ruinously expensive war.” This magnanimity he ascribed
to his desire to be again on good terms with England, despite her
unjust treatment of a once valued ally. After these crocodile tears
there came the significant suggestion--Would not England instruct her
envoy to deal leniently with Austria in the ensuing negotiations with
the Turks, and allow her to gain a few little advantages?[964] Leopold
also wrote to his offended ally, Catharine, assuring her that he would
never really make peace with the Turks until she had secured from them
conquests proportionate to the successes of her troops. Let Austria
and Russia keep in close touch and form an eternal compact.[965] Here,
then, we probe one of the causes of the defiant rejection by Catharine
of Pitt’s demand for the _status quo_. He believed, and very naturally,
that the Austro-Russian alliance was wholly severed; while, in point of
fact, Austria was secretly, but effectively, playing the game of her
late ally.[966]
But there was another cause of his failure. The Semiramis of the North
could at need abase her pride and clasp the hand of a hated foe. As
we have seen, she had grasped that of Gustavus III; but only for the
most potent of reasons. She saw in that vain and impulsive sovereign a
convenient tool, who might serve her well in case of a British naval
demonstration against Cronstadt. For some time the Swedish monarch held
back his hand. Auckland wrote early in November 1790 that Gustavus
either from vanity or from penury, might once more attack her; but the
price which he asked from the Allies was enormous:--“I am assured on
good authority that he talks of 10,000,000 rix dollars for the first
campaign, and 7,000,000 for every succeeding one.”[967] Rumour, then,
saw in Gustavus not merely a knight errant, but a shrewd bargainer;
and we now know that he had come to some secret understanding with
Catharine. By methods not very unusual in that age, the British Embassy
at Stockholm managed to procure and decipher a letter of the Swedish
monarch to his envoy at London, Baron Nolcken, dated 7th December 1790.
In it he expressed regret and annoyance that England still kept a large
fleet ready for service in the Baltic, and urged Nolcken to point
out that the British ships would find great difficulty in procuring
provisions in that sea, as Sweden must refuse them.[968] The experience
of our sailors, especially in the years 1810–11, has since corroborated
that statement.
This was not all. Gustavus was then revolving a grandiose project for
the invasion of Normandy by Swedish and Russian troops, in order to
crush the French Revolution. Catharine humoured the notion, more, it
would seem, with the aim of protecting herself from British warships
than of re-establishing Louis XVI;[969] for, as was often to appear,
her royalist heroics never led to definite action. To the Tancred of
the North, however, her friendship seemed all important; and it was
therefore possible that, in the interests of monarchy, he might add his
fleet to hers. Pitt had cause to fear such a hostile combination; for
on 11th February 1791 Ewart assured him that the Empress of Russia was
convinced, “since her peace with Sweden, that no British fleet could
operate in the Baltic with any success, and that the [British] Minister
would risk the loss of his popularity by such an expedition.”[970] Her
surmise was to be justified by events. Nevertheless, Pitt cherished the
hope of browbeating Russia; and, as the sequel will show, this would
have given to the hard-pressed Poles a precious time of reprieve. For
it was not so much Turkey as Poland whose fortunes were at stake. The
events of the years 1791, 1792, virtually decided the doom of that
interesting people, and opened to the Muscovites the way into the heart
of Europe.
As we saw in Chapter XXIII, the Prusso-Polish treaty of 29th March
1790 spread dismay at Petersburg. But the lavish use of Russian
gold among the ruck of the Polish nobles in the Diet at Warsaw soon
strengthened the anti-Prussian prejudices of that impulsive and
passionate body; and the insatiable land-hunger of Hertzberg ere long
begot a feeling that the ally was the worst enemy. The feeling was not
of recent growth. In the year 1775, that is, three years after the
first partition of Poland, Prussia sought to strangle the export trade
of that land by imposing heavy customs dues on all Polish products sent
down the Vistula, a policy which caused an indignant patriot to declare
their removal to be almost as vital as the recovery of Galicia to his
country’s welfare.[971] All the more did the Prussians persevere in
their policy, which clearly involved the ruin of the trade of the free
city of Danzig (a close ally of the Polish State) as a prelude to its
annexation.[972] Along with it they hoped to secure the cession of the
Polish fortress and district of Thorn.
The Diet at Warsaw hotly resented this conduct, declaring that the loss
of those much prized districts could be compensated by nothing less
than the whole of Galicia. Accordingly, when Prussia began to bargain
with Austria for the cession to Poland of only part of Galicia, the
rage of the Poles knew no bounds; and, as we saw, the Court of Berlin
finally fell back on Pitt’s policy of the _status quo_. Nevertheless,
even after the settlement at Reichenbach, Frederick William and
Hertzberg harked back to the former scheme, so that, at the end of
the year 1790, the Poles decided to ask the British Government for
advice and help. For this purpose they sent to London as special envoy
Count Oginski, their Minister at The Hague. He had two interviews
with Pitt, whom he describes as “very polite, speaking French with
an English accent, but fluently enough and with marked precision.”
At first Pitt let his visitor discourse at length, refrained from
committing himself, and then suggested a second meeting. By that time
he had before him several maps and a memorial from London merchants
against throwing open the navigation of the Vistula, as it would end
their special privileges. On this he remarked that merchants thought
about nothing but trade, and launched into an argument on behalf of the
advantages of the Prussian scheme, as providing Poland with what she
most needed, a good commercial treaty with Prussia. He also showed to
Oginski a letter of the King of Prussia in favour of that proposal.
Turning to wider topics, he urged the Count to press on his people
the need of better agriculture, an extended system of canals, and
other means of transport and export. England, he said, needed Polish
corn, timber, flax, and hemp, as a counterpoise to the Russian trade
in those articles; and, as the fortunes of Poland, both political and
commercial, touched us closely, the Prusso-Polish settlement must not
be such as to harm our interests. He then charged Oginski to declare
this to his Government, and expressed his intention of giving similar
instructions to Hailes at Warsaw.[973] That active and intelligent
envoy had long been working, in consort with Ewart at Berlin, for
the inclusion of Poland in the Anglo-Prussian compact, as a means of
deadening the poison of Russian influence in the Republic; and in a
pamphlet which he either wrote or inspired, he depicted in glowing
colours the results attainable by “a grand federative chain (England,
Holland, Prussia, Poland, and, perhaps, Sweden and Turkey) which would
assure a long time of peace to our hemisphere.”[974]
Similar thoughts, though of a more practical trend, were shaping
themselves in the mind of Pitt. The interview with Oginski and the
reports from Berlin and Warsaw convinced him of the need of a compact
with Poland and the Scandinavian States as a safeguard against Russia.
Consequently the Foreign Office on 8th January 1791 despatched to
Francis Jackson at Berlin (then acting as _locum tenens_ for Ewart)
instructions of far-reaching import. They set forth the reasons why
England and Prussia should prepare the way for joint alliances, not
only with Poland, but also with Denmark and Sweden, if that were
possible. The Court of Berlin, it was hoped, might rise to the height
of the situation and render possible so desirable a consummation.
At that time the fortunes of Poland appeared radiant with promise.
Late in the year 1790 the Court of Warsaw sought to free itself from
Prussian dictation and Muscovite intrigue by a compact with the Sultan
which would assure a free exit for Polish products down the River
Dniester (then in Turkish territory) to the Black Sea. Selim III
welcomed an offer which promised to strengthen both lands against their
common enemy, Russia; and it seemed likely that Poland would gain
the right of navigation in the Black Sea for fifty of her ships. Had
this come about, she would have lessened her dependence on Prussia in
the Vistula valley, besides securing valuable markets in the Levant.
But it was not to be. The Sultan, then in sore straits for the next
campaign against Catharine, insisted that the Poles should declare war
upon the Czarina whatever Frederick William might do, and thus ensured
the failure of a compact which promised to range the two threatened
States along with England and Prussia.[975] If the Poles had had
timely support from Berlin and London, there is little doubt that they
would have clogged the efforts of Catharine, besides escaping from
the tutelage of St. Petersburg. In that case the league outlined by
Hailes and, in part at least, approved by Pitt would have come within
the bounds of possibility. Other requisites were the abatement of
Prusso-Polish jealousies, and the adoption of a sound and steady policy
by Gustavus III. Such were the difficulties in the way of Pitt. It will
ever redound to his honour that at this time of intrigue and rapine he
sought to assure the union and the preservation of the lesser States.
Among the warping influences of the time not the least was the policy
of Hertzberg. After the success of the Triple Alliance in compelling
Austria to come to terms with Turkey, he pressed England to help
in compelling the Czarina to adopt the same course; and, as he had
recently supported Pitt in coercing Spain, the latter felt in honour
bound to respond. But Hertzberg had long been shifting his ground. He
valued the alliance with England and Holland chiefly because it secured
Prussia’s western frontier and coast-line, thereby enabling her to
play a bold game in the East, and to prepare to round off her then
almost scattered domains in the valley of the Vistula. There the Polish
districts around Danzig and Thorn ate into her lands and might even
become a source of danger if that singular Republic once more passed
under Muscovite control. We may freely admit that to a military State
like Prussia the situation was annoying, and that Pitt himself, had
he been in office in Berlin, would have sought to assure her eastern
frontier by some plan of exchange. In truth, his despatches and his
converse with Oginski show that he appreciated the difficulties of
the Court of Berlin and tried to induce the Poles to cede Danzig (not
Thorn) to Prussia in exchange for a good commercial treaty. It is
therefore false to assert, as German writers have done, that he showed
no regard for Prussian interests. Unfortunately his solution of the
difficulty proved to be impracticable. Polish national sentiment was
very susceptible on this point; and a special decree of the Warsaw Diet
finally forbade any cession of the national territory, though (strictly
speaking) Danzig was only allied to the Republic.
But long before the failure of Pitt’s well-meant attempt at compromise
Hertzberg had been seeking to compass his aims by secret help from
the Power which ostensibly he was about to coerce. Seeing that Pitt
had thwarted his earlier schemes by the pacification of Reichenbach,
he made covert advances to Russia, and that, too, at the time when
Frederick William had expressly charged him to drop the Danzig-Thorn
proposals. Opening his heart to the Russian envoy, Alopeus, he said
that, if the Empress limited her claims to such a trifle (_peu de
chose_) as Oczakoff and the land up to the Dniester, the two Powers
could easily come to a friendly understanding, provided that Russia
did not thwart the scheme just named. He then suggested that, as he
was forbidden by the King to make that proposal, it would be well that
it should come from St. Petersburg; in which case he would give it his
hearty support. Indeed, he would find no difficulty in proving that the
support of Russia and the gains aforesaid were far more desirable than
the friendship of England, from whom Prussia had received nothing in
return for all the services she had rendered.[976] This is in germ the
Second Partition of Poland. Betraying his own Sovereign and his allies,
England and Poland, Hertzberg invited the Power which he was ostensibly
threatening, to work her will on Turkey provided that she helped
Prussia to secure the two coveted Polish districts. Even in that age of
duplicity and violence conduct such as this bore the mark of infamy. It
led to the fall of the schemer, but not until his treachery had sapped
Pitt’s policy at the base.
As chance would have it, this insidious offer was made known at St.
Petersburg on the very day when the British and Prussian envoys
presented their demand for the restitution by Russia of all her
recent conquests. The result can readily be imagined. Catharine,
knowing the Prussian threats to be mere stage thunder, resolved to
defy both Powers.[977] To Whitworth the Russian Vice-Chancellor,
Ostermann, behaved as much in sorrow as in anger. He complained of the
unprecedentedly menacing tone adopted by the Allies. He declared that
the Empress would never accept their terms, and would limit herself
strictly to an acceptance of the good offices of England, “inasmuch as
they may tend to procure for her the indemnity she requires--Oczakoff
and its district.” Rather than forego this, she would commit her
fortunes into the hand of Providence, braving all perils rather than
tarnish the glory of a long and splendid reign by a craven surrender.
Whitworth saw in this declaration a threat of war, but he little knew
who was the special Providence of the situation. In fact he flattered
himself that, despite the news of the capture of Ismail by the
Russians, the Empress must give way under the pressure of the Triple
Alliance. His verdict was as follows:
Abandoned by her Allies [Austria and Denmark], destitute of
internal as well as external resources, without confidence in the
persons she is obliged to employ at the head of her fleet and army,
both of which are incapable of acting against a formidable enemy;
and, added to this, a strong spirit of discontent against the
Government and its measures prevalent throughout the country--how
can we suppose it possible that, under such circumstances, pride
and obstinacy can maintain their ground? These, however, are the
only motives which influence the Court of Petersburg.[978]
Whitworth’s forecast deserves to be borne in mind; for he, together
with Ewart or Jackson at Berlin, and Hailes at Warsaw, was best
qualified to judge of Russia’s power of resisting the British demands.
Ewart, our able ambassador at Berlin, spent the winter of 1790–1 in
England for the benefit of his health; and there are signs in his
correspondence with Pitt that he fully explained to him and to other
Ministers the importance of the issues at stake. He showed that, unless
Turkey retained the Oczakoff district, both she and Poland would be
liable to further encroachments from Russia. He declared that the
British demand of a restitution of that district by Russia, sent
off on 14th November, would be firmly supported at Berlin; and, he
continued, “though the Empress of Russia may, and probably will, make
some difficulties at first, there can be little doubt of her accepting
the terms offered before the spring, since she never can venture to
risk the consequences of a refusal.” Ewart, then, was more positive
than Whitworth that Catharine would not risk a war with the Allies; and
Pitt, with his sanguine spirit, doubtless had the same expectation.
Ewart also opened up wide vistas in the diplomatic sphere. He advised
Pitt to bring not only Turkey but also Poland into the Triple Alliance;
for this step would at once overthrow the influence of the Bourbon
Courts at Constantinople and that of Russia at Warsaw.[979]
Despite Grenville’s disapproval of the latter proposal, Pitt and Leeds
decided to act on it; and, as we have seen, sent an offer of alliance
to the Polish Court.[980] The matter was of urgent importance; for
rumours of Hertzberg’s underhand clutches at Danzig and Thorn had
reached Warsaw and gave new strength to Muscovite intrigues. The
prospect of an alliance with England was warmly welcomed by Polish
patriots; and there is little doubt that, had Hertzberg loyally
supported Pitt’s resolve to check the advance of Russia, a completely
different turn would have been given to national developments in the
East of Europe.
At the outset, the British Cabinet had reasons for trusting Hertzberg.
Through the year 1790 he insisted on the need of strenuous action
against Russia. It was his policy rather than that of Pitt, who at
first took it up somewhat doubtfully. There is not a sentence in the
British despatches which has a warlike ring. In the month of December
the fleet was placed on a peace footing once more--a grave tactical
error, for it lessened the effect of the British “Declaration” at
St. Petersburg; and in the missive of 8th January to Jackson, the
hope is distinctly expressed that war may be avoided. There were good
grounds for such an expectation. Spain appeared to favour the cause
of the Allies; and Leopold, at the end of a fruitless strife, might
be expected to oppose the aggrandisement of Russia. Pitt therefore
refused to prepare for war until the intentions of the doubtful
States--Austria, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden--were better known.[981]
The horizon cleared but slowly. The Danish Court declared its intention
of not breaking with the Empress, who had guaranteed to it the Duchy
of Holstein. Austria, while assuring the Allies that she would not
take up arms for Catharine, favoured her claims at the Conference of
Sistova. As for Gustavus III, he seemed to be holding out for the
highest bid for his alliance. In the middle of February he assured
Liston (it was between the acts of the Opera) that he was not pledged
to Russia, and might join the Allies on consideration of a subsidy of
£1,500,000 for each campaign. Spain also balanced at times, as if her
sole object were to restore her waning prestige; but on the whole she
opposed the threatened entrance of Russia into Mediterranean politics,
as France would probably have done had she been less torn by internal
strifes.[982]
On the whole, then, the general situation favoured the Allies, provided
that they were true to one another. But here lay the chief difficulty.
The divergence of interests between the Maritime States and Prussia
could be reconciled only by generous forbearance and whole-hearted
good faith. Britons and Dutchmen wanted peace, provided that their
navies and their commerce would not suffer from the stride of Russia
southwards. The Court of Berlin cared less for commerce (except as a
means of coercing Poland), but longed for a better frontier on the
East. Unfortunately good faith was not then characteristic of Prussian
policy. Jackson suspected Hertzberg of duplicity, but believed his
power to be on the wane. Moreover, other counsellors, especially the
latest favourite, Bischoffswerder, seemed true to the British alliance.
The King probably intended to keep troth; but he either could not or
did not prevent the secret intrigues of Hertzberg from undermining
the efforts of the Allies both at Warsaw and St. Petersburg. One of
the great mistakes of his reign was in not dismissing that statesman
outright; but instead of that he merely ordered him once more to desist
from his pet scheme, the acquisition of Danzig and Thorn.
The policy of the Court of Berlin now took one more turn underground.
The King, weary of the haughty airs and restless ways of Hertzberg, and
desirous of putting forth a feeler towards Vienna, sent Bischoffswerder
on a secret mission to the Court of Vienna (February 1791). Hertzberg
knew no more of its aims than did Frederick William of the intrigue of
his Foreign Minister with the Russian Chancery. Thus Prussian policy
was two-headed. The official head, while echoing the menacing tones
of Pitt to Russia, secretly encouraged that Power to retain all its
conquests, provided that Prussia acquired the two coveted towns on
the Vistula; and Bischoffswerder sought to allure the Emperor. The
King’s favourite (a poor Saxon nobleman who had won his way at Court by
chameleonic subservience to all the royal moods) was charged to confer
direct with Leopold, and to propose that the two States should mutually
guarantee their present possessions and aim at excluding Russian
influence from Poland. He was also to suggest the peaceable acquisition
by Prussia of Danzig and Thorn in exchange for commercial privileges
granted to the Poles.[983] Leopold II smiled so graciously on these
proposals as to elicit from the envoy the ecstatic description:
“_Quelle bonté; quelle clarté: et quelle sérénité!_” This benignity
enticed Bischoffswerder on to make the singular offer that, if the
Emperor granted Prussia her heart’s desire, she on her side would not
persist in applying the strict _status quo_ against Austria at Sistova.
Even this enticing proposal did not dissolve either the hatred
of Kaunitz for Prussia or the determination of Leopold to favour
Catharine. Both the Emperor and his Chancellor saw that Prussia was
seeking to set them against Russia; and policy prompted them to
work for a war between those two Powers.[984] No suspicion of these
hidden motives ruffled the equanimity of the amateur diplomatist,
who flattered himself that he had won over Leopold and assured the
isolation of Russia. Full blown with pride he returned to Berlin, and
advocated energetic measures against Russia, the result of which will
appear in due course.[985]
We must now return to London in order to sift somewhat closely the
evidence which came in from various quarters. In a question of so much
importance and complexity, which influenced the fate of the East as
well as the career of Pitt, we cannot proceed too cautiously; and the
inductive method here attempted seems to be the only means of avoiding
hasty decisions, and of re-constructing the history of the crisis.
The Dutch, as might be expected, were far less eager than Prussia for
the humbling of Catharine’s pride, especially as they had recently lent
her a considerable sum of money. Lord Auckland, our envoy at The Hague,
entered into their views and set them forth with his usual ability.
From the beginning of this question he opposed the energetic measures
recommended by Ewart; and certain expressions in his letters smack of
personal dislike to that ambassador.[986] His position at The Hague
kept him in touch with the British couriers passing through to the
northern and eastern capitals; and his very voluminous papers (a small
part only of which has seen the light) yield proofs of his activity in
urging Pitt and the Duke of Leeds to patch matters up with Russia. In
a letter of 2nd February 1791, to Huber, he deprecates any attempt to
coerce Russia, even though it may be crowned by success:
The state of our debt, of our revenue, of our trade, and the
unsettled disposition of mankind in general, forms altogether a
great object of importance in my ideas, far beyond that of taking
a feather out of the cap of an old vixen or of preserving a desert
tract of ground between two rivers to the Turks, whose political
existence and safety will probably not be diminished if they are
obliged to have their barrier upon the Dniester, or even on the
Danube. Besides I see many symptoms ... which irrefragably prove
to me that our friends at Berlin are in general at least as much
afraid of a Russian war as I am....[987]
In the following letter, dated The Hague, 7th March, he sought to win
over Lord Grenville to his views:
It appears from these despatches that we have nothing to expect
from the Danish Ministry, which is immoveably devoted to Russia;
and that Sweden, unless previously purchased by the Empress,
would possibly undertake one campaign against her upon payment
of £1,500,000. [He names other expenses amounting to another
£1,500,000.].... In plain truth, this phantom of Oczakow has
appeared to me for some time to beckon us towards an abyss of new
debts and endless difficulties at a moment of general fermentation
in the world when it may be essential perhaps to the very existence
of our Government and of many other civilized States that we should
maintain our own internal peace and the uninterrupted course of our
prosperity.[988]
Auckland’s chief opponent, Ewart, now had the ear of the Cabinet. On
8th March he frankly informed Auckland that his health had so far
recovered as to permit him to return to Berlin; but he believed his
duty to lie in London where he frequently saw the chief Ministers. He
added that the meeting of the Cabinet, which was to decide as to the
means of coercing Russia, would take place very shortly; further, that
Ministers “have admitted my statement of facts to be just; so that
the whole can be reduced to a simple calculation. I can venture to
assure your Lordship in the most positive manner that nothing is to
be apprehended from the present state of the Prussian Cabinet; and I
will answer for its being much better than ever it was, provided we go
on.”[989] Clearly, then, Ewart had some difficulty in convincing Pitt
and his colleagues that Russia would give way if the Allies showed a
determined front.
Pitt himself was now beset by doubts whether the Oczakoff district was
worth the risk of a war. As will shortly appear, Catharine had left the
extent of her territorial demands discreetly vague, so that the Whigs
were able to assert that Russia wanted merely the barren strip of land
around Oczakoff. The town itself was held to be a valuable possession
because it commanded the entrance to the large estuary called the
Liman, which is formed by the Rivers Dnieper and Bug. Auckland,
however, brought to judgement an able witness, a Dutch admiral,
Kingsbergen, who, after serving in the Russian navy several years in
those waters, declared that Oczakoff was of little importance either to
the Turks or the Russians. Pitt took up this question with alacrity,
and on 7th March wrote to Auckland for definite answers to these
inquiries. Whether the Turks, if they resumed possession of Oczakoff,
could hinder the junction of Russian squadrons sailing from Kherson
and Sevastopol, and thereby hamper the preparations for an attack on
Constantinople? Whether the retention of Oczakoff by Russia would not
enable her to command the southern exit of Polish commerce, namely,
down the River Dniester to the Black Sea? Also, whether Oczakoff could
not be so strengthened (rumour described it as in part demolished) as
once again to defy a Russian attack?[990]
To these searching questions Admiral Kingsbergen made the following
replies. Oczakoff did not command the entrance to the Liman, as that
was four cannon-shot wide, and the navigable channel was nearer to the
Kinburn, or Russian, side than to Oczakoff. Neither of these places was
a port; and the value of Kherson (the naval station on the Dnieper)
was much overrated. Russia would do well to spend all her energies on
Sevastopol or Balaclava, to which places she could easily bring all
the naval stores from the Don or Dnieper district. Those ports would
be the best starting points for an attack on Constantinople, which the
Turks, even if masters of Oczakoff, could in no wise prevent. When he
(Kingsbergen) in 1773 prepared a plan for attacking Constantinople he
took little thought of the Turkish garrison at Oczakoff. Indeed that
town must always be isolated and a source of expense, even of danger,
to the Porte. The admiral felt unable to say whether the cession of
Oczakoff and its district to Russia would adversely affect the trade of
Poland to the Black Sea, and he opined that it would not much extend
the power and population of Russia in the south.[991]
In this last conjecture the admiral was wholly wrong. We can now
see that the acquisition by Russia of the valuable territory in
question, on which now stands the port of Odessa, opened up to her
almost boundless possibilities of controlling the Balkan Peninsula
and of strangling Poland. On the naval matters referred to by Pitt,
Kingsbergen’s answer bore the stamp of experience and authority. It
proved that Oczakoff in itself was of little worth; but it did not
prove that the whole district up to the Dniester was equally valueless.
We have proof of Pitt’s anxiety to probe this question thoroughly.
In the Pitt MSS. is a long memorandum which aims at showing that the
growth of Russia’s power and trade in the Baltic was to our advantage,
as she supplied us with much needed naval stores, through a sea over
which we could exercise some measure of control. But her progress to
the Black Sea and the Mediterranean was greatly to be deprecated; for
she would then furnish those stores to our rivals, France and Spain,
through ports which were never blocked by ice. Further, if she gained
the Oczakoff district, she could shut out the trade of the Poles from
the Black Sea, while extending her own markets through the Levant and
the Mediterranean, to our detriment. The prospects of her gaining
Constantinople are also dwelt upon; and the conclusion of the anonymous
writer is that we ought at all costs to hinder her southward march,
even while we hailed her as a friend in the Baltic.[992] Doubts of
various kinds also beset the mind of the Duke of Leeds. On 11th March
he wrote thus to Auckland:
... The present situation of affairs is, I confess, by no means
pleasant, and perhaps, all things considered, the most perplexing
point is to extricate ourselves from the risk of a war, _salvo
honore_. We are in my opinion so far committed as to render this,
however desirable, extremely difficult, if not impracticable. [He
then states that the successes of the Russians make it difficult
now to insist on the absolute _status quo_, of which he had
never wholly approved.] Yet in my mind [he continues] it behoves
us (considering the part we have so decidedly, tho’ perhaps
not very wisely, taken,) more than ever to abide by our former
determination, or the Empress’s ambition will be gratified, not
only at the expense of the Turkish territory, but of the reputation
of this Government. So much for the engagements (thanks to Prussia)
we have entered into. I will now beg to call your Lordship’s
attention to the extent of the Russian conquests, which I think
deserving the most serious attention on our part. Oczakow and
its district, it seems is (or at least was) all the Empress in
her moderation will insist on keeping. This district by the bye
(according to Woronzow’s language, as well as my own suspicion)
includes the whole tract of country from the Bog [_sic_] to the
Dniester. However barren the soil may be, the command of the latter
river, its _embouchure_ being at the mercy of Russia, will operate
a considerable change in the influence of that Power in the Black
Sea, whether with a view to hostile operations or to commercial
engagements, and completely shut out Poland from her southern
_débouché_.[993]...
Nothing is more singular in this letter than the confession of the
Foreign Minister that he does not know exactly what extent of land the
Empress demands--a matter infinitely favourable to the Opposition in
Parliament. Certainly the Duke of Leeds and Whitworth had not manœuvred
skilfully in leaving this all-important question in doubt.
To resume, then, we find that neither Pitt nor his colleague knew the
extent of the Czarina’s demands, which, at the request of Prussia, they
were about to oppose; that Leeds secretly doubted the wisdom of this
policy; that Pitt found out by 19th March the comparative unimportance
of Oczakoff itself, however valuable the whole territory might be to
Polish merchants; that the Dutch were most reluctant to take any part
in the dispute; that Austria was playing a dilatory and threatening
game at Sistova; and last, but not least, that Prussian policy began to
show signs of weakness and wavering.[994]
Now, the crux of the whole question was at Berlin. Jackson had not
fathomed the depths of Hertzberg’s duplicity. He did not know of his
having prompted Russia to suggest to Frederick William a secret bargain
at the expense of Poland; but on 6th March he stated that Danzig and
Thorn still held the first place in that statesman’s thoughts, despite
the express veto of his master. The Prussian Minister sought to justify
his behaviour by assuring Jackson that, in case of a war with Russia,
Leopold would step in and dictate his terms to Prussia as a revenge for
her treatment of him at Reichenbach. Accordingly, Hertzberg refused to
take comfort from Jackson’s remark that the splendid army of Prussia
(numbering 208,000 effectives) would be a match for the exhausted and
badly led forces of the two Empires, distracted as they would be by the
efforts of the Ottomans in the south. He also affected great concern
lest England should play him false by sending only a small fleet into
the Baltic. But Jackson saw, rightly enough, that the two phantoms,
a triumphant Austria and a skeleton British fleet, were conjured up
merely as an excuse for doubling back to the forbidden fruit--Danzig
and Thorn. Hertzberg finally suggested the advisability of toning down
the allied demands in order to mollify the Czarina.[995] Thus the first
suggestion to this effect came, not from Pitt or Auckland, but from the
man who had first advised the use of coercive measures against Russia.
Is it surprising, then, that up to 20th March 1791 Pitt declined to
take any vigorous steps against Catharine? The whole trend of events
prescribed caution and delay until the policy of Prussia showed signs
of consistency and firmness. But now the whole situation was suddenly
to change owing to causes which must be set forth in the following
chapter.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE TRIUMPH OF CATHARINE II
A pretty piece of work Mr. Pitt has made of this Russian war.
I think all the foxhounds will have a fine chase at him next
session.--LADY MALMESBURY TO SIR GILBERT ELLIOT, _24th August 1791_.
The success of Pitt in playing the part of Petruchio to Catharine
depended mainly on the steadiness of the Prussian and British
Governments, the honest neutrality of Leopold, the goodwill of
Gustavus, and the conviction of the Czarina that she was hopelessly
outmatched. We have already seen that the actions of the Austrian and
Swedish sovereigns were ambiguous. It remains to consider the conduct
of the Prussian monarch. On 11th March 1791 Frederick William wrote the
following autograph letter to Count Redern, his Minister in London:
[_Translation._]
Having a sure belief that Austria desires to draw closer to me and
my Allies, and that the Emperor has declared to the Empress of
Russia that he cannot assist her in a war that might result from
her refusal to accept the _status quo_, I wish England to consider
whether the best course of action would not be that of inducing
Russia by means of superior forces, both naval and military, to
follow the example of the Emperor. But, in case England cannot
resolve on so vigorous a course of action, the cession of Oczakoff
would be its natural outcome. It seems to me incontestable that
Russia by the possession of that place gains over Turkey a
superiority which may be very prejudicial to the interests even of
England. As the decisive moment is drawing near, I await a definite
declaration on this subject.
Here was a distinct challenge to our good faith as an ally of Prussia.
The Duke of Leeds received it on 19th or 20th March. Jackson’s covering
despatch supplied a curious commentary on the royal missive. He had
found out that Hertzberg’s plan of aggrandisement at the expense of
Poland was much more widely favoured at Berlin than he believed to
be possible. General Möllendorf feared a war with Russia in view of
the threatening attitude of Austria. Count Schulenberg thought the
position very difficult, but hoped that the presence of a “large”
British fleet in the Baltic might overawe Catharine and end the
dispute. Even Bischoffswerder, who had returned from his mission to
Vienna in the most buoyant spirits, expressed concern at the irresolute
mood of Frederick William; but he promised to report progress after
an interview which he was to have with him at a private dinner on
that day. Late in the evening the favourite declared that he had
convinced the monarch of the falseness of Hertzberg’s information
about Austria. In fact, the dinner and Bischoffswerder’s conversation
brought Frederick William to see the need of bold measures against
Russia; and he drew up forthwith that inspiriting challenge to England.
Bischoffswerder also assured our envoy that the anti-British intrigues
were the work of Anglophobes like Prince Henry of Prussia, or of those
who wished to maintain the influence of the reigning favourite, the
Countess Dönhoff, and keep the King immersed in his pleasures.[996]
A more damning explanation of the King’s action cannot be conceived;
and we learn with some surprise that the royal appeal carried the
day at the British Cabinet’s meetings of 21st and 22nd March, when
Ministers had before them the declaration of the Dutch admiral as
to the comparative uselessness of Oczakoff. The final resolve was
formed on 25th March, when the ultimatum to Russia was drawn up and
sent to the King for his approval.[997] Evidently it was the arrival
of Frederick William’s letter that clinched the matter. On the 27th
the Foreign Office sent off despatches to Berlin and St. Petersburg,
warning Jackson and Whitworth of the definite demand of the Allies,
that Catharine must restore to the Turks all her conquests exclusive of
the Crimea. The Allies hoped to induce Gustavus by the joint offer of a
sum of £200,000, or even £300,000, to grant the use of his ports to the
British fleet destined for the Baltic.[998]
The British ultimatum to Russia took the form of a “representation,”
the original of which is in Pitt’s handwriting. It pointed out that,
the _status quo_ having been adopted as the basis of the treaties
concluded between Austria and the Porte and Russia and Sweden, the
Allies had hoped that the Empress of Russia would accept the same
reasonable terms for her peace with the Sultan. But, as this was not
the case, the two Courts now desired to point out that any further
accession of territory to Russia was far from necessary to her, and
must seriously weaken the Turkish dominions. They therefore invited
the Empress to declare her readiness to offer reasonable terms to
the Sultan. The failure to give a favourable answer within ten days
would be regarded as a refusal.[999] Pitt also sought to infuse energy
into the Dutch Government. On the same day he directed Auckland, our
ambassador at The Hague, to request the equipment of a Dutch squadron
with a view to a cruise to the Baltic along with the British fleet,
it being certain that Catharine would give way before so great a
superiority of force.[1000]
It seemed, then, that Pitt and his colleagues had nailed their colours
to the mast; and their behaviour in Parliament betokened no lack of
resolve. On the day following (28th March) Pitt presented the King’s
message as to the need of further naval armaments. Fox, “with more than
usual solemnity,” demanded that Parliament should know the reasons for
the present request; but Pitt declined to promise any more information
than that contained in the brief official statement. Fox at once
censured this refusal as “a very new, violent and extraordinary step
indeed.” Pitt here showed a want of tact. A more sympathetic nature
would have felt the pulse of the House and discerned feverish symptoms.
Already members had been alarmed by the outbreak of war against Tippoo
Sahib; and though Ministers had convicted that potentate of aggressions
against our ally, the Rajah of Travancore, yet the House evinced more
than its usual jealousy respecting foreign entanglements, and resented
Pitt’s demand for warlike preparations. In refusing to explain the
grounds for his present action the Prime Minister behaved as a correct
diplomatist, but an indifferent parliamentarian.
On 29th March the Whig leaders in the Lords showed their former
fondness for the Russian alliance in a series of startling assertions.
Earl Fitzwilliam denied that the retention of Oczakoff, or even
Akerman, would in the slightest degree injure British interests. Lord
Porchester reprobated the ambitious conduct of the Prime Minister,
which almost led him to hope that France might recover her strength,
so as to check his career. The country, he added, was in the deepest
distress,[1001] and would be ruined by the hostilities now imminent.
The Earl of Carlisle declared that Russia was naturally our friend, and
that we ought to have formed alliances that were useful, not such as
would drag us into a criminal war. The naval armament against Spain had
served merely to “pillage the public and make a show between Portsmouth
and the Isle of Wight.” Lord Stormont then treated the House to a
disquisition on Turkish history to prove that the Porte had always been
the tool of France against the two Empires; and it was her game we now
were asked to play. For the rest, it would be “extremely disagreeable”
to send a fleet into the Baltic if Sweden, deserted by us, showed
herself unfriendly. The Duke of Richmond damned the proposal with
faint praise, and he was guardedly followed by the Lord Chancellor,
Thurlow. Nevertheless, Ministers held their own by ninety-seven votes
to thirty-four.
