feeling of the English people was very strongly in favour of it.
Accustomed for years to trust to Pitt, they continued their perfect
confidence in him though his policy had changed, and, as we have seen,
the opposition in the House of Commons was virtually destroyed. The
confidence of the nation was chiefly exhibited in the readiness with
which it met all the demands for increased taxation and for immense
loans; in fact, Pitt was strongly supported by the commercial classes.
With them the war was in itself popular, they were clearsighted enough
to see how vast was the opening likely to be afforded them by the
increase of English power upon the sea.
[Sidenote: Increased by his assistance in a financial crisis.]
In the year 1793 Pitt gained a fresh right to their gratitude by the
assistance he afforded them during a brief monetary crisis which
threatened to be very destructive. The year had been one of great
financial difficulty. The sudden expansion of manufacturing industry
which had followed upon the great inventions at the beginning of the
reign, and the increase of commerce which followed the close of the
American War, had rendered necessary a large amount of capital. The want
had been met by a largely increased paper currency. Reckless banking had
become prevalent, and provincial banks issued notes far beyond their
capital. A very slight panic would be enough to cause the collapse of
such a system. It was found that to meet the necessities of the exchange
between England and the rest of the world bullion would have to leave
England. Bullion was already scarce, and the Bank of England therefore
thought it necessary to restrict its issues. This was enough to cause
the failure of a few great houses; a panic ensued; there was a run upon
the provincial banks; out of 350 more than 100 failed. Yet there was in
reality quite enough property both in securities and in goods to enable
merchants to meet all demands. It was only for the moment that there was
a deficiency of money, that is, of the means of exchange. Pitt, with
admirable clearness, recognized the real solvency of the country, and
authorized the issue of bills on the Exchequer to the value of five
millions. These were advanced to merchants, who could prove their
solvency, against securities or goods. As these bills rested on the
credit of the nation, they were readily received, the engagements of the
merchants were satisfied by their means, and credit was restored. As it
proved, not more than four millions was borrowed, and the whole sum was
speedily repaid without loss to the nation.
[Sidenote: Effect of Pitt's new policy of repression.]
[Sidenote: The Traitorous Correspondence Bill. March 15, 1793.]
The effect of the complete trust placed in Pitt was to allow him to give
full rein to his new policy. Now that policy was one entirely of
repression, and the effect of it in the long run, indeed before the year
was out, was to divide England much more sharply into the propertied and
non-propertied classes, and to bring into existence a state of feeling
highly undesirable, and which tended much to produce those very evils it
was intended to prevent. While every movement in a liberal direction was
certain to be checked, laws of the most stringent description were
willingly passed, and at first the execution of existing laws,
especially with regard to seditious writing, received great public
support. In this class may be mentioned the Traitorous Correspondence
Act. There has always been great dislike to tampering with or extending
the law of treason, yet there were but fifty-three members of the House
of Commons who could be found to lift their voices against this Bill,
which declared guilty of high treason, firstly, all those who supplied
any arms or military or naval stores to the enemy; secondly, all those
who purchased lands in France, for the use of assignats rendered the
sale of land the chief support of French finance, and the purchase of
land was therefore regarded as indirectly strengthening the hands of the
enemy; thirdly, it prohibited all intercourse with France without
special license under the Great Seal; and fourthly, the insurance of
French vessels by English merchants. The two first of these offences
were to fall directly under the old law of Edward III., and to deprive
those who were guilty of them of the advantages secured to them by the
ameliorations of the law which had since been made, such as the right to
employ counsel, and to be furnished with the list of the jury, the
necessity of two witnesses to secure conviction, and the lapse of a
certain period between the indictment and the trial.
[Sidenote: Trials for seditious writings.]
But it was chiefly in the prosecution for seditious meetings and
seditious writings that the character of the Government showed itself.
The best known of these in the year 1793 was that of Muir. This young
man, a member of the Society of the Friends of the People, was indicted
for spreading the works of Thomas Paine. He defended himself with great
ability upon the ground that he had only aimed at the reform of
Parliament. His speech was greeted with loud applause, but the Lord
Justice-Clerk summed up most strongly against him, and asserted the
strange doctrine that the Government was made up of the landed interest.
"As for the rabble," said he, "who have nothing but personal property,
what hold has the nation on them?" He sentenced Muir to fourteen years'
transportation. The severity of the judges and the frequent trials that
the Government ordered had not the effect of checking the popular
feeling. Delegates from various parts of Scotland, in concert with the
Friends of the People and other societies, assembled at Edinburgh. The
leading spirits were Maurice Margarot and Joseph Gerald, agents from
London. These delegates assumed the name of a convention, spoke of the
first year of the British Republic, and otherwise mimicked their French
brethren. In December the law came upon them, and three of them, with
Margarot and Gerald, were transported for fourteen years.
