GRENVILLE AND PORTLAND.
The immediate effect of Pitt's death was the dissolution of his
government. The king turned at first to Hawkesbury, afterwards destined
as Earl of Liverpool to hold the office of premier for nearly fifteen
years; but he then felt himself unequal to such a burden. He next sent
for Grenville, who insisted on the co-operation of Fox, to which the
king assented without demur, and the short-lived ministry of "All the
Talents" was formed within a few days. It was essentially a whig
cabinet, but it included two tories, Sidmouth as lord privy seal, and
Lord Ellenborough, the lord chief justice. Grenville himself was first
lord of the treasury, Fox foreign secretary, and Erskine lord
chancellor. Charles Grey, the future Earl Grey, was first lord of the
admiralty. Spencer home secretary, Windham secretary for war and the
colonies, and Lord Henry Petty, the future Marquis of Lansdowne,
chancellor of the exchequer. Fitzwilliam was lord president, and the
Earl of Moira master-general of the ordnance. Ellenborough owed his
place in the cabinet to the influence of Sidmouth. The appointment was a
departure from the established constitutional practice. Since Lord
Mansfield, who had ceased to be an efficient member in 1765, no chief
justice had been a member of the cabinet, and it was argued in
parliament by the opposition that a seat in the cabinet was inconsistent
with the independence which a common law judge ought to maintain. It is
also important to observe that Sidmouth when accepting office gave
express notice to Grenville and Fox that under all circumstances "he
would ever resist the catholic question".[31]
The friendly relations of the king with Fox were creditable to both of
them, and in the last few months of his life Fox showed himself a
statesman. Besides the abolition of the slave trade, his grand object
was the restoration of peace on a durable basis. There were some grounds
for believing that this was possible. France, under an emperor, seemed
no longer to represent a new principle in European politics, and was not
necessarily a menace to her neighbours; the coalition was fairly beaten
on land, while British supremacy had been reasserted on sea, and
Napoleon might well wish for peace to enable him to consolidate his
position on land and regain the power of using the sea, just as he had
done in 1801. Fox lost no time in renewing a pacific correspondence with
Talleyrand, afterwards carried on through the agency of Lord Yarmouth,
an English traveller detained in France, and Lord Lauderdale, who was
sent over as plenipotentiary. The principle of the negotiation was that
of _uti possidetis_, but it failed, as Whitworth's efforts had failed,
because the pretensions of France were constantly shifting, and
especially because France, anxious to isolate Great Britain, insisted on
negotiating separately with Great Britain and Russia, while Fox very
properly refused to make peace without our ally. Grey himself, now Lord
Howick, afterwards declared that France showed no disposition to grant
any terms which could be accepted by Great Britain. On September 13, Fox
died, and was buried in Westminster Abbey almost side by side with his
great rival.
While he was earnestly striving for peace, there was no cessation of
warlike movements or political changes either in Central Europe or in
Italy. In June, 1806, Napoleon converted the Batavian Republic into the
kingdom of Holland, over which he set his brother Louis. In July the
discord of Germany, which had long ceased to be a nation, was
consummated by the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine, which
separated all the western states from the Holy Roman empire, and united
them under the protection and control of France. On August 6, Francis
II., who had assumed the title of Emperor of Austria in 1804, formally
renounced the title of Roman Emperor, and the Holy Roman Empire became
extinct. The King of Prussia, with singular disregard of good faith and
national interest, finally accepted on February 15 the bribe of Hanover
for adhesion to France, but without the offensive and defensive alliance
offered him in the previous December, and with the additional
humiliation of being compelled to close his ports to English ships. He
vainly strove to conceal this shameful bargain, and was, as will be
seen, punished by the destruction of Prussian commerce. After all, he
found himself overreached by Napoleon in duplicity, and was at last
provoked into risking a single-handed contest with his imperious ally.
He declared war on October 1, and within a fortnight the army of
Prussia, inheriting the system and traditions of the great Frederick,
was all but annihilated in the twin battles of Jena and Auerstädt fought
on October 14.
[Pageheading: _SMALL EXPEDITIONS._]
The British government, though not unwilling to forgive the perfidy of
its former confederate, was powerless to strike a blow on his behalf
until it was too late. Indeed, the only warlike operation undertaken by
Great Britain in Europe during the year was in the extreme south of
Italy. Ferdinand, King of the Two Sicilies, had been driven out of his
capital to make way for Joseph Bonaparte, who entered Naples on February
15, and the exiled monarch took refuge in the island of Sicily. In
accordance with the shortsighted policy of small expeditions, a British
force under Sir John Stuart was landed in Calabria to raise the
peasantry, and on July 4, defeated the French at the point of the
bayonet in the battle of Maida. This action shook the confidence of
Europe in the superiority of the French infantry, and saved Sicily from
France, but the French troops remained in possession of the Italian
mainland. The prestige of Great Britain was raised by the conquest of
the Dutch colony of the Cape of Good Hope in January by a naval and
military force sent out by Pitt under the command of Sir Home Popham and
General, now Sir David, Baird, but was damaged by a futile expedition to
South America, undertaken by Popham without orders from the home
government. The city of Buenos Ayres was taken, indeed, in June by
General Beresford, but it was retaken by the Spaniards in August, and
soldiers who could ill be spared from the European conflict now
impending were lavished on a chimerical project on the other side of the
Atlantic.
The short administration of Grenville, so inactive in its foreign
policy, is memorable only for one redeeming measure of home-policy--the
abolition of the slave trade. Before Fox's death, the attention of
parliament had been divided mainly between Windham's abortive scheme
for a vast standing army, to be raised on the basis of limited service,
and the secret inquiry into the conduct of the Princess of Wales. This
resulted in her being acquitted of the more scandalous charges against
her, but on the advice of the cabinet, she was censured by the king for
unseemly levity of behaviour. On October 24 parliament was dissolved. It
was a foolish dissolution, for ministerial convenience only, and aimed
not merely at strengthening the ministry, but at weakening the tory
section within the ministry. The election was not well managed, and the
king withheld the subscription of £12,000 with which he was accustomed
to assist his ministers for the time being at a general election. Still
the ministry obtained a considerable majority.[32] The new parliament
met on December 15, and on March 25, 1807, the abolition bill, having
passed the house of lords in spite of strong opposition, was carried in
the commons by 283 to 16. Thus ended a philanthropic struggle, which
began in 1783, when the quakers petitioned against the trade. Three
years later Clarkson began his crusade. Two bills in favour of abolition
were carried by the house of commons before the close of the eighteenth
century, but were thrown out in the house of lords. The same fate befell
a bill for a temporary suspension of the slave trade, which passed the
commons in 1804 under the spell of Wilberforce's persuasive eloquence;
but Pitt's government caused a royal proclamation to be issued, which at
least checked the spread of the nefarious traffic in the newly conquered
colonies. A larger measure failed to pass the house of commons in 1805,
but in 1806 Fox and Grenville succeeded in committing both houses to an
open condemnation of the trade. This was followed on March 25, 1807, by
an enactment entirely prohibiting the slave trade from and after January
1, 1808, though it was not made felony to engage in it until a further
act was carried by Brougham in 1811.