On the same day Pitt brought the matter before the Commons in a
somewhat cold and ineffective manner. He showed that the interests of
Europe demanded the restoration of the old boundaries in the East;
and that the weakening of Turkey would undermine the defensive system
which we had formed with Prussia. From the meagre report of his speech
it would appear that he did not refer to the importance of upholding
Poland or of hindering the approach of Russia to the Mediterranean.
Consequently all the life and glow of the debate was on the side of
the Opposition. Coke of Norfolk, in a characteristically acrid speech,
declared that he believed neither in the abilities nor the integrity
of the Prime Minister, who now, as in the case of the Spanish dispute,
bade them throw away the nation’s money without showing a single
reason why. Lambton followed in the same vein, asserting that a war
with Russia would yield no prize in galleons and ingots, but merely in
bear-skins. At what point, he asked, had Russia injured our interests
or insulted our honour? Doubtless Ministers had promised the King of
Prussia to go to war with the Czarina. If so, they should state it
clearly. Other members then demanded more information before they
supported the administration. For the defence, Steele spoke weakly,
urging that the House must trust the executive.
Fox, on the contrary, declared that Pitt had “enveloped himself in
mystery and importance,” and that his speech was “finely confused but
very alarming.” The Minister had not shown how the balance of power
was endangered by the Czarina’s policy. It would be time enough to go
to war when she attacked Prussia, or sought to drive the Turks out
of Europe--a scheme which the orator held up to ridicule. He then
protested against our attacking Russia “for the recovery of a single
town [_sic_],” and proceeded to indict Ministers because “they first
stirred up the Turks to their own destruction to war upon Russia: they
next raised the King of Sweden against the same Power, and afterwards
they lost the benefit of his arms by shamefully abandoning him.”
Finally they had disarmed, after settling the dispute with Spain,
and thus put the nation to the expense of this new armament. It is
difficult to think that Fox was so ill informed as to believe these
charges, the falseness of which has been proved in Chapters XXII and
XXIII. In fact, these indictments merely showed him to be the trustful
receptacle of the anti-British slanders started by foreign Chanceries.
Nevertheless, being urged with his wonted power, they struck home; for
it is ever the bent of a popular Assembly to ascribe the worst motives
for actions which it dislikes.
Pitt replied with admirable temper. He showed that the recent advance
of Russia southwards brought about a situation wholly different from
that which existed when Fox was in power; he declared that Russia had
several times rejected our proffered friendship, and that our alliances
with Prussia and Holland were most advantageous. Prussia, however,
would be seriously weakened if the Muscovites triumphed completely
over the Sultan, and would in that case be unable to cover the Dutch
Netherlands or maintain the independence of Poland. He then showed
how closely this latter topic touched us; for, if we upheld Poland
and cultivated trade with her, she would send us the naval stores for
the supply of which we at present depended on Russia. Commercial and
political motives, therefore, alike bade us set bounds to the boundless
ambitions of Russia.
The effect of his statesmanlike speech (the first in which the Eastern
Question in its new phase received adequate treatment) was lessened
by a vehement harangue from Burke, who was angry with Ministers for
diverting attention from French affairs. At that time he and his son
were striving to prepare the way for an armed intervention of the
monarchs in the interests of Louis XVI; and he therefore upbraided
the Cabinet for supporting “a horde of barbarous Asiatics” against
the Czarina, a declared champion of royalty.[1002] “All that is holy
in religion,” he said, “all that is moral and humane, demands an
abhorrence of everything which tends to extend the power of that cruel
and wasteful Empire.” “Any Christian Power is to be preferred to these
destructive savages.”... “Why are we to be alarmed at the Russians’
capture of a town? The Empire of Turkey is not dismembered by that. We
are in possession of Gibraltar, and yet Spain is not dismembered.” This
appeal to sentiment and this fine disregard of the facts of geography
(for the district in question is about the size of Scotland) told
with much effect; and it was with some difficulty that the Government
mustered 228 votes as against 135 for the Opposition.[1003]
The next debates, of 12th and 15th April, brought up Grey, Whitbread,
and Sheridan in their most combative moods. The last taunted Ministers
with being led at the heel of Prussia, whose only desire was to seize
Danzig and Thorn, and to have the upper hand at Warsaw. While not
calling the tune, we were to pay the piper. He (Sheridan) was sick of
the parrot cry, “Confidence! Confidence!” Ministers did not deserve
it. Their conduct in Holland in 1787 had been a blow to popular
liberty. And now the son of Chatham was intriguing in all the Courts of
Europe, and figuring as “the posture-master of the Balance of Power.”
Undismayed by this brilliant invective, Dundas once more appealed for
a continuance of the confidence which Ministers had merited by their
conduct; and the House accorded it by 253 votes to 173. On 15th April
the figures were 254 to 162.[1004]
It is clear, then, that Pitt kept his party well together, despite
the fact that his hands were tied by official reserve, while the
Opposition ramped at large in the unalloyed bliss of ignorance. Storer
might choose to tell Lord Auckland that “the country throughout have
told Mr. Pitt that they will not go to war.”[1005] But, apart from an
influential deputation from Manchester, there was no decided protest.
Seven weeks later Pitt admitted to Ewart that it would have been
difficult to keep his party together in the event of war, and if he had
“to state, as would then be indispensable, the precise ground on which
it arose.”[1006] But the news which arrived up to 27th March clearly
warranted the hope that Russia would give way. Then, however, the
diplomatic situation underwent a curious change.
* * * * *
On the 27th, then, that is, on the very day on which the Cabinet sent
off the decisive despatches referred to above, most disconcerting news
from Lord Auckland reached the Foreign Office. It was to this effect:
With respect to the good disposition of the Count of Vienna, which
is made the groundwork of His Prussian Majesty’s Instruction of
the 11th inst. to M. de Redern, I think it material to mention to
Your Grace that, in a subsequent letter of the 12th, _in cypher_,
which is gone by this day’s mail to M. de Redern (and which I
have happened to see), His Prussian Majesty states in terms of
the strongest uneasiness that the Emperor’s conduct becomes more
suspicious and that he evidently intends to defeat the whole
Convention of Reichenbach; that he has given up his own opinion to
that of Messrs. de Kaunitz and Cobenzl and, particularly, that he
is collecting large magazines and preparations in the neighbourhood
of Cologne, which M. de Redern is instructed to mention to Your
Grace as a subject of just uneasiness.[1007]
This sudden transition from a warlike resolve to timorous prudence in
part resulted from the Prussian monarch’s habit of listening to two
sets of advisers. Hertzberg whispered peaceful advice into one ear,
while the other took in the bellicose counsels of Bischoffswerder; and
the royal mind sent forth to London both sets of impressions. Other
proofs were soon at hand betokening a reaction towards pleasure and
inertia. Hertzberg, so Jackson reported, sought to enforce the cession
of Danzig and Thorn as a _sine quâ non_ of Prussia’s acting conjointly
with England--a step which obviously aimed at hindering such action.
Still more important was the news that came from Copenhagen. On 27th
March there reached the Foreign Office a despatch from Francis Drake,
our envoy at Copenhagen, who was destined one day to win unenviable
notoriety as the dupe of Napoleon’s secret police, and to figure in
French caricatures as a ruffled mallard flying off with bottles of
invisible ink. At present he merely forwarded a pacific proposal of
Count Bernstorff. In the hope of averting strifes in which Denmark
must inevitably suffer, that Minister had begged the Czarina to accept
the terms of the Allies if they were modified in her favour. When
Catharine smiled on the proposal, Bernstorff assured Drake of his
desire to reconcile the Courts of St. Petersburg and London without
compromising the dignity of George III. He declared that Catharine
had eagerly welcomed the prospect of a peaceful arrangement, and
hoped that the Allies would appreciate the force of her reasons for
rejecting the strict _status quo ante_, seeing that she had been
unjustly attacked by the Turks, and had won a brilliant triumph. While
restoring to them a large part of her conquests, she was determined
to retain “a single fortress and a desert region in order to gain a
safer frontier.” She therefore hoped that the Allies would show their
moderation by substituting a limited _status quo_ for their present
demand. Bernstorff added the suggestion that she should have all the
land up to the Dniester, on condition that the walls of Oczakoff were
razed for all time, and that no military colonies should be founded in
the ceded territory, which also should remain waste. He further hinted
that Russia might be induced to grant England a favourable commercial
treaty.[1008]
This last was added as a bait especially tempting to Pitt, who had
been much annoyed by the failure of his efforts in that direction in
1787, and now found the Dutch obdurate to some parts of his proposed
commercial treaty with them. Is it too much to assume that, if the news
which arrived on 27th March concerning the shifting of Prussian policy
and the reasonableness of the Czarina had reached him two or three days
earlier, he would have led the Cabinet to a far different decision?
The speeches of Ministers in Parliament were now marked by coolness
and caution, characteristics which came out even more strongly on 12th
and 15th April.
The searchings of heart in the Cabinet on the anxious days 30th
March–10th April are laid bare in the memoranda of the Duke of Leeds.
The Duke of Richmond and Grenville were opposed to the use of coercion
against Russia. Pitt, Leeds, Thurlow, Camden, and Chatham at first
resolutely maintained their position. At the second meeting of the
Cabinet, on 31st March, Stafford joined Grenville and Richmond. Pitt
also heard of the defection of the Duke of Grafton and his sons. Camden
seemed shaken by the news before them; and Thurlow attained a prudent
neutrality by diplomatic slumber. Pitt himself was now impressed with
the need of circumspection; and, on the ground of the proposals from
Denmark, advised the sending of a special messenger to Berlin, to
request Jackson not to forward the ultimatum to Russia. Leeds objected
to the Danish proposal being assigned as the reason for delay, and
declared that if the despatch were sent in that form, Grenville must
sign it, for he could not.[1009] Pitt then agreed to tone down the
despatch into a request for a few days’ delay. This was his first
decided disagreement with Leeds. He sought to end it by friendly
conversation, but in vain; for the Duke believed the honour of the
Cabinet to be tarnished by so unworthy a surrender.
Pitt took a more sanguine view of the situation, as appears in some
hitherto unpublished letters that passed between him and Ewart. That
over-wrought envoy had departed for Buxton in the belief that he had
persuaded the Cabinet of the certainty of Catharine acquiescing in the
demands of the Triple Alliance. What must have been his chagrin, then,
to receive a letter from Pitt, of 6th April, begging him to return
to town at once. “Events have taken a turn here,” wrote Pitt, “which
seem to leave little or no chance of pushing our Plan to its original
extent, and that the best thing we shall have to --(?) it is some
modification, which perhaps, however, may be so managed as to provide
more fully than could have been expected for the general object.”[1010]
This sounds the hopeful note which was rarely missing from Pitt’s
utterances. Evidently he wished that Ewart should return to Berlin
to make the best of the situation. Ewart had an interview with him,
on or about 10th April, which he described in a letter of 14th April
to Jackson, his _locum tenens_ at Berlin. He found Pitt as deeply
impressed as ever with the importance of the political and commercial
objects at issue, which were
well worthy of every exertion. “But,” continued Pitt, “all my
efforts to make a majority of the House of Commons understand the
subject have been fruitless; and I know for certain that, tho’
they may support me at present, I should not be able to carry the
vote of credit. In short, Sir, you have seen that they can be
embarked in a war from motives of passion, but they cannot be made
to comprehend a case in which the most valuable interests of the
country are at stake. What, then, remains to be done? Certainly,
to risk my own situation, which my feelings and inclination would
induce me to do without any hesitation; but there are unfortunately
circumstances in the present state of this country which make it
certain that confusion and the worst of consequences might be
expected, and it would be abandoning the King.”
After stating several facts in confirmation [Ewart says], and
repeating, even with the tears in his eyes, that it was the
greatest mortification he had ever experienced, he said he was
determined not to knock under but to keep up a good countenance:
that the armaments should therefore continue to be made with
vigour, and the fleet to be made ready for sailing; and that in the
meantime he hoped means might be found to manage matters so as not
to have the appearance of giving up the point, but modifying it so
as to prevent any serious bad consequences from ensuing, tho’ he
repeated that he was well aware that the difference between any
such plan would always be very great and extremely mortifying.[1011]
This revelation of Pitt’s feelings and intentions is of the highest
interest. Nowhere else do we hear of wounded pride bringing tears to
his eyes; and nowhere do we find a clearer statement of his desire
to resign, were it not that such a course would abandon the King and
the country to a factious Opposition. He therefore resolved on a
compromise, the weakness of which he clearly saw, because it would
satisfy Parliament and his opponents in the Cabinet without too much
offending Prussia or unduly exalting the horn of the Czarina. Ewart
decided to return to Berlin to help on his chief, to whom he expressed
unfaltering devotion. It is further noteworthy that Pitt at this time
desired to send the fleet to the Baltic; and we may reasonably infer
that the subsequent reversal of that salutary resolve was the work of
Grenville.
One other detail in Ewart’s letter claims attention. Why did Pitt
assign so great weight to the opposition in Parliament? Had he received
private remonstrances? Rumour says that Dundas and others warned him to
desist from his scheme. But, as we have seen, his majority held well
together. On 12th April he beat Fox by eighty votes, and on the 15th by
ninety-two. How is it possible to reconcile this increase with wavering
or lukewarmness? I think it probable that Pitt chose now and at a later
date to ascribe his change of front to parliamentary opposition (on
which he could descant), while it really resulted from difficulties
in the Cabinet, on which he had to keep silence. Further, he may have
hoped that if Ewart, the soul of the forward policy, consented to
return to Berlin, the Duke of Leeds would find it consonant with his
own dignity to retain office.
If so, he was disappointed. Before the Cabinet meeting of 10th April
he had convinced himself that the pacific overtures of Catharine sent
through Bernstorff were genuine and sincere. He also pointed out to
the Duke that the violent language of the Opposition would certainly
encourage the Empress to reject the absolute _status quo_. The
inference was irresistible, that England and Prussia must be content
with securing rather less for Turkey. Pitt decided in favour of this
course, and on 15th and 16th April, drew up the drafts of despatches to
this effect, in the hope that Leeds would sign them. The Duke, however,
declined to do so, and, by the King’s leave, Grenville appended his
signature.
This implied a ministerial change; and on 21st April Leeds returned
the seals to the King after the Drawing Room at St. James’s Palace.
Thus disappeared from the forefront of history a personality whose
sprightliness and charm earned him a high place among the wits and
amateur playwrights of that age, and whose jealousy for the honour
of England at this crisis won the regard even of those who differed
from him. He was far from being a great Foreign Minister. At every
crisis Pitt took the reins into his own hands, and at other times
the business of the Foreign Office went on somewhat loosely, Keith
complaining at Vienna that in the year 1788 he received only one reply
to fifty-three despatches sent from that capital.[1012] The Duke’s
tenure of office was marked by two of the greatest triumphs ever won
by peaceful means, namely, over France in 1787 and Spain in 1790;
but these, as we have seen, were essentially the work of Pitt. There
could be but one successor to Leeds. Grenville, though a far from
attractive personality, possessed qualities of shrewdness, good sense,
and untiring assiduity. He was strong where Leeds was weak, namely,
in system, thoroughness, and equability; but he was weak where Leeds
was strong, namely, in managing men. George III certainly approved
of the accession of Grenville to power, and sent to him the seals
on the same day. After some delay, arising from Pitt’s desire that
Cornwallis should succeed Grenville at the Home Office, Dundas took
that appointment.[1013]
On 20th April, then, Ewart was instructed to return to Berlin for
the purpose of explaining to Frederick William that the difficulties
arising from the trend of public opinion and the opportunity afforded
by the Danish proposals induced the British Government to seek for
a peaceful compromise with Russia. Pitt also urged the desirability
of Austria joining the Triple Alliance. As to the new Russo-Turkish
boundary, it should be fixed if possible East of the Dniester, namely,
at Lake Telegul, the lands eastward up to the River Bug being also left
a desert.[1014]
Ewart arrived at Potsdam on 29th April (a remarkably quick journey),
and found Frederick William in a gracious mood. The King agreed to
Pitt’s new proposals, and highly approved of the overtures to Austria.
While expressing mortification at the change of front towards Russia,
he assured Ewart of his belief in the good intentions of the British
Ministry. It is easy to see that Frederick William felt some relief at
the prospect of avoiding a war, of which nearly all his counsellors
expressed disapproval. Hertzberg on 24th April assured Lucchesini
that a war with Russia would probably be the tomb of the Prussian
monarchy.[1015] There was, indeed, every need for caution, owing to the
doubtful attitude of Austria. Lord Elgin followed the Emperor Leopold
to Florence for the purpose of urging him to join the Triple Alliance;
but, while receiving the overture with Tuscan graciousness, he in
effect waived it aside. In vain did our envoy follow the Emperor from
city to city for some weeks, and urge him to join the Allies. Leopold,
with his usual penetration, saw that the situation favoured the two
Empires, provided that they held together; and Pitt’s offer appeared
to him merely an ingenious means of separating them. Further, Kaunitz
detected the rift in the Anglo-Prussian concert, and the hatred of
England which pervaded the letters of Marie Antoinette to the Emperor
may also have strengthened his resolve to dally with Pitt’s proposals,
even while he took the most effective means of thwarting them. The
Polish Revolution of 3rd May 1791, soon to be described, also led
Leopold to draw closer to Russia. Thus, despite affable converse with
Elgin in the towns of Lombardy, he instructed his envoys at Sistova to
raise their demands and assume an arrogant tone. The Turks received
this rebuff with oriental composure, and, having the support of Keith
and Lucchesini, resisted this flagrant attempt of Austria to shuffle
out of the Reichenbach compact. Accordingly the early days of June 1791
witnessed a break in the negotiations and a rapid increase of warlike
preparations on the Danube--a turn of affairs highly favourable to
Catharine.[1016]
The indignation of Pitt and Grenville at the double-dealing of Leopold
finds expression in a note of the latter to Auckland (6th July): “If
the Emperor does break faith with us at last, he does it in a manner
so directly and personally disgraceful to himself, that it is hard
to suppose he can make up his mind to hear all that he must hear in
such a case.”[1017] In these words we see the cause of the distrust of
the Emperor which clogged all attempts at an Anglo-Austrian compact
directed against French democracy. Events, therefore, told heavily
against Pitt’s efforts to bring about an honourable compromise with
Russia. Nothing, however, is further from the truth than to represent
his offers to Catharine as a humiliating surrender. The instructions
to Fawkener, the special envoy to St. Petersburg, were as follows:
Either the whole of the Oczakoff territory as far west as the River
Dniester should be left neutral and uninhabited; or it should become
Russian on condition of lying waste; or the Russian boundary should be
drawn east of the Dniester, no fortress being constructed in the ceded
territory.[1018] It is worth noting that the Turkish envoy at Berlin
thought these terms satisfactory. Fawkener was to agree to the third
and least desirable alternative only in case Austria proved obdurate.
But in this respect he was allowed a certain latitude, provided that
Turkey retained adequate means of defence on that side. In order to
avoid any appearance of menace, the British fleet was not to enter
the Baltic or the Black Sea, a resolve much resented at Berlin and
Warsaw.[1019]
Frederick William received Fawkener most cordially at Sans Souci on
11th May. He showed some concern at the Manchester petition to Pitt,
as it would stiffen the tone of the Czarina; he urged the sending of
a British squadron to the Black Sea to ward off the threatened attack
on Constantinople, and stated his preference for the third of the
alternatives named by Grenville. Fawkener therefore felt bound to place
it first in his proposals to the Czarina: and it is noteworthy that
Prussian diplomacy once again favoured a concession to Catharine larger
than Pitt was disposed to grant. Inward satisfaction at the course of
events was, as usual, accompanied by many sneers at the weakness of
British policy.[1020] Gustavus of Sweden adopted a similar tone. He
assured Liston of his readiness to receive the British fleet and to arm
against Russia, provided that the Allies would grant him the needful
subsidies. Liston, knowing his shiftiness, received these offers with
polite incredulity. Certainly they had no effect at Whitehall.
Pitt’s change of front ruined his influence in the North;[1021] and in
diplomacy prestige counts for so much that Catharine had virtually
won her case by the end of May. Fawkener arrived at St. Petersburg
on 24th May, and soon found himself involved in a series of gorgeous
fêtes which proclaimed the wealth and power of the Empress and her
entire indifference to all that England might do. For the irksome
details of business he was referred to the Ministers and Prince
Potemkin. The latter boasted in his lordly way of his resolve to seize
Constantinople, wage eternal war on the miscreant Turks, and finally
conquer Egypt. After a delay of three weeks the Empress received
Fawkener graciously at a ball; she assured him of her admiration of
Burke’s “Reflections” on the French Revolution, and expressed her
horror of that event as well as her regret at the sympathy of Fox with
it. She petted her grandson, Alexander, and ostentatiously avoided
all reference to the subject of Fawkener’s mission, except that, when
a dog chanced opportunely to bark, she said, “Dogs that bark do not
always bite.” So matters dragged on, it being the aim of Catharine to
gain another success on the Danube, to win over Leopold definitely to
her side (as Fawkener found to be the case by 21st June), and to sow
discord among Britons.[1022]
In this last she achieved a startling success. On 17th June there
arrived at St. Petersburg Mr. (afterwards Sir) Robert Adair, who later
on was to figure as a diplomatist under the Ministry of Fox and that
of All the Talents. We may accept his solemn declaration, in a letter
written in the year 1842, that Fox had no hand in sending him on this
so-called “mission”;[1023] but we are able to correct Adair’s version
in several respects, from documents in the “Pitt Papers,” which Bishop
Tomline, when challenged by Adair, thought fit to withhold.[1024]
Adair asserted in 1842 that his object in going to Russia was not to
oppose Pitt’s policy of recovering Oczakoff, because that Minister had
already renounced it in obedience to the mandate of Parliament. This,
as we have seen, is incorrect; for when Adair left England, in May
1791, warlike preparations were still going on.[1025] He admits that
Fox said to him before starting, “Well: if you are determined to go,
send us all the news”; and that Fox provided him with a cipher so that
that news might elude the prying eyes of British diplomatists. It may
be, as Adair says, that he and he alone was accountable for this odd
attempt to direct the foreign policy of his country. But it is highly
probable that Vorontzoff (Woronzow), the Russian ambassador in London,
abetted the scheme. On 2nd May Whitworth wrote that Vorontzoff’s
despatches had given great satisfaction at the Russian capital. “He
assures his Court that Russia has many friends and partisans in
England, and affirms pretty positively that His Majesty’s Ministry will
have no small difficulty in carrying through their measures contrary
to the interest of the country.”[1026] Further, the account of Adair’s
“mission,” given by William Lindsay, Whitworth’s secretary, states that
Adair came with strong letters of recommendation from Vorontzoff, while
the Duchess of Devonshire commended him to Whitworth. He travelled
_viâ_ Vienna, where he stayed with the Russian ambassador. At St.
Petersburg he at first received countenance from the British embassy,
owing to the high recommendations which he brought with him, and he was
presented at Court by Whitworth himself!
Thus Adair found his path everywhere strewn with flowers. Catharine
smiled on him and plied him with important questions, ironically asking
him whether the British fleet had set sail. Fawkener, on the other
hand, she treated with marked coldness. The British embassy, however,
had its revenge; for Lindsay opened the letters, which Adair trustfully
asked him to take to London, and apparently was able to decipher the
ciphered parts, which gave hints to Fox for an attack on Pitt. But
Adair was more than a purveyor of hints for the Whig orators. It is
clear that he stiffened the resistance of the Russian Government. “He
shows,” so Whitworth wrote privately to Grenville, on 21st July, “the
most virulent opposition to His Majesty’s measures, and takes great
pains to counteract the negotiation.”[1027] In official documents
Whitworth and Fawkener depict him as a vain, meddlesome, ignorant
person, concerned with stockjobbing no less than with diplomacy. But
it is certain that his presence at St. Petersburg, and the biassed
information which he supplied, greatly harmed the cause of the Allies;
and Pitt, after seeing copies of Adair’s letters, was justified in
hinting that his action had prejudiced the success of Britain’s efforts
at St. Petersburg. As for Fox, Catharine showed her regard for him by
placing his bust between those of Demosthenes and Cicero in her palace;
and Adair, on his departure, received from the hands of Potemkin a ring
containing her miniature.[1028]
Such is the story of this singular “mission.” Even before its details
were fully known at Whitehall, Ministers debated whether they should
not take action against Adair. On 29th July Grenville wrote to
Auckland, _à propos_ also of a recent letter of Fox to Barnave: “Is not
the idea of Ministers from Opposition to the different Courts of Europe
a new one in this country? I never heard of it before, and should think
that, if it can be proved, I mean legally proved, it would go very near
to an impeachable misdemeanour.”[1029] Ministers, however, decided to
treat Adair’s “mission” with the silence of contempt. Probably their
judgement was correct; for the _finesse_ of Vorontzoff and Catharine,
if fully revealed to the world, would have covered the Opposition with
obloquy, but the Cabinet with ridicule; and in politics the latter
alternative is more to be feared. Apart, therefore, from one scornfully
vague reference by Pitt to the damage done to the nation’s interests by
a partisan intrigue at St. Petersburg, little was heard of the affair.
The reader who wades through the dreary debates on the Russian Question
early in 1792 will probably conclude that Adair’s tour belongs to the
annals, not of diplomacy, but of electioneering.[1030] Fox, Grey,
Sheridan, and Whitbread proved to their own satisfaction, from Russian
sources of information, that Pitt, besides wasting the public money on
futile preparations for war, had been outwitted and publicly flouted
by the Czarina. They did not prove that the occasion called for no
effort to curb her ambition, or that Pitt was not justified in taking
up the challenge which their factious conduct had emboldened her to
fling down. In one sense it is unfortunate that the Foxites did make
further diplomatic excursions; for the result might have been the
addition of interesting gargoyles to the edifice of the party system
in the form of Opposition embassies, worked by fallen Ministers,
disappointed place-hunters, and discharged clerks.
Meanwhile other events were working against Pitt. The successes of the
Russian arms had been crowned by the capture of Anapa, near the River
Kuban, and their triumph seemed assured both in Asia and Europe. The
Russian Black Sea fleet was preparing to deal a blow at Constantinople;
and, for a time, as we have seen, the Turks were distracted by the
prospect of the renewal of war with Austria.
Yet here again, by one of those sudden turns of fortune which have
so often saved the Ottoman Empire, the designs of the Viennese Court
were cut short. At Padua, during his Italian tour, the Emperor Leopold
heard the news of the capture of the King and Queen of France by the
rabble of Varennes. This ignominious ending of his schemes for a
counter-revolution in France stirred the sluggish blood of the Emperor.
On 6th July he wrote to his brother Maximilian that it was high time to
save Marie Antoinette and stifle the French plague. A forward policy
in the West implied moderation in the East, and even the Prussophobe
Chancellor, Kaunitz, saw the need of a definite peace with the Sultan.
Accordingly, Austria waived her demands for parts of Wallachia and
Servia, and made peace with the Porte at Sistova on 4th August, on
condition of receiving Old Orsova.[1031] Thus the Varennes incident,
which involved the royalist cause in ruin, brought salvation to the
Moslems.
The desire of Leopold to crush the French Revolution was to have
far-reaching consequences, which will concern us later. Here we may
remark that the woes of Marie Antoinette and the _volte-face_ of the
Emperor produced a marked effect at St. Petersburg. Hitherto, all had
been bluster and defiance. So late as 15th July Fawkener reported that
the Empress had lately seemed inclined to conquer and keep all that
she could; but the news from France impelled the Vice-Chancellor,
Ostermann, to declare that all animosities should now be laid aside and
“that every nation in Europe should unite [against France] whenever any
proper plan could be agreed on.”[1032] Thus, here again, the failure
of the royalist attempt in France helped to avert the utter breakdown
of the Anglo-Prussian case. Even so, the Czarina won the day at nearly
every point. Little by little the Allies gave up all the safeguards
on which Pitt had at first insisted; and on 26th July their envoys
consented to the acquisition by Russia of all the Turkish lands east
of the Dniester, provided that the Czarina agreed not to hinder the
navigation of that river. On the whole, the Porte sustained no very
serious loss, considering the collapse of its defence, the slight
interest felt on its behalf both at London and Berlin, and the marked
dislike of Catharine for England and Prussia. She hated Pitt, but she
despised Frederick William. How then could she, in the midst of her
military triumphs, give way to the demands of the Triple Alliance,
whose inner weakness she had probed?
Nevertheless, the intervention of the Allies was not the failure
that has often been represented. It checked the soaring ambitions of
Potemkin. The Roumans, Bulgars, and Greeks had to thank the Allies for
delivering them from this selfish adventurer. Their day of liberation
was deferred, but it came ultimately in far better guise than as a gift
from Catharine and her favourite. Strange to say, he fell a victim to
fever, and expired by the roadside in Moldavia as he was proceeding to
the front; and this event, which wrung the heart of Catharine, had no
small share in facilitating the signature of the Russo-Turkish treaty
(on the terms required by the Allies) at Jassy early in the following
year.
Other influences were leading Catharine towards peace. In the spring
of the year 1791 Poland entered on a new lease of life. That the Poles
should alter their constitution without her permission was a grievous
affront, for which she inveighed against them as rebels. Thenceforth
Warsaw, rather than Constantinople, took the first place in her
thoughts. Apart from this, the prospects of the Poles were radiant
with promise; and the student who peruses the despatches of Hailes,
British envoy at Warsaw, cannot but picture the results that might
have occurred had the Poles received adequate support from Prussia and
England against the Muscovites. The confederated Diet at Warsaw then
showed a reforming zeal equal to that of the French National Assembly.
In the middle of April it struck off the shackles from the burghers and
made them citizens. Early in May, when the political horizon darkened,
fear cowed even the Russophiles, while a storm of patriotic fervour
swayed the Diet, and burst through the two barriers which hemmed in the
national life. There was no hubbub in this memorable sitting. No swords
flashed forth, as had happened on many a petty pretext. Emotion held
the Assembly spellbound, while the majority swept away those curses
of the land, serfdom and the elective kingship. Thereupon one of the
leading obstructives aroused general astonishment by proposing that
members should swear to uphold the new order of things. King Stanislaus
evinced his patriotic zeal by calling on the Bishop of Cracow to
administer the oath, which deputies and visitors alike recorded with
shouts of joy. The exulting throng of nationalists and their recent
converts then sallied forth and took the oath once more at the foot
of the high altar of the Cathedral; and the sullen dissidence of some
thirty of Russia’s henchmen served but to emphasize the overwhelming
triumph of intelligence and patriotism.[1033]
Such was the peaceful Revolution of 3rd May 1791 at Warsaw. It sent
a thrill of exultation through France, and moved Burke to a splendid
panegyric, which he crowned with the startling statement that the
events at Warsaw were probably the purest good ever conferred upon
mankind.[1034] Even Grenville’s cold and insular nature warmed and
dilated at the news; and he bade Hailes express the interest of Great
Britain in the new constitution, especially as it would benefit the
cause of the Allies.[1035]
But the ill fortune which dogged the steps of the Poles willed that in
this time of their revival the Alliance, from which alone they could
hope for safety, should go to pieces. The refusal of England to send a
fleet either to the Baltic or the Black Sea depressed the influence of
England at Berlin. “Oh! how my blood boils, my dear Sir,” wrote Ewart
to Keith on 18th June. “Our influence was all powerful so long as it
was maintained with the necessary vigour; and the moment we flinched,
all the Powers, as if by common consent, turned the tables upon
us.”[1036] This proved to be the case. The web of Ewart’s diplomacy,
the toil of four years, which connected England with Prussia, Sweden,
Poland, and Turkey, was unravelled in as many weeks. The general trend
of events helped on the work of dissolution; and among the sinister
influences at Berlin, jealousy of the reviving power of Poland played
no small part. Hertzberg, whose fortunes were now on the decline,
sought to postpone his fall (it came early in July) by exciting
animosity against the Courts of London and Warsaw. To his reckless
charge against Pitt, of seeking to ruin Prussia by a war against the
Muscovites, he now added a jeremiad against the Polish reformers of
Warsaw--“The Poles have just dealt the _coup de grace_ to the Prussian
monarchy by making their kingdom hereditary and adopting a constitution
better than that of England.”[1037] Dislike of its Allies was now
the prevalent feeling at the Prussian Court, and by the end of June
Frederick William decided to have an interview with Leopold for the
purpose of coming to a friendly understanding.[1038]
This resolve, fraught with evil for Poland, was clinched by the news
of the capture of the King and Queen of France at Varennes. Concern
at their ignominious position now began to influence the Central and
Eastern Powers. The wrath of the Czarina fell upon French democrats;
for in the nature of this extraordinary woman sentiment and passion
always ran an even race with foresight and reason. In her present
mood the French Revolution and all its abettors were anathema. The
results were curious. The bust of Voltaire was deposed from its place
of honour and huddled away amidst lumber. Within a short space the
bust of Fox, now that he had served her purpose, shared the same fate.
More important, perhaps, if less striking to the imagination, is
the fact that she now formed a close alliance with Sweden. Early in
October Gustavus III ended his long balancings by espousing the side
of Russia, with a view to eventual action against France.[1039] The
decline or collapse of the Anglo-Prussian Alliance followed as a matter
of course so soon as Frederick decided to clasp the hand of Leopold.
It is curious to find Pitt and Grenville, even at the end of August
1791, seeking to include Austria in the Triple Alliance, when statesmen
at Berlin and Vienna were scoffing at England, and were adopting
an offensive policy at variance with the pacific aims cherished at
Whitehall. Kaunitz and Bischoffswerder looked about for a scape-goat,
and found him in Joseph Ewart. Auckland had also been making a dead set
at this able ambassador; and some hitch in the negotiations attending
the marriage of the Duke of York with the eldest daughter of the King
of Prussia served to increase his troubles at this time. But the
following hopeful letter which Pitt wrote to him on 2nd September must
have salved his mental wounds:
... Many events have certainly concurred to disappoint the
accomplishment of very important objects, and to produce in some
respects an unfavourable change both in Prussia and elsewhere.
But the general state of Europe, taking in the whole, affords so
favourable a prospect to this country that we have great reason
to be contented. Any temporary fluctuation in the disposition
at Berlin is therefore, at the moment, of less consequence. The
connection between Prussia and Austria, whatever right we have
to complain of the steps which have led to it, cannot, I think,
produce any permanent mischief to our system; and, at least, I
am convinced that the best chance of preventing it is to mark
no suspicion on our part to preserve as much good humour and
cordiality as possible. For the rest, in the singular and uncertain
state of Europe, our chief business must be to watch events and
keep ourselves quiet. I have been sincerely concerned not to have
more favourable accounts of your health....
The prospects, so far as concerned the freedom of Poland and the peace
of the West, were worse than Pitt anticipated. Ewart foresaw the course
of events more correctly. A little later he obtained the recall for
which he had some time been pressing; but he had the mortification of
seeing Morton Eden, the brother of his rival, Lord Auckland, installed
in his place. He retired to Bath for treatment by his brother, a
medical man; but an internal disease of long standing developed very
suddenly on 25th January 1792, and ended his life two days later
amidst delirium. The details, as set forth in the family papers, show
that the delirium of his last hours was the outcome of acute internal
troubles, which resembled appendicitis. They serve also to refute
the wild rumours that Ewart went raving mad as a result of political
disappointments, or that he was poisoned by some Russian agent.[1040]
The last letter which Pitt wrote to this brilliant but most unfortunate
diplomatist shows a chivalrous desire to screen him from needless
anxiety:
Downing Street, _Jan. 20, 1792_.[1041]
Your letter having come at a time of very particular engagement,
it was impossible for me to answer it sooner. Your recollection
of what pass’d between the Duke of York and yourself is certainly
different from the manner in which I am told that H.R.H.
understands it; but no difficulty whatever will arise from this
circumstance in settling the business; nor do I see any reason
for your entertaining any apprehension of its producing any
consequences disagreeable to yourself. I am very sorry that you
should already have felt so much on the subject. The train in
which the business now is will, I am in hopes, relieve you from
any further anxiety or trouble respecting it, and makes it wholly
unnecessary to dwell further upon it.