[Sidenote: Pitt resists the growing desire for peace,]
Up till this time the people as a whole had been heartily with Pitt; but
the course of the year had tended to change their feelings, the war had
been by no means the light undertaking expected, and it began to be seen
that its continuation meant fearful expenses, heavy taxes, and a system
of government but little in accordance with the general character of
English administration. Some even of Pitt's old friends began to whisper
of peace, but his will was not one to yield to opposition. In Parliament
he was still supreme, and in this first beginning of difficulties he
exhibited the greatness of his energy and his resources. He branded with
fierce words, which reminded his hearers of his great father, all who
dared to think of peace; he openly avowed that the idea was impossible
till some total change took place in the French Government, thus putting
his actions on their true basis. Backed by his commercial friends, he
found means to continue the subsidies to Prussia and Austria, he
purchased the adhesion of several of the smaller German states, induced
the Spaniards to continue a war which was wholly against their own
interests, and obliged the lesser Italian states to join the coalition;
he even allowed Russia to perpetrate the second partition of Poland as a
price of her neutrality. With such efforts as these he contrived to
carry on his war; it was not unreasonably that he became the ogre of the
French, the one object of their insatiable hatred.
[Sidenote: and continues the prosecutions for seditious writings.]
At home he would not abate one jot of his policy. Again the prosecutions
went forward. So little had the late action of Government been
successful that discontent and the intrigues of the societies were
becoming even more envenomed. The English had taken a leaf out of the
Scotch book; two of the great societies--the Constitutional Society and
the Corresponding Society--determined that they too would have a
convention. It seems to have been a far more real and dangerous thing
than the Scotch convention. The workmen were stirred up, meetings were
held in all the great towns attended by delegates from London,
revolutionary songs were composed and circulated, and a considerable
number of weapons constructed and secreted. It was the intention of the
Convention to overawe Parliament somewhat in the same way as the Jacobin
Club overawed the French Assembly. The Government determined to act as
strongly as possible against it, and instead of accusing the leaders of
seditious practices merely, they thought it advisable to treat their
conduct as a great and capital crime, and to bring them to trial for
high treason. The leaders arrested were Hardy, Secretary of the
Corresponding Society, Adams, Secretary of the Constitutional Society,
Horne Tooke, the well-known opponent of Junius, the Rev. Jeremiah Joyce,
author of the "Scientific Dialogues," and tutor to Lord Stanhope's sons,
Thelwall, a political lecturer of some importance, and three others. A
secret committee of the House, having examined their books and papers,
reported that there were ample proofs of a traitorous conspiracy for
overawing Parliament. Upon this report the Government advanced a step
further, and in spite of the eager opposition of the minority, carried
through the House the suspension of the Habeas Corpus. Trials for high
treason followed both in England and Scotland. In Scotland the
prosecution was successful, but the English trials did not go off so
smoothly. Hardy was tried first on the 28th of October. Sir John Scott
(afterwards Lord Eldon) conducted the prosecution; but although the
evidence, if true, tended to show that language of a most seditious
character had been used, and weapons and plans of insurrection made, yet
the skill and eloquence of Erskine, who laid his chief stress on the
grave constitutional danger of any enlargement of the Treason Act,
procured an acquittal. The Government was not satisfied, Horne Tooke was
also tried. He defended himself with his usual effrontery and humour,
and again an acquittal was obtained. Still the Crown persisted, and
Thelwall the lecturer was tried; again the accused was acquitted. The
excitement about the trials was intense, the speeches of the rival
barristers were listened to with extreme interest, and the acquittals
were hailed with the wildest enthusiasm. It was plain that a
considerable change had taken place in the feelings of the people; the
strings of repression had been drawn too tight; the line between class
and class was becoming more sharply marked.
[Sidenote: Portland and his friends join the ministry. July 1794.]
[Sidenote: Desire for peace.]
The same fact is rendered obvious by the completion in this year of the
consolidation of the new Tory party. Ever since the middle of 1792 the
Duke of Portland and his friends had voted with Government, but they now
openly joined it, and were admitted to some of the best places. The Duke
of Portland became Secretary for the Home Department, Earl Fitzwilliam
Lord President, and Mr. Wyndham Secretary at War. The one point which
connected the new recruits with the ministry was the determination all
felt to carry on the war. Pitt was therefore hampered in two directions.
