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

A

chill caught in drenching rain developed into the former mental malady.

Thus the nation was for a time kingless, leaderless, and open to a

deadly thrust from Boulogne. For a short time his life was in danger,

and all the troubles of a Regency loomed ahead. The Prince of Wales

having ventured on the compromising prophecy that the illness "_must_

last several months," Pitt quoted to his informant, Malmesbury, the

damning line

 

    Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.

 

In truth, there now began a series of intrigues, in which the Prince,

Fox, and the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire played the leading parts,

for assuring a Regency and the formation of a Fox Administration. While

England needed to keep her gaze on Boulogne, the intriguers thought only

of the death or lunacy of the King, the accession of the Prince and the

apportionment of the spoils of office. Sheridan on this occasion played

his own game and for this was heartily cursed by the expectant

Creevey.[668]

 

In view of these last complications and the prospect of an invasion,

Pitt revised his former judgement, and informed Malmesbury that, while

declining the offers of the Grenvilles to help to overthrow Addington,

he would not refuse to take office if for any reason Ministers resigned.

On that day (19th February) Melville wrote to him from Melville Castle

that the outlook was full of horror, and everything depended on the

formation of a steady and permanent Government with which foreign

nations could treat. For this reason he (Melville) urged that the King

should be relieved of his executive duties, which it was sheer cruelty

to exact from him.[669] Pitt's answer to this daring proposal is not

known; but later, on 29th March, in answer to further overtures from

Melville, he stated that the King's illness was less serious than was

reported by the Earl of Moira, the _confidante_ of the Prince of Wales;

and that while it lasted he doubted the propriety of taking any steps

to overturn the Ministry.[670] To this scrupulousness Melville was a

stranger, and on 4th April again urged him to form a compact opposition

for the overthrow of Addington, and promised him the votes of at least

twenty-six Scottish members (out of forty-five) for any such

effort.[671]

 

Meanwhile the King recovered but slowly. The nervous, excited, irritable

symptoms showed little abatement; and in the third week in March he fell

into a fit of anger of such violence that he had to be strapped to his

bed. Even more threatening was the military situation. Yorke, early in

March, proposed a Volunteer Consolidation Bill, which met with general

derision. As the state of the Navy was also unsatisfactory, Pitt freely

criticized Ministers, especially St. Vincent; and, on one occasion, when

Addington showed boyish petulance, he met with a serene and courteous

answer. Tierney, Treasurer of the Navy, attacked Pitt coarsely;

Sheridan, with his usual wit and brilliance; but neither coarseness nor

eloquence could rehabilitate that Ministry. The urgency of the crisis

appears in the following letter written by Pitt at Walmer Castle to some

person unknown:

 

                                                _April 11, 1804._

 

    ... The experience of the last summer and the discussions of

    this session confirm me in the opinion that while the Government

    remains in its present shape and under its present leader,

    nothing efficient can be expected either to originate with them

    or to be fairly adopted and effectually executed. With this

    persuasion, and thinking that a system of more energy and

    decision is indispensable with a view to the immediate crisis

    and the many difficulties he may have to encounter in the course

    of the present contest, I mean to take an early opportunity of

    avowing and acting on these sentiments more explicitly and

    decidedly than I have hitherto done; and I shall endeavour to

    give effect to my opinion by the support of all the friends whom

    I can collect. My object will be to press to the utmost those

    points which I think essential to the public defence, and at the

    same time in doing so to make it, if I can, impossible for the

    present Government to maintain itself. In this object I have

    every reason to believe that I shall have the fullest

    concurrence of all those with whom I have the most differed on

    former occasions and with whom possibly I may as little agree in

    future. With their number added to my own more immediate

    friends, and to the few who have acted with Ld Grenville and

    Windham, I am persuaded that our division on any favourable

    question will probably be such as would be sufficient to shake a

    much stronger Government than the present....[672]

 

On the same day he promised Melville to return to town in the middle of

April, and to make the "principal push" against Addington on 23rd April,

on the subject of Yorke's Bill for suspending the completion of the Army

Reserve. If they failed, he would return to Walmer for another kind of

contest. The joint assault by Fox and Pitt against the Ministry on 23rd

April produced a great sensation, the speech of Pitt being remarkable

for its suppressed sarcasm and thinly veiled charges of inefficiency. As

a call to arms, it stands without a rival. Ministers were utterly beaten

in argument, and escaped defeat only by thirty-seven votes. Addington

became alarmed, and advised the King, who was now convalescent, to

instruct the Lord Chancellor, Eldon, to confer with Pitt, a fact which

refutes the charges of Brougham and Dean Pellew against Eldon.

 

Finally the King allowed Pitt to make proposals concerning a new

Ministry. Pitt did so fully and courteously in a paper which George III

forthwith described to Eldon as containing "many empty words and little

information." To Pitt himself the King, on 5th May, expressed his deep

regret that he had taken such a dislike to Mr. Addington, after the

praiseworthy services of the latter to our glorious Constitution in

Church and State. He could never forget the wound which Pitt proposed to

deal it, and "the indelicacy (not to call it worse) of wanting His

Majesty to forego his solemn Coronation Oath." He therefore required

Pitt to give a solemn pledge not to propose the least alteration in the

Test Act. As to a proposal to admit Fox to the Cabinet, the King

expressed "his astonishment that Mr. Pitt should one moment harbour the

thought of bringing such a man before his Royal notice." References to

the "wild ideas" of Burke, and to Grenville being guided by obstinacy,

"his usual director," filled up the interstices of this strange

composition.[673] Evidently the enfeebled brain of George could form no

notion of the national danger. While Pitt thought only of the safety of

England, the King's thoughts continued to gyrate angrily around the Test

Act, the Coronation Oath, and the iniquities of Fox.