Worse than private misfortunes was the blow dealt to the Polish
cause. The rebuff encountered by the Allies at St. Petersburg deeply
depressed the reformers of Warsaw. On the return of Fawkener through
the Polish capital, King Stanislaus expressed grave concern at the
abandonment of all the safeguards for Turkey and Poland on which Pitt
had at first insisted. The cession to Russia of all the land up to
the Dniester seemed to him to presage ruin to the Poles--“Nor did my
pointing out [added Hailes] the attention which had been paid to their
interests by the preservation of the liberty of the Dniester produce
any advantageous effect.”[1042] In truth, Stanislaus knew Catharine
well enough to see in her triumph the doom of his kingdom.[1043] Just
as the ascendancy which she acquired over Turkey by the Treaty of
Kainardji led naturally, perhaps inevitably, to the First Partition of
Poland, so now the principle of the Balance of Power impelled Austria
and Prussia to look about for lands that would compensate them for the
expansion of Russia. Those lands could be found most easily in Poland,
less easily in France. So it came about that the principle which Pitt
invoked for the greater security of the smaller States, became in the
hands of Catharine and her powerful neighbours a pretext for schemes of
aggrandisement and pillage.
Thus fell to pieces the “federative system,” whereby Pitt hoped to
group the weaker States around England and Prussia. The scheme was due
in the first instance to Ewart. Pitt adopted it when he believed the
time to be ripe; but he postponed action too long. Had he pushed his
plans forward in the autumn of 1790, as soon as the dispute with Spain
was settled, and maintained the naval armaments at their full strength,
he would probably have gained a peaceful triumph over Catharine. In
that case the accession of Poland, Sweden, and Turkey to the Triple
Alliance would naturally have followed. There would then have been
no invasion of France by Austria and Prussia; still less would there
have been any spoliation of Poland. The practical manner in which the
Poles reformed their commonwealth opened up vast possibilities for the
east of Europe; and the crushing of those hopes under the heel of a
remorseless militarism is probably the severest loss which the national
principle has sustained in modern times.
Nevertheless, though Pitt showed a lack of nerve at the crisis, yet, in
view of the duplicity of Prussia, the doubtful attitude of Leopold and
Gustavus, the marvellous resourcefulness of Catharine, and the factious
opposition of the Whigs, he cannot be blamed. At times, new and subtle
influences warp the efforts of statesmen. This was so in the year 1791.
Pitt was striving to build on the basis of the Balance of Power. But
that well-trodden ground now began to heave under the impact of forces
mightier than those wielded by monarchs and chancellors. Democracy
sent out its thrills from Paris as a centre, and the gaze of statesmen
was turned from the East to the West. Thenceforth the instinct of
self-preservation or of greed marshalled the continental chanceries
against the two reforming States. The “Zeitgeist” breathed against the
plans of Pitt, and they were not. In their place there came others of
a far different kind, inspired by hopes of territorial gains in Poland
and the overthrow of liberty in France.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Baines, “Hist. of Cotton Manufacture,” 226, 232–4. See Mr. G. P.
Gooch’s “Politics and Culture,” for other coincidences.
[2] The first trustworthy statistics of population were obtained in the
census of 1801; but those given above are probably not very wide of the
mark. The estimates are those of Rickman, quoted by Porter, “Progress
of the Nation,” 13. The estimate of the “Statistical Journal” (xliii,
462), quoted by Dr. Cunningham, “Eng. Industry and Commerce,” 699, is
7,953,000 for the year 1780.
[3] See Walter’s “Origin of Commerce,” iv, 401, for a full statement of
this juggling with the nation’s finance.
[4] “Diary of a Journey to England (1761–62),” by Count F. von
Kielmansegge, 237.
[5] “The Coltness Collections,” 116, quoted by J. H. Jesse; “Memoirs of
the Reign of George III,” i, 29.
[6] “Mems. of Queen Charlotte,” by J. Watkins, 1819, pt. i, ch. x. The
Duchess of Devonshire had flaunted a head-plume of an ell and three
inches.
[7] See an excellent study, “Personal and Party Government
(1760–1766),” by Mr. D. A. Winstanley, 1910.
[8] “Corresp. of George III with Lord North,” ii, 323; Wraxall, i, 347.
[9] “F. O.,” Prussia, 15, Carmarthen to Ewart, 6th January 1789.
[10] For the influence exerted by George III on elections see Porritt,
“The Unreformed House of Commons,” i, 409–15.
[11] Pitt MSS., 195, pt. ii.
[12] B. M. Add. MSS., 28062. Pitt’s answer is not among these papers.
But Dr. Jackson did not gain the bishopric.
[13] Lecky, v, 26.
[14] Montesquieu, “Esprit des Lois,” bk. viii, ch. v.
[15] See Sidney and Beatrice Webb, “The Parish and the County,” bk. i,
ch. iv; bk. ii, ch. ii; Boutmy, “The Eng. Constitution” (Eng. edit.),
pt. iii, sect. 3.
[16] Howell, State Trials, xxiii, 231.
[17] Delavoye, “Life of T. Graham,” 87.
[18] “Letters from Lady Jane Coke to her friend, Mrs. Eyre, at Derby
(1747–58).”
[19] C. P. Moritz, “Travels in England in 1782”; W. Wales, “Inquiry
into the ... Population of England” (1781), estimated the number of
houses in London at 100,000, and the population at 650,000.
[20] See, too, Wroth’s “London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth
Century.”
[21] See ch. xx of this volume for details; also T. Clarkson’s “Hist.
of the Abolition of the Slave Trade,” especially chs. xvii, xviii; and
Prof. Ramsay Muir’s “Hist. of Liverpool,” ch. xii.
[22] “Hamlet,” i, sc. 4.
[23] “Wealth of Nations,” bk. iv, ch. iii, pt. 2.
[24] H. Twiss, “Life of Lord Eldon,” vol. i, ch. ii.
[25] H. Walpole, “Letters,” viii, 395.
[26] “Mems. of Queen Charlotte,” 203.
[27] See the new letter of Hugh Elliot to Pitt from Brighthelmstone,
17th Oct. 1785, quoted in ch. xvii, as to the danger of the Prince
losing his life if he did not amend his ways.
[28] “Mems. of Queen Charlotte,” 187.
[29] “Travels in England in 1782,” by C. P. Moritz (Eng. trans., 1895),
53.
[30] Rousseau, “Social Contract,” bk. iii, ch. xv.
[31] Dr. Cunningham, “Eng. Industry and Commerce,” pt. ii, 546, 698.
[32] Quoted by Baines, “History of the Cotton Manufacture,” 334.
[33] W. Wales, _op. cit._, 5.
[34] “Origin of Power-loom Weaving,” by W. Radcliffe, 59 _et seq._
[35] In Pitt MSS., 221, is a petition signed by many persons connected
with the navy in favour of granting a pension to Mr. Cort, who had made
“malleable iron with raw pit-coal, and manufactured the same by means
of grooved rollers, by a process of his own invention.” The petitioners
state that though the invention had brought no benefit to Cort, but
rather the reverse, yet it had proved to be of national importance.
[36] W. Wales, _op. cit._, 44 _et seq._, enumerates several cases where
the rural population declined, but he attributed that fact not to the
enclosures (for he states that the enclosures of wastes, which were
more numerous than those of the open fields, increased employment),
but rather to the refusal of landlords to build cottages, though they
charged higher rents than before. For the question of enclosures,
however, see Dr. Gilbert Slater’s recent work on the subject (Constable
and Co., 1907).
[37] See Dr. von Ruville’s work, “William Pitt, Earl of Chatham” (Eng.
ed., 3 vols. 1907), for a full account of these forbears.
[38] Ruville, i, 343–6.
[39] _Ibid._, 345. Pitt finally bought about 100 acres, and further
strained his resources by extensive building at Hayes.
[40] “Pitt, some Chapters of his Life and Times,” by Lord Ashbourne,
161–6.
[41] “The Life of William Wilberforce,” by his Sons, i, 304.
[42] Pitt MSS., 11 and 13.
[43] Stanhope, ii, 125.
[44] “Correspondence of the Earl of Chatham,” iii, 27.
[45] Notes by Bishop Tomline in the Pretyman MSS., Orwell Park.
[46] Lord Fitzmaurice, “Life of Shelburne,” i, 72. See also two
articles on the early life of the elder Pitt in the “Edinburgh Review”
for 1910.
[47] “Chatham Corresp.,” iii, 65.
[48] “Chatham Corresp.,” iv, 538.
[49] Pitt MSS., 11.
[50] “Chatham Corresp.,” iv, 363.
[51] Pitt MSS., 101. The disuse of past participles was a
characteristic of that age. To write “rode” for “ridden” after the
auxiliary verb was no more noticeable a defect than to walk unsteadily
after dinner. One other early letter of Pitt’s bears date 1772 at Lyme
Regis, and refers to some fun which he and his brothers and sisters
had had on a cutter yacht. Another letter undated, but in Pitt’s round
schoolboy hand, to a gentleman of Somerset, refers to sporting matters
such as the lack of hares and the inability of his brother to catch
those which he does start (Pitt MSS., 102).
[52] From Mr. A. M. Broadley’s MSS.
[53] By the kindness of the Countess Stanhope I was allowed to peruse
this most interesting MS., which is preserved, along with many other
Pitt treasures, at Chevening.
[54] Pellew, “Sidmouth,” i, 28.
[55] Ashbourne, _op. cit._, 7–8.
[56] “Diary of Thomas Moore,” vol. v.
[57] Pitt MSS., 11.
[58] _Ibid._
[59] One remembers here the terrifying remark of Lord Acton that the
mass of documents which the modern historian must consult inevitably
tells against style.
[60] See an interesting fragment, “Bishop Tomline’s Estimate of Pitt,”
by the Earl of Rosebery (London, 1903), also in the “Monthly Review”
for August 1903.
[61] Dr. Pretyman was chaplain to George III, and later on Bishop of
Lincoln and Dean of St. Paul’s.
[62] Pitt MSS., 196. The notes and diagrams refer to the movement of
bodies considered dynamically: there are also some problems in algebra.
More numerous are the notes on English History, especially on the
parliamentary crises of the years 1603–27, where, unfortunately, they
break off. I have also found notes on Plutarch, and translations of the
speech of Germanicus in Tacitus (“Annals,” Bk. I), and of parts of the
Second Philippic.
[63] His books went in large measure to Bishop Pretyman (Tomline), and
many of them are in the library of Orwell Park.
[64] “Chatham Corresp.,” iv, 289.
[65] Chevening MSS.
[66] Pretyman MSS., quoted by Lord Ashbourne, _op. cit._, 31, note.
[67] “Private Papers of W. Wilberforce,” 65.
[68] “Chatham Corresp.” iv, 376, 377.
[69] Macaulay, “Miscellaneous Writings” (Essay on William Pitt).
[70] Macaulay, “Miscellaneous Writings” (Essay on William Pitt), iv,
510.
[71] “Corresp. of George III with Lord North,” ii, 154 (17th March
1778).
[72] “Corresp. of George III with Lord North,” ii, 184.
[73] Pitt MSS., 12.
[74] Ashbourne, _op. cit._, 161, 162.
[75] See Porritt, “The Unreformed House of Commons,” i, ch. ix, on the
exclusion of poor men from Parliament.
[76] Letter of 3rd July 1779. Stanhope, i, 31.
[77] Chevening MSS.
[78] Pitt MSS., 182.
[79] “The Black Book of Lincoln’s Inn,” iv, Preface.
[80] “Life of Burke,” by R. Bissett (1800), ii, 55–66.
[81] Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 67–72.
[82] Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 83.
[83] “Black Book of Lincoln’s Inn,” iv, Preface; “Bland Burges Papers,”
58.
[84] “Bland Burges Papers,” 60, 61.
[85] “Life of William Pitt,” by Henry Cleland (1807).
[86] As a rule, Lowther exacted strict obedience from his nominees. In
1788 he compelled them to vote against Pitt on the Regency Question.
[87] Hansard, cliii, 1056, 1057.
[88] Porritt, i, 315–7.
[89] Burke, “Thoughts on the present Discontents” (1770).
[90] For details of bribery see May, “Constitutional History,” i,
313–27; Porritt, i, 414–20.
[91] “Life of Romilly,” i, 141.
[92] “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 37, 38.
[93] Selwyn, p. 140.
[94] “Reminiscences of Charles Butler,” i, 172.
[95] Wraxall, “Memoirs,” ii, 62; G. Rose, “Diaries,” i, 28.
[96] Lecky, “Hist. of England in the XVIIIth Cent.,” iv, 228–34, does
not absolve Shelburne of the charge of duplicity in the matter of the
negotiations for peace; but Sir G. C. Lewis, “Administrations of Great
Britain,” 31–48, minimizes the importance of the point at issue.
[97] Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 118–21.
[98] “Private Papers of W. Wilberforce,” 79.
[99] Cartwright, “Take your Choice” (1776). In 1780 Cartwright founded
“The Society for promoting Constitutional Information,” the first of
the modern clubs that was purely political.
[100] “The Speeches of William Pitt” (4 vols., 1806), i, 1–7.
[101] “George Selwyn: his Letters and his Life,” p. 132 (Storer to Lord
Carlisle, Feb. 28, 1781). He adds that Woodfall reported the debates
“almost always faithfully.” I therefore see no reason for refraining,
as Earl Stanhope did, from citing many passages of his speeches, on the
ground that they were very imperfectly reported.
[102] _Ibid._, p. 143.
[103] These images are curiously like those used by Lord Shelburne on
25th January 1781. See Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 120.
[104] Both letters are among the Chevening MSS.
[105] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 17.
[106] _Ibid._, v, 292.
[107] Ashbourne, p. 159.
[108] “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 68.
[109] Lord Waldegrave’s “Memoirs,” p. 63.
[110] Pitt MSS., 103.
[111] Nicholl, “Recollections of George III,” i, 389.
[112] Porritt, i, 409–15.
[113] See May’s “Const. History,” i, 315 _et seq._ for the increase of
the Secret Service Fund under George III.
[114] Malmesbury Diaries, iii, 8.
[115] Wraxall, ii, 434–5 (3rd edit.).
[116] “Letters of George III to Lord North,” ii, 336.
[117] “Life of Romilly,” i, 135.
[118] Stanhope, i, 67.
[119] May, “Const. History,” i, 458.
[120] Rockingham, “Memoirs,” ii, 452–3.
[121] Speech of 7th February 1782 (“Parl. Hist.,” xxii, p. 987).
[122] Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 136.
[123] “Dropmore P.,” i, 163; Lecky, iv _ad fin._
[124] Hood, Rodney’s second in command, asserted that if Rodney had
fought and pursued vigorously he would have taken not five but twenty
French ships of the line. See “Rodney’s Letters and Despatches,” ed. by
D. Hannay for the Navy Records Society, p. 103.
[125] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 1.
[126] “Life of Romilly,” i, 162. Romilly, who was present, quotes
a sentence of the speech, which did not appear in the official
report: “This House is not the representative of the people of Great
Britain; it is the representative of nominal boroughs, of ruined and
exterminated towns, of noble families, of wealthy individuals, of
foreign potentates.”
[127] “Speeches of Lord Erskine” (edit. of 1880), p. 293; “The Papers
of Christopher Wyvil,” i, 424–5; State Trials, xxii, 492–4.
[128] See Mahon, “Hist. of England,” vii, 17; Porritt, i, 217.
[129] “Buckingham Papers,” i, 50.
[130] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 163.
[131] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 175; “Life of Romilly,” i, 173. Fox had
announced to the Cabinet his intention of resigning a few days before
Rockingham’s death. See the “Memorials of Fox,” i, 435 _et seq._
[132] Sir G. C. Lewis, “Administrations of Great Britain,” pp. 31–48.
[133] Lecky, iv, 239. The original Cabinet numbered five Rockingham
Whigs and five Shelburne Whigs.
[134] Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” vol. iii, chs. iv-vi.
[135] “Buckingham Papers,” i, 76.
[136] Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 305; Stanhope, “Pitt,” i, 86.
[137] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 265.
[138] Keppel resigned on the question of the terms of peace; the Duke
of Richmond disapproved them; Grafton was lukewarm. See their speeches,
17th February 1783 (“Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 392–6). W. W. Grenville
refused to move the resolution in the Commons in favour of the peace,
as Pitt urged him to do (“Dropmore P.,” i, 194).
[139] “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 33.
[140] “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 37, 38; “Auckland Journals,” i, 40–5.
Lord John Townshend, Adam, Eden, Lord Loughborough, and George North
helped to bring about the Coalition. Burke favoured the plan, also
Sheridan, though later on he vehemently declared the contrary (_ibid._,
pp. 21–4).
[141] Mr. Le B. Hammond, “Life of Fox,” pp. 57, 58.
[142] “My friendships are eternal, my hatreds can be appeased.”
[143] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 541.
[144] Fox’s friends, Mr. Powys and Sir Cecil Wray, had reprobated his
present action.
[145] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 543–50. I may here note that after the
resignation of Shelburne, Pitt framed a Bill for regulating in friendly
terms commerce with the United States. It was sharply criticized and
much altered in committee; but his Bill as well as the words quoted
above prove the depth of his conviction as to the need of winning back
if possible the goodwill of those young communities.
[146] Horace, “Odes,” bk. iii, 29. From modesty he omitted the words
“et mea Virtute me involvo.” (“If she [Fortune] abides, I commend her.
If her fleet wings quiver for flight, I resign her gifts--and hail
honest, dowerless poverty as mine.”)
[147] Wraxall, iii, 15.
[148] Chevening MSS. Yet on 25th February, Dundas wrote of the plan as
“my project” (Stanhope, i, 105).
[149] Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 369–70; Stanhope, i, 104–9;
“Memorials of Fox,” ii, 40–2. The King’s letter to Shelburne refutes
Horace Walpole’s statement that the King made the offer very drily and
ungraciously: also that Pitt’s vanity was at first “staggered” by the
offer.
[150] “Buckingham P.,” i, 170.
[151] “Buckingham P.,” i, 194.
[152] Pitt MSS., 103.
[153] Stanhope, i, App. III.
[154] Wraxall, iii, 36.
[155] Sichel, “Sheridan,” i, 133.
[156] “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 28.
[157] Wraxall, iii, 89, 143–5.
[158] “Dropmore P.,” i, 197–212. Mr. Sichel (“Sheridan,” ii, ch. ii),
following the earlier biographer, Thomas Moore, proves that Sheridan
sought to dissuade Fox from the coalition with North. This is doubtless
true. But determined opposition should have led him to refuse office.
[159] “Buckingham P.,” i, 189, 219.
[160] Horace Walpole’s Letters (8th May 1783). He thought Pitt’s
motion “most dangerous. We know pretty well what good or evil the
present state of the House of Commons can do. What an enlargement might
achieve no man can tell.” Later on he notes that Pitt was very little
supported, but shone marvellously in debate.
[161] Mr. Sichel (“Sheridan,” ii, 36) admits the strong personal
element in Sheridan’s opposition to Pitt.
[162] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 926, 945, 1, 114.
[163] “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 113. Jesse, “Memoirs of George III,”
iii, 435, states that the Shelburne Ministry had named £100,000 as the
allowance for the Prince. I find no proof of this.
[164] “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 113, 119.
[165] “Buckingham P.,” i, 303–5.
[166] “Dropmore P.,” i, 216; also Earl Stanhope’s “Miscellanies,” ii,
23–6, who rightly places the date as 20th July.
[167] “Buckingham P.,” i, 304; “Rutland P.,” iii, 70; Stanhope,
“Misc.,” ii, 32–5.
[168] _Ibid._, i, 218; “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 131–9.
[169] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 1143.
[170] “Dropmore P.,” i, 219, 220; Stanhope, “Misc.,” ii, 35.
[171] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 38.
[172] Lady Blennerhassett, “Life of Talleyrand,” i, 46. It is strange
that the “Talleyrand Memoirs” do not mention the meeting.
[173] G. Rose, “Diaries,” i, 32.
[174] Wraxall, iii, 122.
[175] “Early Life of Samuel Rogers,” 134.
[176] D’Haussonville, “The Salon of Mme. Necker,” ii, 50 (Eng. ed.).
[177] “Private Papers of W. Wilberforce,” 58. Strange to say, Horace
Walpole does not mention the affair in his letters.
[178] Horace Walpole (24th Feb. 1783).
[179] Milton, “A Free Commonwealth.”
[180] See, too, “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 98. Probably the second Bill
contained more of the suggestions of Burke.
[181] Wraxall, iii, 146, 155.
[182] Paper dated 4th Dec. 1783, in Pitt MSS., 354.
[183] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 1187–1208.
[184] _Ibid._, 1209–11.
[185] I cannot agree with Lecky’s statement (iv, 293) that Pitt’s
charges were extravagant. Seven partisan commissioners, jobbing away
vast patronage, would have been a canker in the State, whether they
acted for their party or the Crown.
[186] Pitt MSS., 102. Letter of 25th Nov. 1783.
[187] Wraxall, iii, 161.
[188] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 1312–86.
[189] Wraxall, iii, 150.
[190] “Buckingham P.,” i, 289.
[191] _Ibid._, 285.
[192] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 196–225.
[193] “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 224.
[194] Tomline (i, 233) gives the date as 21st December. The date is
doubtful, in view of the two perfectly friendly letters of Pitt to his
uncle on 23rd December, quoted by Stanhope (“Miscellanies,” ii, 36,
37). Wilberforce places the Earl’s resignation on 22nd December. I
incline to place it late on the 23rd.
[195] “Dropmore P.,” i, 163, 526–9. The Earl did not gain his desire,
and deeply resented the refusal of George III to make him a duke.
[196] Quoted in full in “Buckingham P.,” i, 291–3.
[197] “Dropmore P.,” i, 239, 240.
[198] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 48.
[199] Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 406–13. Pitt soothed the feelings
of the Earl by persuading the King to create him Marquis of Lansdowne.
(_Ibid._, 419–25).
[200] Grafton MSS. in the Chevening Library.
[201] Wraxall, iii, 252.
[202] The letter of George III to Pitt, quoted in “Pitt and Napoleon
Miscellanies,” rebuts the statement of the editor of “The Cornwallis
Correspondence” (i, 162, _n._) that there is no trace of any offer of
an office to Cornwallis. The letters of the Earl at that time show
that he declined office because he believed Pitt’s administration must
speedily fall, whereupon “the virtuous Coalition” would return in
triumph.
[203] “Mems. of the Whig Party,” ii, 5–7.
[204] The Duke of Richmond did not join the Cabinet until 13th January.
See Lord Carmarthen’s Mem. (“Leeds Mem.,” 94).
[205] “Life and Letters of Sir G. Elliot,” i, 91.
[206] “Rutland P.,” iii, 73.
[207] Lord Carmarthen stated that in the Cabinet meeting of 13th
January Pitt talked of giving up the struggle, but this is against all
other contemporary evidence (“Leeds Mems.,” 94). These notes on the
Cabinet meetings show how long were the discussions there respecting a
dissolution, and Pitt’s anxiety to defer it to a favourable moment.
[208] Pitt MSS., 353. I cannot accept Mr. Sichel’s statement
(“Sheridan,” ii, 45), that Dundas prescribed Pitt’s India Bill, and
Burke helped in it. Dundas doubtless helped in its compilation, but
Pitt must have conferred directly with the Company and found out how
far it was inclined to meet his views.
[209] Wraxall, iii, 85.
[210] Stanhope, i, App., p. viii.
[211] “Ann. Reg.” (1784–5), 271; “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 238–41.
[212] Hearn, “The Government of England,” 140–4, 147.
[213] “Corresp. between Pitt and the Duke of Rutland,” 9. Cornwallis
(“Corresp.,” i, 171) also prophesied after that vote that if Ministers
acted wisely, they might hold office for many years.
[214] “Leeds Mems.,” 99.
[215] “Fox’s Martyrs: a new Book of the Sufferings of the Faithful”
(London, 3rd edit., 1784).
[216] Letter to Wilberforce, 6th April 1784.
[217] I have found in the Pitt MSS. (No. 315) only two references
to Pitt’s election for Cambridge. One is a letter of that year from
“F. B.” giving numerous hints how this or that M.A. should be “got at”
so as to secure his vote, and ending: “Go on and prosper, thou godlike
young man, worthy of your immortal father.” The other is a note, not
dated, signed J. T[urner?]:
“DEAR PRETYMAN,
“Our canvas goes on very successfully, but we are yet very desirous
of your being here to-morrow night if possible, since Mr. Pitt
cannot come himself. His appearance on Thursday did immense
service.... We depend on seeing you to-morrow; next to Mr. Pitt’s
appearance yours will certainly be of the utmost importance.”
[218] Wraxall, iii, 338.
[219] For the daily figures see “Ann. Reg.” (1784), 34.
[220] “Hist. of Westminster Election,” 483.
[221] From the letter of George III to Pitt of 1st May it seems that
the High Bailiff had previously decided to grant a scrutiny, if asked
for, owing to the many doubtful votes that had been polled.
[222] “Dropmore P.,” i, 177.
[223] “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 244–6.
[224] “Malmesbury Diaries,” iv, 22.
[225] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1006.
[226] Necker, “De l’Administration des Finances de la France,” 3 vols.
(1784).
[227] “Observations on Reversionary Payments,” by R. Price, i, 206.
When all the expenses of the war were added, by the year 1786, the
National Debt amounted to £245,466,855. See Parl. Paper, No. 443, Sept.
1858.
[228] R. Price, “State of the Public Debts and Finances in January
1783,” 5, 8, 19.
[229] Pitt reckoned a State lottery as yielding a profit of £140,000;
but obviously he disliked this means of raising money (“Parl. Hist.,”
xxv, 1307).
[230] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1021.
[231] _Ibid._, 1022–4.
[232] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1015.
[233] A. Young, “Farmer’s Letters,” 197.
[234] “Wealth of Nations,” bk. i, ch. xi, pt. 3; “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv,
1012.
[235] “Wealth of Nations,” bk. v, ch. ii, § 4.
[236] Dowell, “Hist. of Taxation,” ii, 183.
[237] I owe this interesting fact to the Rev. Dr. Cunningham.
[238] R. Price, _op. cit._, 18, 19 (note).
[239] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1009.
[240] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1354.
[241] “Wealth of Nations,” bk. v, ch. ii, § 1.
[242] Cunningham, 548.
[243] Dowell, ii, 187, 188.
[244] In Pitt MSS., 353, I have found a memoir of the East India
Company containing this sentence: “Much will he deserve of his country
who can devise a mode of anything like equal taxation by any single
tax.”
[245] “Corresp. of W. Wilberforce,” i, 9.
[246] Chevening MSS.
[247] R. Price, “Treatise on Reversionary Annuities” (1772).
[248] “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 419–30.
[249] Consols which touched 54¼ in January 1785 rose to 69¾-73½ in
December of that year.
[250] “Memoir and Works of R. Price,” by W. Morgan (1816), i, 120–5; “A
Review of Dr. Price’s Writings on Finance,” by W. Morgan (1792).
[251] Pitt MSS., 169.
[252] “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 419–30, 1303.
[253] Lecky, v, 51.
[254] Pitt MSS., 169.
[255] “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 1294–1312, 1367, 1368, 1416–30.
[256] These formed the chief charges urged against the Sinking Fund by
R. Hamilton, “An Inquiry concerning ... the Management of the National
Debt” (1813).
[257] “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 1430–32.
[258] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvi, 17–36. Earl Stanhope’s measure will be
described by Miss Ghita Stanhope in her monograph on the Earl.
[259] J. R. McCulloch, “Taxation and the Funding System,” 3rd edit.,
1883, 477–81.
[260] Hamilton, _op. cit._ McCulloch admits only half that amount. In
the Pitt MSS. (No. 275) is an account of the stocks purchased for the
Sinking Fund up to 5th January 1796. They amounted to £18,001,655 and
Annuities equal to £89,675. See, too, Pitt’s Memoranda on the Sinking
Fund in “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies.”
[261] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 998.
[262] _Ibid._, 1383.
[263] From Mr. Broadley’s MSS.
[264] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1396.
[265] “Corresp. of Wyvill with Pitt,” pt. i, 1796, 13.
[266] “Corresp. of Pitt with Wyvill,” pt. ii, 1797, 1–7.
[267] In the “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies,” I include a
Memorandum--“Notes on Reform of Parliament”--from the Pretyman MSS.
It is undated; but the notes form undoubtedly the rough draft of the
speech outlined above, except that there is no mention of the buying
out proposals at the end. May we infer that this was an afterthought,
due to Dundas?
[268] “Rutland P.,” iii, 202.
[269] “Corresp. of Pitt with the Duke of Rutland,” 84.
[270] “Corresp. of Wilberforce,” i, 4; “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 77;
“Corresp. of Wyvill with Pitt,” pt. i, 15 n.
[271] Stanhope, i, xv; Wraxall, iii, 116.
[272] Lecky, v, 62, 63; Jephson, “The Platform,” i, 166.
[273] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 191.
[274] I agree with Dr. W. Hunt (“Political Hist. of England,” x, 287)
in his interpretation of the King’s letter quoted by Stanhope, i, App.,
xv.
[275] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 113.
[276] B.M. Add. MSS., 27808.
[277] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvi, 1–5, 178–86; “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 114.
[278] “Rutland P.,” iii, 202.
[279] “Rutland P.,” iii, 198, 203; Letters of 11th and 23rd April 1785.
[280] “Private Papers of W. Wilberforce,” 72.
[281] “Corresp. of Pitt with the Duke of Rutland,” 150, 151.
[282] _Ibid_., 174, 175.
[283] Pitt MSS., 111. Printed in the “Barham Papers” (ii, 219), edited
by Sir John Laughton for the Navy Records Society.
[284] “Journals and Letters of Sir T. Byam Martin,” iii, 380–2 (Navy
Records Society).
[285] Wraxall, iv, 268–70. For some details on the inquiries at
Portsmouth and Plymouth see the “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 195–8.
[286] Porter, “Hist. of the Royal Engineers,” ii, 209–11. The Duke of
Richmond was, however, able to fortify some points at Portsmouth before
the war of 1793 with France. See “Professional Papers of the Corps of
Royal Engineers,” xii (1886), 83, 86. Fort Monckton and smaller forts
on Stokes Bay were built.
[287] H. Twiss, “Life of Lord Eldon,” i, ch. iv.
[288] Wraxall, iv, 436.
[289] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvi, 780–832. On 8th May 1789, a similar motion
by Beaufoy was defeated by 122 votes to 102 (_Ibid._, xxviii, 1–41).
[290] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1086–99.
[291] Pitt MSS., 353.
[292] Mill, “Hist. of British India,” iv, 559 (4th edit.).
[293] Lord Acton, “Letters to Mary Gladstone,” 45.
[294] “Cornwallis Correspondence,” i, 180, 191.
[295] _Ibid._, 220, 221.
[296] Wraxall, iv, 142–4.
[297] Malleson, “Life of Warren Hastings” (1894), 456.
[298] Malleson, “Life of Warren Hastings” (1894), 455.
[299] Wraxall, iv, 250; “Diary of Mme. d’Arblay,” iv, 60 (edit. 1854).
[300] Malleson, _op. cit._, 449.
[301] Wraxall, iv, 260.
[302] _Ibid._, 261; “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 1094–5.
[303] _E.g._, Malleson, _op. cit._, 450.
[304] “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 1256.
[305] The debate of 26th April seems to show that Burke was acquainted
with the substance of those papers.
[306] “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 1384–94.
[307] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvi, 37–90.
[308] “Zamindar” means no more than landowner. Hastings had confirmed
Cheyt Singh in his powers. Sir Alfred Lyall and Mr. G. W. Hastings in
their works on Warren Hastings lay stress on the fact that Cheyt Singh
was a _parvenu_, not one of the old hereditary princes of India. I
fail to see that this has any bearing on the justice or injustice of
Hastings’ treatment of him.
[309] “Auckland Journals,” i, 127.
[310] “Auckland Correspondence,” i, 127; Wraxall, iv, 336.
[311] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvi, 115.
[312] “Lives of the Lord Chancellors,” ix, 175 (4th edit.). The words
quoted above furnish no ground for the assertion of Sir H. Lyall in his
“Warren Hastings” that Pitt heard news of Thurlow’s boast just before
the debate of 13th June. Campbell’s words are quite vague, and are
entitled to little credence.
[313] Stanhope, i, App., xix.
[314] For new letters of George III see “Pitt and Napoleon
Miscellanies.”
[315] Wraxall, iv, 342.
[316] “Bland Burges P.,” 89, 90.
[317] “Life of Wilberforce,” v, 340, 341.
[318] “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 69, 70. A similar remark may be
applied to Mr. Gladstone’s replies, which often disgusted simple men.
[319] Pitt MSS., 169.
[320] This opinion is repeated by Mr. G. W. Hastings, “A Vindication of
Warren Hastings,” ch. vi.
[321] For a hostile account of Pitt’s conduct here, see the “Bland
Burges P.,” 81–9.
[322] “Hist. of the Trial of Warren Hastings,” pt. v, 308, 309. His net
fortune on 31st January 1786 was given as £65,313, exclusive of £12,000
made over to Mrs. Hastings.
[323] It may belong to the spring of 1787, when, as we learn from the
“Corresp. of Wilberforce,” i, 40, Dundas introduced Adam Smith to Pitt
and Wilberforce; but the latter does not record the anecdote.
[324] Of the 118 Parliamentary boroughs as many as 87 (including
Belfast!) were “close,” that is, were controlled by Government or by a
local magnate or the Corporation. See a list in “Castlereagh P.,” iv,
428–30; also Porritt, “Unreformed House of Commons,” ii, pt. vi.
[325] Lecky, iv, 429, 440, 450.
[326] “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 74, 96, 107, 119; “Rutland P.,” iii, 193.
[327] Pitt MSS., 324.
[328] “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 17, 19.
[329] Ashbourne, 84, 85.
[330] Ashbourne, 85–91.
[331] Grenville, writing in November 1798, said that he considered the
faulty procedure adopted in 1785 largely contributed to the failure.
(“Buckingham P.,” ii, 412.)
[332] “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 43.
[333] “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 55–75.
[334] _Ibid._, 73.
[335] Ashbourne, 104 (Letter of Pitt to Orde, 1st February 1785). Irish
exports to Great Britain for 1779 were £2,256,659, her imports thence
only £1,644,770 (Pitt MSS., 322).
[336] “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 311–14. Lecky, vi, 390, 395, and his “Leaders
of Public Opinion in Ireland,” 114.
[337] “Rutland P.” (Hist. MSS. Comm.), iii, 162–68.
[338] Pitt MSS., 320.
[339] “Rutland P.,” iii, 191; “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 314; Ashbourne, 105,
108.
[340] Chevening MSS.
[341] “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 311–28.