When Parliament was opened on the 13th of December 1794, there appeared
to be a growing feeling in favour of peace, and Pitt found himself
opposed to many of his old friends, the country gentlemen; but his union
with the Duke of Portland and his party rendered a change of policy at
present impossible. He was in the hands of the war party; afraid of
losing their support, and buoyed up by an idle belief in the financial
exhaustion of France, he determined still to carry on the war
vigorously. As he was quite paramount in Parliament[12] in spite of an
increased minority, he had no difficulty in getting leave to raise a
loan of eighteen millions, and to guarantee another large loan to
purchase the co-operation of Austria. He nevertheless slightly changed
his tone, and confessed that he should be satisfied with a peace that
gave him security, and allowed later in the session that there was a
possibility of treating with the present Government of France.
[Sidenote: The Prince of Wales' marriage. April 8, 1795.]
Amongst other minor difficulties which he had to meet was the constant
embarrassment of the Prince of Wales. Seven years before he had
purchased the payment of his debts by a lie concerning his wife; he was
now again £700,000 in debt; the only terms on which he could hope to get
relieved were that he should marry legally, and the King had chosen for
him a Princess of Brunswick whom he had never seen. Lord Malmesbury
arranged the negotiation, but unwisely suppressed, what he saw clearly
himself, the absolute unfitness of the lady for the position she was to
occupy. He found her frivolous, slovenly, and quite deficient in tact.
It was impossible but that she should be distasteful to any English
gentleman. Very shortly after the birth of her child a formal separation
took place, and a scandalous dispute arose, which afterwards turned into
a great party conflict. For the present however, the Prince received the
price of his unfortunate bargain. The royal message demanding the
assistance of Parliament was couched in humble language, and asked only
for some arrangement by which the debts should be ultimately paid; but
even thus it excited a perfect storm in the House. None even of the
Prince's old friends rose to defend him, and Pitt himself, though no
friend of the Prince, intreated that the matter might not be examined by
a Parliamentary Committee, for fear of the damaging effect of such an
inquiry on the principle of an hereditary monarchy. It was finally
arranged that the Prince's income should be raised from £72,000 to
£125,000 a year, that the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall should be
set apart, which in twenty-seven years would extinguish the debt, and
that £25,000 a year more should be devoted to pay the interest. To these
enactments was added an extraordinary one, rendering the Prince's
servants liable for any contract they should enter into on his behalf,
and limiting legal remedy against the Prince to the term of three
months.
[Sidenote: Sufferings of the lower classes. 1795.]
[Sidenote: Assault on the King.]
Such demands upon the public purse seemed very badly timed, when the
working classes were suffering very heavily from depression of trade,
from famine produced by two bad harvests, and from a constantly
increasing burden of taxation. Discontent was in fact increasing widely,
great political meetings were held in London and elsewhere to expose the
abuses of monarchy and aristocracy. Riots and seditious writings were
constantly on the increase, and the Government thought the state of
affairs so critical that they determined upon an autumn session. Three
days before Parliament met a monster meeting was held under the auspices
of the Corresponding Society in Copenhagen Fields. The excitement thus
produced found vent in an assault upon the King as he went to open
Parliament, one of the windows of his state coach was broken by a stone
or bullet; on his return his coach was again surrounded by an angry mob,
with shouts of "Bread, bread! peace, peace!" and he only escaped with
difficulty by driving rapidly in his private carriage from St. James's
to Buckingham Palace. The King, who throughout showed great courage,
showed himself in the evening at Covent Garden theatre, where he was on
the whole well received. This act of violence produced two coercive
Bills, one to suppress seditious meetings, the other to extend the law
of treason. Every public meeting was to be advertised by a paper signed
by resident householders, and all meetings were liable to be dispersed
according to the Riot Act if any two justices thought them dangerous;
while by the second law, writing, preaching, and speaking, were created
overt acts, thus rendering the offender guilty of treason, and writing
or speaking against the established Government was made a highly
punishable crime. These Bills were commonly known as the Sedition and
Treason Bills. They were not passed without strong opposition, and the
use of language on the part of Fox so vehement as to excite still
further the anger of the Tories. This party was now enjoying its selfish
triumph to the utmost. It became necessary again to augment the taxes,
and Pitt hit upon the expedient of levying duties upon legacies and
successions. The country gentlemen had sufficient influence to confine
the Bill to the succession of money and personal property only, and to
exclude real property from the action of the Bill. This glaring
injustice was not remedied till 1853.
[Sidenote: Changes in France give hopes of peace.]
