THE LAST STRUGGLE
Heavens! What has Prussia to answer for! For nothing less, in my
mind, than every calamity which has befallen Europe for more
than ten years.--GENERAL PAGET TO SIR ARTHUR PAGET, _24th
January 1806_.
The opening moves in the great game between Pitt and Napoleon were
divided with a curious evenness. As we have seen, the French Emperor's
defiant annexation of Genoa obliterated the anger of the Czar at Pitt's
insistence on the retention of Malta; and if Pitt's high-handed conduct
forced Spain to declare against England, yet, on the other hand,
Napoleon wantonly challenged Austria and Russia to a conflict. The first
events of the war showed a similar balance. On 20th October the French
Emperor compelled the Austrian commander, General Mack, to surrender at
or near Ulm in Swabia with almost the whole of an army of some 70,000
men. On the next day Nelson destroyed the French and Spanish fleets at
Trafalgar. So quickly did the forcefulness or ineptitude of four
commanders determine the course of events. By the end of October the
tricolour waved triumphant over Central Europe; but the Union Jack was
thenceforth scarcely challenged by sea; and Britain began to exert that
unseen but resistless pressure upon her enemy which gradually edged him
to his ruin. Consequently the appalling failures of the Third Coalition
on land only delayed the final triumph on which the serene genius of
Pitt surely counted.
At first everything seemed to favour his designs. Part of Napoleon's
army in its hurried march from North Germany towards Ulm violated the
neutrality of the Prussian principality of Anspach, apparently by
command of the Emperor. This short cut to success nearly entailed
disaster; for it earned the sharp resentment of Prussia at a time when
he especially valued her friendship. Indeed, so soon as he resolved to
turn the "Army of England" against Austria, he despatched his most
trusted aide-de-camp, Duroc, to Berlin, to tempt that Court with that
alluring bait, Hanover. Russia and England were, however, making equal
efforts in the hope of gaining the help of the magnificent army of
Frederick William III. For a time Pitt also hoped to add the South
German States, and in all to set in motion a mass of 650,000 men against
France, Austria contributing 250,000, Russia 180,000, Prussia 100,000
(later on he bargained for 180,000), Sardinia 25,000, Naples 20,000,
Sweden 16,000, and the small German States the remainder. Napoleon, on
the other hand, strove to paralyse the efforts of the Coalition by
securing the alliance or the friendly neutrality of Prussia. With
200,000 hostile or doubtful troops on her frontier, Austria could do
little, and Russia still less. Further, as he still had French troops in
one or two fortresses of Hanover, he could utter the words so often on
the lips of Bismarck--_Beati possidentes_. Hanover belonged of right to
George III; but Napoleon could will it away to Prussia.
Thus the fortunes of Europe depended largely on Frederick William.
Unfortunately he was incapable of rising to the height of the situation;
for he utterly lacked the virile qualities which raised the House of
Hohenzollern above petty compeers in Swabia to fame and prosperity.
Essentially mediocre, and conscious of his slender endowments, he, like
Louis XVI, nearly always hesitated, and therefore generally lost. His
character was a dull compound of negations. Prone neither to vice nor to
passion, he was equally devoid of charm and graciousness. Freezing men
by his coldness, he failed to overawe them by superiority; and, with a
weak man's dislike of genius and strength, he avoided great men,
preferring trimmers like Haugwitz and Lombard, who played upon his
foibles, and saved him from disagreeable decisions. The commanding
personality of Stein inspired in him nervous dislike which deepened into
peevish dread. Only in the depths of disaster, into which his own
weakness was to plunge him, did he have recourse to that saviour of
Prussia.