[342] “Dropmore P.,” i, 247, 248
[343] Pitt MSS., 321.
[344] This is refuted by the official wording of that Resolution as
passed at Dublin, in “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 312.
[345] Pitt MSS., 321.
[346] Fifty-six petitions had been sent in against Lord North’s
proposals in 1778. Daniel Pulteney wrote on 22nd March: “The
selfishness, ignorance, and credulity of many more commercial towns has
been too successfully practised on by Opposition.” He says Nottingham
was worked on by “Portland’s emissaries.” The day before he expressed
regret at Pitt’s obstinacy over the “cursed” Westminster scrutiny
(“Rutland P.,” iii, 192, 193).
[347] Ashbourne, 121.
[348] “Report of the Lords of the Committee of Council” (1st March
1785). (J. Stockdale,) 4. Pitt stated in his letter of 6th January 1785
to Rutland, that Ireland bought far less from Great Britain than she
sold to her.
[349] _Ibid._, 8–30.
[350] _Ibid._, 31–42.
[351] _Ibid._, 43–49.
[352] “Report of the Lords of the Committee of Council,” 50–55.
[353] _Ibid._, 68.
[354] _Ibid._, 78, 79.
[355] “The Proposed System of Trade with Ireland explained” (1785).
[356] Letter of 6th April to Duke of Rutland in “Rutland P.,” iii, 197.
[357] T. Moore, “Life of Sheridan,” i, 424.
[358] Wraxall, iv, 127–38.
[359] Lord Morley (“Burke,” 125) allows that Burke was wrong in
following Fox’s factious opposition, and that he “allowed his political
integrity to be bewildered.”
[360] The actual authors of these amusing poems were Tickell, General
Fitzpatrick, Lord John Townsend, Richardson, George Ellis, and Burke’s
friend and literary executor, Dr. Lawrence, who contributed the prose
parts. (T. Moore, “Sheridan,” i, 421.)
[361] “The Rolliad,” 90, 370.
[362] “Dropmore P.,” i, 255. See ch. xii of this work for a new letter
of Wilberforce to Pitt on the crisis.
[363] “Auckland Journals,” i, 79.
[364] Chevening MSS. Pitt continued to reside at the house on the
north side of Putney Heath, next to Lord Ashburton’s, until October or
November 1785, when he removed to Holwood Hill, Kent.
[365] “Dropmore P.,” i, 254; “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 125–33.
[366] Ashbourne, 146.
[367] Wraxall, iii, 217.
[368] Wilberforce gave up Lauriston House in 1786. A little later
Dundas and Grenville came to reside at Wimbledon, on the east and west
sides of the Green. Grenville’s is now called Eagle House. Dundas’s
stood on the site of “Canizzaro.”
[369] “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 111.
[370] “Rutland P.,” iii, 177.
[371] _Ibid._, 178; Wraxall, iv, 72–9, 98.
[372] Wraxall, iv, 98.
[373] Bruce, “Life of Sir W. Napier,” i, 28; quoted by Lecky, v, 16.
[374] “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 69.
[375] Wraxall, ii, 234, 235.
[376] “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 65; “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 78.
[377] “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 66, 67.
[378] “Life and Letters of the Earl of Minto,” ii, 5.
[379] B.M. Add. MSS., 28061. This postscript to Harris’s letter of 18th
July 1786 to Carmarthen is omitted from “The Malmesbury Diaries”; so,
too are most personal touches, often of great interest.
[380] “Auckland Journals,” i, 117.
[381] Omond, G. W. T., “The Lord Advocates of Scotland,” ch. xiv.
[382] Porritt, “Unreformed House of Commons,” ii, 8.
[383] Wraxall, ii, 123.
[384] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 179, 233, 350, 351; also iii, 212, for
the decline of Dundas’s influence on Pitt. Omond, “Lord Advocates of
Scotland,” vol. ii, ch. xiv.
[385] Lord Macaulay told this to Earl Stanhope (author of the “Life of
Pitt”) at the British Museum in December 1846 (Note of Earl Stanhope in
the Chevening MSS.).
[386] “Malmesbury Diaries,” iii, 292, 516, 590–2; “Dropmore P.,” iii,
167.
[387] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 78.
[388] Pitt MSS., 189.
[389] Wraxall, iv, 151.
[390] Pellew, “Life of Lord Sidmouth,” i, 4.
[391] Pellew, “Life of Lord Sidmouth,” i, 38.
[392] Wraxall, iii, _ad fin._
[393] I distrust the charges of corrupt dealing brought against Rose
respecting the next election at Westminster.
[394] “Diaries of George Rose,” i, 32–37.
[395] “Corresp. of Wilberforce,” i, 9.
[396] “Corresp. of Wilberforce,” i, 21–4.
[397] The gross income was £4,100: see Mr. E. W. Hamilton’s estimate of
Pitt’s income (the total being £10,532) in App. C of Lord Rosebery’s
“Pitt.”
[398] Pretyman MSS.
[399] G. Croly, “Mems. of George IV,” i, 105, 106.
[400] _Ibid._, 107.
[401] Chevening MSS.
[402] B.M. Add. MSS., 35684. In May 1790, Pitt drafted a letter to the
members of the Senate of the University of Cambridge, asking for the
support to his intended candidature for the office of High Steward,
then vacant owing to the death of Lord Hardwicke. He expressed the hope
that the crisis in public affairs would be deemed a sufficient excuse
for not making the application in person. He was elected. The draft of
the letter is in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge.
[403] “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 13, 14.
[404] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 113.
[405] _Ibid._, ii, 10–13.
[406] “Antony and Cleopatra,” v, sc. 2.
[407] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 24–26, 49, 55. The character and career
of Sir James Harris (the future Earl of Malmesbury) will concern us
later. Herr F. K. Wittichen, “Preussen und England in der Europäischen
Politik--1785–1788,” _ad init._, condemns the resentment of Frederick
the Great as a mistake, fatal to the interests both of Prussia and
England.
[408] “Malmesbury Diaries,” i, 374, 402, 532. He thought her hasty, and
swayed by passion or caprice; but events proved that she did not lack
foresight or firmness.
[409] Mahan, “Influence of Sea Power,” i, 11.
[410] Martens, iii, 327.
[411] “Leeds Memoranda” (edited by Mr. Oscar Browning), 101.
[412] B.M. Add. MSS., 27914. This letter and other documents of
interest will appear in my volume “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies.”
[413] B.M. Add. MSS., 28060. “Lord C.” may be Lord Clarendon, who had
previously given advice to Lord Carmarthen.
[414] _Ibid._
[415] B.M. Add. MSS., 28060. It is endorsed, in Pitt’s hand: “Oct. 12,
1784, Mem^m for Instructions to Mr. Fitzherbert.” Carmarthen’s draft
is almost certainly that which is printed by Mr. Oscar Browning in
the “Leeds Memoranda,” p. 103 _n._; but the evidence here given shows
that that draft cannot be Pitt’s, as Mr. Browning at that time (1884)
naturally inferred.
[416] This is well set forth in the despatches of Lord Dalrymple,
British Ambassador at Berlin, to Carmarthen. The latter wrote to Harris
on 24th February 1786, that Vorontzoff would try to persuade Catharine
II to restore the “good system,” and to induce Joseph II to help in the
work; but nothing came of it (B.M. Add. MSS., 28061).
[417] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 104. Memorandum of 2nd February 1785.
[418] Even after the disasters of 1813 Napoleon wrote: “Holland is a
French country and will remain so for ever” (“Lettres inédites,” 6th
November 1813).
[419] See Colenbrander, “De Patriottentijd,” i, 415, for the Prince’s
difficulty in forming (February 1784) a permanent force of 8,000
sailors subject to the Council of War and not to the provincial
Estates; also “A View of the Policy ... of the United Provinces”
(Dublin, 1787). As Grenville wrote to Pitt from The Hague on 31st July
1787, that the Dutch understood their Constitution very imperfectly
(“Dropmore P.,” iii, 410), I may be pardoned for not seeking to unravel
it here.
[420] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 92–4, 222–4.
[421] B.M. Add. MSS., 28060, Letter of 23rd August 1785. These
“private” letters are often more interesting and important than those
printed in the “Malmesbury Diaries,” which form but a small portion of
the whole.
[422] B.M. Add. MSS., 28060.
[423] B.M. Add. MSS., 28060.
[424] _Ibid._
[425] See the conversation of Joseph II with Sir R. M. Keith at Vienna
in December 1785, on French designs on Egypt, as given in chap. xxi,
_ad init._
[426] Salomon, “Pitt,” 309, 310; also Martens, iv, 133–9, for the
treaty closing this dispute.
[427] B.M. Add. MSS., 28060.
[428] “Malmesbury Mems.,” ii, 113–21.
[429] “Leeds Mem.” 111–13.
[430] Wittichen, _op. cit._, 8, 25 _et seq._, and 173, 174; “Malmesbury
Mems.,” 131.
[431] _Ibid._, 118.
[432] Tomline, ii, 108; “Leeds Mem.,” 116.
[433] Colenbrander, iii, 16, quoted by Wittichen, 173.
[434] Joseph Ewart had been secretary to Sir John Stepney, then
was Secretary of the Berlin Embassy in 1785–7. In 1788–91 he was
ambassador. For Anglo-Prussian relations and Ewart’s work, see Dr.
Luckwaldt’s excellent monograph, “Die englisch-preussische Allianz von
1788,” 51 _et seq._ (Leipzig, 1902). By the kindness of General Sir
Spencer Ewart, I was able to transcribe several of the letters of his
forefather, Joseph Ewart. Some of them are published in an article in
the “Edinburgh Review” for July 1909.
[435] Luckwaldt, 52, 53.
[436] “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 202–11.
[437] “Malmesbury Diaries,” i, 157.
[438] I disagree with Herr Salomon (“Pitt”) on this point. It seems to
me that Pitt’s policy was essentially tentative, and remained so up to
the year 1788.
[439] B.M. Add. MSS., 28060. George III showed more sagacity than his
Ministers, witness the phrase in his letter of 7th August to Pitt: “An
experience of twenty years has taught me not to expect any return for
the great assistance she [Catharine] has received from this country.”
[440] As late as 5th February 1786 he wrote to Harris: “We are on more
friendly terms with Russia than for a long time” (B.M. Add. MSS.,
28061).
[441] I have published this Memorandum along with other documents
bearing on the years 1785–7 in the “Eng. Hist. Rev.” for 1909.
[442] Garden, “Traités,” v, 60–72.
[443] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 175.
[444] On 7th March 1786 Harris reported to Carmarthen joint actions
of the Dutch and French in the East, and that eight Dutch warships
were to sail thither with troops on board. (B.M. Add. MSS., 28061.)
The possession of the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch rendered our
communications with India precarious.
[445] “Dropmore P.,” i, 258.
[446] “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 111.
[447] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 172.
[448] The Grand-Duke of Tuscany was a Hapsburg prince.
[449] Pitt MSS., 332.
[450] Dr. Cunningham, “Eng. Industry and Commerce” (pt. ii, 546).
[451] B.M. Add. MSS., 28063. Eden to Carmarthen, 10th January 1788.
[452] “F. O.,” France, 18.
[453] _Ibid._
[454] “Wealth of Nations,” bk. iv, ch. iii.
[455] “Politique de tous les Cabinets de l’Europe ...,” ii, 402–3. It
contains some “Mémoires” of Vergennes.
[456] Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 260.
[457] “Précis du Traité de Commerce de 1786,” by Count His de Butenval
(Paris, 1869), 25.
[458] “Wealth of Nations,” bk iv, ch. iii.
[459] Butenval, 23.
[460] B.M. Add. MSS., 28060.
[461] “F. O.,” France, 14, Dorset to Carmarthen, 31st March 1785. See,
too, L. Pingaud Choiseul-Gouffier, “La France en Orient sous Louis XVI”
(Paris, 1887).
[462] Pitt MSS., 337.
[463] _Ibid._, 333. Hailes to Fraser, 26th January 1786.
[464] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 112.
[465] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 157.
[466] “F. O.,” France, 16.
[467] _Ibid._ The British Parliament in 1716 abrogated these clauses in
favour of earlier and less liberal arrangements. Louis XIV consented to
this.
[468] “F. O.,” France, 16. Hailes to Carmarthen, 4th August 1785.
[469] _Ibid._, Hailes to Carmarthen, 1st December 1785. The Chambers of
Commerce at Paris, Versailles, and Montpellier protested against the
_arrêts_. See Butenval, _op. cit._, 36.
[470] Pitt MSS., 110. Eden to Pitt, 12th October 1785. See, too,
“Carlisle Papers,” 644.
[471] B.M. Add. MSS., 34420.
[472] Butenval, 39
[473] Carmarthen to Eden, 9th December 1785 (B.M. Add. MSS., 34420).
[474] Pitt MSS., 333.
[475] Pitt to Eden, 4th December 1785, in “Auckland Journals,” i, 87.
[476] Vergennes to Carmarthen, 14th December 1785, in Pitt MSS., 333.
[477] B.M. Add. MSS., 34420. Letter of John Lees, 1st April 1785.
[478] “Auckland Journals,” i, 89; Wraxall, iv, 229.
[479] J. Flammermont, “Correspondances des Agents diplomatiques
étrangers avant la Révolution,” 508.
[480] “Auckland Journals,” i, 106.
[481] Pitt MSS., 110. I quote fully only from those letters which have
not been published.
[482] “Auckland Journals,” i, 112.
[483] B.M. Add. MSS., 28061. Letter of 19th May 1786.
[484] _Ibid._ Letter of 12th December 1786.
[485] _Ibid._
[486] Pitt MSS., 333.
[487] This letter of 6th June has no date of the year, and it has been
bound up in vol. 28064 of the Add. MSS. in the British Museum for the
year 1789 of the Auckland MSS. Internal evidence shows that the year
should be 1786.
[488] Their memorial, dated 22nd February 1786, is from the London
silk trade (B.M. Add. MSS., 34420). It states that “no alteration
or modification whatsoever, short of the present prohibition of all
foreign wrought silks, can ensure the silk trade to this country.”
[489] Pitt MSS., 110.
[490] “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 158; “Beaufort Papers” (Hist. MSS.
Commission), 353.
[491] Pitt MSS., 110. Eden to Pitt, 23rd August.
[492] _Ibid._ Pitt to Eden, 12th September.
[493] “F. O.,” France, 20. For further details see my article in the
“Eng. Hist. Rev.” for October 1908.
[494] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvi, 233–54; “Auckland Corresp.,” i, 495–515;
Martens, “Traités,” iv, 155–80.
[495] Pitt MSS., 169.
[496] “F. O.,” France, 18.
[497] “Auckland Journals,” i, 392, 6th October 1786.
[498] “Dropmore P.,” i, 274.
[499] “Auckland Journals,” i, 404.
[500] “Auckland Journals,” i, 404; “Parl. Hist.,” xxvi, 342–78.
[501] _Ibid._, 392, 394.
[502] _Ibid._, 397, 398, 402, 424, 595. Mr. J. L. le B. Hammond in his
able work, “Charles James Fox” (1903), defends his hero on the ground
that monarchical France was the enemy of England.
[503] Pitt MSS., 110. Eden to Pitt, 13th April 1786.
[504] “F. O.,” France, 18.
[505] “F. O.,” France, 18. Hailes to Carmarthen, 25th October 1786. The
Duke of Dorset thought very little of Hailes, but Hailes’s despatches
show far more knowledge of France than the Duke’s.
[506] Flammermont, _op. cit._, 125.
[507] See summaries of both in Butenval, _op. cit._, chs. xv, xvi.
[508] Arthur Young’s “Travels in France” (Bohn edit., 1889), 8, 9, 69,
107, 284.
[509] Levasseur, “Hist. des Classes ouvrières,” ii, 776.
[510] This is the judgement of R. Stourm, “Les Finances de l’Ancien
Régime et de la Révolution,” 59.
[511] “Cambridge Mod. Hist.,” viii, 74.
[512] “Auckland Journals,” i, 127. Pitt to Eden, 10th June 1786.
[513] Martens, “Traites,” iv, 196–223. For these negotiations with
Spain and Russia, see Salomon’s “Pitt,” 237–44. A little later Pitt
started commercial negotiations with Prussia and Holland, but nothing
came of them. It is clear, however, that he sought to revise the whole
of our commercial relations.
[514] The contributions of the Provinces to the needs of the Union
show their respective resources. Out of every 100 florins of federal
revenue, Holland contributed 57¾, Friesland 11½, Zealand 9, Groningen
5¾, Utrecht 5¾, Guelderland 5½, Overyssel 3½, Drent 1.
[515] For details see Luckwaldt, _op. cit._ On a similar plan, Harris
had written to Carmarthen on 3rd January 1786 that the idea of France
keeping the Stadholder in his position and England then aiding him is
so monstrous that Frederick “must think us mere novices in politicks”
(B.M. Add. MSS., 28061).
[516] B.M. Add. MSS., 28061 and 28062. Dalrymple to Carmarthen, 20th
October 1786, 23rd January 1787.
[517] “F. O.,” Prussia, 11. So Luckwaldt, _op. cit._, 52–7.
[518] B.M. Add. MSS., 28061. See, too, “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 212,
for Carmarthen’s view. “I never desire a connexion with Prussia unless
Russia, and of course, Denmark, are included.”
[519] All the despatches of this time serve to refute the statement of
Lecky (v, 80) that the accession of Frederick William “greatly changed
the situation” for the Princess of Orange.
[520] Wittichen, _op. cit._, 63–5.
[521] “F. O.,” Prussia, 11. Dalrymple to Carmarthen, 21st April 1787.
[522] B.M. Add. MSS, 28060.
[523] “F. O.,” France, 18.
[524] Pitt MSS., 110.
[525] Bouillé, “Mems.,” ch. i.
[526] Grenville during his mission to The Hague in August 1787 got an
inkling of the wider scheme described above, as appears in his phrase
“One’s mind at once runs to Trincomale.” So late as August 1788 Pitt
was nervous about the fate of that port. See his letter to Grenville as
to the rumour of 800 French troops sailing thither (“Dropmore P.,” ii,
280, 353).
[527] “Dropmore P.,” ii, 251–5.
[528] _Ibid._, 267, 268; “Leeds Memoranda,” 117.
[529] Pitt MSS., 151.
[530] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 299. “I am certain if we begin to roar,
France will shrink before us” (Harris to Carmarthen, 5th May). See,
too, Wittichen, 67.
[531] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 303–6.
[532] “F. O.,” Holland, 14.
[533] “F. O.,” Prussia, 11. Ewart to Carmarthen, 19th and 22nd May 1787.
[534] “F. O.,” Holland, 14. Harris to Carmarthen, 1st June.
[535] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 322.
[536] “Auckland Journals,” i, 521; Oscar Browning, “The Flight to
Varennes and other Essays,” 163.
[537] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 329.
[538] “F. O.,” Prussia, 11. Ewart to Carmarthen, 6th June 1787. Ewart
was now _chargé d’affaires_ at Berlin, Dalrymple having gone home on
furlough. He did not return, and Ewart became ambassador in August 1788.
[539] _Ibid._ Ewart’s note of 30th June.
[540] “F. O.,” Holland, 15.
[541] “F. O.,” Holland, 15; “F. O.,” Prussia, 11.
[542] Luckwaldt, _op. cit._, 66, 67.
[543] Wittichen (78, 79) holds that Frederick William’s hesitation came
from concern about the Fürstenbund or the hope that France would join
in a peaceful mediation in Holland.
[544] Lusi’s report of 17th July 1787. Luckwaldt, _op. cit._, 68.
[545] “F. O.,” Prussia, 11. Carmarthen to Ewart, 17th July. There is
nothing in this despatch which warrants the statement of the editor
of the “Malmesbury Diaries” (ii, 339 _n._) that we then offered
Prussia armed support if France attacked her, and promised to make a
demonstration with forty ships of the line. That was not proposed until
the middle of September, in reply to French threats.
[546] “F. O.,” Austria, 14. Keith on 3rd August stated that the Emperor
was friendly to us, but he was the ally of France, though he would not
act with her in the Dutch Question.
[547] “F. O.,” Prussia, 11. Carmarthen to Ewart, 27th July.
[548] Wittichen, 81, shows that Wilhelmina herself worked hard to
dissuade her brother from a mediation conjointly with France.
[549] “F. O.,” France, 25. Eden to Carmarthen, 4th August 1787.
[550] _Ibid._, 8th August.
[551] “F. O.,” France, 25.
[552] “Auckland Journals,” i, 520. Lord Loughborough, in a letter of
13th October 1787 to Lord Carlisle stated that Grenville’s mission was
not due to distrust of Harris (“Carlisle P.,” 652). But this seems to
me very doubtful in view of the letters between Pitt and Grenville.
[553] “Dropmore P.,” iii, 408–15. For the missions of Grenville to The
Hague and Paris, see my article in the “Eng. Hist. Rev.” for April 1909.
[554] Pitt MSS., 102.
[555] “F. O.,” France, 25. Eden to Carmarthen, 16th August 1787.
[556] _Ibid._ Carmarthen to Eden, 24th August.
[557] Pitt MSS., 102; and “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 333–7.
[558] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 371.
[559] “Méms. du Comte de Portes,” (1904), 92.
[560] “Auckland Journals,” i, 234, 259.
[561] B.M. Add. MSS., 28061.
[562] “Dropmore P.,” iii, 418.
[563] “F. O.,” France, 25, 26. Eden to Carmarthen, 29th August and 11th
September.
[564] The feuds in his Ministry, and his consistently peaceful
attitude, seem to absolve him from the charge of duplicity. French
troops, disguised as Free Corps, were afterwards captured in Holland
and had on them orders and instructions written by de Ségur, the French
War Minister, who resigned in August 1787 (“Auckland Journals,” i,
259). It seems probable therefore that some Ministers egged on the
French agents and the Patriots, while Montmorin strove to hold them in
check. Louis XVI also used his influence to prevent a war with Prussia,
which he disliked (see Garden, “Traités,” v, 85 _n._). The appointment
of Loménie de Brienne to a kind of dictatorship seems also to have made
for peace; it coincides with the resolve, formed about 20th August
(see Barral de Montferrat, _op. cit._, 214), to recall Vérac from The
Hague; and on 31st August Montmorin signed with Eden a convention for
ending irritating disputes in East Indian affairs. I have no space
to go into that question; but it had been reported (_e.g._, by Eden
on 9th November 1786, Pitt MSS., 110) that the French were about to
gain control over Dutch East India ports. Rumours to that effect had
embittered the contest in Holland, and they were laid to rest by that
convention.
[565] See the MSS. of P. V. Smith in the “Beaufort P.” (Hist. MSS.
Commission) 357, for the parts of Pitt’s letter of 8th September,
omitted, very strangely, by the editor of the “Auckland Journals” (i,
191–2), also _ibid._, i, 198.
[566] Luckwaldt, 71.
[567] “F. O.,” Holland, 17.
[568] “F. O.,” Prussia, 11. Carmarthen to Ewart, 24th August.
[569] Luckwaldt, 80 _n._, here corrects one of many mis-statements
in P. de Witt’s “Une Invasion prussienne en Hollande,” 285, that the
Prussians were ready to march by 20th July.
[570] Hertzberg, “Recueil des Traités,” ii, 428–30; “F. O.,” Prussia,
12. Ewart to Carmarthen, 4th and 8th September.
[571] _Ibid._ 8th September.
[572] “The prevailing opinion of this Court is the Emperor will ...
sacrifice his alliance with Russia to that of 1756 [with France]”
(Ewart to Keith, 11th September 1787. B.M. Add. MSS., 35539).
[573] Wittichen, 92–4; also _ibid._, 97, for the Anglo-Prussian
Convention of 2nd October.
[574] “Auckland Journals,” i, 192.
[575] _Ibid._, 195.
[576] “F. O.,” France, 26. Eden to Carmarthen, 11th and 13th September.
[577] The original, in Pitt’s handwriting, is in “F. O.,” Russia, 15,
dated 21st September, and inscribed “To all the King’s Ministers abroad
except Paris and The Hague.”
[578] “Dropmore P.,” iii, 426–36; E. D. Adams, _op. cit._, 6, 7;
“Buckingham P.,” i, 326–31.
[579] _Ibid._ Eden to Carmarthen, 20th September.
[580] “Dropmore P.,” iii, 435; “Méms. de Dedem de Gelder,” 7.
[581] _Ibid._, iii, 435.
[582] “F. O.,” Holland, 19. Carmarthen to Harris, 12th October;
“Auckland Journals,” i, 234.
[583] B.M. Add. MSS., 29475.
[584] “F. O.,” Austria, 14. Keith to Carmarthen, 24th October 1787. On
14th November Joseph II informed Keith that he thoroughly approved of
the Dutch settlement.
[585] “Auckland Journals,” i, 217, 221.
[586] _Ibid._, 227, 228.
[587] _Ibid._, 255–8; “Ann. Reg.” (1787), 283.
[588] “Auckland Journals,” i, 264.
[589] _Ibid._, 263.
[590] B.M. Add. MSS., 28063. Harris to Pitt, 22nd February 1788.
[591] Martens, iv, 372–7; Garden, v, 89–92.
[592] “F. O.,” Prussia, 12. Ewart to Carmarthen, 27th September 1787.
[593] Pitt MSS., 119.
[594] Pitt MSS., 119. Carmarthen to Ewart, 2nd December 1787. Fraser,
our envoy at St. Petersburg, reported on 1st November that Austria was
proposing there a Triple Alliance, but it was coolly received (“F. O.,”
Russia, 15).
[595] _Ibid._ Carmarthen to Ewart, 26th December.
[596] See Ewart’s masterly Memorandum in “Dropmore P.,” ii, 44–9.
[597] Luckwaldt, 100 _et seq._ Ewart found out the secret instructions
issued to Dietz, and forwarded them to London on 8th April. They show
that Prussia sought by all means to encourage the Turks, but laid her
plans so as to get an indemnity in land in case Austria gained land in
the south-east.
[598] “F. O.,” Prussia, 13. Ewart to Carmarthen, 15th March 1788.
[599] _Ibid._ Ewart to Carmarthen, 15th January 1788. Lecky (v, 232)
assigns the first rumours of Prussian indemnities in land to January
1789; but Ewart reported the beginnings of Hertzberg’s plan in January
1788.
[600] _Ibid._ Carmarthen to Ewart, 2nd April.
[601] See his letter of 24th November 1787 to Dietz at Constantinople
in Häusser, “Deutsche Geschichte,” i, 225–6.
[602] “F. O.,” Prussia, 13. Carmarthen to Ewart, 14th May 1788.
[603] _Ibid._ Ewart to Carmarthen, 27th and 31st May 1788; Wittichen,
ch. xx.
[604] B.M. Add. MSS., 28063.
[605] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 421.
[606] The secret articles are in Ranke’s “Fürstenbund,” ii, 358; for
the published treaties of 13th June and 13th August see Martens, iv,
382–5, 390–3; for the negotiations, Luckwaldt, 114–16, Salomon, “Pitt,”
344–51. The accounts of these important events given by Tomline,
Stanhope, and Lecky are brief and unsatisfactory.
[607] So Wittichen, 148.
[608] “Records of Stirring Times,” 58, by the authoress of “Old Days in
Diplomacy.”
[609] Certain letters of the Earl of Liverpool recently sold in London
show that there was an open breach between King and Queen in 1804, and
that Pitt helped to patch it up.
[610] Huish, “Mems. of George IV,” i, 60–2.
[611] H. Walpole’s “Last Journals,” ii, 480–1.
[612] Fox does not seem to have _introduced_ the prince into bad
company. See Jesse, ii, 367–9, and Huish, i, 122–4.
[613] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 125.
[614] Pitt MSS., 228.
[615] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 129–31.
[616] Pitt MSS., 105.
[617] W. H. Wilkins, “Mrs. Fitzherbert and George IV,” i, 81–105.
[618] _Ibid._, i, 135–7; Langdale, “Mems. of Mrs. Fitzherbert,” 127–8,
141, 142; Jesse, ii, 512, 513.
[619] Pitt MSS., 122. Sir Carnaby is Sir Carnaby Haggerston, who
married Frances, the youngest sister of Mrs. Fitzherbert (_née_
Smythe). Her mother was a daughter of John Errington of the
Northumberland family of that name. His brother was the _confidante_ of
the Prince, as described above.
[620] W. H. Wilkins, _op. cit._, i, 97.
[621] Wraxall, iv, 306.
[622] “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 1348–56; Wraxall, iv, 304–6.
[623] Pitt MSS., 103. For other references see the King’s letters to
Pitt in “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies.”
[624] The King altered this to “written message.”
[625] Pitt MSS., 105.
[626] W. H. Wilkins, _op. cit._, i, 161.
[627] This letter refutes the statement of Huish (_op. cit._, i, 169)
that Pitt was as pertinacious as the King in refusing to help the
Prince.
[628] “Dropmore P.,” i, 362.
[629] Major-General Smith, M.P., was twice unseated for bribery. His
nickname was “Hyder Ali.”
[630] “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 374, 375. Payne was a confidential
friend of the Prince, who made him Comptroller of his Household and
Lord Warden of the Stanneries in Cornwall.
[631] “Buckingham P.” i, 363, 364.
In the Pitt MSS., 228, is a Memorandum, endorsed January 1794, entitled
“Heads of a Plan for a new Arrangement of the Prince of Wales’s
Affairs.” It states that his debts then amounted to £412,511 5_s._
8_d._ he owed £60,000 to Mr. Coutts the banker (Pitt’s banker); and he
might at any time be called on to pay as much as £170,000. It would
be difficult to induce Parliament to pay any part of these debts.
Moreover, such a demand “would afford a fresh topic of declamation to
those who already use the expenses of Royalty as an engine to operate
upon weak minds in order to effectuate their ultimate purpose, the
overthrow of everything dignified, everything sacred, everything
valuable and respectable in social life.” The anonymous compiler
therefore suggests the raising of a loan at 3½ per cent., so as to
cover the “urgent” debts amounting to £349,511. Creditors would
probably consent to the “defalcation” of 20 per cent. from what was
owed them and be content with 3½ per cent. interest on the remainder.
A Mr. W. Fitzwilliam, of 45, Sloane Street, in May 1795 suggested a
lottery for raising £2,100,000, of which £650,000 should go to the
discharge of the Prince’s debts, £1,000,000 to the archbishops for the
forming of a fund for raising the stipend of every clergyman to £100 a
year; £100,000 to be reserved as prizes in the lottery; and £50,000 to
be set apart for expenses.
[632] “Buckingham P.,” i, 361; Wraxall, iv, 458; v, 77–9.
[633] “Dropmore P.,” i, 353. Grenville replied on 1st September that
he thought the frequent changes in France would undermine her power
and so check “that sort of intrigue and restlessness which keeps us in
hot water even while we are most confident of the impossibility of any
serious effect from their schemes.” He then suggests an agreement as to
the forces to be kept by the two Powers in the East (Pitt MSS., 140).
[634] G. Rose, “Diaries,” i, 86. The date of this interview is probably
between 10th and 24th October 1788.
[635] “Fanny Burney’s Diary,” iv, 122. In a rare pamphlet, “A History
of the Royal Malady,” by a Page of the Presence (1789), it is stated
that the King, while driving in Windsor Park, alighted and shook hands
with a branch of an oak tree, asserting it to be the King of Prussia,
and was with difficulty persuaded to remount.
[636] “Court and Private Life in the Time of Queen Charlotte,” by Mrs.
Papendiek. 2 vols. (1887); vol. ii, _ad init._
[637] “Buckingham P.,” i, 342.
[638] G. Rose, “Diaries,” i, 87.
[639] T. Moore, “Life of Sheridan,” ii, 27, where Payne also suggests
that Sheridan should question Pitt about the public amusements, as it
would embarrass him “either way.”
[640] W. Sichel, “Sheridan,” ii, 400.
[641] T. Moore, “Life of Sheridan,” ii, 31–5; Campbell, “Lives of the
Lord Chancellors,” vii, 248, 239 (edit. of 1857).
[642] T. Moore, _op. cit._, p. 29.
[643] Campbell, _op. cit._, p. 251, who had the story from Thomas
Grenville. See, too, Wilberforce, i, 386, 387.
[644] Dr. W. Hunt, “Political Hist. of England,” x, 64–5.
[645] This letter fixes the date of Pitt’s letter to Grenville, headed
merely “Tuesday morning,” in “Dropmore P.” (i, 361). Pitt quotes the
phrase “perfectly maniacal,” and adds “I begin to fear the physicians
have been more in the right than we thought.”
[646] Pretyman MSS.
[647] Chevening MSS.
[648] “Buckingham P.,” ii, 9.
[649] G. Rose, “Diaries,” i, 87.
[650] G. Rose, “Diaries,” i, 90.
[651] _Ibid._, 94; “Buckingham P.,” i, 446; “Quarterly Rev.,” cv, 490.
[652] “Bland Burges Papers,” 118.
[653] See his private reports to Pitt in “Pitt and Napoleon
Miscellanies.”
[654] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 697, gives the period as three months;
“Buckingham P.,” ii, 47, gives it (erroneously, I think) as five months.
[655] Wraxall, v, 243.
[656] May, “Constitutional Hist.,” i, 148.
[657] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 709.
[658] “Buckingham P.,” ii, 71.
[659] Sichel, “Sheridan,” ii, 415.
[660] So thought the Duchess of Devonshire’s friends. Sichel,
“Sheridan,” ii, 416.
[661] T. Moore, “Life of Sheridan,” ii, 42, 43; “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii,
730, 731.
[662] Lecky, v, 148.
[663] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 705–13.
[664] Tomline, “Life of Pitt,” ii, 388–92. There is a copy of this in
the Pretyman archives at Orwell Park.
[665] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 732–47. The date is given wrongly as
1st December; it should be 16th December. So, too, on p. 778, are
the numbers in the division, which should be: for Government, 268,
Opposition, 204.
[666] _Ibid._, 678.
[667] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 680. That Thurlow or his friends expected
his dismissal, even late in the year 1789, appears from a letter of
Pitt to George Rose contradicting a rumour to that effect (G. Rose,
“Diaries,” i, 98, 99).
[668] W. Sichel, “Sheridan,” ii, 421–3. I cannot agree with Mr. Sichel
(_ibid._, ii, 192) that the letter was Sheridan’s. The Duchess’s diary
shows it to have been a joint production. For the so-called Prince’s
letter see “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 909–912, or “Ann. Reg.” (1789),
298–302. For Pitt’s reply see Stanhope, ii, 18–20.
[669] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 946–7. Able speeches on the Government side
were made by the Speaker (Grenville) and the Solicitor-General, Sir
John Scott, the future Lord Eldon. See Twiss, “Life of Lord Eldon,” i,
ch. ix.
[670] See May, “Constitutional Hist.,” i, 155, 156, for the arguments
for and against this proposal.
[671] For the intrigues and corruption at Dublin see “Dropmore P.,” i,
385, 389, 395, _et seq._ The majority at Dublin dwindled away as soon
as the King’s recovery was known (_ibid._, i, 417–25), a fact which
damages Lecky’s case.
[672] “Bland Burges P.,” 116, 117; Wraxall, v, 242, 243.
[673] B.M. Add. MSS., 28064.
[674] “Reflections on the Formation of a Regency” (Debrett, 1788), 17.