The burden of taxation had much to do with the overtures for peace which
were set on foot in 1796. Nearly all classes in the kingdom had become
weary of the war. Pitt, as has been seen, had been forced into it
against his natural tendencies, and though, when once embarked in the
war of opinion, he had used language of the most overbearing character,
he was eager, now that he found his hope of a speedy bankruptcy of
France frustrated, to bring about an honourable peace. Such an
opportunity was offered by the changed character of the French
Government. The Directory had held its position for upwards of a year,
and seemed to give promise of such stability as would render negotiation
possible. This change in the Government of France had been the outcome
of a series of revolutions which had followed each other in rapid
succession.
[Sidenote: Retrospect of French affairs. 1793.]
[Sidenote: The Committee of Public Safety.]
The Girondins had, contrary to their conscientious opinions, voted for
the death of the King. It was in fact an act of suicide. After this it
was useless to oppose any demand of the Jacobins; the attempt only
produced a violent struggle in the Convention, which ended in the
complete overthrow of the Girondins by the insurrection of the 1st of
June. In the place of the party thus annihilated the Jacobins found
themselves supreme. Upon them henceforward lay the duty of saving the
Revolution within and rescuing France from foreign assaults from
without. The machinery of Government to which they trusted to obtain
these ends was a Committee of Public Safety, in whose hands the full
powers of the executive were lodged. As far as the external defence of
France was concerned, the restless energy of the new rulers was
completely successful. La Vendée, Toulon, and Lyons, the centres of
opposition within France, were all reduced. Carnot struck out a new plan
of warfare, and found means to employ with success the masses with which
an almost unlimited conscription supplied the army, and from this time
onwards the French were everywhere successful. But while exhibiting this
energy abroad, in France the government of the Committee was in the last
degree cruel and tyrannical. Nor could the Jacobins agree among
themselves. On the one side was a party atheistical in their religion,
communistic in their political views, foul and blasphemous in their
language. This party, which predominated in the Commune, took its name
from Hébert, the editor of an infamous paper called _Père Duchesne_. It
shocked the feelings of the world by its excesses, abolishing religion,
closing the churches, and holding a blasphemous service in Notre Dame in
honour of Reason. On the other side was a party, headed by Danton,
intent chiefly on success abroad, and inclined to believe that the work
of destruction had gone far enough. Between the two was the party of the
Purists, headed by Robespierre and St. Just, who looked with equal
hatred on the scandalous and anarchical conduct of the Hébertists and
the indulgent and somewhat loose lives of the followers of Danton.
Robespierre was able to attack and destroy both these parties in turn.
The Hébertists were the first to fall, but very shortly after the same
fate befell the Dantonists.
[Sidenote: The Reign of Terror.]
[Sidenote: Fall of Robespierre.]
Atheists and indulgents being thus both removed, Robespierre and his
party were virtually masters of France. Under them the Terror knew no
relaxation. "The maxim of our policy," said Robespierre, "ought to be to
guide the people by reason and the enemies of the people by terror."
Whole batches of victims completely unknown to each other were sent off
together to the guillotine under pretext of being accomplices in
conspiracy. Between the 20th of June and the 27th of July 1400 people
were executed. But Robespierre and his friends looked forward to some
conclusion of this state of things, desiring to establish a purely
moral, stoical, and deistical Republic. As a first step, the worship of
the Supreme Being was decreed, and a great festivity held, where
Robespierre, decked with flowers, officiated as priest. Thus, too, he
began to shelter the priests and nobles. The idea of the cessation of
the Revolution thoroughly frightened some of the worst among the
Committee, and Robespierre's assumption of authority disgusted them.
They contrived to form a coalition with all the discontented parties,
Hébertists, Dantonists, Girondists, Royalists, were all ready to combine
against the one man whose stoical purity seemed to insult them, and
whose cold implacable cruelty gave them no hope if they should offend
him. Robespierre was thus hated by the people, and at enmity both with
the people and the Committee, but was still influential at the club of
the Jacobins, the Convention, and the revolutionary Tribunal. Knowing
that an assault would be directed against him, his wisdom would have
been to strike first. To this course St. Just urged him, but he seems to
have relied upon his influence in the Convention, and was astonished
when he found his friends wholly outnumbered and a hearing refused him.
On the 27th of July he was arrested with Couthon, St. Just, and his
brother. He escaped and fled to the Commune. For a moment it appeared as
if an insurrection would have reinstated him. But the richer sections of
Paris rallied to the destruction of their tyrant, and on the following
day Robespierre, with twenty members of the Commune, was dragged to the
scaffold.
[Sidenote: Establishment of the Directory. Oct. 1795.]