By the side of Frederick William was that radiant figure, Queen Louisa,
who recalls the contrast between Marie Antoinette and her uninteresting,
hapless spouse. For Louisa, too, had ambition and the power of inspiring
devotion, though etiquette and jealousy forbade her intervention in
affairs of State;[735] otherwise the Prussian Government would have
shaken off that paralysing indecision which left its people friendless
and spiritless on the bursting of the storm a year later. For the
present, the King's chief adviser, Hardenberg, sought to impart to
Prussian policy a trend more favourable to England and Russia. Conscious
of the need of a better frontier on the west and of the longing of his
master for the greater part of Hanover, he sought to attain this end by
means not wholly opposed to the feelings of George III and the policy of
Pitt. Above all, he strove to end the humiliating subservience of his
Court to France, which galled the spirit of all patriotic Prussians.
Their great desire was to join the new Coalition even though such a step
entailed war with Napoleon. They rejoiced at the news of Admiral
Calder's victory off Finisterre, and hailed every sign of war at St.
Petersburg and Vienna.[736] On the other hand, the French party was
strong at Court. Haugwitz, its head, was still nominally Minister for
Foreign Affairs, and, though often absent for long periods on his
Silesian domain, resumed the control of them when he returned to Berlin.
This singular arrangement enabled the King to keep up the game of
political see-saw which brought relief to him, disgust to his would-be
allies, and ruin to his country.
To tilt the balance in favour of the Coalition was now the chief aim of
Pitt. And who shall say that, if Prussia, with strength still
unimpaired, had played the part which her enfeebled people insisted on
taking up in 1813, the doom of Napoleon might not have been assured in
the autumn and winter which we associate with the names of Ulm and
Austerlitz? All this was possible, nay, probable, had Frederick William
surveyed the situation with the sound judgement of Pitt. But the British
statesman laboured under one great disadvantage. He could not offer to
Prussia what she most wanted. He could do no more than promise to extend
her western confines to Antwerp and Ostend; and she far preferred
Hanover, as solidifying her straggling western lands, without bringing
her near to France. Here was an almost insuperable obstacle; and we can
imagine that, like his father, he cursed Britain's connection with
Hanover. His chief hope was, that Prussia would discern her true
interest in acquiring less by honourable means than very much from
Napoleon, whose gifts were often perilous. Russia, too, at that time
seemed to adopt the British view of the Hanoverian question; and in the
early autumn that Power mustered her second army on the borders of
Prussia in a highly threatening manner. Finally, the Czar declared that
if his troops were refused a passage through Silesia, he would make his
way by force, the Pitt Cabinet informing him that, in that case, the
liberal subsidies intended for Prussia, would be added to those already
on their way to St. Petersburg. But even threats failed to bring
Frederick William to a decision; and Hardenberg announced that a
forcible entry of the Russians would involve war with Prussia.[737]
While Frederick William fumed at the Muscovite threats, came news of the
violation of his Anspach domain on 3rd October. At once he declared his
intention to avenge the insult and to expel Duroc from Prussian
territory. He also raised high the hopes of the Allies by allowing the
Russians to enter Silesia, and by favouring Pitt's plan of a joint
expedition of the Allies to Hanover with a view to the liberation of
Holland; and when he ordered the mobilization of the whole Prussian
army, there appeared good grounds for expecting the speedy accession of
at least 150,000 troops trained in the school of Frederick the Great.
Even Haugwitz now suggested that if war came England must give Prussia a
subsidy.[738] The Anglophil party at Berlin raised its head in triumph
at the approach of the Russian Emperor; and when on 28th October he
entered Berlin with enthusiastic greetings from the populace, Europe
seemed about to be leagued against Napoleon. Chivalry and prudence alike
counselled such a union, for on the morrow arrived news of the
annihilation of Mack's army. Nothing but prompt action could save
Germany from the Napoleonic deluge.