[675] “Thoughts on the present Proceedings of the House of Commons”
(Debrett, 1788), 18.
[676] “Answer to the Considerations on ... a Regency” (Debrett, 1788),
21.
[677] “A short View of the present Great Question” (Debrett, 1788),
11–15.
[678] _Op. cit._, p. 6. Huish, “Mems. of George IV,” i, 209, repeats
some of these slanders against Pitt.
[679] “Dropmore P.,” i, 377.
[680] “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 302.
[681] Pitt MSS., 228. This is the last of Willis’s reports to Pitt. It
is undated, but must be of 23rd February. Willis ceased to attend the
King on 11th March; but was at Windsor a short time in April and May.
[682] “Buckingham P.,” ii, 125.
[683] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 1293–5; “Buckingham P.,” ii, 122, 123.
[684] “Auckland Journals,” ii, 288, 289.
[685] “Paradise Lost,” x, 504–17.
[686] “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 419.
[687] “Life of Sir G. Elliot,” i, 272.
[688] “Dropmore P.,” i, 386.
[689] The Prince promised this post to Sandwich; but on the
remonstrance of the Duke of Portland and Fox, waived the point (W.
Sichel, “Sheridan,” ii, 415, 416).
[690] “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 419. Another and more probable version
was that Earl Fitzwilliam would be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Burke
had striven hard to obtain the India Board of Control, “for the
services and adherence of thirty years.” So wrote James Macpherson to
John Robinson. He adds: “If they agree, all the fat will be in the
fire. A hint to the Prince would prevent it, for I plainly see his
object is to carry on business as smoothly as he can” (“Abergavenny
P.,” 70).
[691] “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 422.
[692] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 190, 191.
[693] “Dropmore P.,” i, 363.
[694] “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 329.
[695] Wraxall, v, 336.
[696] For some good results of transportation see Lecky, vi, 253.
[697] “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 430–2.
[698] “Dropmore P.,” i, 257.
[699] Evan Nepean in a Report to Pitt sketched the career of Matra. He
was afterwards Consul for Morocco (Pitt MSS., 163).
[700] “New South Wales Despatches,” vol. i, pt. ii, 1–5.
[701] “New South Wales Despatches,” 6, 7; E. Jenks, “Hist. of the
Australasian Colonies,” 25.
[702] “New South Wales Despatches,” 11–13. A copy of this “Plan” is in
Pitt MSS., 342.
[703] Pitt MSS., 169.
[704] “New South Wales Despatches,” 14–23.
[705] _Ibid._, 32.
[706] Pitt MSS., 119.
[707] “New South Wales Despatches,” i, pt. ii, 30. See later (pp.
67–70) for the details of the Act of Parliament.
[708] J. Bonwick, “The First Twenty Years of Australia,” 6.
[709] “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 1221–5. For an account of the new
settlement see “The History of New Holland, 1616–1787.”
[710] Sabine, “The American Loyalists,” 51 _et seq._
[711] Sir C. P. Lucas, “Hist. Geography of the Brit. Colonies,” v
(Canada), 73.
[712] Kingsford, “Hist. of Canada,” vii, 216.
[713] I cannot agree with Professor E. Channing (“The United States,
1765–1865,” 118) that the action of the States towards the Loyalists
“was not an infraction of the treaty.” The terms bound the United
States to do their utmost to induce the component States to compensate
the Loyalists. But they took only the slightest and most perfunctory
steps in that direction. Pitt, as we saw in Chapter VI, distinctly
enjoined it as a debt of honour on the United States, and cannot surely
be held responsible for its evasion.
[714] Kingsford, “Hist. of Canada,” vii, 215; Sir C. P. Lucas, “Hist.
of Canada, 1763–1812,” 214.
[715] Pitt MSS., 344.
[716] _Ibid._ The cases of Samuel Gale, Sir John Johnson, F. J. D.
Smyth, and R. F. Pitt seem especially hard.
[717] See J. E. Wilmott, “Hist. View of the Commission ... of the
American Loyalists” (London, 1815).
[718] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 610–19. The total expenses incurred on
behalf of the American Loyalists as shown in the Budgets of the years
1784 to 1789 are as follows: £82,750; £190,019; £315,873; £132,856;
£82,346; £362,922; or a total of £1,084,016. These sums are distinct
from the special votes of £1,228,239 and £113,952 above referred to;
which raise the total for those six years to, £2,426,207. I take
these figures from the Budgets as given in the Annual Registers. It
is impossible to harmonize them with Wilmott’s figures. He gives
£3,112,455 as the total up to and including the year 1790.
[719] Pitt MSS., 102. Colonel Delancey named by Pitt was probably
Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen Delancey (1740–98), who helped to raise a
loyal battalion at New York and finally became Governor of Tobago. His
son, Sir William Delancey, was Wellington’s Quarter-Master-General at
Waterloo, where he was killed.
[720] Greswell (“Hist, of the Dominion of Canada,” 144) states
that,£4,000,000 was then allotted to the settlers in Upper Canada.
I can nowhere find any confirmation of this. Kingsford, “Hist. of
Canada,” mentions only grants of land and small sums of money; but
states (vii, 217) that in all the sum of £3,886,087 was granted to the
Loyalists in Great Britain.
[721] Sir C. P. Lucas, “Hist. of Canada” (1763–1812), 230–2.
[722] “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 505 (debate of 8th March 1790).
[723] Kingsford, _op. cit._, vii, 234–236.
[724] “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 503, 627.
[725] “Dropmore P.,” i, 507 (Grenville to Thurlow, 12th September 1789).
[726] “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 1377–79.
[727] “Report on Canadian Archives,” by D. Brymer (Ottawa, 1891).
[728] “Dropmore P.,” i, 496, 497.
[729] See some good remarks on this by Sir C. P. Lucas, _op. cit._,
268–70.
[730] Clarkson, “Hist. of the Abolition of the Slave Trade,” i,
110–113. See p. 259 for a chart showing the names of those who had
protested against the Trade from the times of Charles V, Ximenes, and
G. Fox.
[731] _Ibid._, 114, 115.
[732] B.M. Add. MSS., 18272 (on the Slave Trade).
[733] Macpherson, “Annals of Commerce,” iii, 484.
[734] “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 1026.
[735] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 151; for a photograph of the tree see
“Private Papers of W. Wilberforce,” 17.
[736] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 152. The Minute Books of the Committee
are in the B.M. Add. MSS., 21254, 21255.
[737] “Auckland Journals,” i, 307.
[738] Pitt MSS., 310.
[739] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 166.
[740] _Ibid._
[741] “Auckland Journals,” i, 240.
[742] _Ibid._, i, 267.
[743] Pitt MSS., 102. For Eden’s reply, see “Auckland Journals,” i, 285.
[744] “Auckland Journals,” i, 307.
[745] “Dropmore P.,” i, 353.
[746] “Auckland Journals,” i, 304; “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 170. See
Pitt’s letter of consent of 8th April 1788, in “Private Papers of W.
Wilberforce,” 17–19.
[747] B.M. Add. MSS., 21255.
[748] “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 495–506, 598; “Dropmore P.,” i, 342;
Wraxall, v, 146, 149.
[749] “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 41–75.
[750] Prof. Ramsay Muir, “Hist. of Liverpool,” 193.
[751] _Ibid._, 56. Out of 3,170 men who sailed in the slavers from
Liverpool in 1787, 642 died and 1,100 were got rid of or deserted in
the West Indies.
[752] See a curious letter in “Woodfall’s Register” for 12th June 1789,
in answer to authentic accounts of the horrors of the Slave Trade
lately given in that paper by C. D. Wadstrom.
[753] “Dropmore P.,” i, 278.
[754] _Ibid._, i, 487.
[755] “Auckland Journals,” i, 221; Wraxall, v, 139.
[756] Stanhope, ii, App., ix, xi.
[757] “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 711–14; “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 266,
267. The evidence ran to 1400 folio pages (_ibid._, i, 281).
[758] “F. O.,” France, 34. Fitzgerald to Leeds, 2nd April 1790.
[759] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 284.
[760] Pitt MSS., 12.
[761] “Parl. Hist.,” xxix, 250–359.
[762] “Hist. de la Rév. à Saint Domingue,” by A. M. Delmas. 2 vols.
Paris, 1814; “Hist. Survey of ... San Domingo,” by Bryan Edwards. 1797.
[763] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 295–6, 340, 342.
[764] _Ibid._, i, 344.
[765] Virg. “Georg.,” i, 250: “On us the rising sun first breathed with
panting steeds, there ruddy Vesper full late kindles his fires.”
[766] “Parl. Hist.,” xxix, 1133–58.
[767] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 346. Lord Auckland (who, as Mr. Eden,
had been a philanthropist) referred sarcastically to Pitt’s speech:
“Mr. Pitt has raised his imagination to the belief that the trade
ought, at all events and risks, to be instantly discontinued....
Some people are urging this business upon a mischievous principle”
(“Auckland Journals,” ii, 400).
[768] Chevening MSS.
[769] Clarkson, _op. cit._, ii, 460.
[770] “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 464.
[771] Pitt MSS., 310. See “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 305, 307, 323.
[772] “Life of Wilberforce,” ii, 196; Clarkson, _op. cit._, ii, 475.
[773] See “Life of Wilberforce” (ii, 224) for an accusation against
Pitt and the Government in this matter.
[774] Pitt MSS., 189.
[775] Lord Liverpool (as Mr. Jenkinson) had opposed on the ground that
France, etc., would take up the trade if we let it fall.
[776] Clarkson, _op. cit._, ii, 485.
[777] Letter of James Stephen (June 1797) in “Life of Wilberforce,” ii,
225.
[778] As in June 1798. See “Life of Wilberforce,” ii, 286.
[779] For this letter see “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies.”
[780] Lecky, v, 64–6; J. L. le B. Hammond, “Fox,” 60.
[781] “Diary of Sir John Moore,” i, 234.
[782] It has been said that the journey was undertaken partly with the
view of seeing whether Potemkin had honestly used the money given him
for the warlike preparations in the South; and that he hastily did
his utmost to impress the Czarina favourably. This last is of course
highly probable; but, as we shall see presently, the journey had been
projected in 1785. Moreover, Potemkin, while improvising crowds of
peasants, could not improvise the warships launched at Kherson.
[783] “F. O.,” Russia, 15. Fitzherbert to Carmarthen, 3rd May 1787.
Fitzherbert accompanied the Empress throughout this tour. His letters
are of high interest.
[784] See Sorel, “La Question d’Orient,” 300 _et seq._
[785] “F. O.,” Austria, 11. Keith to Carmarthen, 3rd and 7th December
1785.
[786] “Malmesbury Diaries,” i, 204, 534.
[787] Wazilewski, “Le Roman d’une Impératrice,” 418.
[788] Keith reported on 30th August 1787 (“F. O.,” Austria, 14) that
the Emperor “saw this storm coming with deep regret,” and that the
ferment in his Belgian lands would prevent his taking action against
Turkey.
[789] “F. O.,” Turkey, 8.
[790] _Ibid._ Ainslie to Carmarthen, 9th August 1787.
[791] “F. O.,” Turkey, 8. Ainslie to Carmarthen, 17th August 1787.
[792] “F. O.,” Russia, 15. Despatch of 22nd September. Fitzherbert was
then coming home ill. His place was filled by Fraser.
[793] In view of these facts I cannot agree with the statement of
Prof. Lodge (“Camb. Mod. Hist.,” viii, 316) that the action of the
Turks “was dictated by passion rather than by policy.” It seems to me
a skilful move, especially as they already had reason to hope for help
from Prussia and Sweden. Häusser (i, 225) wrongly terms it a “desperate
resolve.”
[794] “F. O.,” Russia, 15. Fraser to Carmarthen, 5th October 1787.
[795] See Ewart’s Memorandum to Pitt in “Dropmore P.,” ii, 44–9 for
an admirable survey of events; also Wittichen, 130–5, and Häusser, i,
223–5.
The surprise of Prussian statesmen at the outbreak of war seems quite
sincere; and evidence is strongly against the statement of Sorel
(“L’Europe et la Rév. franç.,” i, p. 524) that Hertzberg egged on the
Turks, and later on Sweden, to war.
[796] “F. O.,” Russia, 15. Carmarthen to Fraser, 18th March 1788.
[797] _Ibid._ Fraser to Carmarthen, 9th May.
[798] “F. O.,” Austria, 14. On 23rd September Ewart reported that Spain
had “positively declined the pressing overtures of France to enter into
a Quadruple Alliance with her and the two Imperial Courts” (“F. O.,”
Prussia, 14).
[799] “F. O.,” Austria, 14. Keith to Carmarthen, 6th October 1787.
On 10th October he reported that France would acquiesce in Joseph’s
eastern policy if he would help her against England and Prussia in the
Dutch dispute. On 24th October he stated that Austria refused to do so.
On 14th November Joseph II informed him privately that he must make war
on Turkey.
[800] Nisbet Bain, “Gustavus III and his Contemporaries,” ch. ix.
[801] B.M. Add. MSS., 28063.
[802] Greig and the other Britons had long been in the Russian service.
I cannot find that they were recalled.
[803] “F. O.,” Sweden, 7. Keene on 26th August 1788 reported to
Carmarthen the facts so far as he knew them, and also in a later
“Account.” His bias against the King is obvious, and leads me to
discount his assertions, _e.g._, that of 9th September, that the war
with Russia was at an end, owing to the offer of peace to Catharine by
the Swedish officers, and had become merely “a domestic quarrel between
the King and nation.” Doubtless it was for this and similar statements
that Keene was recalled in December 1788, Liston taking his place.
[804] “F. O.,” Turkey, 9. So, too, Lecky, v, 231.
[805] See, too, Frederick William’s words on this topic in Dembinski,
“Documents relatifs à l’histoire ... de la Pologne (1788–91),” i, 21.
[806] “F. O.,” Prussia, 13. See, too, “Dropmore P.,” ii, 47.
[807] “F. O.,” Prussia, 14.
[808] “Dropmore P.,” i, 353.
[809] “F. O.,” Prussia, 14.
[810] “Memoir of Hugh Elliot” by the Countess of Minto.
[811] “F. O.,” Denmark, 10. Elliot to Carmarthen, 2nd, 6th August 1788.
[812] “F. O.,” Denmark, 10. Carmarthen to Elliot, 15th August.
[813] _Ibid._ This draft, in Pitt’s handwriting, was copied and sent
off without alteration.
[814] “F. O.,” Prussia, 14. Ewart to Carmarthen, 16th September 1788.
[815] “F. O.,” Prussia, 14. Elliot to Carmarthen, 17th September. He
states that Ewart had strongly urged him to go and see the King of
Sweden in person. So, once again, we note the daring and initiative of
Ewart. For a sharp critique on Ewart’s excess of zeal see Luckwaldt,
“Zur Vorgeschichte der Konvention von Reichenbach” (Berlin, G. Stilke,
1908), 237–9.
[816] The statements of Keene (“F. O.,” Sweden, 7) imply that the King
was at the end of his resources at Stockholm, and had but a limited
success among the dalesmen. They rebut the statements in the “Memoir of
Hugh Elliot,” 304.
[817] Keene on 26th September wrote that the Allies’ offer of mediation
had made a great impression at Stockholm. Count Düben, the Minister,
thanked him for it, but said it would perplex the King, as he did not
wish to disoblige France. A truce of eight months was necessary; but
the King would not make peace with Russia unless Russian Finland were
restored to him.
[818] “F. O.,” Sweden, 7.
[819] The rebuke may have been due to Elliot’s silence; for in a P.S.
to a letter of 16th October to Ewart, Elliot said: “Write everything
about me to London; I have never written myself, having acted hitherto
without instructions” (“F. O.,” Prussia, 14). As we have seen, he had
acted largely on the advice of Ewart; and Liston, on finding this out,
suggested to Carmarthen the need of cautioning Ewart not to go too fast
(Luckwaldt, _op. cit._, 238).
[820] “F. O.,” Denmark, 10. Despatches of 30th November, 5th and 27th
December. On 10th April 1789 Carmarthen assured Elliot of the desire
of H.M. for a Danish alliance. He also commended him less coldly than
before (“F. O.,” Denmark, 11).
[821] “F. O.,” Sweden, 7. Keene to Carmarthen, 30th December, 1788.
[822] “F. O.,” Denmark, 11. Elliot to the Duke of Leeds, 30th May 1789.
[823] “F. O.,” Denmark, 11. Leeds to Elliot, 24th June.
[824] _Ibid._, Leeds to Elliot, 21st August 1789.
[825] “Vorontzoff Archives,” xvi, 258–67.
[826] “F. O.,” Prussia, 15. Ewart to Carmarthen, 17th January 1789.
[827] On 22nd May Ainslie reported the slothful preparations for war.
He had stated earlier that Russian money was at work at Constantinople
to bring about a mediation by the Bourbon Courts in favour of peace
(“F. O.,” Turkey, 10).
[828] See Häusser, i, 225–37, for its earlier developments; also for
the more warlike plans at Berlin of a general alliance with Poland,
England, Sweden, and Denmark for the humbling of Russia and Austria.
[829] I quote from the instructions drawn up by Hertzberg on 26th May,
for Dietz, which he imparted to Ewart, who sent them on to Whitehall on
28th May--a step which earned him the distrust of Hertzberg (“F. O.,”
Prussia, 15). The Pitt Ministry knew of them earlier than other Courts.
[830] Dembinski, i, 240.
[831] “F. O.,” Prussia, 15. Leeds to Ewart, 24th June 1789.
[832] “F. O.,” Prussia, 15. Ewart to Leeds, 12th July. In it he pointed
out that the alternative Prussian plan, that of forcing Turkey to give
up Moldavia and Wallachia to Austria, she giving up Galicia to the
Poles, and they Danzig and Thorn to Prussia, was most objectionable;
but Hertzberg felt able to force even that through. Leeds commended
Ewart for opposing those extreme proposals.
[833] _Ibid._ Ewart to Leeds, 10th and 11th August, 3rd September. It
is not surprising to find from Ainslie’s letter of 22nd October to
Ewart that the Porte distrusted all the Christian Powers (France and
Spain were still offering their mediation) but England least (“F. O.,”
Turkey, 10). Dietz held scornfully aloof from Ainslie, and played his
own game.
[834] “Corresp. of W. A. Miles,” ii, 142.
[835] Letter of the Grand Pensionary of 1st August, in Ewart’s despatch
of 10th August (“F. O.,” Prussia, 16).
[836] “F. O.,” Prussia, 15. Leeds to Ewart, 14th September 1789.
[837] “F. O.,” France, 33. Fitzgerald to Leeds, 22nd October 1789.
[838] Pitt MSS., 102. The Count renewed his proposal early in 1790, but
received a similar rebuff on 1st February 1790.
[839] “F. O.,” Prussia, 16. Ewart to Leeds, 28th November and 8th
December 1789.
[840] “Leeds Memoranda,” 147.
[841] “F. O.,” Prussia, 16. Leeds to Ewart, 13th December 1789.
[842] “F. O.,” Prussia, 17. Ewart to Leeds, 18th February 1790. I can
find neither in our archives nor in the Pitt MSS. any confirmation of
the statement of Father Delplace (“Joseph II et la Rév. Brabançonne,”
148) that Pitt suggested to the “ambassador” of the Belgian Estates
their election of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and that the
ambassador demurred, because he was a Protestant. Pitt never recognized
any Belgian envoy as having official powers, and took no step that
implied Belgian independence.
[843] “F. O.,” Prussia, 17.
[844] “F. O.,” Prussia, 17. Ewart to Leeds, 22nd February 1790.
[845] Lord Acton, “Lects. on Mod. Hist.,” 304.
[846] Keith’s “Mems.,” ii, 257.
[847] On 19th March Fitzgerald reported to Leeds (“F. O.,” France, 34):
“M. Van der Noote has made a second application to His Most Christian
Majesty and the National Assembly, which has met with a similar
reception with [_sic_] the former, the letters having been returned
unopened.” Lafayette moved an amendment, but it was shelved.
[848] “F. O.,” Prussia, 17. Leeds to Ewart, 26th February. Several
sentences of the draft of this despatch are in Pitt’s writing.
[849] Dembinski, i, 62–73, 274–8.
[850] Hertzberg, “Recueil,” iii, 1–8. Ewart reported on 4th January
1790 that Hertzberg was holding over the Polish treaty, and that it
would be wholly “vague and ostensible.” Clearly Ewart thought that
Hertzberg would leave the door open to coerce Poland into giving up
Danzig and Thorn (“F. O.,” Prussia, 17). Article 2 of the treaty made
this still possible. See, too, Frederick William’s letter of 11th April
1790 to the King of Poland, and the projected treaty of commerce, in
Martens, iv, 126–35.
The statement of the “Ann. Reg.” of 1791 (p. 12), that the Triple
Alliance became “a species of Sextuple Alliance,” by the inclusion of
Poland, the Porte, and Sweden, is incorrect.
[851] Dembinski, i, 281, 283, 285.
[852] “F. O.,” Poland, 4. Hailes to Leeds, 6th and 7th January, 27th
February, 29th March 1790.
[853] _Ibid._ On 14th August Hailes reported a remark of Lucchesini,
that Prussia could easily seize Danzig and Thorn at the next war.
Lucchesini was replaced by the young and inexperienced von Goltz in
October. For a sketch of Lucchesini see Keith’s “Mems.,” ii, 360.
[854] “F. O.,” Austria, 20. Keith to Leeds, 3rd, 7th, and 14th April.
[855] “F. O.,” Prussia, 17. Ewart to Leeds, 18th March.
[856] B.M. Add. MSS., 35542. Auckland to Keith, 19th March and 6th
April 1790.
[857] B.M. Add. MSS., 35542. Leeds to Ewart, 19th and 30th March.
[858] “F. O.,” Austria, 19. Leeds to Keith, 30th March; Ranke,
“Fürstenbund,” ii, 375; Kaunitz to Leopold, 16th March.
[859] _Ibid._ Keith to Leeds, 24th April, 1st and 15th May; Keith’s
“Mems.,” ii, 261.
[860] Dembinski, i, 279.
[861] “F. O.,” Austria, 19. Keith to Leeds, 10th May.
[862] Hertzberg, “Recueil,” iii, 58.
[863] “F. O.,” Prussia, 17. Leeds to Ewart, 21st May. Gustavus had
pressed Prussia to advance to him 8,000,000 Swedish crowns, and
7,000,000 more next year if the war continued. He urged her to attack
Russia at once. Sweden must obtain the wider boundaries of the Peace
of Nystadt (Ewart to Leeds, 10th May). Early in June Prussia advanced
100,000 as a subsidy to Sweden, and as many more on behalf of England,
on condition that _Gustavus would not make a separate peace with
Russia_ (Ewart to Leeds, 4th June).
[864] “F. O.,” Austria, 20. Leeds to Keith, 23rd May (“Secret and
Confidential”). Frederick William’s plan of exchanges drawn up on 12th
May was curiously similar (see Dembinski, i, 303, 305).
[865] “F. O.,” Austria, 20. Leeds to Keith, 8th June.
[866] _Ibid._ Keith to Leeds, 16th, 19th, 20th, and 30th June.
In face of these facts I reject the account given by Kaunitz on 24th
July 1790 (in Vivenot, “Kaiserpolitik Oesterreich’s”) that Austria had
consistently sought to treat at Reichenbach on the English basis of the
_status quo_.
[867] Pitt and Leeds thought it a device to evade England’s offer of
mediation (Leeds to Ewart, 25th June).
[868] “F. O.,” Prussia, 18. Ewart to Leeds, 11th June. He encloses a
copy of the Prussian despatch of 5th May from Constantinople, sent by
Knobelsdorff. (See also Hertzberg’s “Recueil,” iii, 76–8.)
[869] “F. O.,” Prussia, 18. Ewart to Leeds, 27th June.
[870] Ranke, “Fürstenbund,” ii, 376–85; Dembinski, 82–4, 314; “Bland
Burges P.” 142–4.
[871] “F. O.,” Prussia, 18. Ewart to Leeds, 16th July. See too Vivenot,
5.
[872] For the protest of the Belgian Congress against the Reichenbach
compromise, which dashed their hopes of independence, see Van der
Spiegel, “Négociations ... des Pays Bas autrichiens,” 303–6.
[873] Ranke, “Fürstenbund,” ii, 387.
[874] On 7th September Bland Burges wrote to Lord Auckland that Russia
had paid heavily for the Swedish peace (B.M. Add. MSS., 34433).
[875] “F. O.,” Sweden, 11. Liston to Leeds, 17th and 24th August, 3rd,
7th, and 10th September.
[876] _Ibid._ Liston to Leeds, 23rd November; Dembinski, i, 84.
[877] “F. O.,” Sweden, 11. Liston to Leeds, 23rd November 1790.
[878] Vivenot, 9, 10, 39–52; Hertzberg, “Recueil,” iii, 175–83; also
111–74 for correspondence on the Bishopric of Liége.
[879] B.M. Add. MSS., 34435.
[880] On 26th July 1791 Grenville, then Foreign Minister, wrote to
Ewart that he hoped the sad straits of the Royal Family at Paris would
induce Leopold to ratify the Hague Convention, and that the Allies must
settle the Belgian constitution in such a way as to satisfy the rights
of the sovereign and the just demands of that people (B.M. Add. MSS.,
34438). See, too, Sybel, bk. ii, ch. vi.
[881] It is too large a topic to discuss here why the Revolution did
not break out in those lands; but I may hazard these suggestions: (1)
Feudalism was there still a reality. The lords mostly lived on their
estates, spent their money there, and performed the duties which the
French nobles delegated to bailiffs, while they themselves squandered
the proceeds at Paris or Versailles. Hence (2) a perilous concentration
of wealth at those centres, which attracted thither the miserable,
especially in times of distress like the severe winter of 1787–8. (3)
In the other lands named above, the barriers of princely and feudal
rule kept the people isolated in small States or domains and prevented
common action. (4) Political and social speculations were brought home
to the French as to no other people by the return of the French troops
serving in the United States. (5) The mistakes of Louis XVI and Necker
in May–June 1789, and the precipitation of the reformers at Versailles
caused a rupture which was by no means inevitable, and which few if any
had expected.
[882] Rousseau, “Confessions,” bk. iv.
[883] Prof. Aulard (“La Rév. Franç.,” chs. iv-vi) has proved that there
was no republican party in France until December 1790, and that it had
no importance until the flight of the King to Varennes at Midsummer
1791.
[884] A. Young, “Travels in France,” 213 [Bohn edit.].
[885] “Mems. of Fox,” ii, 361.
[886] “Dropmore P.,” i, 353–5.
[887] Stanhope, ii, 38.
[888] Pitt MSS., 163.
[889] _Ibid._ 102.
[890] “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 226–31. For the tricks used in order to
get corn exported to France, see “Auckland Journals,” ii, 367.
[891] “Dropmore P.,” i, 549, 550; “Corresp. of W. A. Miles,” i, 739.
[892] “F. O.,” France, 32. Mem. by Hippisley, 31st July 1789. Calonne
for some time resided at Wimbledon House. He was received, though very
coolly, at Court.
[893] They were set forth in much detail in Paris newspapers of 25th
July.
[894] “F. O.,” France, 33. Leeds to Fitzgerald, 31st July. In B.M.
Add. MSS., 28063, is a letter of the Duke of Richmond to the Marquis
of Carmarthen of 21st September 1788, thanking him for sending to the
Paris embassy his nephew, Lord R. Fitzgerald, in place of Daniel Hailes.
[895] See the threats of Lafayette to the Duke of Orleans in Huber’s
letter of 15th October 1789 to Lord Auckland (“Auckland Journals,” ii,
365).
[896] Burke, “Corresp.,” iii, 211.
[897] B.M. Add. MSS., 27914.
[898] Pitt MSS., 102. No reason is assigned for this expatriation,
which was probably due to the return of the prince from Geneva without
permission. That the commander at Gibraltar, General O’Hara, received
a hint to be strict with the young prince seems likely from his rebuke
on a trifling occasion: “If you do not do your duty, I will make you do
it” (“Napoleon and Sir Hudson Lowe,” by R. C. Seaton, 32).
[899] Pitt MSS., 102. I have not found Pitt’s letter to Calonne, though
there are two others of 1795 to him.
[900] “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 351.
[901] Dumont, “Souvenirs sur Mirabeau,” ch. x.
[902] He calls it “a parent of settlement, not a nursery of future
Revolutions.”
[903] Burke’s “Works,” iii, 345 (Bohn edit.).
[904] Burke, “Corresp.,” iii, 285–8.
[905] “Parl. Hist.,” xxix, 364–88.
[906] Burke’s “Works,” iii, 347–93 (Bohn edit.).
[907] “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 71.
[908] Burke, “Corresp.” iii, 344.
[909] “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 284.
[910] Burke, “Corresp.,” iii, 238, 239, 255, 267, 274, 275, 278, 291,
302, 308, 336, 342.
[911] The following narrative is founded mainly on documents in
“F. O.,” Spain, 17, 18, 19; but I have found a monograph by Dr. W. R.
Manning, “The Nootka Sound Controversy” (Washington, 1905), most
serviceable.
[912] I cannot agree with Dr. Manning (p. 360) that there were no signs
of a British occupation of Nootka when Martinez arrived. The reverse is
antecedently probable, and is asserted in Meares’ “Memorial.”
[913] The “Memorial” is among the British archives in “F. O.,” Spain,
17. For a critique of it see Manning.
[914] Liston to Auckland, 14th September 1790 (B.M. Add. MSS., 34433).
[915] “F. O.,” Spain, 16.
[916] _Ibid._ That this resolve was that of the whole Cabinet appears
in the following letter in the Pitt MSS. It is from Pitt to Leeds:
“Downing Street, Tuesday morning, _Feb. 23, 1790_.
“I cannot help begging to remind your Grace of the wish expressed
that the answer to the Spanish ambassador should if possible be
circulated before our meeting to-day. I am the more anxious about
this, as no one would like to give a final opinion on the terms of
a paper of so much delicacy and importance without having had an
opportunity of considering them beforehand.”
[917] See del Campo’s note of 20th April, in Manning, 374, 375.
[918] “Dropmore P.,” i, 579, 580; “F. O.,” Spain, 17.
[919] “Journals of Sir T. Byam Martin” (Navy Records Soc.), iii, 381,
382.
[920] “The Barham P.” (Navy Records Soc.), ii, 337–47.
[921] Manning, 408.
[922] “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 785.
[923] “Wealth of Nations,” bk. iv, ch. vii, pt. 2.
[924] B.M. Add. MSS., 35542. Miranda’s relations with Pitt were renewed
in 1804. On 13th June 1805 he sought to dispel some suspicions which
Pitt had formed of him, and added: “Je n’ai jamais départi un instant
des principes politiques et moraux qui formèrent notre première liaison
politique en 1790.” See, too, an interesting article on Miranda in the
“Amer. Hist. Rev.,” vol. vi, for proofs of the dealings of Pitt with
Miranda at that time. On 12th September 1791 Pitt wrote to him stating
that he could not grant him the pension he asked for, or the sum of
£1,000: £500 must suffice for the expenses incurred during his stay in
London (Pitt MSS., 102).
[925] “F. O.,” Spain, 17.
[926] “Travaux de Mirabeau” (1792), iii, 319.
[927] W. Legg, “Select Documents on the Fr. Rev.,” i, 226 and F.
Masson, “Département des Affaires étrangères,” 79, 80.
[928] B.M. Add. MSS., 29475.
[929] Pretyman MSS.
[930] “F. O.,” Spain, 17.
[931] “Dropmore P.,” i, 585, 588. Auckland to Grenville, 15th May and
8th June 1790. On 22nd May Kaunitz, the Austrian Chancellor, assured
Keith, our ambassador, that he heartily wished for the settlement of
the Nootka Sound dispute. He blamed Floridablanca as rash (“F. O.,”
Austria, 20).
[932] “F. O.,” Spain, 17. Fitzherbert to Leeds, 16th June 1790. Earl
Camden, a valued member of the Cabinet, wrote on 29th June to Pitt
expressing grave concern at this answer from the Spanish Court. He
added these words: “War, as I always thought, was inevitable, and
to temporize impossible. The jealousy of that Court gave the first
provocation, and their pride refuses satisfaction. The consequence is
evident. We have no choice, for the outrage at Nouska [_sic_] cannot be
a subject of discussion. I trust in the spirit of the Kingdom and your
own wisdom and good fortune, and have no doubt this will terminate to
your honour” (Pitt MSS., 119).
[933] “F. O.,” Spain, 18. Leeds to Fitzherbert, 5th July.
[934] “F. O.,” Spain, 18. Despatch of 5th July to Fitzherbert. Of
course, this does not imply that Pitt would never admit arbitration,
but only that he judged it inadmissible in the present case.
[935] _Ibid._ Fitzherbert to Leeds, 12th July.
[936] _Ibid._ Leeds to Fitzherbert, 17th August.
[937] Manning, 405, 406; “Dropmore P.,” i, 603, 606.
[938] “Despatches of Earl Gower (1790–1792),” 23, edited by Mr. Oscar
Browning. Gower succeeded Dorset as ambassador at Paris on 20th June
1790.
[939] “Travaux de Mirabeau,” iv, 24–49, which shows that this was not
the work of the Assembly, but the proposal of Mirabeau. W. A. Miles
reported (“Corresp.,” i, 255), that Mirabeau received from the Spanish
ambassador one thousand _louis d’or_ for carrying this proposal.
[940] “F. O.,” Spain, 18. Fitzherbert to Leeds, 17th August.
[941] “Gower’s Despatches,” 29; “Corresp. of W.A. Miles,” i, 162, 163.
[942] _Ibid._, i, 41–8, 150.
[943] In the Pitt MSS. there is a packet (No. 159) of Miles’s letters
to Pitt, beginning with 1785. On 13th May 1790 Miles wrote to Pitt
that George Rose had informed him he could not see how Pitt could
employ him. Miles begged Pitt for a pension as a literary man. There
is no other letter to Pitt until 10th December 1790, dated Paris:--“My
attachment to your interest and a sincere desire to give every possible
support to your Administration induced me to engage without difficulty
in the enterprise proposed by Mr. Rose, and to accept of a salary
inadequate to the expenses of the most frugal establishment,” viz.,
£400 a year. He adds that he has trenched on his private property, and
concludes by asking for the consulate at Ostend.
[944] “Corresp. of W. A. Miles,” i, 171, 172, 199.
[945] “Beaufort P.,” etc. (Hist. MSS. Comm.), 368.
[946] Pitt MSS., 335.
[947] _Ibid._, 139. See, too, “Gower’s Despatches,” 38, 39, with note.
[948] Pitt MSS., 139.
[949] Stanhope, ii, 60, 61.
[950] Pitt MSS., 139.
[951] F. Masson, “Département des Affaires étrangères,” 86 _et seq._
In the Pretyman MSS. is an undated letter of Elliot to Pitt (probably
of November 1790) referring to his interview with Pitt that morning,
and explaining that his phrase to the Diplomatic Committee, “the
glorious Revolution,” was meant only for Frenchmen!
[952] “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 907.
[953] “F. O.,” Spain, 19.
[954] Machiavelli, “The Prince,” ch. iii.