[Pageheading: _FALL OF GRENVILLE'S MINISTRY._]
In default of important legislative tasks, the parliament which expired
in 1806 devoted much attention to various features of the military
system, as well as to proposed reforms in the public accounts. It
sanctioned the principle of raising a great part of the war-expenses by
special taxes rather than by loan. A property-tax of 10 per cent. was
freely voted, and this was then represented to be its permanent limit.
The assessed taxes were increased at the same time by 10 per cent., but
with an allowance in favour of poorer taxpayers for every child above
the number of two. It is worthy of notice that, while Grenville's
ministry was in office, Whitbread brought forward an elaborate plan not
only for reforming the poor laws but also for establishing a system of
national education. Some changes in the cabinet were necessitated by the
death of Fox. Howick became foreign secretary and was succeeded at the
admiralty by Thomas Grenville, brother of the prime minister, most
famous as a book-collector. Fitzwilliam retired at the same time on the
ground of ill-health. He retained his seat in the cabinet, but was
succeeded as lord president by Sidmouth, while Fox's nephew, Lord
Holland, succeeded Sidmouth as lord privy seal.
The fall of the whig government in March, 1807, was due to a cause
similar to that which had brought about the retirement of Pitt in 1801.
The Duke of Bedford, who was lord lieutenant of Ireland, had urged the
importance of making some concessions to Roman catholics. An Irish act
of 1793 had opened commissions in the army as high as the rank of
colonel to Roman catholics, and the ministry obtained the reluctant
consent of the king to the extension of this concession to Roman
catholics throughout his dominions. Without having fully ascertained the
king's mind, Howick, on behalf of his colleagues, moved for leave to
bring in a bill opening all commissions in the army and navy to Roman
catholics. The king at once refused his sanction, and the government,
finding that they could not carry their bill, agreed to withdraw it.
This decision was announced to the king in a cabinet minute, drawn up at
a meeting from which Ellenborough, Erskine, and Sidmouth, who
sympathised with the king, were excluded, and from which Fitzwilliam and
Spencer were absent owing to ill-health. The minute went on to record
their adhesion to the policy embodied in the bill, reserving the right
to advise the king on any future occasion in accordance with that
policy. Thereupon, Sidmouth, who had already sent in his resignation,
Eldon, Portland, and Malmesbury, with the concurrence of the Duke of
York and Spencer Perceval, urged the king to make a stand upon his
prerogative. He did so, by requiring the ministers who had signed the
minute, to give him a written pledge that they would never press upon
him further concessions, direct or indirect, to the Roman catholics.
This pledge they properly declined, and accepted the consequence by
resignation. Spencer was present at the meeting which arrived at this
conclusion and concurred in the decision of his colleagues.[33]
A new administration was formed by Portland, as nominal head, but with
Perceval as its real leader and chancellor of the exchequer, Canning as
foreign secretary, Hawkesbury as home secretary, and Castlereagh as
minister for war and the colonies. Camden, Eldon, Westmorland, and
Chatham resumed the offices they had held before the death of Pitt,
Mulgrave became first lord of the admiralty, and Earl Bathurst president
of the board of trade. In this government, too, Sir Arthur Wellesley,
the future Duke of Wellington, who had returned in 1805 from a brilliant
military career in India, held office outside the cabinet as chief
secretary for Ireland. Spencer Perceval was a half-brother of the Earl
of Egmont and brother of Lord Arden. He enjoyed a large practice at the
bar and had made his mark as a parliamentary debater when filling the
offices, first of solicitor-general, and then of attorney-general under
Addington. He had held the latter office again under Pitt. Not the least
source of his influence was his steady and determined opposition to the
Roman catholic claims.
[Pageheading: _NON-INTERVENTION._]
After a short but animated debate on the important constitutional
question raised by the circumstances of the change of ministers,
parliament was again dissolved on April 27. The king's speech in closing
the session was virtually a personal appeal to his people, and a
majority was returned in favour of the new ministry. This result may be
said to mark the last triumph of George III. in maintaining the
principle of personal government. "A just and enlightened toleration"
was announced as the substitute for catholic relief. Still, a certain
revival of independent popular opinion may be traced in the return of
Sir Francis Burdett and Lord Cochrane for Westminster. It was not until
June 22 that parliament assembled, and the engrossing interest of
foreign events left but little room for discussions on home-policy. A
motion by Whitbread, however, bore fruit in a bill for establishing
parochial schools, which Eldon successfully opposed in the house of
lords, mainly on the ground that it would take popular education out of
the hands of the clergy. The same not unnatural apathy about home
affairs prevailed throughout the session of 1808, which began on January
31, and though a large number of acts were placed on the statute book in
this and succeeding years, the mass of them, including many relating to
Ireland, were essentially of a local or occasional character. An
exception must be recognised in the partial success of a motion for the
reform of the criminal law, which was proposed by Sir Samuel Romilly,
famous for his efforts in the cause of humanity, and which resulted in
the abolition of capital punishment for the offence of pocket-picking.
During this critical period, when Great Britain was gradually drifting
into a position of isolation, the course of parliamentary history
becomes inseparable from the progress of those mighty events on the
continent, which Grenville's government would fain have treated as
outside the sphere of British interests. For, notwithstanding Windham's
schemes for a reconstruction of the army, that government had allowed
the naval and military establishments of Great Britain to fall below
their former standard. The leading idea of their policy was
non-intervention, and at the opening of 1807, there was no longer any
thought of sending a force to cope with Napoleon's veterans on the
continent When in 1805 a British force was operating in North Germany,
it was possible that if Prussia had been faithful to her engagements,
the disaster of Austerlitz might at least have been partially retrieved.