The first rumours of the disaster at Ulm did not reach London until 2nd
November. Lord Malmesbury was dining with Pitt and mentioned the report
to him, whereupon the Prime Minister exclaimed in loud and angry tones,
"Don't believe a word of it: it is all a fiction."[739] But on the
morrow a Dutch newspaper was brought, and Malmesbury translated the
account, which was so clear and detailed as to leave little room for
doubt. Pitt's countenance changed. There came over him that look which
his friends saw imprinted more deeply with every week of deepening
gloom. For a brief space it passed away. On 6th November London heard
the joyful yet painful news of Trafalgar. It reached Downing Street at 3
a.m. Pitt was so moved by conflicting emotions that he, the soundest of
sleepers, could not find repose, but roused himself for work. The Stock
Exchange registered the swift oscillations from confidence to doubt, for
though all fear of the French and Spanish fleet was at an end, yet, as
Nelson perished, national security seemed imperilled, and Consols sank.
The contrast between the victorious constancy of Britain and the
wavering and hapless counsels of the Germanic States inspired Pitt with
one of the most magnanimous utterances of that age. At the Lord Mayor's
banquet on 9th November, that dignitary proposed his health as the
Saviour of Europe. Pitt concentrated his reply into these two memorable
sentences: "I return you many thanks for the honour you have done me;
but Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved
herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her
example." In its terseness and strength, its truth and modesty, its
patriotism and hopefulness, this utterance stands unrivalled. The effect
must have been all the greater because Pitt then bore on his countenance
signs of that anxious forethought in which now lay the chief hope of
European independence.
Six days before the arrival of news of the Austrian disaster, Pitt had
sought to expedite a union with Prussia. In view of the urgency of the
case, he decided to send his trusted friend, the Earl of Harrowby, the
Dudley Ryder of former days. Harrowby's great abilities have never met
with due recognition, probably owing to the persistent ill health which
impaired alike his equanimity and his power of work; but Wilberforce had
good cause for commending Pitt's choice; and he added in a letter of
25th October that the capacity of Harrowby was rated far higher by
foreigners than by Englishmen.[740] The instructions to the Earl,
drafted by Lord Mulgrave on 27th October, reveal Pitt's resolve to go
very far in order to buy the support of Prussia. They empowered Harrowby
to offer her the Belgic provinces and such German lands as would
connect them with the Westphalian domains of Prussia. The need of money
for the immediate equipment of her army being also urgent, Harrowby was
to offer a yearly subsidy of £12 10_s._ for each Prussian soldier
actually serving against France, the hope being expressed that from
150,000 to 200,000 men would be forthcoming. At the same time Pitt
explained that at the general peace Great Britain would restore all her
acquisitions oversea, Malta and the Cape of Good Hope alone excepted.
Harrowby was also charged to do all in his power to effect the
liberation of North Germany and Holland by the Russo-Swedish force then
mustering at Stralsund. Such were the plans of Pitt. Even in this brief
outline, their magnanimity is apparent. In order to assure the freedom
of the Continent, he was ready to pour forth the wealth of Britain, and
to sacrifice all her conquests, except those two bulwarks of Empire,
Malta and the Cape.[741] Already even before Nelson gained the mastery
of the seas at Trafalgar, Baird's force had set sail for the reduction
of the Cape. It achieved its purpose in the month in which Pitt died. It
is not generally known that the foundation of our South African Empire
was due primarily to his foresight. The war having originated in
Napoleon's aggressions and his threats respecting Egypt and the Orient
generally, Pitt resolved that England should thenceforth dominate both
the sea route and the overland route to the East Indies.
Unfortunately, owing to the fogs on the River Elbe and other delays at
Hamburg, Harrowby did not reach Berlin until the middle of
November;[742] and a fortnight earlier (3rd November) the sovereigns of
Russia and Prussia had framed the Treaty of Potsdam. Ostensibly, it
bound Prussia to side with the Allies unless within four weeks Napoleon
accepted her armed mediation, which she proposed to offer forthwith. She
required from the French Emperor a full recognition of the independence
of Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and Naples, which of course implied
the withdrawal of French troops from those lands. Napoleon was also to
grant to the dispossessed King of Sardinia the following
indemnities--Genoa, Parma, and Piacenza; while Austria was to recover
Central Venetia as far as the River Mincio. The Allies flattered
themselves that Napoleon would at once reject these terms and throw
Prussia into their arms. Such, too, was the conviction of Pitt. While
regretting that France should keep Piedmont and find no barrier opposed
to her in Holland,[743] he felt so convinced of Napoleon's refusal and
of Prussia's good faith that he prepared to satisfy her demand for a
British subsidy. Prussian troops were marching into Hanover, as if with
the aim of ousting the French and restoring the authority of George III;
and Hardenberg assured Harrowby in their first interview, on 16th
November, that that force would protect the flank of the Anglo-Russian
expedition then about to enter the Electorate.
