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.