It was otherwise when, after the collapse of Prussia, France and Russia
stood face to face with each other. The drawn battle of Eylau in East
Prussia, marked by fearful carnage, was fought on February 8, 1807. This
check, breaking the spell of Napoleon's victorious career, had a
remarkable effect in raising the spirits of the allies, Russia, Sweden,
and Prussia, some remains of whose army were still in the field. These
powers now drew closer together, but they received a lukewarm support
from Great Britain, which might have done much to save Europe by timely
reinforcements and liberal subsidies. In reply to an urgent appeal from
the tsar for a loan of £6,000,000, the Grenville ministry doled out
£500,000 to Russia, and a still more pitiful gift to Prussia. No troops
were sent to aid Sweden on the Baltic coast, although, when, at
Napoleon's instigation, Turkey declared war against Russia, expeditions
were despatched to Alexandria and the Dardanelles. The notion of making
war on a large scale, in concert with allies, on the continent of
Europe, as in the days of Marlborough, and even of Lord Granby, seems to
have vanished from the minds of English statesmen, except Castlereagh,
who always advocated concentrated action.
The succession of Portland and Canning to Grenville and Howick brought
no immediate change in our insular policy and the new government had
been in office for above three months before a British force at last
appeared in the Swedish island of Rügen. It arrived too late, Danzig
surrendered in May, and on June 14 Napoleon obtained a decisive victory
over the Russian army and its Prussian contingent at Friedland. Russia
now gave a supreme example of that national selfishness, and contempt
for the rights of independent states which had dominated the counsels of
sovereigns ever since the first partition of Poland. Doubtless the tsar
might plead that Great Britain, too, had been wasting her strength in
selfish attempts to secure her mastery of the seas, and to open new
markets for her trade. He also deeply resented her recent failure to aid
him in the hour of his utmost need, while he still cherished the policy
of the "armed neutrality," and was eager to prosecute his designs
against Turkey. Dazzled and flattered by Napoleon, he welcomed overtures
for peace at the expense of Great Britain, and there is no doubt that
his imaginative nature indulged in the vision of a regenerated Europe,
divided between himself as emperor of the east and Napoleon as emperor
of the west. It is therefore far from surprising that he should have
held a private interview with Napoleon, on a raft in the Niemen, which
led to the treaty of Tilsit on July 7.
[Pageheading: _THE TREATY OF TILSIT._]
This treaty, in which the King of Prussia shared as a helpless partner,
contained both public and secret articles, but the distinction was not
very material, for the secret articles almost immediately became known
to Canning. The general effect of the whole agreement was the utter
humiliation of Prussia, the recognition by that country and Russia of
all Napoleon's acquisitions, and their combination with France against
the maritime claims and conquests of Great Britain. The western
provinces of Prussia were to be incorporated with other German
annexations to form the new kingdom of Westphalia; Prussian Poland was
to be converted into the duchy of Warsaw under the crown of Saxony, to
which a right of passage through Silesia was reserved; and Berlin with
other great Prussian fortresses were to remain in the hands of the
French until an exorbitant war indemnity should have been paid.[34] At
one stroke Prussia was thus reduced to a second-rate power, with a
territory little greater than it possessed before the first partition of
Poland. The rule of Joseph Bonaparte at Naples, that of Louis in
Holland, and the confederation of the Rhine, were solemnly confirmed.
Above all, Russia pledged herself to join France in coercing Sweden,
Denmark, and Portugal into an adoption of the organised commercial
exclusion, known as the "continental system," and hostility to Great
Britain in the event of her resistance. If Sweden refused to join this
league, Denmark was to be compelled to declare war on her.
No sooner did it receive information of this alliance than the British
government despatched a naval armament to Denmark and landed troops,
which were soon reinforced by those withdrawn from Rügen. There had been
no open rupture with Denmark, though much irritation existed between
Denmark and Great Britain with reference to neutral commerce. But there
were the best reasons for believing that the Danish fleet, as well as
that of Portugal, would be demanded by France and Russia, to be employed
against Great Britain, and it was certain that Denmark could not
withstand such pressure. The British envoy, Jackson, was accordingly
instructed to offer Denmark a treaty of alliance, of which one condition
was to be the deposit of her fleet on hire with the British government.
The proposal was accompanied by a threat of force, and the crown prince,
with a spirit worthy of admiration, refused the terms. In consequence a
peremptory summons to deliver up her ships of war and naval stores was
addressed to the governor of Copenhagen by the British commanders,
Admiral Gambier and Lord Cathcart, under whom Sir Arthur Wellesley was
entrusted with the reserve. The surrender, if made peaceably, was to be
in the nature of a deposit, and the fleet was to be restored at the end
of the war. The governor returned a temporising reply, and a bombardment
of Copenhagen followed (September 2); the fleet was brought to England
as prize of war; and Denmark naturally became the enemy of Great
Britain.[35] Sweden declined the proffered alliance of France and
Russia, and actually invaded Norway, then a part of the Danish kingdom.
The result was the loss of Finland and Swedish Pomerania. The king,
Gustavus IV., resembled Charles XII. in quixotic temperament, but not in
ability; and Sir John Moore, sent to his support with an army of 10,000
men, found it hopeless to co-operate with him. Shortly afterwards, his
subjects formed the same opinion, and he was compelled to make way for
his uncle, who succeeded as Charles XIII. with Marshal Bernadotte as
crown prince. In consequence of this change Sweden became reconciled to
Russia, and estranged from Great Britain.
The seizure of the Danish fleet, in time of so-called peace, roused
great indignation throughout most of Europe, and, in some degree,
strained the conscience of the British parliament itself. The justice
and wisdom of it were strenuously challenged in both houses, especially
by Grenville, Sidmouth, and Lord Darnley, who moved an address to the
crown embodying an impressive protest against it. It was defended,
however, by the high authority of the Marquis Wellesley, as well as by
Canning and other ministers, on the simple ground of military necessity.
Napoleon himself never ceased to denounce it as an international outrage
of the highest enormity. This did not prevent his doing his best to
justify it and to imitate it by sending Junot's expedition to Portugal,
with instructions to seize the Portuguese fleet at Lisbon. It is strange
that in the debates on this subject, peace with France was still treated
on both sides as a possibility; but Canning declared that neither
Russian nor Austrian mediation could have been accepted as impartial,
or as affording the least hope of pacification. However, on September
25, the king addressed a declaration to Europe, in which, after
justifying himself in regard to Copenhagen, he professed his readiness
to accept conditions of peace "consistent with the maritime rights and
political existence of Great Britain".
