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

united in expressing

approval of Wilberforce's proposals. Addington, in remarks which lasted

exactly forty seconds, scouted the measure, but carried with him only 49

members as against 124. The majorities were nearly as great at the

second and third readings.

 

In the Lords the omens were inauspicious. Some bishops were away in

their dioceses: the supporters of the West India and shipping interests

were at hand, using their utmost endeavours to delay, if not to defeat,

the measure. Pitt despaired of thwarting these dilatory tactics, backed

by wealth and influence from all quarters. Wilberforce wrote indignantly

to Lord Muncaster: "It was truly humiliating to see four of the Royal

Family come down to vote against the poor, helpless, friendless slaves."

A wild speech by Stanhope told against the cause which he meant to

further, and the motion was adjourned to avoid defeat.

 

Pitt's subsequent conduct in 1805 disappointed Wilberforce. Certainly it

was half-hearted and procrastinating. But, seeing that he had to rely

more on Addington and finally to bring him into the Cabinet, his

difficulties were great. The Irish members also showed signs of

defection; and it was certain that the Bill would fail in the Lords.

Accordingly, Pitt begged Wilberforce to wait for a more propitious time.

A sense of religious duty impelled him to persevere, with the inevitable

result, a crushing defeat (19th February 1805).[678] On a smaller

question, connected with the prohibition of the supply of slaves to

Guiana, then recently conquered from the Dutch, he finally brought Pitt

to acquiesce. But here again the conduct of the Minister was tardy.

Wilberforce urged Pitt to abolish the Guiana Slave Trade by an Order in

Council, and early in May wrote: "One very powerful and important reason

for your abolishing the Guiana Slave Trade by an act of Government, not

by, or in consequence of a vote of Parliament, is that it would tend to

confirm the disposition so strongly manifested by the Dutch to abolish

the Slave Trade, and give them the sort of compensation they demand."

The British Order in Council did not appear until 13th September

1805.[679]

 

Nevertheless, their friendship remained firm to the end. "Had much talk

with him [Pitt] on political topics, finding him very open and kind."

Such is Wilberforce's account of his last interviews with Pitt; and he

certainly could not have remained on friendly terms with one who was

deliberately untrue to the cause. He knew better than recent critics the

difficulties resulting from the compromise with Addington and from the

ceaseless friction with the followers of Fox and Grenville.

 

The case of the Slave Trade serves to illustrate the peculiar

difficulties of Pitt's position, which were to appear on even more

important questions. The King, Addington, Grenville, and Pitt had all

contributed to the tangle. Limiting our survey to the conduct of

Addington and Pitt, we must pronounce both of them culpable. Addington

should have seen that Pitt's promise of support, given at the time of

the King's lunacy in February-March 1801, was not morally binding three

years later when the existence of the nation was at stake in the

Napoleonic War. At such a time an enlightened patriot does not stand

upon punctilio, but gladly takes a second place if he can thereby place

in authority an abler man. Addington alone could release Pitt from the

debt of honour incurred in February 1801, and faithfully discharged for

three weary years, at the cost of the alienation of friends and the

derision of opponents. He never spoke or wrote that word of release, but

held Pitt to the bargain with an insistence which would be contemptible

were it not in large measure the outcome of a narrow complacent nature

blind to its own shortcomings.

 

Pitt, also, behaved weakly. The original promise, to support an untried

man, was a piece of astounding trustfulness; and when the weakness of

Addington's Administration involved the nation in war and brought it to

the brink of disaster, he should openly have claimed release from a

pledge too hastily given, leaving the world to judge between them. As it

was, for nearly a year he wavered to and fro between the claims of

national duty and private honour, thereby exasperating his friends and

finally driving the Grenvilles, Windham, and Spencer to a union with Fox

which in its turn blighted the hope of forming a national

Administration. Finally, he made only one effort to induce the King to

accept Fox. True, the situation was a delicate one; for pressure brought

to bear on George on that topic would have brought back the mental

malady. But the Grenvilles, viewing the situation with pedantic

narrowness, considered the attempt so half-hearted as to warrant their

opposition to the new Cabinet. On the whole, then, Pitt's

punctiliousness must be pronounced a secondary but vital cause of the

lamentable _dénouement_, which left him exposed at forty five years of

age, enfeebled by worry and gout, to a contest with Napoleon at the

climax of his powers.

 

FOOTNOTES

 

[649] Addington desired the retirement of St. Vincent. See "Dropmore

P.," vii, 121; Stanhope, iv, 21.

 

[650] Pellew, ii, 114-6.

 

[651] "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 415; Pellew, ii, 121-4.

 

[652] Pretyman MSS.

 

[653] G. Rose, "Diaries," ii, 156; "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 416,

417; Pellew, ii, 119-28.

 

[654] Hawkesbury's remissness (so Vorontzoff told Rose) then lost an

opportunity of gaining the friendly mediation of the Czar (G. Rose,

"Diaries," ii, 43, 157). Romilly ("Mems.," i, 427) calls the Ministry a

thing of no account in comparison with Pitt, and says it was universally

despised.

 

[655] Romilly Memoirs, i, 427.

 

[656] Sichel, "Sheridan," i, 440. Spencer Stanhope declared Pitt's

speech the finest he ever heard. His wife wrote to their son: "He (Pitt)

spoke for two hours, but unless he can be prevailed upon to give it

himself, as the shorthand-writers were excluded, the speech will be lost

for ever. Your father thinks it will be made out by some of his friends

and submitted to his inspection; therefore, tho' we may lose much, we

shall not lose the whole" (A. M. W. Stirling, "Annals of a Yorkshire

House," ii, 282).

