William Pitt and the Great War by John Holland Rose (e book reader for pc .TXT) 📖

James Ryan, a wealthy Dublin merchant,

in the autumn of 1804, both Lord Fingall and Counsellor Scully

deprecated a petition to Parliament as alike useless and embarrassing.

Scully urged that they must conciliate one whose "opinions had literally

proved of great weight in the Catholic cause.... The Catholics owe him

[Pitt] respect for his enlarged and manly conceptions of the necessity

of relieving them, and the dignified energy with which he publicly

expressed those conceptions." A Committee was chosen to consider the

matter and communicate with Pitt. It included Fingall, Sir Thomas

French, Scully, and others. At the third meeting at Ryan's house, on

17th November, Keogh sharply blamed Fingall for opposing the petition,

and commented adversely on the silence of Pitt. Scully inferred from it

"that he is favourably disposed, but in some way, to them unknown, not

in a situation in which he can freely act," or even explain his

reticence; but no Catholic wished to embarrass him.[705] Nevertheless,

the petition was resolved on; and it is clear that Fox encouraged the

petitioners rather from the hope of embarrassing Pitt than of carrying

Catholic Emancipation.[706]

 

In March 1805 Scully came to London, and saw Fox, Nepean, and Grey. Pitt

received him and others of the Irish deputation at Downing Street on the

12th. Scully noted in his diary: "He [Pitt] wore dirty boots and

odd-fashioned, lank leather breeches, but otherwise well dressed and

cleanly, his hair powdered, etc. He was very courteous and cordial in

words and looks, but his carriage was stiff and strait, perhaps

naturally so. His face cold and harsh, rather selfish, but acute and

sensible. We took our seats after much reciprocal ceremony." Pitt

declined Fingall's request that he should present the Catholic petition,

though he admitted that the measure would be most salutary whenever the

proper time would arrive; but he added with a smile that he could not

tell when that would be. The deputation failed to move him from this

position, and thereafter committed its cause to the Opposition.[707]

Despite excellent speeches by Fox and Grey, and by Grenville and Holland

in the Lords, the motions for Catholic Emancipation were rejected by

large majorities. The speech of Pitt on 14th May, to which reference has

already been made, naturally lacked energy and fire; he opposed Fox's

motion solely on the ground of present expediency.[708]

 

The worst trial of the session was the impeachment of his old friend,

Lord Melville. As Treasurer of the Navy in Pitt's former Administration,

he had been guilty of a serious irregularity in not preventing Deputy

Treasurer Trotter from using the sum of £10,000 for private speculation.

Suspicions having been aroused on this and other grounds, a Commission

was appointed to sift the matter to the bottom. The tenth Report dealing

with these charges came out on 17th or 18th March; and Wilberforce, who

then chanced to be with Pitt, noted how eagerly, without waiting to cut

open the pages, he sought to tear out the secret. It proved to be highly

unfavourable to Melville. In vain did Wilberforce and Bankes seek to

persuade Pitt to adopt a judicial attitude on this question. Though his

friendship with Melville had cooled, yet it was still strong, and he

finally agreed with Lord Sidmouth to press for a committee of inquiry.

Only so could he count on the support of the Addingtonians. On 8th

April, then, he resolutely defended Melville against the aspersions of

Whitbread, maintaining that the evidence before the Commission was far

from conclusive, and moving that a select Committee of the House should

make further investigations.

 

The debate was long and stormy. Petty, Tierney, George Ponsonby, and Fox

censured Melville severely. Canning with his wonted brilliance,

Castlereagh with the usual laboured infelicity, sought to strengthen the

defence; but it had almost collapsed when, about 4 a.m. of 9th April,

Wilberforce arose. At once Pitt bent forward and sent an eager glance

down the Treasury bench at his old friend; for the verdict of a

conscientious and independent member at such a time is decisive.

Speaking with the calm of deep conviction, the member for Yorkshire

declared against Melville, whereupon Pitt sank back with signs of deep

pain. The division showed 216 for and 216 against the motion of censure.