[Pageheading: _COMMERCIAL EXCLUSION._]
Still more reasonable attacks, supported by strong petitions, were made
by the opposition upon the "orders in council," whereby the British
government retaliated against Napoleon's "continental system". This
system was founded on a firm belief, shared by the French people, that
Great Britain, as mistress of the seas, was the one great obstacle to
his imperial ambition, and the most formidable enemy of French
aggrandisement, only to be crushed by the ruin of her trade. Prussia
had, in conformity with her treaty of February 15, 1806, issued a
proclamation on March 28 of that year, closing her ports, which would
now include those of Hanover, against British trade. The British
government replied by first laying an embargo on Prussian vessels in the
harbours of Great Britain and Ireland, and by proclaiming a blockade of
the coast of Europe from Brest to the Elbe. This was followed on May 14
by an order in council for seizing all vessels found navigating under
Prussian colours. As yet the policy of commercial exclusion had not been
carried to any great length, but the Berlin decree issued by Napoleon on
November 21 after the battle of Jena proclaimed the whole of the British
Isles to be in a state of blockade, prohibited all commerce with them
from the ports of France and her dependent states, confiscated all
British merchandise in such ports, and declared all British subjects in
countries occupied by French troops to be prisoners of war. Howick
replied by further orders in council in January, 1807, forbidding
neutrals to trade between the ports of France and her allies, or between
the ports of nations which should observe the Berlin decree, on pain of
the confiscation of the ship and cargo. On the 27th another decree,
issued at Warsaw, ordered the seizure in the Hanse Towns of all British
goods and colonial produce. The reply of Great Britain was a stricter
blockade of the North German coast.
The accession of Russia to Napoleon's commercial policy at Tilsit seemed
to have brought the combination against British trade to its furthest
development, and it was answered by new orders in council, treating any
port from which the British flag was excluded as if actually blockaded,
and further limiting the carriage by neutral vessels of produce from
hostile colonies. The Milan decree issued on December 17, and further
orders in council published during the same winter, carried to greater
extremes, if possible, this intolerable form of commercial warfare,
under which neutral commerce was gradually crushed out of existence.
Great Britain, owing to her command of the sea, was more independent of
this kind of commerce than her rival, and both the decrees and the
orders in council inflicted far more damage on France and her allies
than on Great Britain. But neither party was able to enforce completely
its policy of commercial exclusion. Europe could not dispense with
British goods or colonial produce carried in British vessels. The law
was deliberately set aside by a regular licensing system, and evaded by
wholesale smuggling; neutral ships continued to ply between continental
ports, and Napoleon did not disdain to clothe his troops with 50,000
British overcoats during the Eylau campaign. Still, Great Britain was
enabled to cripple, if not to destroy, the merchant shipping of all
other countries, and the interests of consumers all over Europe were
enlisted against the author of the continental system. On the other
hand, a heavy blow was dealt to friendly relations between Great Britain
and the United States, the chief victim of these belligerent
pretensions.[36]
[Pageheading: _FRUITLESS EXPEDITIONS._]
In the meantime, the prestige of Great Britain had been injured by three
petty and abortive expeditions projected by the Grenville ministry. The
first of these was sent out to complete the conquest of Buenos Ayres,
the recapture of which was unknown in England. Sir Samuel Auchmuty, who
commanded it, finding himself too late to occupy that city, attacked and
took Monte Video by storm with much skill and spirit, on February 3,
1807. Shortly afterwards, he was superseded by General Whitelocke,
bringing reinforcements, with orders to recover Buenos Ayres. In this he
signally failed, owing to gross tactical errors. The British troops were
almost passively slaughtered in the streets, and Whitelocke agreed to
withdraw the remains of his force, and give up Monte Video, on condition
of all prisoners being surrendered. On his return home, he was tried by
a court-martial and cashiered, being also declared "totally unfit to
serve his majesty in any military capacity whatever".
Equally ill-managed was the naval expedition, directed to support
Russia, then in close alliance with Great Britain, by coercing the
sultan into a rupture with France. Collingwood, who was not consulted,
was required to entrust the command of this expedition, which started in
February, 1807, to Sir John Duckworth. Everything depended on
promptitude, and the admiral found little difficulty in forcing the
passage of the Dardanelles, as it was then almost unfortified. Having
reached Constantinople, he allowed himself to waste time in fruitless
negotiations, contrary to Collingwood's earnest advice, and not only
effected nothing but gravely imperilled his return. Instructed by the
French minister Sébastiani, the Turks had armed their coasts, and
erected batteries along the Dardanelles, through which the British fleet
made its way with considerable loss. Instead of being detached from the
French alliance, the Porte was thrown into its arms and became more
embittered than ever against Russia. It was soon involved in a serious
conflict with that country--for the possession of Wallachia and
Moldavia--only to be deserted again by France under the compact made at
Tilsit. The expedition to Egypt, planned in combination with the
expedition to the Dardanelles, ended in a still worse disaster. Though
General Fraser, its commander, was able to surprise Alexandria on March
30, he awaited in vain the expected news of Duckworth's success; he
proceeded to attack Rosetta with as little generalship as Whitelocke had
shown at Buenos Ayres, and encountered a similar repulse. An attempt to
besiege the town met with no better fortune: the British troops
submitted to a capitulation, evacuated Egypt, and sailed for Sicily in
September, 1807. In an imperial manifesto addressed to the French nation
at the end of this year, the British failures at Buenos Ayres,
Constantinople, and Alexandria were paraded, together with our alleged
crime against the rights of nations at Copenhagen.
In the early months of 1808 the continental system was extended by the
establishment of French administration at Rome, and the annexation of
the eastern ports of the Papal States to the kingdom of Italy. On
February 18 of the same year Austria under French pressure adopted the
system. Sweden and Turkey were now the only continental countries left
outside it, but the retention of Sicily by the Bourbon king rendered it
easy for British commerce to enter Italy through that island. The
irritation of neutrals increased as the area of commercial exclusion
widened, but the United States were now the only neutral power of any
consequence. After April 17 Napoleon took the high-handed step of
confiscating all American shipping in his ports. In spite of this
aggression, the president and congress of the United States continued to
favour France against Great Britain. The story of the commercial warfare
between Great Britain and the United States will be related more fully
hereafter. For the present, it is sufficient to mention that an act,
placing an embargo on foreign vessels in American ports, was passed by
congress on December 22, 1807, and another on March 1, 1809, forbidding
commercial intercourse with Great Britain and France and the colonies
occupied by them.