[955] McDonald’s affidavit of 25th September 1790. On this case
Bland Burges wrote to Auckland on 30th September (B.M. Add. MSS.,
34433) that he was convinced of its authenticity, and that Spain was
clearly seeking a quarrel with us. He referred to the signature of
the Reichenbach Convention as strengthening our position. On 21st
September he wrote to Auckland of the “intolerable suspense” of the
Spanish affair, and hinted that Spanish gold had probably bought the
recent peace between Sweden and Russia. The position of Bland Burges as
permanent secretary at the Foreign Office gives weight to these remarks.
[956] “F. O.,” Spain, 19. Despatch of 8th October. For details see
Manning, _op. cit._, chs. xi-xiii. I cannot, however, agree with Dr.
Manning’s assertion (p. 440) that it looks as if Pitt and Leeds desired
war. The terms of Fitzherbert’s despatch of 16th September, which Dr.
Manning does not notice, surely convinced Pitt that Spain would on no
account use the French alliance on Mirabeau’s conditions.
[957] Pretyman MSS.
[958] “F. O.,” Spain, 49 (Drafts of Lord Grenville), shows that the sum
of £50,000 was finally demanded from Spain as compensation. For the
Convention of 28th October 1790 see “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 916–18, and
Martens, iv, 492–9.
[959] “Auckland Journals,” ii, 374.
[960] For this see Hertz, “British Imperialism in the XVIIIth Century.”
[961] Stanhope, ii, 63; Lecky, v, 209; Lord Rosebery, “Pitt,” 102; Mr.
C. Whibley, “Pitt,” 129.
[962] “F. O.,” Russia, 20. Trade Report of the Baltic ports for 1790.
[963] “Mems. of Sir R. M. Keith,” ii, 355–74; Sybel, bk. ii, ch. vi.
The Congress of Sistova was adjourned on 10th February for some weeks.
[964] Vivenot, 5.
[965] _Ibid._, 9, 10; Beer, “Die orientalische Politik Oesterreichs,”
App. I.
[966] “F. O.,” Russia, 20. “The Emperor still continues,
notwithstanding his professions, to flatter the Empress that he may yet
enter the lists in her favour” (Whitworth to Leeds, 18th January 1791).
See Keith’s letters from Sistova, showing the resolve of Austria to
evade the Reichenbach terms, and wring Orsova from the Turks (“Mems. of
Sir R. M. Keith,” ii, 365 _et seq._).
[967] B.M. Add. MSS., 34435.
[968] “F. O.,” Sweden, 11.
[969] R. Nisbet Bain, “Gustavus III,” ii, 120–3. See, too, Geffroy,
“Gustave III et la Cour de France.”
[970] Pitt MSS., 332.
[971] “F. O.,” Poland, 4. Hailes to Leeds, 12th June 1790.
[972] The Prussians forced the Danzig trade to Elbing. Dembinski, i,
101.
[973] “Mems. de Michel Oginski,” i, 92–9.
[974] “F. O.,” Poland, 5. Hailes’s despatches of January 1791.
[975] “F. O.,” Poland, 4. Hailes to Leeds, 1st and 11th December 1790.
[976] Dembinski, i, 103, 104. Alopeus to Ostermann, 6th December 1790
(N.S.). The British archives show that Hertzberg continued to smile
on our efforts to coerce Russia, and encouraged the Turks to do their
utmost against her. Jackson to Leeds, 4th January 1791 (“F. O.,”
Prussia, 20).
[977] Dembinski, i, 108–10. Ostermann to Alopeus, 1st January 1791
(N.S.).
[978] “F. O.,” Russia, 20. Whitworth to Leeds, 8th January 1790.
[979] Pitt MSS., 332. Ewart to Pitt, 16th November 1790.
[980] “F. O.,” Poland, 5. Leeds to Hailes, 8th January 1791. This
evidence and the facts stated later on, in my judgement refute the
statement of Lecky (v, 287) that the political security of Poland did
not enter into the motives of Pitt’s policy.
[981] “F. O.,” Prussia, 20. Leeds to Jackson, 8th January 1791.
[982] _Ibid._ Jackson’s despatches of 23rd January, 12th, 17th, 26th
February, 1st March; “F. O.,” Russia, 20. Whitworth’s despatches of
14th, 18th, 25th January (on the “defection” of Spain from Russia);
“F. O.,” Sweden, 20, Liston to Leeds, 17th February. For the fears of
Marie Antoinette and the French Court that British armaments were aimed
at France, see Sorel, ii, 181, 182.
[983] Vivenot, _op. cit._, 78, 79.
[984] _Ibid._, 98 _et seq._ Cobenzl to Kaunitz, 4th March 1791; Beer,
“Leopold II, Franz I, und Catharina,” 39 _et seq._
[985] I differ from Dr. Salomon (“Pitt,” 514) as to the motives which
impelled the Prussian King at this time.
[986] On 29th July 1791 Auckland wrote to Grenville about Ewart’s
“misconceived energy and violence” (B.M. Add. MSS., 34438). See, too,
“Auckland Journals,” ii, 392–3.
[987] B.M. Add. MSS., 34436. Ewart must somehow have seen this letter,
for he quoted some of its phrases in his letter of 11th February to
Pitt (Pitt MSS., 332). See, too, his letters of 8th February and 5th
March to Lord Grenville in “Dropmore P.,” ii, 31, 38.
[988] B.M. Add. MSS., 34436.
[989] _Ibid._
[990] “Auckland Journals,” ii, 382.
[991] B.M. Add. MSS., 34436. Auckland to Leeds, 15th March 1791; also
in “F. O.,” Holland, 34 (received on 19th March).
[992] Pitt MSS., 337.
[993] B.M. Add. MSS., 34436.
[994] “Mems. of Sir R. M. Keith,” ii, 367–70, 379.
[995] “F. O.,” Prussia, 20. Jackson to Leeds, 9th March. See Heidrich,
“Preussen im Kampfe gegen die Franz. Revolution” (1908), ch. i, for the
causes of the double face worn by Prussian policy at this time.
[996] “F. O.,” Prussia, 20. Jackson to Leeds, 11th March 1791 (received
19th March).
[997] “Leeds Mem.,” 150–2.
[998] Leeds to Jackson, 27th March 1791. Russia then was seeking to
form an alliance with Sweden and Denmark with a view to declaring the
Baltic a _mare clausum_ (“F. O.,” Russia, 20. Whitworth to Leeds, 25th
March 1791).
[999] “F. O.,” Russia, 20. Leeds to Whitworth, 27th March 1791.
[1000] “F. O.,” Holland, 34. Pitt to Auckland, 27th March.
[1001] Contrast with this the admission of Storer: “Our taxes have
proved this year beyond example productive” (“Auckland Journals,” ii,
389).
[1002] See Burke’s “Correspondence,” iii, 268, where he calls Ewart “a
little, busy, meddling man, little heard of till lately.”
[1003] “Parl. Hist.,” xxix, 33–79.
[1004] Earl Stanhope (ii, 115) does not give the last figures, which
show that the Ministry regained ground on 15th April.
[1005] “Auckland Journals,” ii, 388.
[1006] Pitt to Ewart, 24th May 1791; Stanhope, ii, 116; Tomline, iii,
260.
[1007] “F. O.,” Holland, 34.
[1008] “F. O.,” Denmark, 13. Drake to Leeds, 12th March.
In B.M. Add. MSS., 34436, I have found proofs that Auckland on 19th
March forwarded by special packet duplicates of the proposals described
above, adding his own comments to them, of course in a favourable
sense. They probably reached Whitehall about 24th March, but by that
time the Cabinet’s bellicose decision had gone to Windsor and received
the King’s assent.
[1009] “Leeds Mem.,” 157, 158; also despatch of 31st March to Jackson,
in “F. O.,” Prussia, 20.
[1010] From Major-General Sir Spencer Ewart’s MSS.
[1011] From Major-General Sir Spencer Ewart’s MSS.
[1012] “Keith Mems.,” ii, 219, 228.
[1013] “Dropmore P.,” ii, 54–6; Dr. Hunt, “Pol. Hist. of England,” x,
328.
[1014] “F. O.,” Prussia, 21. Grenville to Ewart, 20th April 1791.
The details given above refute Sorel’s statement (ii, 208) that Pitt
changed front _brusquement_, and charged Fawkener to say that he would
give way about Oczakoff.
[1015] Dembinski, i, 449.
[1016] Vivenot, i, 126–37, 172–6; Clapham “Causes of the War of 1792,”
ch. iv; “Keith’s Mems.,” ii, 436–41, 448. So, too, Whitworth to Leeds,
22nd April 1791: “Count Cobenzl continues buoying them [the Russians]
up with the hopes of his Court taking a part in the war” (“F. O.,”
Russia, 20).
[1017] B.M. Add. MSS., 34438. The despatches printed in Vivenot (i,
172–81) show that the arrival of Bischoffswerder at Milan on 11th June
helped to thwart the efforts of Lord Elgin. Elgin suggested to Pitt
on 15th June that, if war broke out, he could convict the Emperor of
hindering the pacification (Pitt MSS., 132).
[1018] “F. O.,” Prussia, 21. Ewart to Grenville, 13th May.
[1019] “F. O.,” Russia, 21. Grenville to Fawkener, 6th May; “F. O.,”
Poland, 5. Hailes to Grenville, 19th May. Yet as late as 6th July
Grenville informed Ewart that in the last resort England would fight
on behalf of Prussia, though Ewart was to work hard to avert war
(“Dropmore P.,” ii, 124).
[1020] “Dropmore P.,” ii, 93, 94. Ewart to Grenville, 8th June.
Hertzberg’s influence was lessened by the addition of Schulenberg and
Alvensleben to the Foreign Department at Berlin early in May.
[1021] B.M. Add. MSS., 34437. Liston to Grenville, 27th May 1791.
[1022] “F. O.,” Russia, 21. Fawkener and Whitworth to Grenville, 19th,
27th, 31st May, 18th and 21st June. So, too, Ewart wrote to Grenville,
on 18th June (after receiving news from St. Petersburg): “No answer
will be given (by the Russian Ministers) to the Allies till after the
return of the last messenger to London, for the purpose of knowing if
they might rely with certainty on the English Government being unable
to take active measures in any case” (“F. O.,” Prussia, 21).
[1023] “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 383–7.
[1024] Pitt MSS., 337; Tomline, iii, 308–12.
[1025] “Auckland Journals,” ii, 388.
[1026] “F. O.,” Russia, 20. 2nd May. “I have long thought Woronzow
decidedly and personally hostile to the present Government in England,
and am persuaded that he suggested the idea of employing Mr. Adair
as an envoy from Mr. Fox to the Empress.” Grenville to Auckland, 1st
August 1791. (B.M. Add. MSS., 34439.)
[1027] B.M. Add. MSS., 34438.
[1028] “F. O.,” Russia, 22. Whitworth to Grenville, 5th August.
[1029] B.M. Add. MSS., 34438. Wraxall (i, 202; ii, 34) thought Fox
deserved impeachment for sending Adair.
[1030] “Parl. Hist.,” xxix, 849–1000. Whitbread’s motion was finally
negatived by 244 to 116 (1st March 1792).
[1031] Vivenot, i, 547; Martens, v, 244–9.
[1032] B.M. Add. MSS., 34438.
[1033] “F. O.,” Poland, 5. Hailes to Grenville, 5th May, along with a
letter by a Polish deputy.
[1034] Burke, “Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs.” Burke did not
see that by fighting Russia’s battle in Parliament, he was helping to
undermine the liberties of Poland.
[1035] “F. O.,” Poland, 5. Grenville to Hailes, 25th May.
[1036] “Keith Mems.,” ii, 448, 449.
[1037] Dembinski, i, 451. Hertzberg to Lucchesini, 7th May 1791.
[1038] “F. O.,” Prussia, 21. Ewart to Grenville, 25th June. For
Bischofffswerder’s second mission to Vienna see Sybel, bk. ii, ch. vi.
[1039] Martens, v, 262–71.
[1040] I am indebted to Major-General Sir Spencer Ewart for these
particulars and for permission to copy and publish these letters of
Pitt. The poison story first became current in one of Fox’s letters
published in the “Mems. of Fox.” For letters of Dr. Ewart at Bath on
his brother’s affairs see “Dropmore P.,” ii, 181, 253, 256.
[1041] Pitt MSS., 102.
[1042] “F. O.,” Poland, 5. Hailes to Grenville, 21st August 1791.
[1043] Herrmann, “Geschichte Russlands,” vi, 445.
INDEX
Abdul Hamid I, Sultan of Turkey, his death, 506.
Abingdon, Lord, 474.
Abolitionist Society, the, 456–8, 473.
Adair, Sir Robert, his mission to St. Petersburg, 622–4.
Adams, John, United States Ambassador in London, 444.
Addington, Dr. Anthony, 50, 283, 284;
called in to see the King, 411, 412.
Addington, Henry, 283;
his friendship with Pitt, 284;
enters Parliament, 284, 285;
made Speaker, 464, 469.
Africa, proposed convict settlements in, 435, 437;
the Slave Trade in, 456, 457, 470, 473, 474.
Agriculture, development of, in Midlands and South of England, 31, 32.
Ainslie, Sir Robert, British Ambassador at Constantinople, 326, 486,
487, 489, 494, 506 _n._, 524.
Alaska, 563.
Algoa Bay, 435.
Alopeus, Russian envoy at Berlin, 597.
Althorpe, Lord, 90.
Alvanley, Lord. _See_ Arden, Richard Pepper.
Alvensleben, Count von, special Prussian envoy at Paris, 345, 380,
388, 621 _n._
America, Spanish claims on the north-west coast, 565, 568, 573–5,
585–8;
discontent in Spanish America, 568.
American Colonies, Declaration of Independence, 2, 3.
_See_ United States.
American War of Independence, 2, 9, 21, 28, 78, 79, 100;
proposals for conciliation, 57, 61, 83, 101–4, 112;
conclusion of peace, 114.
Amiens, Peace of, 305.
Amsterdam, captured by the Prussians, 378, 379.
Anapa, capture of, 625.
Angra Pequeña, 435.
Ankerström, Jakob Johan, murders Gustavus III, 532.
Anne, Princess, 306.
Anstey, Mr., sent to the United States to settle the claims of the
Loyalists, 444.
Antwerp, 298, 306.
Apsley, Lord, 90.
Arbitration, international, suggested by Pulteney, 340;
not admitted by Pitt between Spain and England, 574, 575.
Arcot, Nabob of, disposes of several seats in Parliament, 108, 109.
Arden, Richard Pepper (Lord Alvanley), 58, 72, 91;
Solicitor-General, 157, 158;
Attorney-General, 234, 235, 267, 283, 437;
made Lord Alvanley, 283.
Arkwright, Sir Richard, his spinning-frame, 2, 29.
Armaments, limitation of, 341.
Armed Neutrality, the, group of politicians so-called, 429.
Armed Neutrality League, 299.
Armfelt, Baron, 532.
Armstead, Mrs., 80, 409.
Artois, Comte d’, 546, 550.
Ashburton, Lord (John Dunning), 70;
made Chancellor of the Duchy, 105.
Auckland, Lord. _See_ Eden, William.
Australia. _See_ New South Wales.
Austria, alliance with France, 297, 300, 314, 375;
alliance with Russia, 299, 375;
British overtures repulsed, 300;
joins Russia in the war with Turkey, 384, 385, 481, 482, 490, 491,
527;
British policy towards, 489;
_entente_ with Prussia, 523;
British proposals, 523–6;
weakness of her position, 527;
agrees to the Convention of Reichenbach, 528–30;
favours Russian claims, 600, 606;
peace with Turkey, 625.
_See_ Joseph II and Leopold II.
Austrian Netherlands. _See_ Belgic Provinces.
Babington, Thomas, 473.
Bahamas, the, 116.
Baker, Sir George, chief physician to George III, 407, 410.
Bankes, Henry, his friendship with Pitt, 58, 91, 137;
opposes Pitt’s Reform Bill (1785), 202, 203;
his independence, 293, 294.
Banks, Sir Joseph, 436.
Barbary States, 329.
Barnave, Antoine, 560, 624.
Barré, Colonel, proposes reform of public accounts, 87;
debate on his pension, 111;
accepts the Clerkship of the Pells, 159.
Barrier Treaty (1715), 298.
Bathurst, Earl, 79.
Bavaria, the Electorate of, proposal for exchange, 298, 304, 311,
353, 482.
Beauchamp, Lord, 434, 438.
Beauchamp, Lady, works on behalf of Fox, 172.
Beaufoy, Henry, 191;
supports the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, 214, 215 _n._
Belgic Provinces (of Austria), proposal for exchange, 298, 304, 311,
353, 482;
revolution in, 511, 513–15, 547;
French intrigues in, 513, 516;
Joseph II deposed, 515;
ancient constitution guaranteed by the Congress of Reichenbach, 530.
Bentinck, Count, 372.
Beresford, John, Irish Chief Commissioner of the Revenue, 248, 251,
255, 266, 337.
Berlin, Treaty of (1788), 389.
Bernstorff, Count, Danish Minister, 496, 497, 500, 615, 618.
Bible Society, founded, 473, 474.
Bischoffswerder, Baron von, Prussian diplomatist, 600;
his first mission to Vienna, 601, 609;
at Milan, 620 _n._;
his second mission to Vienna, 628 _n._, 629.
Bolton, Lord. _See_ Orde.
Boswell, James, his description of Wilberforce’s speech at York, 170.
Botany Bay, convict settlement at, 437–43.
Bouillé, General de, 356.
Brabant. _See_ Belgic Provinces.
Bradford, Lord (Sir Henry Bridgeman), 90.
Bridgeman, Sir Henry. _See_ Bradford, Lord.
Brissot, Jean Pierre, supports abolition of the Slave Trade, 458.
Bristol, opposes abolition of the Slave Trade, 463.
British Columbia, 570, 588, 589.
Brooks’s Club, 85, 90, 167, 168, 393, 408, 413, 421.
Browne, Governor, his report on slavery in Bermuda, 459.
Brunswick, Charles, Duke of, commands the Prussian troops against
Holland, 374, 376;
at the Conference of Reichenbach, 529.
Brunswick, Lewis, Duke of, guardian of the Stadholder, William V, 306.
Brussels, revolt of, 515.
Buckingham, Marquis of. _See_ Temple, George Grenville, Earl.
Bulgakoff, his mission to Constantinople, 486–8.
Burges, Bland, permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, 72;
his anecdote of Pitt and Gibbon, 72, 73;
quoted, 236, 531 _n._, 583 _n._
Burke, Edmund, his proposals for Economic Reform, 68, 69, 84;
his failure in Parliament, 81;
on Lord Shelburne, 82;
praises Pitt’s maiden speech, 85;
opposes Reform, 109, 201, 203;
resigns, 111;
draws a retort from Pitt, 115;
made Paymaster of the Forces, 129;
opposes Pitt’s proposals for retrenchment, 132;
speech in support of the India Bill, 146;
his diatribe against Pitt’s India Amending Act, 221, 222;
reasons for his hostility to Hastings, 226;
his motions against Hastings, 227–32, 239;
opposes Pitt’s Irish Resolutions, 262;
opposes the French Commercial Treaty, 342;
epigram on Pitt, 404;
in the Regency crisis, 414, 416, 421, 423;
protests against transportation, 434, 435, 438;
rupture with Fox, 451, 558;
on the Slave Trade, 457, 462;
on the revolt in Belgium, 547;
his “Reflections on the French Revolution,” 467, 553–7;
influence of the book in England, 557;
his “Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs,” 558, 560, 627 _n._;
his “Thoughts on French Affairs,” 559, 560;
contrasted with Pitt, 552–61;
opposes the Russian War, 613;
his opinion of Ewart, 613 _n._;
on the Polish Revolution, 627.
Burke, Richard, at Coblentz, 557, 613.
Burney, Fanny, quoted, 228, 402, 408, 409, 557.
Burton Pynsent, Chatham’s home, 39, 41, 43, 47.
Butler’s “Analogy,” Pitt on, 292.
Buxton, Sir T. F., 455.
Caffraria, suggested settlement on coast of, 435, 438.
Calonne, Charles Alexandre de, French Minister of Finance, and the
treaty with England, 334, 338, 343–5;
his prodigality, 346–8, 358, 540;
his visits to England, 545, 550.
Cambridge Debt Bill, 290.
Camden, Earl (Charles Pratt), Lord Chief Justice, declines office
under Pitt, 155;
President of the Council, 156, 384, 439, 560, 574 _n._, 616.
Camden, Marquis. _See_ Pratt, John Jeffreys.
Camelford, Lord. _See_ Pitt, Thomas.
Campbell, Lord, his “Lives of the Lord Chancellors” quoted, 235.
Canada, settlement of American Loyalists in, 440, 441, 443, 446, 447;
request of settlers for representative institutions and English
laws, 447, 448;
preponderance of the French, 447, 448;
Canada Bill (1791), 449–53;
success of Pitt’s policy, 453;
the future of, 588.
Canning, George, 281, 283;
on the Slave Trade, 477.
Canterbury, Archbishop of. _See_ Moore, John.
Cape of Good Hope, 317 _n._, 356, 370;
question of convict settlement near, 435.
Carlisle, Earl of, Lord Privy Seal, 79, 129;
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 245, 333, 611.
Carlisle, Countess of, works on behalf of Fox, 172.
Carmarthen, Marquis of (afterwards Duke of Leeds), Foreign Secretary,
9, 10, 13, 156, 160 _n._;
correspondence with Harris, 275, 301, 302, 309, 314, 327, 335, 355,
360, 362, 493;
his plays, 309, 311;
negotiations with Russia, 315–17, 489;
his suspicions of France in the matter of the Commercial Treaty,
306, 328–30, 332, 334, 335, 343, 344, 347;
letter to the King on Dutch policy, 357;
strained relations with Pitt, 357, 358;
negotiations leading to the Triple Alliance, 365, 368, 370, 373,
374, 377, 381, 383, 384, 386, 387, 490;
a witty retort by, 424;
situation in the Baltic, 495–7;
commends Elliot, 500, 501;
becomes Duke of Leeds, 501, 502, 510;
the revolution in Belgium, 513, 516, 520;
the French Revolution, 546;
interviews with the Duke of Orleans, 547, 548;
the Nootka Sound dispute, 566, 569, 572, 576, 582;
the Eastern Question, 582, 590, 599, 605, 606, 608;
disagreement with Pitt, 616;
resigns, 618.
Carrington, Lord (Robert Smith), 91, 201, 285;
overhauls Pitt’s affairs, 287, 288.
Carteret, Lord (Henry Thynne), 159.
Cartwright, Rev. Edmund, his power loom, 3, 30.
Cartwright, Major John, 83, 204, 429;
his “Society for Promoting Constitutional Information,” 109, 206.
Catharine II, Czarina, 136, 140, 298;
alliance with Joseph II, 299, 353, 483;
repartee to Diderot, 299, 300;
repels British overtures, 300–4, 348, 488;
her schemes against Turkey, 304, 314, 315, 348, 353, 390, 481–3,
582;
makes a commercial treaty with France, 348, 485, 488;
war with Turkey, 375, 385, 487, 488, 502, 590, 591;
state progress to the Crimea, 480, 481, 483;
meeting with Joseph II, 480–3;
her career and character, 483, 484;
agreement with the King of Poland, 485, 486;
her anger against England, 488, 489, 494;
war with Sweden, 491, 493, 494, 502, 520, 521;
makes overtures to Fox, 504;
refuses British offer of mediation, 526;
makes peace with Gustavus III, 531, 532, 582, 592, 593;
her promises to him, 532, 533;
approached by Leopold II, 592;
Hertzberg’s treacherous proposals to, 597;
rejects Pitt’s demands for the _status quo_, 592, 598;
anxious for a peaceful settlement, 615, 618;
Pitt’s new proposals, 620, 621;
makes peace with Turkey, 626;
alliance with Sweden, 628, 629.
Cavendish, Lord G., 90.
Cavendish, Lord John, Chancellor of the Exchequer, resigns, 111;
moves a vote of censure against the Government, 120;
again Chancellor of the Exchequer, 129;
Pitt exposes the weak points of his Budget, 132;
forms a revenue committee, 185.
Cazalès, Jacques Antoine Marie de, 572.
Chambers, Sir Robert, anecdote of, 213.
Channing, Professor E., on the action of the United States to the
Loyalists, 444 _n._
Charles III of Spain, 568.
Charles IV of Spain, 568, 575, 577, 583, 584.
Charlotte, Queen, her virtue and unpopularity, 8;
her simple tastes, 24;
receives the wife of Warren Hastings, 226, 228;
her parsimony, 392, 393;
relations with the Prince of Wales, 393, 397, 402;
the King’s illness, 407, 408, 411, 414, 415, 420, 422, 426, 430.
Chariot, Comte de, appeals to England to protect Belgium against
France, 513.
Chartres, Duc de. _See_ Orleans, Duke of.
Chatham, Hester, Lady, 36, 37, 39, 40, 288.
Chatham, John Pitt, 2nd Earl of, 40, 41, 57, 167, 269, 397, 398;
First Lord of the Admiralty, 567, 616.
Chatham, William Pitt, first Earl of, his death, 2;
his character and influence, 34, 35;
his defects, 35;
fallacious comparisons between him and his son, 39, 40;
his opinion of public schools, 42;
his careful choice of language, 43;
letters from his son, 44, 51;
his last speeches and death, 61;
hostility of the King to, 62;
state of his affairs, 64;
his Coalition with Newcastle compared with that of Fox and North,
119.
Chauvelin, Marquis de, French ambassador to England, 281.
Cherbourg, fortification of, 211, 327, 341.
Cheyt Singh, Zamindar of Benares, 225, 232, 233, 238, 239.
China, trade between America and, 563.
Cholmondeley, Lord, Walpole on his death, 25.
Chotzim, surrender of, 491.
Church Missionary Society founded, 473.
Civil List, proposals for reform of, 68, 84.
“Clapham Sect,” the, 473.
Clarence, Duke of (afterwards William IV), opposes abolition of the
Slave Trade, 471, 472, 474.
Clarkson, Thomas, 322, 455, 457, 468, 473, 478.
Clavering, Sir John, his intrigues against Hastings, 224.
Clavière, Etienne, supports abolition of the Slave Trade, 458.
Clerk, Sir Philip, 69.
Clerkship of the Pells, the, 159.
Clinton, Sir Henry, 445.
Coal, duty on, 186.
Coalition Ministry (1783) formed, 118;
names of Ministers, 128, 129;
dismissed, 148.
Cobenzl, Count, Austrian Vice-Chancellor, 524, 527, 614, 620 _n._
Coke of Norfolk, 163, 611.
Colnett, Captain, his ships seized by the Spaniards at Nootka, 563–5.
Commerce, Committee of Council for, appointed by Pitt, 257.
Commons, House of. _See_ Parliament.
Commutation Bill (1784), 185.
Consols, lowness of (1783, 1784), 178, 180;
rise in (1785), 318,
(1786), 341.
Constantine, Prince, grandson of Catharine II, 482.
Constitutional Information, Society for Promoting, 109, 206.
Contractors Bill (1782), 110, 113.
Convict Settlements, Parliamentary Report on (1785), 434, 435;
scheme for new, 435–40.
Conway, General, 102, 112, 116, 159, 163.
Cook, Captain, 436, 438, 440, 562, 564.
Coote, Sir Eyre, death of, 147.
Corn, Bill to regulate export of (1789), 544;
export of from Ireland to England forbidden, 545.
Cornwall, Charles Wolfran, Speaker, his death, 422.
Cornwallis, Earl, declines office under Pitt, 156;
Governor-General of India, 224, 370, 371, 402;
mission to Berlin, 314;
suggested as Home Secretary, 619.
Corporation Act, its repeal proposed and rejected, 212, 214, 215.
Cort of Gosport, his invention for the production of malleable iron,
31.
Cotton industry, its enormous expansion, 30.
County Reform Associations, 21, 27, 68, 71, 169.
Court, the English, strictness of the etiquette at, 16, 392.
Courtenay, John, M.P., 211.
Crabbe, Thomas, on smuggling, quoted, 182, 183.
Cracow, Bishop of, 627.
Craufurd, George, English commissioner at Versailles, 328–30.
Crewe, Mrs., on Pitt’s administration, 154;
on behalf of Fox, 172.
Crompton, Samuel, his “mule-jenny,” 3, 29.
Crown, the debates on the influence of, 70, 130;
theory of royal veto, 148;
abuse of power of, 148, 149.
Cumberland, Henry Frederick, Duke of, his influence on the Prince of
Wales, 393.
Cumberland, William Augustus, Duke of, his death, 24.
Curtis, Alderman, 586.
Czartoryski family, the, in Poland, 486.
Dalrymple, Lord, British Ambassador at Berlin, 304 _n._, 313, 352,
353, 363 _n._
Daly, Denis, M.P., 251.
Danzig, question of its cession to Prussia, 387, 507, 508, 511 _n._,
521 _n._, 522, 526, 529, 594, 596, 597, 599, 601, 606, 607,
613, 614.
Delancey, Colonel Stephen, 445, 446 _n._
Delancey, Sir William, 446 _n._
Del Campo, Marquis, Spanish Ambassador in London, 562, 565, 566.
Democracy, growth of, 2, 197, 203–6;
_see_ Chap. XXIV.
Dempster, George, 190, 191, 544.
Denmark, desires alliance with Great Britain, 385;
treaty with Russia, 496;
eager for war with Sweden, 496;
lays siege to Gothenburg, 496–9;
agrees to an armistice, 499, 500;
renders help to Russia, 501, 502, 600, 603.
Derby, Countess of, works on behalf of Fox, 172.
Desmoulins, Camille, 512, 571, 572.
Devonshire, Georgiana, Duchess of, supports Fox, 172, 173, 421, 623;
recognizes Mrs. Fitzherbert, 398;
her Diary, 409, 421 _n._
Diamond Necklace Scandal, 140, 343, 382.
Diderot, Denis, 299, 300.
Dietz, Prussian envoy at Constantinople, 494, 506, 507 _n._, 509,
511, 521, 528.
Disbrowe, Colonel, epigram on Queen Charlotte, 392.
Dissenters. _See_ Nonconformists.
Dnieper, River, 603, 604.
Dniester, River, 597, 602, 604, 605, 615, 619, 620.
Dolben, Sir William, his bill for regulating transport of slaves, 461.
Dominica ceded to Great Britain, 116, 121.
Dönhoff, Countess, 609.
Dorchester, Lord, Governor-General of Canada, 448–50.
Dorset, Duke of, British Ambassador in Paris, 329, 333, 334, 341, 344
_n._, 369, 545;
recalled, 546.
Douglas, Captain, his ship seized by the Spaniards at Nootka, 564.
Dover House Club, 403.
Drake, Francis, British envoy at Copenhagen, 615.
Drinking in the eighteenth century, 23–5.
Düben, Count, Swedish Minister, 499.
Dublin Parliament, legislative independence conceded, 105.
Dumouriez, General, 547.
Duncannon, Lord, 90.
Duncannon, Viscountess, 172.
Duncombe, Charles Slingsby, elected member for York, 170, 201, 293,
586.
Dundas, Henry, 88;
his attitude on the conduct of the war, 101;
fails to win over Lord North, 117;
supports the choice of Pitt as Prime Minister, 125;
in favour of Pitt’s Reform proposals, 131;
opposes Fox’s India Bill, 146;
Treasurer of the Navy, 157;
his character, 157, 158;
his attitude on reform, 200 _n._, 201–3, 212;
letter to Cornwallis, 220;
introduces the India Amending Act of 1786, 221;
his high opinion of Cornwallis, 224;
his attitude to Warren Hastings, 227, 229, 230, 232, 234–6;
introduces Adam Smith to Pitt, 241 _n._;
his house at Wimbledon, 270 _n._;
his friendship with Pitt, 274;
account of, 276–80;
his influence in Scotland, 277, 278;
his influence over Pitt, 278, 279;
conviviality at Wimbledon, 279;
anecdotes of Pitt and, 279, 289, 404;
carries out the Canada Bill, 452;
on the Slave Trade, 469, 471, 475, 476;
defends the armament against Russia, 613, 618;
Home Secretary, 619.
Dundas, Sir Thomas, 173.
Dunning, John. _See_ Ashburton, Lord.
Dupont de Nemours, 346.
Durham, Lord, his Report on Canada (1839), 450, 452.
Dutch East India Company, 317, 327, 356, 382.
Dutch Republic. _See_ United Provinces.
East India Company, The, unsatisfactory state of, 143, 217;
Fox’s India Bill, 143–6;
resolutions of the general court, 161;
Pitt’s India Bill, 160–3;
proposals of Pitt’s second India Bill, 218–21;
hails Pitt as its champion, 223;
often on the verge of bankruptcy, 225;
how affected by Pitt’s Irish Resolutions, 260;
dispute with Pitt, 403, 404.
Economic Reform, movement for, 68, 110, 113.
_Economistes_, the, 322–4.
Economy Bill (1782), 110, 113, 178, 286.
Eden, Morton, Ambassador at Berlin, 629.
Eden, William (Lord Auckland), 79, 185, 233, 234;
opposes Pitt’s Irish Resolutions, 254, 255, 275;
his career, 333;
special envoy in Paris, 330, 331, 333–8, 341, 343, 347, 356, 367,
370, 371, 373, 376–81, 545;
his “Discourse on Banishment,” 432, 434;
letters from Wilberforce and Pitt to, on the Slave Trade, 459, 460;
Ambassador at Madrid, 459;
made Lord Auckland, 523;
Ambassador at The Hague, 523, 534, 569, 572, 592, 602, 610;
his opposition to Ewart, 602, 629.
Edmundson, William, 454.
Edward, Prince (afterwards Duke of Kent), 515;
sent to Gibraltar, 549.
Edwards, Gerard (afterwards Sir Gerard Noel), 91.
Effingham, Lady, 407.
Egypt, French policy in, 310, 326, 327, 355.
Eldon, Lord (John Scott), anecdote told by, 24;
opposes Fox’s India Bill, 146, 213.
Elections in England, popular licence, 27.
Elgin, Lord, his mission to Leopold II, 619, 620.
Eliot, Edward, made Lord Eliot, 159.
Eliot, Edward J., 58;
marries Harriet Pitt, 58;
goes with Pitt to France, 137;
death of his wife, 289, 290.
Elliot, Sir Gilbert (afterwards Earl of Minto), 146, 158, 274, 275,
428;
proposed as Speaker, 464.
Elliot, Hugh, letters to Pitt, 25 _n._, 396;
British Ambassador at Copenhagen, 496;
persuades Gustavus to accept English and Prussian mediation,
497–501;
his mission to Paris, 560, 579–81.
Ellis, Welbore, 102.
England. _See_ Great Britain.
English, character of the, 142.
Errington, Mr., uncle of Mrs. Fitzherbert, 397 _n._, 398.
Erskine, Thomas (afterwards Baron), attacks Pitt, 159;
defeated at the polls, 171;
attack on Pitt prompted by the Prince of Wales, 404.
Eugène, Prince, 481, 482.
Euston, Lord, 58, 90;
elected member for Cambridge University, 171.