On the surface, then, everything seemed to augur a brilliant success for
Pitt's policy. As had happened before, the recklessness of Napoleon
favoured the British cause; and it is probable that, if Frederick
William had sent to the French headquarters any one but Count Haugwitz,
Prussia would have drawn the sword. Napoleon was in great danger. True,
he met with little opposition in his advance to Vienna and thence into
Moravia. But the deeper he plunged into that province, the worse would
be his position if 180,000 Prussians were launched at his flank and
rear. The Court of Berlin was well aware that the destinies of Europe
lay in its hands; and for once a fatal confidence possessed Frederick
William. He and his advisers used the crisis, not in the magnanimous
spirit which impelled Pitt to sacrifice nearly the whole of Britain's
naval conquests, but in order to assure Prussia's gain even at the
expense of the solidarity of the European League. The Coalition's
extremity was Prussia's opportunity. Hanover was her price for joining
it. Such was the purport of a secret article of the Treaty of Potsdam,
to which the Czar had most reluctantly given his consent.
In order to bring the utmost possible pressure to bear upon the British
Government, a special Russian envoy, Count d'Oubril, set out from Berlin
to London, crossing Harrowby on the way. Oubril arrived in London on or
about 16th November; and after a short delay Vorontzoff and he
communicated to Pitt the document containing the ominous demand. The
Russian ambassador noted that Pitt, despite long training in the
concealment of his feelings, displayed some emotion on reading the
fateful words. In truth, they dealt the second of the strokes which
struck him to the heart. But, collecting himself with an effort, he
informed Vorontzoff that, so great was the King's attachment to Hanover,
the patrimony of his family for upwards of a thousand years, that no
Minister would venture ever to name the proposal, as it might either
kill him or drive him mad. All the arguments of Vorontzoff and Oubril on
behalf of the Prusso-Russian demand utterly failed. Pitt expressed a
desire to meet Prussia's wishes for a better western frontier, but never
at the expense of Hanover.[744] Thus he deliberately faced a terrible
diplomatic reverse rather than expose the King to a recurrence of his
mental malady. A little later he recovered his equanimity; for on 19th
November he informed Harrowby that, though Hanover was out of the
question, yet he hoped to find an equivalent which would satisfy
Prussia. The two Emperors could not in their present plight object to
her gaining a large accession of territory. Moreover it would be an
infinite disgrace to them now to make a separate peace with Napoleon.