The Speaker, Abbott, turned deathly white, and after a long and trying

pause gave the casting vote against the Government. Then the pent up

feelings burst forth. The groups of the Opposition united in yells of

triumph; one member gave the "view holloa," and others shouted to Pitt

to resign. He meanwhile pressed forward his hat to hide the tears which

stole down his cheeks. Fitzharris, son of Lord Malmesbury, and a few

devoted friends formed a phalanx to screen him from the insolent stare

of Colonel Wardle and others who were crowding round the exit to see

"how Billy Pitt looked after it"; and he was helped out of the House in

a half unconscious state. The blow told severely on a frame already

enfeebled by overwork and worry.[709]

 

Whitbread's further motion for impeachment was rejected (11th June), but

a similar motion succeeded a fortnight later. Public opinion, however,

soon began to veer round and pronounce the conduct of the Opposition

rancorous. Melville's relative, Sir Charles Middleton, in a letter to

Wilberforce, denounced it as sheer persecution, seeing that the nation

had suffered no loss, and Melville had served it many years with

indefatigable zeal. As for Melville, he retired to his Highland seat,

"Dunira," and in the last letter which he wrote to Pitt, dated 11th

November 1805, expressed gratitude for Pitt's recent message that his

energy at the Admiralty had largely contributed to the triumph at

Trafalgar. Melville's feelings further appeared in the postscript, that

Nelson's death was "enviable beyond expression," as placing "his fair

fame beyond the reach of caprice, envy, or malevolence."[710] Pitt did

not live on to see the vindication of his old friend. On 12th June 1806,

after a trial of twelve days in Westminster Hall, the Peers acquitted

Melville on all the ten counts, the prosecution failing to prove that he

had benefited by Trotter's irregular use of the sum of £10,000. It is

worth noting that Whitbread in his final attack declared his belief that

Pitt in similar circumstances would have died rather than connive at

such an irregularity.[711] This statement may be set against the Bacchic

outburst of Creevey, after the hostile vote in Parliament, that Pitt had

betrayed Melville in order to save himself from ruin.[712]

 

Pitt, seconded in this by Grenville, urged the appointment of Middleton,

whose sagacity and long experience at the Admiralty had of late

furnished the First Lord with invaluable counsel. True, he was eighty

years of age, but neither had his frame lost vigour nor his mind

alertness. Seeing that his reputation as a naval expert was unequalled,

Pitt little expected to encounter the stiff opposition of Lords Sidmouth

and Buckinghamshire to the appointment, which they designed for

Buckinghamshire, Hawkesbury, or Charles Yorke. The King, too, probably

influenced by Sidmouth, expressed his disapproval of Middleton,

preferring those just named, or Castlereagh, or even Chatham. In a

matter which concerned the safety of the nation Pitt was inexorable,

facing for several days the threats of resignation of his two colleagues

and the disapproval of the King. Finally he carried his point, the two

lords being pacified by the assurance that Middleton's appointment would

be temporary. The King also consented to raise him to the peerage as

Lord Barham, adding, however, the proviso that he should attend the

Cabinet only during the discussion of naval affairs. In this grudging

way did the Monarch and Sidmouth permit Middleton to reap the reward of

life-long service and the nation to benefit by his unique experience.

Only of late has the work done by Barham during the Trafalgar campaign

been duly set forth; and it is therefore possible now to estimate the

service rendered by Pitt in insisting on his appointment even at the

risk of the secession of the Addingtonian group.[713]

 