Ewart, Joseph, letter to him, quoted, 9, 10;
Secretary of Legation at Berlin, 311;
originates the idea of the Triple Alliance, 313, 631;
Ambassador at Berlin, 313 _n._, 363 and _n._, 364, 365, 374, 375,
381, 386 _n._, 387, 389, 489 _n._, 490 _n._, 495, 497–9, 500
_n._, 507 _n._, 508, 510, 511 _n._, 514, 516, 519, 521 _n._,
528–30, 534, 574, 590, 593, 595, 598, 599, 616–19;
opposed by Auckland, 602, 603;
Burke’s opinion of him, 613 _n._;
his description of his interview with Pitt, 617, 618;
his work nullified, 628, 631;
his recall and death, 629, 630.
Falconbridge, overseer of the Sierra Leone settlement, 473.
Family Compact, the (1761), 570, 571, 576.
Fawcett, General, 374.
Fawkener, William, special envoy to St. Petersburg, 619 _n._, 621–4,
625.
Ferguson of Pitfour, 88, 278.
Ferguson, Sir Edward, 191.
Fielding, Henry, on the occupations of a fop, 17.
Finckenstein, Count, Prussian Foreign Minister, 353, 364.
Finland, campaign in, 491, 493, 531.
Fitzgerald, Lord Robert Stephen, British Ambassador at Paris, 465,
513, 546–8.
Fitzherbert, Alleyne, British Ambassador at St. Petersburg, 300, 302,
486, 488;
his mission to Madrid, 570, 574, 577, 582–4.
Fitzherbert, Mrs., her relations with the Prince of Wales, 394–9.
Fitzpatrick, Richard, 426, 429.
Fitzwilliam, Earl, 145, 428, 429 _n._, 611.
Fitzwilliam, W., suggests a lottery for settling the Prince of
Wales’s debts, 403 _n._
Flanders. _See_ Belgic Provinces.
Fletcher, Sir Henry, 145.
Flood, Henry, 245, 252, 264.
Floridablanca, Count, Spanish Minister, 568, 573–5, 577, 584.
Floridas, the, ceded to Spain, 116, 120.
Flour, export of to France forbidden, 543–5.
Fontainebleau, Treaty of, 316.
Foster, John Baron Oriel, Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer, 248,
251, 337.
Fox, Charles James, his house at Wandsworth, 19;
his losses at gambling, 26;
his University career contrasted with Pitt’s, 58;
introduced to Pitt, 60;
his character and vices, 80, 93;
as an orator, 80, 81;
praises Pitt’s maiden speech, 85;
motion in favour of peace, 88;
made Foreign Secretary, 104;
supports proposals for Reform, 108, 109;
resigns, 111;
attacks Shelburne, 111, 112;
refuses Pitt’s overtures, 117;
his Coalition with North, 117, 118;
effect of his conduct, 119;
his defence, 120;
supports motion for a vote of censure, 120;
made Secretary of State in the Coalition ministry, 128;
supports Pitt’s reform proposals (1783), 131;
proposes to allow £100,000 a year to the Prince of Wales, 133;
attributes the King’s opposition to an intrigue of Pitt’s, 133;
introduces the India Bill, 142;
dismissed from office, 148;
attacks Pitt, 159;
defeats him and calls on him to resign, 163;
negotiations for a union of parties, 164;
offers to serve with Pitt, 165;
failure of negotiations, 166;
his attacks not pressed home, 167;
his election for Westminster invalidated, 173;
elected for Orkney and Shetland, 173;
Pitt’s ungenerous conduct to him, 173, 254, 271;
reasons for his defeat, 174;
opposes reduction of the tea duty, 185;
opposes Pitt’s proposal of a Sinking Fund, 192;
his amendment accepted by Pitt, 193;
attitude to the Reform Bill of 1785, 202;
supports repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, 214;
opposes Pitt’s second India Bill, 219, and his Amending Act, 222;
supports Burke’s motions against Hastings, 228, 230, 232, 239;
speeches on Pitt’s Irish Resolutions, 254, 255, 261, 262;
his opinion of Adam Smith, 262;
contrasted with Pitt, 273, 295;
opposes the French Commercial Treaty, 341, 342;
friendship with the Prince of Wales, 393, 396, 398, 399;
denies the marriage of the Prince with Mrs. Fitzherbert, 401;
champions the East India Company against Pitt, 404;
action on the King’s illness, 409, 413;
speeches on the Regency question, 415–18, 421, 423, 424;
his disappointment on the King’s recovery, 426, 427;
on Canadian policy, 448, 451, 452;
rupture with Burke, 451, 558;
on the Slave Trade, 463, 465, 467, 469, 474;
interview with Vorontzoff, 504;
opposes vote for the army (1790), 550, 551;
on the Convention with Spain, 586, 587;
opposes the Russian armament, 610, 612;
his relations with Adair, 623, 624.
Fox, George, 454.
“Fox’s Martyrs,” 170, 171.
France, Anglomania in, 17, 322;
peace concluded with, 115, 116, 136;
position of, after the peace, 139, 140, 321;
national debt of, 179, 180;
beginnings of Political Economy in, 183;
her activity in India, 220, 221, 230, 310, 317, 326, 355, 356, 373
_n._;
war with the Mahrattas, 225;
alliance with Austria, 297, 300, 314;
compact with Sweden, 301–4;
designs in Egypt, 310, 327, 482, 483;
alliance with the United Provinces, 316, 317, 332;
her commanding position, 317;
mental sympathy with England in, 322;
commercial treaty with England, 325–40;
its reception, 341, 342;
reasons for its acceptance, 343–5;
its after effects, 346, 347;
the assembly of Notables, 343, 345, 358;
refuses Prussian proposal of joint intervention at The Hague, 354,
363, 367, 382;
financial difficulties, 347, 358;
her Dutch policy, 366–82;
duplicity of her policy and conduct, 370, 373 and _n._, 374, 379;
promises aid to Holland, 377,
but fails to give it, 378, 379;
destruction of her influence in the United Provinces, 379–82;
her finances compared with those of England, 405;
her expedition to New South Wales forestalled, 440;
opinion on the Slave Trade in, 458, 460, 463 (_see_ French
Revolution);
her preponderance in Canada, 447, 448;
her policy in Turkey, 482;
position of the peasants in France and other countries, 538, 539;
effect of philosophical speculation in France and England, 539, 540;
first efforts of reformers in, 540;
suspicious of England, 542, 550;
her constitution, 556.
Francis, Sir Philip, opposes Pitt’s Second India Bill, 219;
his hostility to Hastings, 222, 224, 226, 228, 233;
his friendship with Burke, 226, 556.
Franking, abuses of, 186, 187.
Franklin, Benjamin, at Westminster, 59;
his admiration for Lord Shelburne, 83;
Pitt meets him in Paris, 139, 140.
Fraser, British Ambassador at St. Petersburg, 385 _n._, 488 _n._, 489.
Frederick the Great, intrigues against England, 296, 297;
refuses to help the Princess of Orange, 309, 349, 351, 360;
refuses an alliance with England, 312, 314;
his death, 351.
Frederick William II of Prussia, his accession and character, 351,
352;
his overtures rejected by France, 354, 363, 367;
demands satisfaction from Holland for the insult to the Princess of
Orange, 363–5, 370–2, 382;
his vacillation, 366, 374, 381;
sends an ultimatum to Holland, 374, 375;
invades Holland, 376;
alliance with England, 384–9;
his attitude to the war between Sweden and Russia, 494, 495;
threatens to invade Denmark if she attacks Sweden, 497, 499;
sanctions Hertzberg’s schemes, 506, 507, 514;
demands Belgian independence, 514, 516;
anger against England, 517;
treaty with Poland, 521;
correspondence with Leopold II, 523, 528;
renounces Hertzberg’s schemes, 529;
his Polish policy, 594, 595;
sends Bischoffswerder to Vienna, 601;
challenges England to take strong measures against Russia, 608, 609;
changes his attitude, 614;
agrees to Pitt’s proposals, 619, 621;
decides on an understanding with Austria, 628, 629.
Free Trade, ideas of, 322, 323, 343.
French East India Company, revived, 220, 221, 310, 317, 326, 341.
French Revolution, the National Assembly constituted, 511;
declares slaves free in French colonies, 465–7;
disastrous effects, 467;
declaration of war against England, 472;
intrigues in Belgium, 513, 516;
meeting of the States-General, 537, 538;
fall of the Bastille, 542;
the Revolution compared with the English Revolution, of 1688, 554,
555;
warlike attitude of the royalists in the Assembly, 570;
debate on the royal prerogative, 571;
proposed alliance with Spain against England, 576–8, 583.
French Royalists, failure of their settlement in Canada, 446, 447.
Friends, Society of. _See_ Quakers.
Friesland, Province of, 350, 368.
Frost, John, attorney, 109, 110.
_Fürstenbund_, the, 312, 482.
Gainsborough, Thomas, his portraits of Lady Chatham and William Pitt,
38.
Galicia, question of its restoration to Poland, 387, 507, 508, 511,
521–3, 526, 594.
Gambia River, penal settlement, 434, 435.
Gambling, in the eighteenth century, 26.
Game-laws, the, 15.
“Gazetteer,” the, 253, 255.
George III, resentment against his war policy, 7;
national loyalty to, 8;
his personality, 8;
his political power, 8–10;
his sobriety and simple tastes, 24, 25;
his hostility to Chatham, 61, 62;
his firmness during the Gordon Riots, 71;
his electioneering, 74, 99, 172;
disastrous effects of his policy, 76;
his increasing power, 77;
characteristics of, 97–100;
skill in intrigue, 99;
relations with his Ministers, 99;
his attitude after Yorktown, 100;
resignation of Lord North, 103;
foments discords in the Rockingham Ministry, 104, 105;
exerts influence against Reform, 110;
rebukes Pitt, 115;
urges Pitt to form a Ministry, 125–7;
threatens to retire to Hanover, 127;
is forced to accept the Coalition Ministry, 127, 128;
his hatred of Fox and North, 129;
refuses to grant honours, 129, 137;
his anger on the subject of the Prince of Wales’s allowance, 133;
makes overtures to Pitt through Thurlow, 134, 135;
recalls Pitt from Paris, 141;
intervenes to secure defeat of the India Bill in the Lords, 147,
148;
appoints Pitt Prime Minister, 148;
refuses to remove him, 168;
dissolves Parliament, 169;
his relations with Pitt after 1784, 175, 176;
attitude to the Reform Bill of 1785, 197, 201, 204;
favours Warren Hastings, 226, 228, 235, 236;
insists on an Irish contribution towards naval expenses, 250;
letter on the death of Pitt’s sister, 290;
desire for peace, 301, 317, 357, 494;
causes Hanover to join the _Fürstenbund_, 312;
his opinion of Sir James Harris, 369;
in favour of an Anglo-Prussian alliance, 388;
his insanity, 392, 407;
relations with the Prince of Wales, 393–402;
his letters to the Prince drafted by Pitt, 399, 408;
reconciliation with the Prince, 402;
decline in health, 406, 407;
stories of his madness, 407 and _n._;
progress of the disease, 410–13;
removed to Kew House, 413;
treated by Dr. Willis, 414, 415;
his recovery, 426, 427, 504;
his confidence in Pitt, 430;
his partiality to Thurlow, 464, 465;
absorbed in domestic troubles, 515, 549;
on the Duke of Orleans’ visit to London, 547;
his silence with regard to the French Revolution, 549;
his determined attitude on the Nootka Sound dispute, 566, 567;
on Elliot’s mission to Paris, 579, 580.
Georgia, Principality of, 486.
Germain, Lord George. _See_ Sackville, Viscount.
Gibbon, Edward, worsted in a discussion with Pitt, 72, 73.
Gibraltar, Siege of, 67, 79;
relieved, 106, 114;
question of ceding it, 114.
Gilbert’s Act (1782), 15.
Giurgevo, defeat of the Austrians at, 527.
Glynn, Dr., 50, 51.
Gold Coast, the, 435.
Goltz, Count von, Prussian envoy at Warsaw, 522 _n._
Goostree’s, 89, 91–3.
Gordon, Duchess of, 404.
Gordon, Lord George, 71, 341.
Gordon Riots, the, 9, 27, 71.
Goree, ceded to France, 116.
Görtz, Count, special Prussian envoy to The Hague, 354, 373.
Gothenburg, besieged by the Danes, 496, 498–500.
Gower, (second) Earl, President of the Council, 156.
Gower (third) Earl, ambassador in Paris, 576 _n._, 577, 579, 580.
Grafton, Duke of, Privy Seal, 114, 116, 616;
declines office under Pitt, 155.
Graham, Lord, 90.
Graham, Thomas (Lord Lynedoch), 16.
Granby, Lord, 56. _See_ Rutland, Duke of.
Grant, General, letter to Cornwallis on the Prince of Wales, 402.
Grantham, Lord, Foreign Secretary, 111, 325.
Granville Bay and Town, 473.
Grasse, Count de, defeated by Rodney, 106.
Grattan, Henry, 105, 246, 247, 251, 252, 264.
Great Britain, state of, in and after 1780, 4 _et seq._;
power and character of the peers, 10, 13, 14;
power of the squires, 14–16;
etiquette at Court, 16;
manners and customs in 1782, 17–20;
wealth and prosperity, 18;
her stolid conservatism, 21;
vices of the age, 23–6;
industrial expansion, 28–31;
development of agriculture, 31, 32;
financial position in 1784, 179, 180;
penal code, 433, 434;
state of in 1791, 611.
Gregory, Robert, 146.
Greig, Admiral, in command of the Russian fleet, 493.
Grenada, ceded to Great Britain, 116, 121.
Grenville, Hester. _See_ Chatham, Lady.
Grenville, Thomas, 171, 410 _n._
Grenville, William Wyndham (Lord Grenville), 90;
his speech on the India Bill, 146;
Paymaster of the Forces, 157;
speaks in defence of Hastings, 232, 234, 235;
his house at Wimbledon, 270 _n._;
his career and character, 280, 281;
mission to The Hague, 280, 307 _n._, 356 _n._, 369, 374;
mission to Paris, 280, 378, 379;
his influence over Pitt in foreign affairs, 317, 326, 405;
made Speaker, 412, 422;
Home Secretary, 449, 464;
created Baron Grenville, 449, 466;
his share in the Canada Bill, 449–52;
on the Slave Trade, 476, 477;
Foreign Secretary, 535 _n._, 544, 559, 560, 575, 599, 616, 618–20,
624, 627.
Grey, Charles (afterwards Earl Grey), 289, 586, 613, 624.
Groschlag, French envoy to Berlin, 375.
Grosvenor, Thomas, M.P., 466.
Guelderland, Province of, 350, 359, 376.
Gustavus III of Sweden, 385;
declares war on Russia, 491, 493, 502;
his character and career, 492;
alliance with Turkey, 493, 495;
retires to Stockholm, 494, 498;
not supported by England or Prussia, 494, 495;
proceeds to Gothenburg, 498, 499;
accepts English and Prussian mediation, 499, 500;
his ambitious schemes, 501;
makes peace with Russia, 530–3, 592, 593;
open to an offer from the Allies, 600, 603, 609, 621;
alliance with Russia, 628, 629.
Haggerston, Sir Carnaby, 397, 398.
Hague, The, treaty signed at (1788), 383;
Conference at, 534;
Convention signed at (1790), 534.
Hailes, Daniel, Secretary to the embassy in Paris, 326, 327, 330,
332, 334, 343–5, 355, 356, 545;
British envoy at Warsaw, 522, 595, 596, 598, 626, 627, 630.
Haldimand, Governor, 446.
Hamilton, Lady Anne, her “Memoirs of the Court of George III,”
quoted, 275.
Hamilton, Gerald, 424.
Hanover, included in the _Fürstenbund_, 312, 313.
Hardy, Thomas, on smuggling, 182.
Hargreaves, James, his spinning-jenny, 2, 29.
Harris, Sir James (afterwards Earl of Malmesbury), account of, 308,
309;
Ambassador at St. Petersburg, 79, 296, 299, 302, 304, 484;
Ambassador at The Hague, 275, 308–10, 314, 315, 317, 326, 327, 335,
347, 349–51, 354, 355, 357–64, 369, 372–4, 376, 381, 388, 389;
confidante of the Prince of Wales, 394, 395, 424.
Harrowby, Earl of. _See_ Ryder, Dudley.
Hastings, Warren, vote of censure on, 143, 217;
order for his recall annulled, 143, 217;
his plan of an alliance with the Great Mogul frustrated by his
Council, 221;
his treatment of Cheyt Singh, 224, 225, 232, 233;
the affair of the Begums of Oude, 225, 239, 240;
source of Burke’s information against him, 226;
received with favour by the King, 226;
interview with Pitt, 227;
charges against him, 229–40;
his impeachment, 233, 240.
Hats, tax on, 186.
Hawkesbury, Lord, 471.
Hayes, Chatham’s house at, 37, 40, 41, 43, 48.
Henry, Prince, of Prussia, 479, 609.
Herbert, George Augustus (afterwards Earl of Pembroke), 155.
Hertzberg, Count, Prussian Foreign Secretary, anxious for an alliance
with England, 311, 312, 353, 363, 364, 366, 375;
signs the treaty with England (1788), 389;
his schemes in Eastern Europe, 384, 386, 387, 489 _n._, 491, 494,
495, 506–10, 520–3, 528;
Belgian policy, 511, 513, 514, 574;
Polish policy, 594, 596, 597, 614;
treacherous proposals to Russia, 597, 599, 606, 607, 619;
decline of his power, 600, 601, 621 _n._;
his fall, 628.
Hesse, Prince of, Danish Commander-in-chief, 499.
Hippisley, J. C., British agent, 545.
Holland, Province of, 350, 351, 355, 360;
the Free Corps detain and insult the Princess of Orange, 361, 362,
364, 366;
the Estates refuse to apologize, 370–2;
cancel their appeal for help to France, 376;
bad faith of the French towards, 377–9.
Holwood House, 265 _n._, 269.
Hood, Admiral, Lord, 172, 173, 567.
Horses, tax on, 186.
Howard, John, 214, 322, 433.
Howe, Admiral Lord, relieves Gibraltar, 114;
First Lord of the Admiralty, 156;
resigns, 567.
Hyde de Neuville, 281.
Hyder Ali, invades the Carnatic, 79, 143, 217, 225.
India. _See_ Chap. X;
Fox’s India Bill, 142–8;
Pitt’s first India Bill, 160–3;
his second India Bill, 218–20;
his Amending Act of 1786, 221, 222;
increased power of the Viceroy, 222, 223;
joint action of the Dutch and French in, 317, 356;
French plans for overthrow of British power in, 356;
British garrison strengthened, 403;
India Declaratory Act (1788), 404.
Indian “nabobs,” influence of, 16, 223.
Imhoff, Baron, 226.
Income Tax, Pitt’s opinion of, in 1798, 188.
Industrial Revolution, the, 2, 29;
its results, 29–32.
“Influence,” importance of, 12, 91;
Pitt’s increasing use of, 208, 209.
Ireland. _See_ Chap. XI;
burden of taxation in (1781), 5;
state of, in 1782, 105;
state of, in 1783, 141;
the Act of Union (1800), 203;
history of Anglo-Irish relations, 242–6;
Protestant tyranny in, 242;
growth of toleration, 242, 243;
composition of the Irish Parliament, 242, 243;
the woollen and linen industries, 243, 244;
Volunteer corps, 244, 245;
restrictions on trade removed, 245;
repeal of the Test Act, 245;
legislative independence secured, 105, 106, 245;
demand for “protection,” 246, 247;
question of parliamentary reform, 246–9;
suggestion of an Irish contribution to imperial funds, 248–54;
Pitt’s Commercial Resolutions, 198, 200, 202, 209, 249–66;
passed by the Dublin Parliament, 251;
debated at Westminster, 253–5;
campaign of protest against the Resolutions, 255–7;
report of committee of inquiry, 258, 259;
modified Resolutions introduced, 260;
passed at Westminster, 264;
opposed in Ireland and dropped, 264;
letter of Wilberforce on the Resolutions, 282, 283;
how affected by the French commercial treaty, 337–9;
the Irish Parliament adopts Fox’s arguments on the Regency, 424,
426.
Iron industry, expansion of the, 31.
Ismail, fall of, 590, 591, 598.
Jackson, Francis, _chargé-d’affaires_ at Berlin, 595, 598, 600, 606,
608, 609, 614, 616, 617.
Jassy, treaty of, 626.
Jebb, John, M.D., 84.
Jenkinson, Charles (afterwards Earl of Liverpool), 79, 146;
head of the Council of Commerce, 262, 263, 289, 334;
on the Slave Trade, 463, 469, 476.
Jervis, Sir John, 581.
Johnson, Dr., his qualified Jacobitism, 9;
a typical clubman, 20;
on tippling, 23;
anecdote of, and Sir R. Chambers, 213.
Johnstone, British _chargé-d’affaires_ at Copenhagen, 501.
Jones, Paul, received by the Empress Catharine, 489.
Joseph II, Emperor, his aims, 297;
his Belgian policy, 298, 304, 353;
alliance with Catharine II, 299, 353;
attitude towards the Dutch crisis, 366;
joins Russia in the war with Turkey, 375, 384, 385, 483, 485, 488,
491;
danger of his schemes, 385, 387, 390;
meeting with Catharine II, 480, 481, 483;
failure of his campaign against the Russians, 491, 505;
destroys the constitution of Brabant, 511;
resolves to subdue the Netherlands, 515;
his death, 518.
“Junius,” on the elections of 1784, 171.
Kainardji, Treaty of, 375, 486, 487, 532, 631.
Kaunitz, Prince, Austrian Chancellor, 300, 483, 491, 523, 524, 533,
534, 574 _n._, 592, 601, 614, 620, 625, 629.
Kazeneck, Count, Austrian envoy in London, 315.
Keene, Charles, British Ambassador at Stockholm, 493, 494, 498 _n._,
499 _n._
Keith, Sir Robert Murray, British Ambassador at Vienna, 300, 366,
389, 482, 491 _n._, 524, 527, 618, 620.
Kenyon, Lloyd, Baron, Attorney-General, 157, 158;
Master of the Rolls, 231.
Keppel, Admiral (Viscount), First Lord of the Admiralty, 102, 111,
112, 114;
resigns, 116;
opposes Shelburne, 119;
again at the Admiralty, 129;
opposes Reform, 132.
Kielmansegge, Count von, on English etiquette, 16.
Kinburn, siege of, 490.
Kingsbergen, Admiral, on the value of Oczakoff, 603, 604.
“King’s Friends,” the, 8, 77, 130.
Knobelsdorff, Baron von, 528 _n._
Lafayette, Marquis de, Pitt meets him in Paris, 139, 140;
and the Duke of Orleans, 547 _n._, 548.
Lageard, Abbé de, 138.
Lambton, John, M.P., 611.
Lansdowne, Marquis of. _See_ Shelburne, Lord.
La Pérouse, French expedition to New South Wales under, 440.
Laudon, Marshal, 525.
League of the Armed Neutrality, the, 79.
Lee, Colonel, 396.
Leeds, Duke of. _See_ Carmarthen, Marquis of.
Leghorn, 319.
Lennox, Lord, 90.
Leopold II, Emperor, his accession and character, 518, 519;
makes overtures to Frederick William II, 523;
his policy, 525, 527;
threatens the Netherlands, 525, 527, 533, 534;
agrees to the Reichenbach Convention (1790), 528–30, 591, 592;
agrees to the Hague Convention, 534, 535, but refuses to ratify it,
535;
his treacherous conduct, 592, 599, 600, 614, 619, 620;
pro-Russian policy, 601, 620;
makes peace with Turkey, 625.
Lewisham, Viscount, 146.
Lexington, skirmish at, 57.
Liége, rising in, 512, 514.
Lille, negotiations at, 476, 477.
Lindsay, William, secretary to the embassy at St. Petersburg, 623.
Liston, Robert, British envoy at Stockholm, 531, 532, 566, 600, 621.
Liverpool, Earl of. _See_ Jenkinson, Charles.
Locke, John, 322, 539.
Loménie de Brienne, Archbishop, 373 _n._
London, customs, 17–19;
pleasure resorts, 18, 19;
boundaries in 1780, 19, 20;
growth of suburbs, 20;
decline of clubs, 20;
the elections of 1782, 27.
London, City of, device of the Corporation for fining Nonconformists,
213.
Long, Charles (afterwards Lord Farnborough), 58.
Lonsdale, Lord. _See_ Lowther, Sir James.
Loo, Provisional Treaty of (1788), 389.
Lothian, Marquis of, goes over to the Prince of Wales, 424.
Lotteries, State, 180.
Loughborough, Lord (Alexander Wedderburn), 129, 245, 369 _n._, 472;
betrayed by Thurlow, 408, 420, 421, 428.
Louis XVI, of France, 139, 140, 297, 310, 324;
his influence for peace, 356, 373 _n._;
his study of geography, 436;
at the beginning of the Revolution, 537, 540, 541, 545, 552, 571;
captured at Varennes, 625, 628.
Lowther, Sir James (afterwards Lord Lonsdale), 58;
offers Pitt a seat at Appleby, 74.
Loyalists, American, their position after the peace, 120, 121, 136,
436, 437, 440, 441;
condition of those settled in Great Britain, 443, 444;
compensation voted, 445;
settlement in Canada, 446–8, 453;
called “United Empire Loyalists,” 446, 447.
Lucchesini, Marchese di, Prussian envoy at Warsaw, 522, 619, 620.
Luddite riots, the, 30.
Lusi, Count, Prussian ambassador in London, 314, 365.
Luttrell, Colonel, opposes Reform, 131.
Luzerne, Marquis de, French ambassador in London, 541–3.
Lymburner, Mr., drafts petition against the Canada Bill, 450, 451.
Lynedoch, Lord, 16.
Macaulay, Lord, his education, 42, 43;
his “Warren Hastings” criticized, 236, 238;
his anecdote of Pitt and Dundas, 279.
Macaulay, Zachary, 455;
governor of Sierra Leone, 473.
Macqueen of Braxfield, Lord Justice Clerk, his address to the jury
quoted, 15, 16.
Maestricht, Joseph II lays claim to, 298, 310, 316.
Magistrates, powers of, 14, 15.
Mahon, Lord. _See_ Stanhope, Earl.
Mahratta wars, 225, 230.
Malmesbury, Lord. _See_ Harris, Sir James.
Manchester, deputation from, against war with Russia, 614, 621.
Manifest Act, the (1786), 185.
Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, 22, 213, 456;
Pitt attracts his notice, 73;
defeated at Cambridge, 171;
supports Hastings, 228.
Marie Antoinette, 139, 140, 297, 324, 346;
supports the alliance with Austria, 298, 310, 375, 382;
her caprice, 540, 541, 546;
her intrigues against England, 552, 620;
captured at Varennes, 625, 628.
Marsham, Charles (afterwards Lord Romney), 91, 550.
Martin, Sir T. Byam, 210.
Martinez, Captain, seizes British ships at Nootka, 564, 565, 573.
Maseres, Baron, 192.
Mason, Canon, 169, 171.
Matra, James Maria, his scheme for colonizing Botany Bay, 436–9, 441.
Meares, John, founds a settlement at Nootka, 563;
his ships seized by the Spaniards, 564;
his “Memorial,” 565, 566.
Mechanical inventions, 2, 3, 28, 29.
Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Duke of, 516 _n._
Meeke, Rev. Francis, Pitt’s letters to, 89.
Melville, Lord. _See_ Dundas, Henry.
Mercy d’Argenteau, Count, Austrian envoy at The Hague, 534.
Merry, Antony, British _chargé-d’affaires_ at Madrid, 565, 566, 573.
Methuen Treaty (1703), 23, 337.
Mexico, the Spanish Viceroy of, 563, 564, 573.
Middleton, Sir Charles (afterwards Lord Barham), Secretary to the
Admiralty, 210, 439, 473;
resigns, 567.
Middleton, Lady, 457.
Miles, William Augustus, diplomatic agent in Holland, 379;
in Paris, 576 _n._, 578, 579, 581, 583.
Milner, Dr., Dean of Carlisle, 473.
Minorca, loss of, 79, 105, 116, 120, 121;
offered to Catharine II, 299.
Minto, Earl of. _See_ Elliot, Sir Gilbert.
Miquelon, ceded to France, 116.
Mirabeau, Count, 466, 571;
proposes alliance with Spain against England, 576–8;
his relations with Hugh Elliot, 579–81, 583.
Miranda, General Francesco A. G., his dealings with Pitt, 569.
Mitford, John (afterwards Lord Redesdale), 72.
Mogul, the Great, Hastings seeks an alliance with, 221, 230.
Moira, Earl of (Lord Rawdon), 429.
Moldavia, coveted by Austria, 385, 387, 481, 505, 507, 511, 525.
Möllendorf, General, 529, 609.
Monson, George, his intrigues against Hastings, 222, 224.
Montagu, Frederick, 145.
Montagu, Lord, Governor of the Prince of Wales, 104.
Montesquieu, Baron de, on the English constitution, 10;
on aristocracy, 13;
his “Esprit des Lois,” 60, 322, 539.
Montmorin, Comte de, French Foreign Minister, his Dutch policy, 359,
362, 363, 365, 369–73, 376–8, 380–2;
rejects Prussian overtures, 367, 382;
on the Slave Trade, 460;
opposed to the partition of Turkey, 485, 491;
his suspicions of England, 542, 575, 576, 577, 581.
Montserrat, ceded to Great Britain, 116, 121.
Moore, Colonel (afterwards Sir John), 479.
Moore, the Most Rev. John, Archbishop of Canterbury, consulted by
Pitt on the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, 215;
on the Slave Trade, 471.
Moore, Thomas, anecdote in his Diary, 50.
More, Hannah, 473.
Morgan, William, his “Memoir of R. Price” quoted, 190, 191.
Moritz, C. P., on English society, 17–19;
on the elections of 1782, 27.
“Morning Chronicle,” the, 255.
Mornington, Earl of (afterwards Marquis Wellesley), 105, 255.
Mosquito Coast, 310.
Mulgrave, Lord, opposes Reform, 131;
votes against the impeachment of Warren Hastings, 234, 235.
Muncaster, Lord, 473.
Münster, Treaty of (1648), 298.
Napier, Sir William, anecdote of, 272.
Napoleon Bonaparte, 305 and _n._, 306, 382.
National Debt, the, in 1780, 5;
growth of during the American War, 28, 321;
in 1783, 179;
the unfunded debt, 181;
reduced by the operation of the Sinking Fund, 195, 405.
“Nautilus,” H.M.S., voyage of, 435, 438.
Navigation Acts, the, 181, 254, 260, 261, 263.
Navy, the, reorganized by Pitt, 210, 211, 377, 381, 405, 567.
Necker, Jacques, desires the marriage of Pitt with his daughter, 140,
141;
on the National Debt of England and France, 179;
a friend of Reform, 324, 344;
his return to power, 405, 460, 462, 537, 542;
appeals to Pitt to sanction the export of flour, 543, 544.
Negapatam, ceded to Great Britain, 116, 136, 306, 383.
Nepean, Evan, Under-Secretary for Home Affairs, 436 _n._, 439.
Netherlands, Belgic. _See_ Belgic Provinces.
Netherlands, Dutch. _See_ United Provinces.
Nevis, ceded to Great Britain, 116, 121.
New South Wales, colonization of, 436–43;
French expedition forestalled by the English, 440.
Newton, Rev. John, 473.
New Zealand, flax growing in, 436, 437, 439.
Noel, Sir Gerald, 91.
Nolcken, Baron, Swedish ambassador in London, 593.
Nonconformists, position of, 213–15.
Nootka Sound dispute, the, 562–88.
Norris, Robert, his evidence on the Slave Trade, 456.
North, Colonel, 146, 214.
North, Frederick, Lord, his administration, 8, 9, 61, 70, 74;
his character, 78, 79;
praises Pitt’s maiden speech, 85;
his despair on hearing of Yorktown, 100;
defeated in the House, 102;
resigns, 103;
his alliance with Fox, 117;
speech on the peace, 120;
congratulates Pitt on his speech, 122;
the Coalition Ministry, 128;
opposes Pitt’s Reform proposals, 131;
dismissed from office, 148;
his dishonest finance, 180, 181;
opposes Pitt’s Reform Bill (1785), 202;
opposes repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, 214;
his Irish proposals (1778), 244;
anecdote of, 273.
Northington, Lord, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 129.
Northumberland, Duke of, 429.
Nova Scotia, settlement of American Loyalists in, 446.
Nystadt, Peace of, 526.
Oczakoff, fortress of, 490;
captured by the Russians, 494, 502, 503, 505;
question of restoring it, 585, 591, 597, 598, 611, 615, 622;
its value to Russia, 603–6.
Oginski, Count, Polish Minister at The Hague, his mission to London,
594, 596.
O’Hara, General, Commander at Gibraltar, and Prince Edward, 549 _n._
Opium monopoly, the, 144.
Orange, Prince of. _See_ William V.
Orange, Wilhelmina, Princess of, 308–10, 349, 351, 354, 359;
sets out from Nymeguento The Hague, 361;
stopped by the Free Corps and obliged to return, 362–4;
the King of Prussia demands reparation, 363–5, 370–2.
Orde, Thomas (afterwards Lord Bolton), Chief Secretary for Ireland,
155, 157, 209, 247, 248, 250–3, 257, 265, 266.
Orleans, Philippe Egalité, Duke of, 322;
his mission to London, 514, 547, 548.
Orwell Park, Gainsborough portraits at, 38;
Pitt’s books preserved there, 54 _n._, 94.
Ostend, proposal to hand it over to England, 513.
Ostermann, Russian Vice-Chancellor, 598, 626.
Oude, Hastings lets out East India Company’s troops to the Rajah of,
225;
the affair of the Begums of, 225, 239, 240.
Paley, William, 455.
Papendiek, Mrs., 407.
Parliament:
_House of Commons_, proposals for Reform, 7, 70, 71, 83, 84, 109,
130, 131, 178, 197–207;
dominated by the King, 9;
power of the Nobles over, 10, 11;
property qualification for members, 14;
apathy of, 69, 78;
corruption, 70, 71;
elections of 1780, 74, 75;
elections of 1784, 169–73;
growth in power of the Cabinet, 176;
disfranchisement of corrupt boroughs, 198;
resignation of Ministry after defeat unnecessary, 204, 205, 212;
elections of 1790, 466.
_House of Lords_, 14.
Passarowitz, Peace of (1718), 481, 525, 526.
Patriotic Fund, the, 288.
Patronage. _See_ “Influence.”
Payne, Jack, Comptroller of the Household to the Prince of Wales,
403, 408.
Pays Bas. _See_ Belgic Provinces.
Peerages, creation of, 11, 91;
the King refuses to grant any for the Coalition, 129, 137, 208;
Pitt’s creations, 209.
Peers, the, power of (1780), 10;
their numbers and character, 13, 14.
Pelham, Henry, reduction of tea-duty by (1745), 183.
Penal Settlements. _See_ Convict Settlements.
Perez, Captain, his voyage to Nootka Sound, 564.
Petty, Lord Henry, Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the Sinking Fund,
194.
Philanthropy, growth of, 22;
in France and England, 322, 456.
Phillip, Captain, Governor of Botany Bay, 440.
Pigot, Admiral, 403.
Pitt, Christopher, translator of Virgil, 36.
Pitt, Harriet, 46;
her marriage, 58;
her death, 289.
Pitt, John, 2nd Earl of Chatham. _See_ Chatham.
Pitt, Thomas, Governor of Madras, 36.