Still [he added] even if this should happen, we have a strong
interest that a separate peace should provide all the security
that can be obtained for the Continent. If decent terms are
obtained, particularly if France is obliged _really_ to evacuate
Holland and leave it in a state of independence, and if the
three great Continental Powers after extorting concessions from
France in the moment of victory, unite cordially in an
obligation to resist all future encroachments, not only Europe
will have gained much, but we shall have gained for the separate
objects of this country more than enough to compensate for all
the expense of subsidies in this year; and we may return to a
state of separate war with little to guard against but the
single point of Boulogne and with increased means of
concentrating both our naval and land defence. The first object
therefore of my wishes is, the immediate rejection of the
mediation[745] and the _embarking Prussia at any rate in active
and decisive operations_ towards Germany and Holland, leaving
it to be considered afterwards what territorial arrangements can
be agreed upon to secure her permanent co-operation. The next
would be, in the event of negotiation, our being included in it,
on the terms of restoring all our conquests except Malta and the
Cape--and the third (and tho' the worst not a bad one) as good a
separate peace as possible for our perfidious Allies, leaving us
to fight our battle for ourselves....[746]
Pitt's indignation against Prussia did not lead him to fling a refusal
at her. On the contrary, he sought to postpone that announcement until
the expiration of the four weeks, within which she must make her
decision to side with or against Napoleon. Such was the purport of his
letter of 23rd November to Harrowby. He also announced an increase in
the numbers of the British force destined to serve in Hanover. This
expedition under General Don was now being pushed on with great zeal. It
met with disapproval from Canning, who with much sagacity pointed out,
on 29th November, that if the war were continued the gain of a month or
two was a trifling object; whereas, if the Allies ended the war, France
would certainly offer Hanover to Prussia.[747] The dash of pessimism in
Canning's nature enabled him to discern difficulties and dangers which
were hidden from Pitt's ever hopeful vision. Mulgrave seems to have
shared Pitt's view; for he signed all the despatches relating to the
Hanoverian expedition. On 23rd November he informed Harrowby that, early
in the year 1806, as many as 70,000 British and Hanoverian troops would
be ready for service, either in Hanover or wherever they could be
employed to most effect. He therefore expected that by that time the
Allies would have nearly 300,000 men in North Germany; and, as the
resources of Austria were not depleted by the disaster at Ulm, she and
Russia ought then to have nearly half a million of men on foot.[748]
* * * * *
Pitt's eagerness to receive news from Harrowby appears in the closing
phrases of his letter of 29th November to that envoy: "We are counting
moments till we hear in what state you found things on your arrival [at
Berlin], and what has been Haugwitz's reception at the French
headquarters." Again, on 5th December, he sent off to him a letter,
which as being the last of any importance written by him at Downing
Street, must be given in full:
Downing St. _Dec. 5th, 1805_.
DEAR HARROWBY,
I am grieved to hear by your letter of the 24th that you had
been so much persecuted by headaches, and that you had allowed
the secret article of Potsdam [_sic_] to give you so much
uneasiness. You must I am sure be satisfied that the way in
which you have treated it is _the best possible_, because it
gives no hopes of the thing being consented to, and at the same
time avoids the necessity of any formal and official negative.
The great object I think is that Prussia should if possible,
decide on the result of Ct Haugwitz's mission, without giving
to the evil councillors of the King of Prussia the advantage of
stating to him that this object is precluded for ever. At the
same time we cannot in good faith give the least assurance that
it is likely to be ever attainable. Woronzow [Vorontzoff] who
has been in town for ten days but is gone again, writes to
Alopeus that he has received from him the _mémoire raisonné_ on
the exchange of Hanover, but cannot present it to us till he has
orders to do so from his own Court. We are therefore supposed to
know nothing more of the matter.
On the whole state of things, you will perhaps be angry with me
for saying that my hopes are still sanguine. I think I see great
chance of Prussia agreeing to co-operate either for a definite
object or a limited time, in return for subsidies and for our
assurance (which you know to be a very sincere one) of wishing
to procure for them important acquisitions. The question of
Hanover may I think be left aloof. As to plans of operations, it
is almost idle to say anything. But you will have seen that we
think the first and _essential_ point is to act (as Prussia
seems to intend) with a force sure of success in the rear of the
French Army in Germany. Still I cannot conceive what can be the
military reasons why an attack on Holland should not take place
at the same time, or at least should not be prepared so as to be
put into execution whenever the effect of any great success of
the Allies, or a frost, or an appearance of good disposition in
the country, should afford a favourable opening for such an
enterprise, the advantages of which in its impression and
consequences I need not state to you. We have finally decided
with a view to this chance and for the sake of shewing at any
rate our readiness to co-operate, to send the 12,000 men which
have been prepared, to Embden [_sic_], and if this wind
continues, I hope they will sail within three days. Endeavour to
make Prussia send under General Kalkreuth (or whoever may be the
general they destine for that quarter) not merely 10,000 men,
but enough to make such an army as can scarce be resisted. Our
force with the Russians (exclusive of the Swedes and after
allowing for something to watch Hameln[749]) will be near
40,000 men. It surely cannot be difficult for Prussia to add
30,000 to that number within a very few weeks on increased
subsidies beyond the number they now propose, and that without
at all impairing the effort against Bonaparte's army. As to your
stay at Berlin I can only say that if your health will permit,
_everything that we value most_ may depend on your remaining
till you have seen the leading points of the negociation fairly
through. As to details with Saxony and Hesse, they cannot be
worth your waiting for, if they require any time, which,
however, supposing you once to settle with Prussia, they cannot.