Meanwhile Great Britain continued to enforce her maritime rights,
including that of searching American merchantmen for British-born
sailors, and impressing them at the will of British naval officers.
These grievances ultimately led to a war between Great Britain and
America in 1812. The continental system, however, did not long remain so
complete as in the beginning of 1808. Junot's expedition to Portugal had
led to a French occupation of that country before the end of 1807. The
conquest of Portugal was followed, as we shall see later, by a partial
conquest of Spain. This threw the Spaniards back upon the British
alliance and afforded an opportunity for the liberation of Portugal, so
that from May, 1808, Great Britain once more had a large seaboard open
to her commerce. The early success of the Spanish resistance to France,
and other events in the peninsula hereafter to be recorded, encouraged
Austria to arm again; and on the news of the capitulation of the French
army at Baylen in July, she pushed forward her preparations with
redoubled energy. A national movement arose simultaneously in North
Germany, but the Prussian government dared not head it so long as
Russia remained faithful to the French alliance.
[Pageheading: _NAPOLEON AT ERFURT._]
Notwithstanding a peremptory declaration from the tsar after the seizure
of the Danish fleet, Russia had nothing to gain by war with Great
Britain. She was bound to France by the prospect held forth to her at
Tilsit of the conquest of Finland and the partition of Turkey, but she
was inwardly desirous of peace with Great Britain. Napoleon, on the
other hand, saw in the partition of Turkey an opportunity of striking at
India, and had actually given orders for naval preparations to be made
in Spain, when all thought of eastern conquest had to be postponed owing
to the success of the Spanish patriots. After a conference between
Napoleon and the tsar at Erfurt a secret convention was signed on
October 12, by which France sanctioned Russian conquests in Finland and
the Danubian provinces, and Russia recognised the Bonaparte dynasty in
Spain and promised to assist France in a defensive war against Austria.
The two powers despatched a joint note to Great Britain inviting her to
make peace, on the principle of _uti possidetis_. Canning replied that
he was prepared to negotiate if his allies, especially Sweden and the
Spanish patriots, who were at that time in actual possession of almost
the entire country, were included in the peace. On November 19 Napoleon
expressed his willingness to treat with the British allies, but not with
the Spanish "rebels," as he styled them. Alexander took up a similar
position, speaking of the Spanish "insurgents," and expressly
recognising Joseph as King of Spain. Thus ended these pacific overtures,
and on November 3 the official _exposé_, annually issued in Paris,
described Great Britain as "the enemy of the world".
The year 1808 is memorable in English history for the active
intervention of Great Britain in the affairs of Spain which developed
into the "Peninsular war".[37] This intervention was rendered possible
and effective by the organisation of our army system in 1807, which was
due to Castlereagh, though he received little credit for it. Under this
system, the old constitutional force of the militia was made the basis
of the whole military establishment. By the militia balloting bill and
the militia transfer bill, that force, largely composed of substitutes,
and bound only to home-service, was practically converted into a
recruiting-ground for the regular army, and proved sufficient to make
good all the losses incurred during the long campaigns in Portugal and
Spain. The army thus raised contained, no doubt, many soldiers of bad
character, whose misdeeds, after the furious excitement of an escalade,
or under the heart-breaking stress of a retreat, sometimes brought
disgrace upon the British name. But these men, side by side with
steadier comrades, bore themselves like heroes on many a bloodstained
field; they quailed not before the conquering legions of Austerlitz and
Wagram; they could "go anywhere or do anything" under trusted leaders;
and they restored the military reputation of their country before the
eyes of Europe. To have forged such an instrument of war was no mean
administrative exploit. To have maintained its efficiency steadily on
the whole, though sometimes with a faint-hearted parsimony, and to have
loyally supported its commander against the cavils of a factious
opposition superior in parliamentary ability, for a period of seven
years, must be held to redeem the tory government from the charge of
political weakness.
[Pageheading: _PARLIAMENTARY ZEAL._]
At the beginning of 1809, however, the interest of parliament was less
concentrated on Sir Arthur Wellesley's first campaign in Portugal, or
even on the convention of Cintra, than on the scandals attaching to the
office of commander-in-chief, held by the Duke of York. Though an
incapable general, the duke had shown himself, on the whole, an
excellent administrator, and in the opinion of the best officers had
done much for the discipline and efficiency of the British army.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Clarke, his former mistress, had received bribes for
using her influence with the duke to procure military appointments.
Colonel Wardle, an obscure member of parliament, to whom Mrs. Clarke had
temporarily transferred herself after being discarded by the duke,
animated by a desire to damage the ministry, came forward with charges
directly implicating him in her corrupt practices, and incidentally
brought similar accusations against Portland and Eldon. The government
foolishly agreed to an inquiry on the Duke of York's behalf, and it was
conducted before a committee of the whole house, which sat from January
26 to March 20. In the course of this inquiry, Sir Arthur Wellesley
bore strong testimony in his favour, and the duke addressed a letter to
the speaker, declaring his innocence of corruption. Though Wardle and
his associates pressed for his dismissal, Perceval ultimately carried a
motion acquitting him not only of corruption but of connivance with
corruption. The majority, however, was small, and the duke thought it
necessary to resign on March 20, whereupon the house of commons decided
to proceed no further. A curious sequel of this case was an action
against Wardle by an upholsterer, who had furnished a house for Mrs.
Clarke by Wardle's orders, in consideration of her services in giving
hostile evidence against her former protector. The plaintiff obtained
£2,000 damages, and the law-suit was the means of producing a reaction
in popular feeling in favour of the duke.
This scandal in high places quickened the zeal of parliament for general
purity of administration, and led to a disclosure of some grave abuses.
One of these, connected with the disposal of captured Dutch property,
dated as far back as 1795. Others were found to exist in the navy
department and the distribution of Indian patronage; others related to
parliamentary elections. Perceval brought in a bill to check the sale
and brokerage of offices, nor did Castlereagh himself escape the charge
of having procured the election of Lord Clancarty to parliament by the
offer of an Indian writership to a borough-monger. A frank explanation
saved him from censure, especially as it appeared that the offer had
never taken effect. The charge was renewed, in a different form, against
both him and Perceval, and their accusers moved for a trial at bar. But
as it turned out that undue influence rather than corruption was their
alleged offence, and as the avowed object of the resolution was to force
on parliamentary reform, it was negatived by an immense majority.