 

It was therefore with grave apprehension that on 7th May Pitt went to

Buckingham House for attendance upon the King, the first for nearly

three and a quarter years. He expected an outburst of rage when he

mentioned the chief subject at issue, namely the inclusion of Fox and

the Grenvilles in the future Administration. The King, however, kept

surprising control over his feelings, behaved graciously to Pitt,

tactfully waived aside smaller questions that he disliked, even

consented to admit the Grenvilles, but for ever barred the way to the

return of Fox. The utmost that he would hear was the employment of Fox

as an ambassador. Once again, then, the royal convalescent outwitted

Pitt. "Never," said Pitt to Eldon, "in any conversation I have had with

him in my life has he so baffled me." Fox being excluded by the King,

there was scant hope of bringing in his new allies, the Grenvilles and

Windham. Pitt broached the matter to Lord Grenville on 7th May, and

received on the morrow a friendly but firm refusal. The following

sentences are noteworthy: "We rest our determination solely on our

strong sense of the impropriety of our becoming parties to a system of

Government which is to be formed at such a moment as the present on a

principle of exclusion.... We see no hope of any effectual remedy for

those mischiefs but by uniting in the public service as large a

proportion as possible of the weight, talents, and character to be found

in public men of all descriptions and without any exception."

 

The refusal of Grenville to join Pitt has often been ascribed to

jealousy of Pitt, and the latter is reported to have said that he would

teach that proud man that he could do without him. The sentiment is

alien to the tolerant nature of Pitt,[674] who must have respected his

cousin's decision, based as it was on a determination to break down the

bigoted resolve of the King. But Grenville's conduct punished Pitt far

more severely than the King. For while George in his feeble, irritable

condition thought only about the Test Act and Fox, Pitt was intent on

forming a truly national Administration, including Fox, Fitzwilliam, and

Melville as Secretaries of State, with Spencer at the Admiralty,

Grenville as Lord President, and Windham as Chancellor of the Duchy of

Lancaster.[675]

 

The actual result was far inferior. Fox, Fitzwilliam, Spencer,

Grenville, and Windham being ruled out by the King's action and

Grenville's resolve, the Cabinet was formed as follows: Pitt, First Lord

of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer; Harrowby, Foreign

Secretary; Hawkesbury, Home Secretary; Camden, Secretary at War and for

the Colonies; Portland, Lord President; Eldon, Lord Chancellor;

Westmorland, Privy Seal; Melville, Admiralty; Chatham, Master of

Ordnance; Mulgrave, Duchy of Lancaster; Castlereagh, President of the

India Board; the Duke of Montrose, President of the Board of Trade. Of

these twelve Ministers, six had been with Addington, namely, Hawkesbury

(though at the Foreign Office, which he unwillingly vacated), Portland,

Eldon, Westmorland, Chatham, and Castlereagh.[676] Pitt dispensed with

the services of Addington, St. Vincent, and Pelham. Of non-Cabinet

appointments, the chief were those of the Earl of Hardwicke as Lord

Lieutenant of Ireland; Sir Evan Nepean, Irish Secretary; William Dundas,

War Office; Canning, Treasury of the Navy, in place of Tierney, who

declined to serve with Pitt; Lord Charles Somerset and George Rose,

Joint Paymasters of the Forces; and Perceval, Attorney-General. Canning

and Rose were dissatisfied with their appointments, the latter writing

to Bishop Tomline in deep chagrin at Pitt's neglect of his faithful

services.

 

The new Cabinet, besides being too large, was half Addingtonian and half

Pittite, a source of weakness which soon led to further changes. It was

also weighted with inefficient members--Chatham, Hawkesbury, and

Portland. The King disliked Hawkesbury, and said he had no head for

business, no method, and no punctuality. Harrowby, though a man of

brilliant parts in private life, and an excellent speaker, was oppressed

by a delicate frame, precarious health, and a peevish temper. During no

small part of his tenure of office he had to take the waters at Bath,

and was therefore a poor substitute for the experienced and hard-working

Grenville. Pitt, for some unexplained reason, disliked placing Melville

at the Admiralty, a strangely prophetic instinct. Camden and Mulgrave

were also misfits. Hawkesbury did better work at the Home Office than

the Foreign Office; but on the whole, the new arrangement aroused

widespread grumbling and distrust. The result of it all was the

dissolution of the great national party formed in the year 1794 and the

formation of three groups, following Pitt, Addington, and Grenville,

the Addingtonians showing much bitterness at the treatment of their

chief, while the Grenvilles and Windham inveighed against the new

Ministry, as formed on the principle of excluding Fox.[677] The charge

was unfair; for at that crisis Pitt could not stand by and see the

national resources frittered away by Addington. The King's Government

had to be carried on; and, like Wellington a generation later, Pitt

consented to do so in the only way which was practicable.

 

The limitations of his power were soon obvious. The two unfriendly

groups eagerly criticized him at all times and accorded grudging and

doubtful support even on measures which they approved. This was

especially the case with regard to the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

Thanks to the untiring exertions of Wilberforce, Clarkson, and others,

that movement had made considerable progress during the interval of

peace. The outbreak of war in May 1803 darkened the outlook; for once

again the cry was raised that England must not cut off a trade which was

essential to the welfare of the West Indies, highly lucrative to British

shipowners, and a necessary adjunct to the mercantile marine.

Nevertheless, the accession of Pitt to power and the goodwill of the

majority of the Irish members inspired Wilberforce with hope. True,

Addington always strenuously opposed him; and among the younger members

of the Cabinet Castlereagh had declared his hostility; but at first all

went well. At the close of May 1804 Pitt and Fox