Pitt, Thomas, of Boccanoc (Lord Camelford), 70;
opposes Pitt’s reform proposals, 108;
suggested as Prime Minister, 126;
supports Pitt’s new proposals of reform, 131;
made Lord Camelford, 159.
Pitt, William. _See_ Chatham, Earl of.
Pitt, William, the younger, condition of affairs at the beginning of
his career, 1–33;
his reluctance in granting titles, 11;
typical of his age, 32, 33;
his birth and parentage, 34–8;
his devotion to his parents, 39;
correspondence with his mother, 39;
outshines his elder brother, 40;
designed for Parliament, 41;
his precarious health, 41, 42, 49;
his education, 42, 43;
early letters, 44, 45, 47;
his first poem, 46;
produces a play, 47, 48;
goes to Cambridge, 49, 50;
serious illness, 50;
his studies and life at Cambridge, 53–62;
malicious story of his classical tags, 54, 94;
interest in politics, 57;
his friends, 57, 58;
his shyness, 59, 90;
attends debates in Parliament, 59, 60, 64;
introduced to Fox, 60;
his endowments as an orator, 60;
death of his father, 61;
called to the Bar, 67;
attitude to Reform, 70, 71;
story of his discussion with Gibbon, 72, 73;
defeated at Cambridge, 74;
enters Parliament as member for Appleby, 75;
his maiden speech, 83–7;
speech on the public accounts, 87;
on the American War, 88, 89;
social life, 89–95;
at Goostree’s, 91–3;
gives up gambling, 26, 92, 93;
charm of his conversation, 93, 94;
his gaiety, 94;
his uprightness, 94;
speech after the disaster at Yorktown, 101;
bold declaration of his future position, 102;
refuses a subordinate post, 105;
supports the Rockingham Ministry, 105;
speeches on Parliamentary Reform, 106–10;
becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer, 111;
defends Shelburne against Fox, 112;
incurs a rebuke from the King, 114, 115;
endeavours to negotiate an alliance with Fox, 117;
great speech on the vote of censure, 120–3;
defeat of the Government, 123;
he declines to form a Ministry, 125–7;
resigns office, 128;
further proposals for Reform, 130, 131;
refuses overtures from the King, 134, 135;
speech on the treaties of peace, 136, 137;
journey to Reims, 137–9;
visits Paris, 139;
scheme for his marriage to Mlle. Necker, 140, 141;
opposition to the India Bill, 145, 146.
Accepts office as Prime Minister, 148;
difficulties of his position, 149, 154;
rupture with Temple, 152, 153;
relations with Shelburne, 155;
his first Cabinet, 156;
action with regard to the Clerkship of the Pells, 159;
defeated in the House, 160;
introduces his India Bill, 160;
on its rejection he refuses to resign, 163;
failure of negotiations for a union of parties, 164–6;
his critical position, 165;
growing popularity, 167;
receives the freedom of the City, 167;
assaulted outside Brooks’s Club, 167, 168;
dissolution of Parliament, 169;
elected for Cambridge University, 171;
his ungenerous conduct towards Fox over the Westminster election,
173, 254, 271, 272;
reasons for his victory, 175–7;
his relations to the Crown, 175, 176;
his financial measures, 179 _et seq._;
indebtedness to Adam Smith, 183, 184;
and to Shelburne, 184;
his budgets of 1784 and 1785, 186–8;
his proposals for a Sinking Fund, 188–95;
His relations with Price, 190–3;
accepts an amendment by Fox, 193;
his Reform Bill of 1785, 197–203;
defeated, 202;
reasons for shelving Reform, 203–6;
supports Stanhope’s Reform Bill, 206;
effect on him of his defeats, 207;
increased use of “influence,” 208, 209;
his care for the navy, 210, 377, 567;
proposals for fortifying Portsmouth and Plymouth, 211;
opposes repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, 214, 215;
introduces his second India Bill, 218–20;
his Amending Act of 1786, 221, 222;
greatness of his India Bills, 223;
interview with Hastings, 227;
assumes a neutral position towards him, 228–32;
his speech on the Benares affair, 232, 233;
defence of his action, 234–40;
anecdote of Adam Smith and, 241;
attitude to Irish Parliamentary Reform, 247–9;
his Irish Commercial Resolutions, 248–66;
speech on introducing the Resolutions, 253;
agitation against them, 255–7;
appoints a Committee of Council for Commerce, 257;
his critical position, 260;
introduces modified Propositions, 260, 261,
which are passed at Westminster, but dropped by the Irish
Government, 264;
his courage and magnanimity, 265, 266;
causes of failure, 266;
life at Wimbledon, 267–70, 279;
his shyness and lack of knowledge of men, 272, 274;
a historic romp, 272;
contrasted with Fox, 273, 295;
the real Pitt, 274;
his carelessness in correspondence, 275;
influenced by Dundas, 278, 279;
anecdotes of Dundas and, 279, 289;
his friendship with Addington, 284, 285;
visits to Brighthelmstone, 285;
his friendship with Steele and Rose, 285, 286;
buys Holwood Hill, 286, 287;
his financial difficulties, 287, 288;
death of his sister Harriet, 289, 290;
his connection with Cambridge University, 290, 291;
letter to Wilberforce on his temporary retirement, 291, 292;
his view of religion, 292;
strained relations with Wilberforce, 293;
their friendship revived, 294;
his relations with Bankes, 294;
his lack of geniality, 294.
Foreign policy (1784), 301–5;
his first diplomatic note, 302–4;
his Dutch policy, 305, 309–320, 354–60, 365–74, 377–81;
negotiations for a commercial treaty with France, 327–39, 347;
sends Eden to Paris, 330, 331, 333;
speech on the commercial treaty, 342, 343;
differences with Carmarthen, 357, 358, 360;
understanding with Prussia, 373–5;
triumph of his diplomacy, 380, 381;
alliance with the United Provinces (1788), 383;
alliance with Prussia, 384–90;
drafts the King’s letters to the Prince of Wales, 399, 400;
proposals for settling the Prince’s affairs, 401, 402;
dispute with the East India Company, 403, 404;
result of a debauch, 404;
the Budget of 1788, 404, 405;
the King’s illness, 409–26;
negotiations with the Prince of Wales, 412;
interview with the King, 412, 413;
prepares to resume his practice at the Bar, 413, 425, 430;
arguments on the Regency, 415–17;
his conduct to the Prince defended, 417–20;
his letter to the Prince, 420, 421;
carries his Regency Resolutions, 422;
accusations against him, 424–6;
interview with the King, 427;
confidence of the nation in him, 429, 430;
his share in the founding of Botany Bay, 435, 438–40;
his lack of Imperial imagination, 442, 443;
settles claims of American loyalists, 444, 445;
introduces the Canada Bill (1791), 449;
success of his Canadian policy, 452, 453;
urges Wilberforce to take up the cause of the slaves, 457, 458;
campaign against the Slave Trade, 459–62, 465–72, 474–9;
his relations with Thurlow, 464–6, 472;
disagreement with Wilberforce, 475, 477;
limits of his power, 478;
policy towards Russia and Austria (1787), 488–90;
the situation in the Baltic (1788), 493–5, 497, 501, 502;
personally directs foreign policy, 497, 566, 589, 590, 618;
opposition to Hertzberg’s schemes, 508–10, 516, 517;
the Revolution in Belgium, 511–16, 533–5;
efforts to secure the _status quo_ in Eastern Europe, 519, 520,
522, 523, 525–7, 530;
results of his policy, 535;
his attitude to the French Revolution, 537, 541–3, 548–53, 559;
forbids export of flour to France, 543–5;
contrasted with Burke, 559–61;
the Nootka Sound dispute, 565;
demands satisfaction, 566;
dealings with Miranda, 569;
denies Spanish claims, 569, 570;
subsidizes the Dutch, 572;
refuses arbitration, 574, 575;
on Elliot’s mission to Paris, 579, 580;
presses on naval preparations, 581;
ultimatum to Spain, 582;
Convention signed, 585;
results of his success usually underrated, 587, 588;
defied by Catharine II, 590, 592, 593, 598;
his Polish policy, 594–7, 599;
his desire for peace, 599, 600, 603–7;
ultimatum to Russia, 609, 610;
debates on his policy in Parliament, 610–13, 616;
disagreements in the Cabinet, 616, 618;
correspondence with Ewart, 616, 617;
resolves on compromise, 617, 618;
resignation of Leeds, 618;
his new proposals, 620, 621;
loss of prestige, 621;
failure of his Russian policy, 626, 631.
Place, Francis, 206.
Plymouth, Pitt’s proposals for strengthening the defences of, 203,
209, 211.
Pocket boroughs, 74, 75;
Pitt’s proposals for disfranchising and compensating, 198–203.
Poland, First Partition of, 299, 631;
Galicia to be ceded to, 387;
alliance with Russia, 485, 486;
treaty with Prussia, 505, 521, 522, 593, 594;
Hertzberg’s schemes regarding, 507, 508;
resentment against Prussia, 522, 594;
appeals to England, 522, 594;
offer of British alliance, 595, 596, 599;
proposed compact with the Sultan, 595, 596;
betrayed by Hertzberg, 597;
Second Partition of, 597;
value of her independence to England, 612;
Revolution in (1791), 620, 626, 627;
Prussian jealousy of, 628;
impending misfortunes of, 630, 631.
Poor relief, 15.
Porchester, Lord, attacks Pitt, 611.
Portes, Count de, his “Memoirs,” 372.
Port Jackson, settlement at, 440.
Portland, Duke of, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 105;
Prime Minister, 111, 127, 128;
opposes Pitt’s Reform proposals, 132;
his negotiations for union with Pitt, 164–6;
mentioned, 173, 228, 257 _n._, 333, 428, 447.
Portsmouth, Pitt’s proposals for strengthening the defences of, 203,
209, 211.
Portugal, Methuen treaty with, 23;
English relations with, 337, 342.
Postal system, the abuse of franking, 186, 187.
Potemkin, Prince, 480, 481, 486, 491, 505, 524, 525, 527, 530, 590,
591, 622;
his death, 626.
Potocki family, the, in Poland, 486.
Poynings Act, demand for rejection of, 105.
Pratt, Charles. _See_ Camden, Earl.
Pratt, John Jeffreys, afterwards Marquis Camden, 58, 90, 141, 285.
Press-gang, the, 567.
Pretyman, Dr. (afterwards Bishop Tomline), his “Life of Pitt,” 51 _et
seq._, 117, 152, 235, 284, 288, 411, 418, 584, 622.
Price, Dr. R., on national finance, quoted, 179, 180, 189;
question of Pitt’s indebtedness to him discussed, 190–3;
his sermon in the Old Jewry, 555.
Prussia, question of a British alliance, 312–14, 349, 352, 353, 364,
374, 375, 384;
proposes joint intervention with France at The Hague, 354, 363, 367;
invades Holland, 376, 488, 489;
capture of Amsterdam, 379;
policy in the Near East, 385–7;
the Triple Alliance, 389;
threatens Denmark, 497, 499;
treaty with Poland, 505, 521, 522, 593, 594;
Hertzberg’s policy, 506–10, 513;
desires Belgian independence, 511, 514–16;
anger against England, 516;
treaty with Turkey, 521, 529;
_entente_ with Austria, 523;
reception of British proposals for mediation, 525, 526;
result of the Congress of Reichenbach, 529, 530;
her Polish policy, 594–7, 600, 601;
duplicity of her policy, 601, 606, 607;
jealous of the revival of Poland, 628;
collapse of the British alliance, 629.
_See_ Frederick the Great and Frederick William II.
Puisaye, de, his settlement in Canada, 446, 447.
Pulteney, Daniel, on Pitt’s first Ministry, 158;
on his treatment of Fox, 173;
on the Sinking Fund, 191;
on Pitt’s Reform proposals, 200, 201;
his estimate of Pitt as a statesman, 207;
on Pitt’s Irish Resolutions, 257 _n._, 259, 271.
Pulteney, William, letter to Pitt on the Hastings affair, 237, 238;
on the Westminster election scrutiny, 271;
suggests arbitration in international affairs, 340;
on the financial position (1788), 405;
scheme for a convict settlement, 438;
deprecates export of flour to France, 543;
opposes the Army Estimates (1790), 550;
on the Convention with Spain, 586.
Putney Heath, Pitt’s house on, 265 _n._, 269, 270.
Quakers, the, their efforts to abolish slavery, 455, 457, 458.
Quebec Act, the (1774), 447, 448, 450.
Queensberry, Duke of, joins the Prince of Wales’s party, 415, 424.
Quesnay, François, 322.
Radcliffe, William, his power loom, 3;
his description of prosperity in Lancashire quoted, 30.
Ramsay, Rev. James, 457, 458.
Ranelagh, description of, 18, 19;
decline of its popularity, 20.
Rawdon, Lord. _See_ Moira, Earl of.
Rayneval, Comte de, French diplomatist, 325, 328–30, 334–6, 338.
Redern, Count, Prussian Minister in London, 608, 614.
Redesdale, Lord. _See_ Mitford, John.
Reichenbach Conference, 528–30;
Convention, 583 _n._, 589, 591, 592, 597, 614, 620.
Reis Effendi, Turkish Minister, 487.
Reform. _See_ Parliament.
Reform Associations, County, 21, 27, 68, 71, 169.
Reform, Economic, movement for, 68, 110, 113.
Regency Bill (1765), 410;
(1789) introduced, 423;
withdrawn, 426.
Regency question, the, 410, 413;
debates in Parliament, 415–20;
Pitt’s Resolutions carried, 422;
unreality of the debates, 423, 424;
pamphlets on the subject, 424, 425.
Reims, visit of Pitt to, 137–9.
Renunciation Act, Irish (1783), 245, 246.
Revolution of 1688, 539;
compared with the French Revolution, 554, 555.
Richmond, Duke of, advocates reform, 71, 72, 109;
Master-General of the Ordnance, 111, 112, 114, 116, 157, 546 _n._;
opposes Shelburne, 119;
his proposals for fortifying Portsmouth and Plymouth, 211, 212 _n._;
Memorandum on alliance with Austria, 319;
on the Dutch crisis, 359;
on the Slave Trade, 461, 477;
on Russian policy, 611, 616.
Rigby, Richard, Master of the Rolls in Ireland, anecdote of, 24.
Robespierre, 322, 348.
Robinson, Morris (afterwards Lord Rokeby), 90.
Robinson, “Perdita,” 393.
Rockingham, Marquis of, official chief of the Whigs, 80;
refuses to unite with Shelburne, 101;
his terms for accepting office, 103;
becomes Prime Minister, 104;
protests against Pitt’s inclusion in the Cabinet, 105;
his death, 110.
Rodney, Lord, his victory over De Grasse, 106.
Rohilla War, the, 225, 232, 238.
Rokeby, Lord. _See_ Robinson, Morris.
Rolle, Lord, 401, 568.
“Rolliad,” the, 263, 276, 280, 289, 401.
Romilly, Sir Samuel, quoted, 101, 107, 433.
Roode, Count de, his mission to London, 413, 514.
Rose, George, his friendship with Pitt, 139, 286;
Secretary to the Treasury, 157, 194, 259, 285, 286, 406, 407, 578
_n._, 579.
Rossbach, Battle of, 382.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, his “Contrat Social,” 2, 7, 26, 61, 322, 323,
537, 539, 540;
on British elections, 27;
story of the peasant and, 538, 539.
Royal Marriage Act (1772), 395.
Russell, Lord John, 466.
Russia, alliance with Austria, 299;
proposals for a British alliance, 315;
war with Turkey, 375, 487, 488, 490, 502, 505, 506, 590, 591;
joined by Austria, 384, 385, 491;
alliance with Poland, 485, 486;
failure of the harvest (1787), 486;
British policy towards her, 489, 605;
war with Sweden, 491, 493, 494, 502;
aided by Denmark, 501, 502;
financial corruption in, 505;
makes peace with Sweden, 532;
state of, in 1790, 591;
British ultimatum to, 609, 610;
successes against the Turks, 625;
peace with Turkey, 626;
alliance with Sweden, 628, 629.
_See_ Catharine II.
Rutland, Duke of, his friendship with Pitt, 56–8, 74;
Lord Privy Seal, 156;
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 156, 207, 208, 246, 247, 249–52, 337;
letters of Pitt to, 168, 201, 209, 257, 260, 265, 318.
Ryder, Dudley (afterwards Earl of Harrowby), 267, 269, 270, 586.
Sackville, Viscount (Lord G. Germain), 79, 100;
letter of Pitt to, 155;
declines office, 156.
St. Albans Tavern, negotiations at the, 164, 165.
St. Domingo, risings of slaves in, 467–9.
St. John, Lord, 58, 90.
St. Kitts, ceded to Great Britain, 116, 121.
St. Lucia, ceded to France, 115, 121.
St. Pierre, ceded to France, 116.
St. Priest, Comte de, French agent in Egypt, 327, 355.
St. Vincent, ceded to Great Britain, 116.
Salisbury, Countess of, at Westminster Election, 172.
Salm, Rhinegrave of, 356, 376.
Sandwich, Earl of, 79, 101, 428.
Sawbridge, Alderman, his motions in favour of Reform, 109, 178, 197;
opposes abolition of the Slave Trade, 463.
Saxe, Maréchal de, 307.
Sayer, James, caricature by, 146.
Scheldt, opening of the, 298, 311, 316.
Schliessen, General, 512.
Schönborn, Danish envoy in London, 496.
Scott, Major, agent of Hastings in Parliament, 228, 235, 544.
Scott, John. _See_ Eldon, Lord.
Schulenberg, Count, 609, 621 _n._
Seditious writings, royal proclamation against (1792), 472.
Ségur, Comte de, French War Minister, 373 _n._, 379;
French Ambassador at St. Petersburg, 484, 485.
Selim III, Sultan of Turkey, 502, 506;
fails to secure a compact with Poland, 595, 596.
Selwyn, George, on Pitt and Fox, 26;
on Pitt’s early speeches, 87, 89;
on “Goostree’s,” 91;
prophecies the ruin of Lord North’s Ministry, 101.
Senegal, ceded to France, 116.
Senegambia, ceded to Great Britain, 121.
Sevastopol, construction of a dockyard and navy at, 304, 481.
Sharp, Granville, 455, 473, 478;
founds the Abolitionist Society, 456, 458;
conference with Pitt, 460.
Sheffield, Lord, 257.
Shelburne, Earl of (afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne), on Economic
Reform, 69;
his character, 82, 83;
attack on the Government (1781), 83;
on the King’s skill in intrigue, 99;
proposes to Rockingham to unite their parties, 101;
position of his party, 103;
made intermediary between the King and Rockingham, 104;
Secretary of State, 105;
Prime Minister, 111;
attacked by Fox, 111, 112;
in favour of exchanging Gibraltar, 114;
difficulties of his Ministry, 115;
defeated in the Commons and resigns, 123;
advises the King to make Pitt Prime Minister, 125;
not included in Pitt’s Ministry, 155;
made Marquis of Lansdowne, 155 _n._;
his influence on Pitt, 184;
supports Hastings, 228;
in favour of a commercial treaty with France, 325.
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, supports Pitt’s reform proposals, 108;
resigns, 111;
denounces the peace, 120;
made Secretary to the Treasury, 129;
opposes Pitt’s proposal for a Sinking Fund, 192;
his speeches against Hastings, 225, 231, 240;
speech on the Irish Resolutions, 262–4;
espouses the cause of the Prince of Wales, 398, 401;
his conduct on the King’s illness, 408, 409, 417, 418;
assists in drawing up the Prince’s reply to Pitt’s letter, 421;
on the aims of the Prince of Wales, 428, 429;
opposes the Russian War, 613, 624.
Sheridan, Mrs., 421.
Shooting, licences for, 186.
Sierra Leone, settlement of liberated slaves in, 473.
Sinclair, Sir John, 191.
Sinking Fund, Pitt’s proposals for a, 188–95.
Sistova, Congress of, 591, 592, 600, 606, 620, 625.
Slaughter, Colonel, 396.
Slave Trade, the. _See_ Chap. XX;
English participation in, 9, 21;
the Abolitionist Society founded, 22, 458;
statistics, 456, 463, 474;
Privy Council inquiry, 459, 461, 462, 464, 465;
attitude of France and Spain, 460, 462;
disastrous results of liberating slaves in French colonies, 467,
468;
motions in Parliament (1788), 460–2,
(1789), 462–4,
(1790), 465,
(1791), 466, 467,
(1792), 469–71,
(1793), 472,
(1794), 474,
(1795–7), 475.
Smith, Major-General, M.P., 91, 403, 586.
Smith, Adam, his “Wealth of Nations,” 60, 182, 322, 323, 325;
his influence on Pitt exaggerated, 183, 184;
anecdote of Pitt and, 241;
advocates the Irish Union, 242.
Smith, Robert (“Bob”). _See_ Carrington, Lord.
Smuggling, prevalence of, 181–3.
South Africa, question of a convict settlement in, 435.
Spain, peace concluded with, 115, 116, 136;
the Nootka Sound dispute, _see_ Chap. XXV;
claims absolute sovereignty on the north-west coast of America,
565, 573;
her position in 1790, 568;
discontent in Spanish America against, 568, 569;
her claims denied by Great Britain, 569, 570, 572–5;
agrees to give satisfaction, 575;
British ultimatum, 582;
refuses French offer of help, 583;
outrage in the Gulf of Florida, 583;
treaty with Great Britain, 584, 585, 587, 588;
favours the Allies against Russia, 599, 600.
Sparry, Mrs., nurses Pitt at Cambridge, 51.
Spencer, Lord, 428.
Spielmann, Baron, Austrian envoy in Berlin, 528, 529.
Squires, privileges and powers of the, 14–16.
Staël, Mme. de, on Wilberforce’s conversation, 92;
project for her marriage with Pitt, 140, 141.
Stafford, Marquis of, 360, 616.
Stanhope, Earl (Lord Mahon), 109, 148, 154, 155;
his influence on Pitt, 184, 185;
his scheme for a Sinking Fund, 193, 194;
his Reform Bill rejected by the Lords, 206.
Stanhope, 5th Earl, his writings quoted, 85 _n._, 102, 110, 135 _n._,
152 _n._, 279 _n._, 389 _n._, 421 _n._, 587, 613.
Stanhope, Lady Hester, anecdote of, 272.
Stanislaus, King of Poland, 485, 486, 505, 627, 630.
Steele, Thomas, his friendship with Pitt, 91, 285, 286;
Secretary of the Treasury, 157, 267, 268, 612.
Stein, Colonel, 388.
Stephen, James, 473.
Stephenson, George, his steam-engine, 3.
Storer, Anthony Morris, M.P., 85, 585, 611 _n._, 614.
Stormont, Lord, President of the Council, 129, 132, 427, 428, 611.
Suffrage, universal, opposed by Pitt, 130, 131.
Suvóroff, Count, Russian General, 490, 506, 591.
Sveaborg, Swedish Navy at, 493, 494.
Sweden, compact with France, 301–4;
desires alliance with England, 385, 493;
war with Russia, 491, 493, 502, 530;
alliance with Turkey, 493;
mutiny of officers, 493, 494;
threatened by Denmark, 496, 497;
peace with Russia, 532.
_See_ Gustavus III.
Sydney, Lord (Thomas Townshend), Home Secretary, 111, 114, 156, 250,
428;
suggests a convict settlement at Botany Bay, 437–41;
his share in the Canada Bill, 449, 452;
resigns, 449, 464, 477, 478;
opposes bill for regulating transport of slaves, 461.
Sydney, foundation of the settlement at, 440, 443.
Talleyrand, Périgord Charles Maurice de, his meeting with Pitt, 139.
Tarleton, Colonel, 469.
Taxes, Board for, instituted by Pitt, 188.
Tea, huge duty on, 182;
increased use of, due to smuggling, 182;
duty on, reduced by Pitt, 184, 185.
Telegul, Lake, 619.
Temesvar, Banat of, 481, 491.
Temple, George Grenville, Earl (afterwards Marquis of Buckingham),
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 111;
suggested as Prime Minister, 126;
resigns, 129;
sounded by the King, 134;
commends Pitt for declining Thurlow’s overtures, 135;
aids the King to secure rejection of the India Bill, 147, 148;
made Privy Seal, 148;
resigns office, 152;
rupture with Pitt, 153;
made Marquis of Buckingham, 154, 188, 253, 265, 341, 404, 411;
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 424, 428, 429.
Temple, Richard Grenville, Earl, letter from Pitt to, 47;
letter to Pitt, 66.
Test Act, the, proposed repeal of, 212, 214;
the proposal rejected, 215;
repealed in Ireland, 244, 245.
Thatched House Tavern, 109.
Thellusson, Peter, the banker, 138.
Thorn, Polish district and fortress, question of its cession to
Prussia, 387, 507, 511 _n._, 521 _n._, 522, 526, 529, 594, 596,
597, 599, 601, 606, 607, 613, 614.
Thornton, Henry, 473.
Thulemeyer, Prussian envoy at The Hague, 354, 364, 365;
recalled, 375.
Thurlow, Lord, Lord Chancellor, 79;
negotiates with Rockingham, 103;
retained as Chancellor, 104;
opposes Reform, 110;
his advice to the King on retirement to Hanover, 127;
his overtures to Pitt on the question of Reform, 134;
advice to the King on the India Bill, 147;
Lord Chancellor in Pitt’s Ministry, 156, 359, 611, 616;
his character, 156, 157;
supports Hastings, 228, 235;
anecdote of, 289;
his treachery on the King’s illness, 408–10;
retraces his steps, 420;
interview with the King, 426;
attitude on the Slavery question, 461, 462, 464, 471, 472, 474;
the King’s partiality to him, 464, 465;
relations with Pitt, 464–6, 472;
dismissed, 472, 478.
Thynne, Henry, made Lord Carteret, 159.
Tierney, George, duel with Pitt, 269.
Tippoo Sahib, 221, 230, 383, 610.
Tobago, ceded to France, 115, 121.
Tomline, Bishop. _See_ Pretyman, Dr.
Tordesillas, treaty of (1494), 563.
Tott, M., 482.
Toussaint l’Ouverture, 479.
Townshend, John, Lord, letter from Pitt to, 65;
Master of the Ordnance, 79;
defeated at Cambridge, 171.
Townshend, Thomas. _See_ Sydney, Lord.
Trade, Board of, abolished, 257.
Transportation, offences punished by, 433, 434.
Travancore, Rajah of, 610.
Trincomalee, ceded to Holland, 116, 136;
offered to France, 356, 370.
Triple Alliance, the (1788), 384–9;
defects of, 517;
reality of, 582, 589;
collapse of, 627, 629.
Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques, 322, 324.
Turkey, schemes of Catharine II with regard to, 304, 353, 481–3;
war with Russia, 375, 384, 385, 487, 490, 502, 505, 590, 591, 620,
621, 625;
Austria declares war on, 491;
alliance with Sweden, 493;
Prussian schemes at her expense, 505–10;
treaty with Prussia, 521, 529;
deserted by Sweden, 532;
peace with Austria, 625;
peace with Russia, 626.
Turner, Dr., at Cambridge, 52.
Tuscany, Grand Duke of, 319 _n._
_See_ Leopold II.
United Empire Loyalists. _See_ Loyalists.
United Provinces, the, peace concluded with, 115, 116, 136, 306;
feuds between the Patriots and the Stadholder, 305, 306, 349–51,
355, 359–61, 372;
constitution of, 307, 308;
alliance with France, 316, 317, 332;
joint action with the French in East Indies, 317 and _n._, 356;
excesses of the Free Corps, 351, 355, 361, 362, 369, 371, 372, 374,
376, 380, 382;
invaded by the Prussians, 376;
surrender of Amsterdam, 379;
destruction of French influence in, 379–82;
treaty with England (1788), 383;
joins the Triple Alliance, 389;
subsidized by Pitt, 572;
reluctant to coerce Russia, 602, 606, 610.
United States, the, Shelburne Ministry offer to recognize their
independence, 113;
peace concluded, 114;
prohibit the importation of convicts, 434;
treatment of the Loyalists after the war, 444, 446.
Utrecht, Province and City of, 350, 355, 361, 376.
Utrecht, Treaty of (1713), 21, 326, 329, 455, 573.
Vancouver Island, 562, 571, 588.
Van der Noot, proposes a Belgian Republic, 512, 519 _n._
Van der Spiegel, Grand Pensionary of the United Provinces, 383.
Varennes incident, its effect in Eastern Europe, 625, 626, 628.
Venezuela, 569.
Vérac, Marquis de, French envoy at The Hague, 354, 370;
recalled, 371, 372, 373 _n._, 376, 379.
Vergennes, Comte de, French Foreign Minister, his American policy,
113, 116;
his hostility to England, 310;
his success in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, 316, 317;
his character and policy, 324;
negotiates the commercial treaty with England, 325, 326, 328–30,
332, 333, 338, 341, 343–5, 347;
deeper schemes, 344, 356, 482;
his death, 345.
Verney, Earl, defeated at the polls, 171.
Versailles, Treaty of (1783), 116, 136, 139, 296, 325, 339, 340, 443.
Vienna, Treaties of, 305.
Voltaire, 322, 323, 539.
Volunteer Movement, 106.
Volunteers, Irish, 244–7.
Vonck, Francis, 512.
Vorontzoff, Count, Russian Ambassador in London, 304 _n._, 312, 315,
489, 504, 560, 623, 624.
Wales, George, Prince of (afterwards George IV), anecdote of, 24;
his drunken orgies, 25;
his gambling, 26;
question of his allowance settled, 132, 133;
supports Fox in the election of 1784, 173, 393;
his early career, 392, 393;
friendship with Fox, 393, 395;
quarrel with the King, 393–402;
his debts and extravagance, 394, 395, 398, 400, 402, 403 _n._;
secret marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert, 394–401;
reconciliation with the King, 402;
renewed excesses with the Duke of York, 402, 403;
political activity against Pitt, 402–4;
his behaviour on the King’s illness, 407–10, 412;
negotiations with Pitt, 412, 418–20;
answer to Pitt’s letter, 421, 504;
consents to act as Regent, 422;
accessions to his party, 424;
interview with the King on his recovery, 426, 427;
aims of his followers, 428, 429;
his explanations to the King, 430.
Walfisch Bay, 435.
Wallachia, 385, 387, 481, 505, 507, 511, 525, 625.
Walpole, Sir Edward, death of, 159.
Walpole, Horace, on the condition of England, 6, 19, 21, 25, 27;
praises Pitt’s early speeches, 87, 88, 101;
on Lord Montagu, 104;
on Pitt’s proposal for Reform, 130 and _n._;
on the English character, 142;
on Pitt’s character, 147, 275;
on the elections of 1784, 171;
quoted, 133, 141, 169.
Walpole, Sir Robert, his plan for a Sinking Fund, 188, 189.
Warren, Dr., physician to the King, 410, 415, 420, 421, 426.
Warsaw, Treaty of (1790), 521.
Watson, Alderman, 586.
Watson, Bishop, his “Reminiscences,” 215.
Watt, James, his inventions, 2, 3, 28, 30, 31.
Wedderburn, Alexander. _See_ Loughborough, Lord.
Wedgwood, Josiah, head of the “Great Chamber of Manufacturers,” 257,
259, 333.
Welzie’s Club, 403.
Werela, Peace of (1790), 532.
Wesley, John, 455;
his “Thoughts upon Slavery,” 456.
Wesleyan Revival, the, 322.
Westcote, Lord, 88.
West India merchants, oppose Pitt’s Irish Resolutions, 255, 260.
West Indies, the, gains and losses in, at the Peace of Versailles,
115, 116, 121;
slavery in, 454, 457, 459, 465–7, 477;
risings of slaves in, 467–9;
losses of troops in the war in, 479.
Westminster Election of 1784, 172, 173;
the scrutiny, 254, 257 _n._, 259, 271, 272.
Westmorland, Earl of, 58;
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 265.
Whigs, the, two groups in 1780, 80–2.
Whitbread, Samuel, 474, 613, 614.
Whitworth, Charles, Earl, British Ambassador at St. Petersburg, 598,
599, 606, 609, 623, 624.
Widdin, the Pacha of, 506.
Wilberforce, William, 22;
on Lady Chatham, 38;
his friendship with Pitt, 58;
praises his oratory, 87;
his character, 91–3;
goes with Pitt to France, 137;
elected member for York, 170;
speaks in favour of Reform, 201, 206;
Pitt’s letters to, quoted, 188, 201, 286, 287, 291, 292;
supports Pitt’s attitude in the Hastings affair, 230, 231, 237;
Pitt with him at Wimbledon, 267–9, 279;
letter to Pitt on the Irish Propositions, 282, 283;
his religious convictions and temporary retirement, 291, 292;
devotes himself to the cause of the slaves, 455, 457, 458;
joins the Abolitionist Society, 458;
his illness, 460;
campaign against the Slave Trade, 462, 465–8, 471–8;
disagreement with Pitt, 457, 477;
his Diary quoted, 130, 138, 139, 154, 267, 269, 274, 559;
mentioned, 208, 322, 544.
Wilbraham, R., his speech in defence of Hastings, 232.
Wilkes affair, the, 10, 26, 167.
Wilkes, John, welcomes Pitt to the City, 167.
William, Prince, his return from the West Indies, 549.
William V, Prince of Orange, Stadholder of the United Provinces, 306,
308, 309, 350, 351, 355, 359–61, 371, 382, 383.
Willis, Rev. Dr. Francis, his reports on the King’s illness, 414,
415, 420, 421, 426.
Wilson, Rev. Edward, Pitt’s tutor, 41, 42, 49, 51, 53.
Wimbledon, Lauriston House, 267–70.
Windham, William, 86, 91;
favours the settlement of French royalists in Canada, 447;
opposes abolition of slavery, 477;
on the Nootka Sound dispute, 586.
Window tax, the (1784), 184, 185.
Woodfall, Henry, 264.
Wordsworth, William, his lines on Cambridge quoted, 56;
his tour in France, 555.
Woronzow, Count. _See_ Vorontzoff.
Wraxall, Sir Nathaniel, quoted, 82, 100, 145, 156, 163, 171, 201,
211, 214, 232, 234, 236, 262, 271, 272, 273, 276, 333, 404,
462, 624.
Wray, Sir Cecil, 109, 121 _n._;
defeated at Westminster, 172, 173.
Wyvill, Rev. Christopher, 169, 199, 201, 205, 429;
Pitt’s letter to him on Reform, 197, 198.
Yonge, Sir George, Secretary at War, 157, 158.
York, the election at (1784), 169, 170.
York, Frederick, Duke of, 312, 396;
his home-coming, 402;
excesses with the Prince of Wales, 402, 403, 406, 407, 427;
speech on the Regency question, 419, 420;
interview with the King, 426, 427;
negotiations for his marriage, 629, 630.
Yorke, Charles, 290.
Yorktown, surrender of Cornwallis at, 100, 101.
Young, Arthur, his praise of English landowners, 32;
on the use of tea, 182;
his “Travels in France,” quoted, 346, 538, 541.
Young, Admiral Sir George, his scheme for colonizing Botany Bay,
436–9, 441.
Young, Sir William, epigram on Burke, 416.
Zealand, Province of, 350, 368.
[Illustration]
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Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
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were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
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Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.
Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of the pages that referenced them,
have been collected, sequentially renumbered, and placed just before
the Index.
The Index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
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The Errata on pages 157 and 267 have been corrected in this eBook.
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