The important moment seems to be that when the issue of
Haugwitz's negociation shall have been known in Berlin and time
given to communicate with Austria and Russia on the result.
Under these circumstances it will I am afraid hardly be as
pleasant to you as it is to me to know that Parliament will not
meet till the 21st of Jany [1806] and that you have not on that
account any reason for your immediate return. If, however, (as I
most earnestly hope will not be the case) you should really find
the fatigue and anxiety too much for you, it is certainly among
_the things that we value most_, that you should return, having
suffered as little as possible. A frigate will be sent to wait
your orders at the Elbe, but I hope you will have no occasion to
use it, till after you have signed a provisional treaty, and
seen the Prussians on their march against the enemy.
Ever most sincerely yours,
W. P.
Three days before Pitt poured forth this sanguine forecast, Napoleon
struck the Coalition to the heart. As "the sun of Austerlitz" set, the
two Emperors were in flight eastwards, while their armies streamed after
them in hopeless rout, or struggled through the funnel of death between
the two lakes (2nd December). Marbot's story of thousands of Russians
sinking majestically under the ice is a piece of melodrama. But the
reality was such as to stun the survivors. In his dazed condition the
Emperor Francis forthwith sent proposals for a truce. It proved to be
the precursor of the armistice of 6th December, which involved the
departure of the Russian army and the exclusion of that of Prussia from
Austrian territories. In the calculating balance maintained at Berlin,
this diplomatic surrender proved to be a greater calamity than the
military disaster. True, the news of the battle caused consternation;
but for the present Frederick William held firm and on 8th December
ordered part of the Prussian army (now 192,000 strong) to enter Bohemia
for the succour of the Allies.[750] Not until after the 13th, after the
arrival of news of the armistice, did he seek to evade his obligations
to Russia; and, obviously, a new situation arose when Alexander gave up
the campaign, and Francis promised to bar out the Prussians. Hardenberg
sought to hide from Harrowby this change of front, hinting, however,
that Prussia might have to consult her own interests. In the light of
the events of 1795, that phrase was clear enough; and Harrowby forthwith
sent orders to General Don to countermand the advance of his troops
towards Hanover.[751]
To complete this chapter of misfortunes, Harrowby's health broke down.
On discovering the truth about Prussia's secret demand for Hanover, he
fell into the depths of despair and nervous prostration, as appears from
the postscript of his letter of 24th November to Pitt:
This horrible secret article has finished me. It stood with its
mouth open, and from mere cowardice I have run into it, and it
will devour me. I am persuaded, however, that it would equally
have caught me if I had run away. There is something, however,
in every view of it which agonises me. I am anxious beyond
imagination to know what passes in England upon it and conclude
I shall by the next newspaper. Would it be impossible to prevail
upon the King to listen to the idea of a sort of Barrier-treaty
for Hanover, which would give Prussia a military frontier but
not the territorial possession?[752]
On 8th December, after hearing the first news of Austerlitz, he writes
in equally dolorous strains, concluding with a request that Pitt would
send a frigate to the mouth of the Elbe to bring away his coffin. Again
he writes in these pathetic terms:
_Most secret._
Berlin, _12 Dec. 1805_.[753]
DEAR PITT,
The current of events has been so rapid, and the embarrassments
they produce from every quarter is [_sic_] so intolerable, that,
weakened as my brain has been by nervous spasms of giddiness, I
hardly keep my senses. Cool judgment is required; and I can only
take steps in a state of agitation--repent; and there is
something more to be repented of. I shall not long stand it;
but, in the meantime, what mischief may not have happened! The
sacrifice of myself is nothing. All is over with me even if I
survive. I am tolerably at intervals, but every fresh occurrence
brings with it distraction. I tremble at the consequences. You
can conceive no state of mind, or rather of mind and body
operating upon each other; you cannot even pity it; you can only
despise it. Good God. If it be possible, do not betray me. I may
recover. I try to disguise my feelings. I write to my wife with
affected cheerfulness. She would not survive. For heaven's sake,
keep this to yourself.