 

[657] "Dumouriez and the Defence of England against Napoleon," by J. H.

Rose and A. M. Broadley.

 

[658] Lyon, "Hist. of Dover," p. xxxiii.

 

[659] Hansard, i, 1899-1902.

 

[660] "Mems. of Lady Hester Stanhope," i, 174.

 

[661] Lady Hester's second brother.

 

[662] G. Rose, "Diaries," ii, 70-2; Desbrière, "Projets de

Débarquement," iii, 98-105; Wheeler and Broadley, "Napoleon and the

Invasion of England," ii, ch. 14; Cornwallis ("Corresp.," iii, 500)

thought ill of our chances if the French landed, but he doubted if they

could. (_Ibid._, iii, 503.)

 

[663] Pitt MSS., 157.

 

[664] "Dropmore P.," vii, 193, 196.

 

[665] Pretyman MSS. It is in answer to the one referred to in "Dropmore

P.," vii, 209.

 

[666] "Dropmore P.," vii, 211-14.

 

[667] Pretyman MSS.

 

[668] "Creevey Papers," i, 25-7.

 

[669] Pretyman MSS.

 

[670] Stanhope, iv, 139-44.

 

[671] Pretyman MSS.

 

[672] From Mr. A. M. Broadley's MSS.

 

[673] Stanhope, iv, App. viii-ix.

 

[674] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 4.

 

[675] Stanhope, iv, 177.

 

[676] Pitt thoroughly approved of Castlereagh taking the India Board

under Addington in July 1802; in October he entered the Cabinet

("Private Papers of Wilberforce," 131).

 

[677] Wraxall (iii, 281) with his usual bias says that Pitt "affected"

to desire the inclusion of Fox.

 

[678] "Life of Wilberforce," iii, 168, 182, 184, 211, 212.

 

[679] _Ibid._, iii, 230-4; Pitt MSS., 189.

 

CHAPTER XXIII (PITT AND NAPOLEON)

 

    I made a mistake about England, in trying to conquer it. The

    English are a brave nation. I have always said that there are

    only two nations, the English and the French; and I made the

    French.--NAPOLEON TO MACNAMARA (1814), _Lord Broughton's

    Recollections_, i, 180.

 

 

The two protagonists now stood face to face--Napoleon, Emperor of the

French, President of the Italian Republic, Mediator of the Swiss

Republic, controller of Holland, absolute ruler of a great military

Empire; Pitt, the Prime Minister of an obstinate and at times half-crazy

King, dependent on a weak Cabinet, a disordered Exchequer, a Navy

weakened by ill-timed economies, and land forces whose martial ardour

ill made up for lack of organization, equipment, and training. Before

the outbreak of war in May 1803, Napoleon had summed up the situation in

the words--"Forty-five millions of people must prevail over sixteen

millions." And now after a year of hostilities his position was far

stronger. In Hanover the French troops were profitably installed on the

Elector's domains. Soult's corps occupied the Neapolitan realm, thus

threatening Malta, the Ionian Isles, the Morea, and Egypt. The recent

restitution of several colonial conquests by England not only damaged

her trade, but enabled her enemy to stir up trouble in India. There,

thanks to Wellesley's dramatic victory at Assaye, the Union Jack waved

in triumph; but at other points Napoleon might hope to gain the long

contested race for Empire.

 

So convinced was Pitt of the need of fighting out the quarrel thrust

upon us by Napoleon's aggressions, that he waved aside an offer of

Livingston, American envoy at Paris, to effect a reconciliation. During

a brief visit to London, Livingston sent proposals to this effect

through Whitworth, who declined to meet a man hitherto remarkable for a

strong anti-British bias; and Pitt approved this repulse.[680]

Nevertheless, on 5th June Livingston, accompanied by Fox and Grey,

called on Pitt at Downing Street; but his proposals proved to be merely

the outcome of informal conversations with Joseph Bonaparte, who was

known to be far more peacefully inclined than his brother. Joseph's

notions were that Malta should perhaps be garrisoned by Russians, and

must in any case be relinquished by England; that France should withdraw

her troops from the Dutch and Swiss Republics, the status of which was

not defined.[681] Pitt set little store by these shadowy proposals,

doubtless seeing in them a way of discovering whether England was

concerting a league against France.

 

Already, in spite of many obstacles, he was taking the first steps in

that direction. An initial difficulty lay in the mental aberrations of

the King, whose conduct still caused intense anxiety or annoyance.[682]

Scarcely a day passed without a lapse into incoherence or violence.

Moreover, his conversation often showed a lack of discrimination, being

the same to the Queen, the physicians, or the servants. He made the most

capricious changes, turning off the Queen's favourite coachman, and

making grooms footmen, and footmen grooms, to the distraction of the

household. On assuming office, Pitt consulted the royal physicians and

received a reply, dated Queen's Palace, 16th May 1804, stating that the

King was equal to the discharge of important business, but must avoid

long conferences or any deviation from his usual habits, quiet being

essential. Thereupon Pitt and Lord Eldon wrote to the King urging this

prudent course. They frequently visited Buckingham House, where five

physicians were in almost constant attendance, a state of things viewed

with alarm by patriots and with eager hope by the Foxites and their

hangers on.[683]

 

Unfortunately George could not compose himself to rest. Such is the

tenor of hasty notes sent to Pitt by Villiers, now high in favour at Kew

and Windsor. They describe the King's fussy intervention in household

affairs, his orders for sudden and expensive changes in the palaces, his

substitution of German for English servants, his frequent visits to the

stables unaccompanied by the equerry, his irritability on the most

trifling occasions, and, alternating with this undignified bustle, fits

of somnolence which at times overtook him even on horseback. Then, too,

there were quarrels