Nevertheless, the object was not wholly defeated.
The removal of the Duke of York from the command of the army was
singularly inopportune, for Sir David Dundas had scarcely been appointed
as his successor when a juncture arose specially demanding a combination
of energy and experience. The British government, already engaged in the
Peninsular war, had at last resolved to take a vigorous part in the new
and desperate struggle between France and Austria in Southern Germany.
The latent spirit of German nationality, aroused by Napoleon's ruthless
treatment of Prussia, and quickened into a flame by sympathy with the
uprising in Spain, was embodied in the secret association of the
_Tugendbund_; and Austria, smarting under a sense of her own
humiliation, mustered up courage to assume the leadership of a national
movement. South Germany, governed by old dynasties, which profited by
the French alliance, displayed as yet no symptoms of disaffection to
France; but in North Germany the old dynasties had been either humbled
or deposed, and the general ferment among the people, needed, as the
Austrians believed, only the presence of a regular army to break out
into a national revolt against the foreigner. Prussia, it is true, was
still unwilling to move, because Russia was hostile; but the Austrian
court knew well the lukewarmness of Russia's attachment to France, and
hoped that a national upheaval would carry the Prussian government along
with it. No one, in fact, had played a more active part in rousing
Northern Germany than the Prussian minister, Stein, whom Frederick
William, by Napoleon's advice, had called to his councils after Tilsit,
and who was now compelled to resign his office and take refuge in
Austria.
[Pageheading: _NAPOLEON IN AUSTRIA._]
The British government was aware of the situation in Germany when it
received a request in January, 1809, for the despatch of a British force
to the mouth of the Elbe. Austria was, however, still nominally at war
with Great Britain, and George III., perhaps not unreasonably, refused
to give her active military assistance till peace was concluded.
Meanwhile a subsidy of £250,000 in bullion was despatched to Trieste,
and inquiries were set on foot as to the means of supplying such a
military expedition as Austria desired.[38] On March 22, Dundas, who had
only been a few days in office as commander-in-chief, reported that
15,000 men could not be spared from home service, and, in consequence,
no extensive preparations were made until the muster rolls in June
showed that 40,000 troops might safely be employed abroad. This
convinced the government that a large force could be sent without
interfering with home defence, as Castlereagh had long contended; and
throughout June and July the naval and military departments were busy in
preparing for what has since left a sinister memory as the Walcheren
expedition. Meanwhile, as if the passion of frittering away resources
were irresistible, a smaller force was despatched, as a kind of feint,
against the kingdom of Naples. It consisted of 15,000 British troops and
a body of Sicilians. Bailing from Palermo early in June it captured the
islands of Ischia and Procida and the castle of Scylla, and threw Naples
into consternation. But the attack was not pushed, and it was too late
to be of any assistance to the Austrians who had already been expelled
from the Italian peninsula. At last, in July, the treaty of peace with
Austria was signed and the great armament was ready to sail.
But Napoleon had not awaited the deliberations of British statesmen.
Hurrying back from Spain, he remained in Paris only long enough to
organise a campaign in South Germany, and left the capital to join his
armies on April 13. A week earlier, the Archduke Charles, having
remodelled the Austrian army, issued a proclamation affirming Austria to
be the champion of European liberty. On the 9th Austria declared war
against Bavaria, the ally of France, and her troops crossed the Inn. On
the 17th, when Napoleon arrived at Donauwörth, he found the archduke in
occupation of Ratisbon. His presence turned the tide, and, after three
victories, he was once more on the road to Vienna. The most important of
these victories was that of Eckmühl, and he regarded the manoeuvre by
which it was won as the finest in his military career. On May 13 the
French entered Vienna, but the Archduke Charles with an army of nearly
200,000 men was facing him on the left bank of the Danube. Napoleon's
army crossed and encountered the Austrians on the great plain between
Aspern and Essling. He was repulsed and fell back upon Lobau, between
which and the Vienna side of the Danube the bridge of boats had been
swept away by a rise of the river and by balks of timber floated down by
the Austrians. In this dangerous position he remained shut up for
several weeks. He finally succeeded in throwing across a light bridge by
which his army regained the left bank on the night of July 4. Finding
their position turned the Austrians took up their stand on the tableland
of Wagram. On July 6 another pitched battle was fought, which, in the
number of combatants engaged and in the losses inflicted on both sides,
must rank with the later conflicts of Borodino and Leipzig. A hard won
victory rested with the French, but it was not such a victory as that of
Austerlitz or Jena, though it secured the neutrality, at least, of
Austria for the next four years. Her army retreated into Bohemia, and on
July 12 an armistice was signed at Znaim in Moravia, which formed the
basis of a peace concluded at Vienna on October 14.
Nothing remained for Great Britain but to abandon the auxiliary
enterprise so long planned, but so often delayed, or to carry it through
independently, with little hope of a decisive issue. The latter
alternative was adopted. The very day on which the news of the armistice
arrived witnessed the departure of the greatest single armament ever
sent out fully equipped from the shores of Great Britain. The deplorable
failure of the Walcheren expedition has obscured both its magnitude and
its probable importance had it only proved successful. The command of
the fleet was given to Sir Richard Strachan, a competent admiral; that
of the army to Chatham, who sat in the cabinet as master-general of the
ordnance, an incompetent general, who owed his nomination to royal
favour. This was the first blunder; the second was the utter neglect of
medical and sanitary precautions against the notoriously unhealthy
climate of Walcheren in the autumn months. The armament sailed from the
Downs on July 28, in the finest weather and with a display of intense
national enthusiasm. It consisted of thirty-five ships of the line, with
a swarm of smaller war-vessels and transports, carrying nearly 40,000
troops, two battering-trains, and a complete apparatus of military
stores. Its destination, though more than suspected by the enemy, had
been officially kept secret at home. Castlereagh must be held largely
responsible for the delays and for the unwise choice of a general which
marred its success, but he showed true military sagacity in designating
the point of attack. Inspired by him, the British government,
distrusting the national movement in North Germany, had decided to
strike at Antwerp, which Napoleon had supplied with new docks, and
which, now that the mouth of the Scheldt had been reopened, threatened
to become the commercial rival of London. The town was entirely
unprepared, and a blow dealt here seemed the best way of doing as much
harm as possible to France and at the same time gaining a national
advantage for Great Britain.