Before referring to naval affairs, we must glance at the efforts of Pitt

to frame a Coalition of the Powers against France. In the middle of

January 1805 he had important interviews with Novossiltzoff, the envoy

whom the Czar Alexander had despatched to London on an important

mission. For this ardent young reformer Alexander had drawn up secret

instructions which the curious may read in the Memoirs of his Minister,

Czartoryski.[714] They illustrate the mingling of sentimentality and

statecraft, of viewiness and ambition, which accounts for the strange

oscillations of Muscovite policy between altruistic philosophy and

brutal self-seeking. At present the Russian Janus turned his modern face

westwards. Alexander insisted on the need of tearing from France the

mask of liberty which she had so long and so profitably worn. Against

the naturalism of Rousseau, which supplied Napoleon with excellent

reasons for every annexation, Alexander resolved to appeal to historical

rights and the Balance of Power. Yet he also resolved to uphold the

rights of all the peoples concerned. They must be reconciled to their

rulers so as to harmonize the claims of legitimacy and liberty. Thus,

the King of Sardinia, when restored to his throne at Turin, was to be

induced to grant a Constitution. The Germanic System was to be rescued

from chaos by the grant of free federal institutions. The independence

of the Italian, Helvetic, and Dutch Republics was a matter of urgency,

those States being also strengthened against French aggressions.

Finally, Russia and England were, if possible, to secure the friendship

of Turkey.

 

With these aims Pitt declared his entire concurrence, a just and

lasting peace being the first of British interests. He developed these

notions in a remarkable document of date 19th January 1805. We may be

sure that it is his; for, an accident having befallen the Earl of

Harrowby at the close of 1804, Lord Mulgrave took his place at the

Foreign Office, and a new comer would not have ventured to impose his

own views as to the future of Europe. Pitt now recurred to his plans of

the year 1798 for assuring the repose of the Continent. In brief, they

were the aggrandisement of Austria in Northern Italy and of Prussia in

the Low Countries so as to form barriers against France. The Italian

Republic must therefore be divided between the Hapsburgs and the King of

Sardinia, the latter also absorbing the Genoese Republic, which had

forfeited all claim to consideration. Pitt did not enter into details

respecting Belgium; but probably he intended to offer it to Prussia, in

order to still her cravings for Hanover. Such was his proposal to the

Court of Berlin in October 1805.[715] Conscious, perhaps, that the

present plans were not consonant with the benevolent idealism of Russian

policy, which, however, stole sidelong glances at Constantinople, Pitt

declared that only by these arrangements could the peace of Europe be

secured. They were therefore "not repugnant to the most sacred

principles of justice and public morality." In order further to curb the

aggressions of Napoleon, the Great Powers were mutually to guarantee

their possessions, thus laying the foundation of a system of public

right.[716]

 

This scheme clearly foreshadows the system of alliances and compromises

carried out by Castlereagh in the Treaty of Chaumont nine years later.

Pitt also assented to the Czar's proposal that the final settlement

should be guaranteed by international agreements forming a basis for the

new European polity, a suggestion in which lies the germ of the Holy

Alliance. It would be absurd to hold Pitt responsible for the strange

and unforeseen developments of the years 1815-25. But it is to be

regretted that fear of Napoleon should have obliterated his earlier aim

of forming a defensive league of the weaker States. His cure for the

evils of French domination was scarcely better than the evils

themselves. The installation of the Hapsburgs at Venice and Milan, of

Victor Emmanuel I at Genoa, of Frederick William of Prussia at

Brussels, could not permanently improve the lot of the Italian and

Belgian peoples. So soon as we formulate the question we see that, as in

1798, Pitt left their welfare out of count. He aimed merely at piling up

barriers against France, and trusted to some vague arrangement with the

Czar for safeguarding the political rights of the bartered peoples.

 

Pitt's reliance on the statics of statecraft rather than on the dynamics

of nationality tells against the credibility of the oft-repeated story

that he prophesied the liberation of Europe by the enthusiasm and

efforts of the Spaniards. Wellington afterwards told the Spanish

general, Alava, that Pitt, on hearing of the disaster of Ulm, made this

prophecy at a dinner party at which he (then Sir Arthur Wellesley) was

present. Difficulties of time and place militate against the anecdote,

which, moreover, is out of harmony with the sentiments expressed in

Pitt's speeches, letters, and despatches.[717] Further, his experience

of Spain was such as to inspire him with deep distrust; and, finally,

the cast of his mind was so far objective as to forbid the indulgence of

speculations on