[Pageheading: _THE WALCHEREN EXPEDITION._]
Chatham had received very precise instructions from Castlereagh, the
objects prescribed to him being, (1) the capture or destruction of the
enemy's ships, either building or afloat at Antwerp or Flushing, or
afloat in the Scheldt; (2) the destruction of the arsenals and dockyards
at Antwerp, Terneuze, and Flushing; (3) the reduction of the island of
Walcheren; (4) the rendering of the Scheldt no longer navigable to ships
of war. These objects were named, as far as possible, in the order of
their importance, and Chatham was specially directed to land troops at
Sandvliet and push on straight to Antwerp, with the view of taking it by
a _coup de main_. Napoleon, who clearly foretold the catastrophe
awaiting the British troops in the malarious swamps of Walcheren,
afterwards admitted that Antwerp could have been captured by a sudden
assault. Chatham obeyed his general orders, but, instead of taking them
in the order of importance, gave precedence to the objects which could
most easily be accomplished. By prompt action the French fleet, which
was moored off Flushing, might have been captured, but it was allowed to
escape to Antwerp. By August 2 the British were in complete possession
of the mouth of the Scheldt, and had taken Bath opposite Sandvliet,
while Antwerp was still almost unprotected. But Chatham concentrated his
attention on the siege of Flushing, which surrendered, after three days'
bombardment, on August 16, contrary to Napoleon's expectation. Antwerp
had meanwhile been put in a state of defence, and was now protected by
the enemy's fleet, while French and Dutch troops were pouring down to
the Scheldt. After ten days of inactivity, Chatham advanced his
headquarters to Bath, found that further advance was impossible, and
recommended the government to recall the expedition, leaving 15,000 men
to defend the island of Walcheren. This advice was adopted, but the
garrison left in Walcheren suffered most severely from fever in that
swampy island. Eventually, on December 24, Walcheren was abandoned, the
works and naval basins of Flushing having been previously destroyed. The
destruction of Flushing was the sole result of this expedition.
The failure of the British to make any serious impression on the French
either in the Low Countries or in Spain induced Austria to consent to
peace with France. By the peace of Vienna, signed on October 14, she
ceded Salzburg and a part of Upper Austria to Bavaria, West Galicia to
the duchy of Warsaw, and a part of Carinthia with Trieste and the
Illyrian provinces to France. A small strip of Galicia was ceded to the
Russian tsar, who had rendered France some very half-hearted assistance
and was further alienated by the extension of the duchy of Warsaw.
Austria was enslaved to the will of Napoleon. She had abandoned the
Tyrolese peasants whose loyal insurrection against the Bavarians was the
most heroic incident in the war, and she now joined the other nations of
the continent in excluding the commerce of Great Britain, which had made
a powerful diversion in Spain and an imposing though futile diversion on
the Scheldt to save her from national annihilation.
While the Walcheren expedition was preparing, two additions were made to
the cabinet. Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, brother of the Marquis of
Stafford, was admitted in June as secretary at war, and in July
Harrowby, who was created an earl, became president of the board of
control with a seat in the cabinet. After the fate of the expedition
became known, though before its final withdrawal, a serious quarrel took
place between Canning and Castlereagh. Personal jealousies had long
existed between these two statesmen, both half-Irish, half-English, and
of approximately the same age, yet widely different in character.
Canning was the most brilliant orator of his day, and no less persuasive
in private conversation than in public orations, gifted with an agile
brain that leaped readily from one idea or one project to another, but
cursed with a bitter wit which lightly aroused enduring enmities, and
which, coupled with an excessive vanity, rendered him unpopular with his
colleagues, and made it difficult for any one to take him seriously;
while his rival, not less able, and much more steady and trustworthy, a
skilful manager of men, was scarcely able to pronounce a coherent
sentence. Early in April Canning pressed upon the Duke of Portland the
transfer of Castlereagh to another office. Private communications
followed between various members of the cabinet, and it was understood
that Camden, as Castlereagh's friend, should apprise him of the
prevailing view, which the king himself had approved under a threat of
Canning's resignation. The duke, however, begged Camden to postpone the
disclosure, and others of Castlereagh's friends urged Canning not to
insist upon the change pending the completion of the Walcheren
expedition.
[Pageheading: _DUEL BETWEEN CANNING AND CASTLEREAGH._]
As the scheme took shape in July Camden was to resign, and thus make
possible a shifting of offices, which was to result in the Marquis
Wellesley succeeding Castlereagh as secretary for war. At last, on
September 6, the duke informed Canning of his own intention to retire on
the ground of ill-health, and at the same time disclosed the fact that
no steps had been taken to prepare Castlereagh for the proposed change
in his position. Thereupon Canning promptly sent in his own resignation,
the duke resigned the same day, and Castlereagh, learning what had
passed, followed his example two days later.[39] Believing that Canning
had been intriguing against him behind his back, under the guise of
friendship, he demanded satisfaction on the 19th, and on the 21st[40]
the duel was fought, in which Canning received a slight wound. Such
events provoked little censure in those days, and it is pleasant to
know that Canning and Castlereagh afterwards acted cordially together as
colleagues. Their enmity broke up the government. The Duke of Portland
did not long survive his withdrawal from office, and died on October 29;
Leveson-Gower insisted on following Canning into retirement.
Perceval was entrusted with the task of forming an administration, but
the new ministry was not formed without considerable negotiation.
Canning vainly endeavoured to impress first on his colleagues and then
on the king his own pretensions to the highest office, while attempts,
to which the king gave a reluctant assent, had been made to enlist the
co-operation of Grenville and Howick, who succeeded his father as Earl
Grey, in 1807, but they failed as all later attempts were destined to
fail. The most influential motive governing their conduct was,
doubtless, their feeling that they would not as ministers possess the
king's confidence. Sidmouth's following had also been approached.
Sidmouth himself was considered too obnoxious to some of Pitt's
followers to be a safe member of the new cabinet, but Vansittart was
offered the chancellorship of the exchequer and Bragge, who had taken
the additional surname of Bathurst, the office of secretary at war. They
refused, however, to enter the ministry, unless accompanied by Sidmouth
himself.
Perceval eventually became prime minister, retaining his former offices;
Lord Bathurst, while remaining at the board of trade, presided
temporarily at the foreign office, which was offered to the Marquis
Wellesley, then serving as British ambassador to the Spanish junta at
Seville, and taken over by him in December. Hawkesbury, now Earl of
Liverpool, succeeded Castlereagh as secretary for war and the colonies,
and was followed at the home office by Richard Ryder, a brother of
Harrowby. Harrowby himself gave up the board of control in November to
Melville's son, Robert Dundas, who, however, was not made a member of
the cabinet. Lord Palmerston, who had been a junior lord of the
admiralty under Portland, declined the chancellorship of the exchequer,
and though he accepted Leveson-Gower's post as secretary at war, he was
by his own desire excluded from the cabinet.
[Pageheading: _NEW BRITISH CONQUESTS._]
While the close of the year 1809 was darkened by national
disappointment and political anxieties, the honour of British arms had
been amply vindicated in the Spanish peninsula, and the brilliant
exploit of Lord Cochrane in Basque Roads had recalled the glories of the
Nile. Cochrane had already achieved marvels under Collingwood in the
Mediterranean, and notably off the Spanish coast, when he was selected
to conduct an attack by fireships on the French squadron blockaded under
the shelter of the islands of Aix and Oléron. This he carried out on the
night of April 11, with a dash and skill worthy of Nelson, and unless
checked by Gambier, the admiral in command, who had been raised to the
peerage after the seizure of the Danish fleet in 1807, he must have
succeeded in destroying the whole of the enemy's ships. Gambier was
afterwards acquitted by a court martial of negligence, but the verdict
of the public was against him. In the autumn Collingwood reduced the
seven Ionian islands, and gained an important advantage by cutting out a
considerable detachment of the Toulon fleet in the Bay of Genoa. In the
course of the year, too, all the remaining French territory in the West
Indies, as well as the Isle of Bourbon in the Indian Ocean, was captured
by the British navy. But this unchallenged supremacy on the high seas
did not prevent the depredations of French gunboats on British
merchantmen in the channel. Indeed after the battle of Trafalgar, the
French "sea-wasps" infesting the Channel were more active and
destructive than ever.
On October 25, being the forty-ninth anniversary of his accession, the
jubilee of George III. was celebrated with hearty and sincere
rejoicings. His popularity was not unmerited. He was politically
shortsighted, but within his range of vision few saw facts so clearly;
he was obstinate and prejudiced, but his obstinacy was redeemed by a
moral intrepidity of the highest order, and his prejudices were shared
by the mass of his people. Having lived through the seven years' war,
the war of the American revolution, and the successive wars of Great
Britain against the French monarchy and the French republic, he was now
supporting, with indomitable firmness, a war against the all-conquering
French empire--the most perilous in which this country was ever engaged.
The colonial and Indian dominions of Great Britain, reduced by the loss
of the North American colonies, had been greatly extended during his
reign in other quarters of the globe. His subjects regarded him as an
Englishman to the core; they knew him to be honest, religious, virtuous,
and homely in his life; they justly believed him, in spite of his
failings, to be a power for good in the land; and they rewarded him with
a respect and affection granted to no other British sovereign of modern
times before Queen Victoria. They had good cause to desire the
continuance of his life and reason, knowing the character of his
heir-apparent, and contrasting the domestic habits of Windsor with the
licence of Carlton House.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Colchester, _Diary_ (Feb. 4, 1806), ii., 35, 36.
[32] Holland, _Memoirs of the Whig Party_, ii., 91-94.
[33] Holland, _Memoirs of the Whig Party,_ ii., 173-205, 270-320;
Colchester, _Diary_, ii., 92-115; Malmesbury, _Diaries_, iv., 357-72;
Walpole, _Life of Perceval_, i., 223-33; Buckingham, _Courts and
Cabinets_, iv., 117-50. Holland accuses the king of treachery and
duplicity, and Lewis (_Administrations of Great Britain_, p. 294)
repeats this charge in milder terms. But the documents quoted do not
prove any want of straightforwardness, and the king's conduct was the
logical consequence of his action in 1801.
[34] In the following year Napoleon consented to evacuate all the
Prussian fortresses except three, on condition that the Prussian army
should not exceed a total of 40,000 men.
[35] _Annual Register_, xlix. (1807), 249-70, 731-38; Rose, in _English
Historical Review_, xi. (1896), 82-92.
[36] Captain Mahan, _The Influence of Sea Power upon the French
Revolution and Empire_, ii., 272-357, shows that the policy of the
orders in council was essential to British safety.
[37] The course of this war is related continuously in chap. v.
[38] Rose, _Life of Napoleon I._, ii., 190, note.
[39] The best account of the quarrel, especially in its relation to the
composition of the cabinet, is to be found in Walpole's _Life of
Perceval_, vol. i., chap. ix., and vol. ii., chap. i. Lewis,
_Administrations_, pp. 314-15, finds a double ground for Canning's
resignation in his failure to obtain the removal of Castlereagh from the
war office and in the refusal of the king and cabinet to allow him to
succeed Portland as prime minister. It is quite clear, however, that at
the time of Canning's resignation no decision had been come to about a
successor to Portland. Some correspondence had passed between Canning
and Perceval, in which each had refused to serve under the other, but
that this correspondence was unknown to the cabinet as a whole is proved
by Mulgrave's letters to Lord Lonsdale of September 11 and 15 (Phipps,
_Memoir of Ward_, pp. 210-17); in the former of these he discusses
Canning's probable conduct without referring to this correspondence,
while in the latter he only knows of such negotiations as subsequent to
the resignations of September 6 and 8. So, too, Eldon's letter to his
wife of September 11 (Twiss, _Life of Eldon_, ii., 88-90), places the
whole correspondence between Canning and Perceval after Portland's
resignation on September 6. The king was not informed of Canning's views
as to a successor to Portland till September 13, and the cabinet minute
of September 18, advising co-operation with Grenville and Grey, mentions
the selection of Canning as prime minister as a course open to the king.
[40] This is the date commonly given. The _Annual Register_, li. (1809),
239, gives the 22nd, while Perceval refers to the result of the duel in
a letter dated the 20th (Colchester, _Diary_, ii., 209). It is clear,
however, that Canning did not receive Castlereagh's challenge till the
morning of the 20th (see his letter in _Annual Register_, _loc. cit._,
505, also his detailed statement to Camden, _ibid._, 525), and therefore
the duel cannot have taken place till the 21st. Lord Folkestone in a
letter dated the 21st refers to the duel as having been fought at "7
o'clock this morning" (_Creevey Papers_, i., 96).