Yours ever,
HARROWBY.
To what mistake Harrowby here alludes is a mystery. But George Jackson
states that he had three fits at Berlin, besides spasms every day.
Indeed his state was so pitiable that his selection for this difficult
post was matter of general comment. The physicians strongly urged him to
return to England at once.[754] Pitt cannot have received Harrowby's
pathetic confession when he replied as follows, probably to the letter
of the 8th:
Bath, _Dec. 21st, 1805_.[755]
DEAR HARROWBY,
I was prevented from writing a few lines as I intended by the
messenger we sent from hence yesterday. We are sending orders
for another today to pass through Berlin on his way to the
Emperor's head-quarters, to remind them of sending the
ratification which we have never yet received. We have nothing
very authentic from the armies later than your despatch of the
9th by estafette, but there are accounts thro' Hamburg from
Berlin of the 10th, corroborated by reports from various
quarters, which lead us to hope that the sequel of the battle at
length terminated in great success on the part of Russia. If
this proves true, I flatter myself your subsidiary treaty will
have been soon brought to a prosperous issue, and you will be
delivered from all your fatigue and anxiety. I am quite grieved
to think how much you have suffered, tho' I trust your complaint
is only temporary, and that a good battle and a good treaty will
send you back to us in better health than you went. I see no
danger of your exceeding our limit in the amount of subsidy, as
we looked if necessary to an actual annual payment of
£3,000,000, and the number proposed in the treaty, of 180,000
Prussians and 40,000 Allies, will not require more than
£2,750,000, which still leaves room for 25,000 men more if they
are wanted and can be had. I have been here for ten days and
have already felt the effect of the waters in a pretty smart fit
of the gout from which I am just recovering, and of which I
expect soon to perceive the benefit.
Ever yours,
W. PITT.
I need hardly tell you that every step you have taken has been
exactly what we should have desired.
He who wrote these cheering words was in worse health than Harrowby. The
latter lived on till the year 1847; Pitt had now taken his last journey
but one. Sharp attacks of gout had reduced him to so weak and tremulous
a state that he could scarcely lift a glass to his lips. So wrote Mrs.
Jackson on 9th December, long before the news of Austerlitz reached
these shores.[756] So far back as 27th November, Canning, in prophetic
strains, begged him not to defer a projected visit to Bath until it was
too late for the waters to do him good. But "the pilot that weathered
the storm" refused to leave the tiller in case decisive news came from
Harrowby. He also prepared to strengthen his Cabinet against the attacks
certain to be made in the ensuing session, by including in it two
excellent speakers, Canning and Charles Yorke, the latter taking the
Board of Control. Why he did not complete these changes, as Canning
begged him to do, is far from clear. Possibly the sharp though friendly
criticism which Canning levelled against the Anglo-Russian expedition to
Hanover made him apprehensive of divisions in the Cabinet on a question
which was very near his heart. Certainly much could be said in favour of
an expedition to Walcheren, which Canning urged should be entrusted to
General M[oore?]. Pitt preferred the Hanoverian enterprise, doubtless
because it would lay Russia and Prussia under a debt of honour to
co-operate to the utmost of their power.
At last the strain became too great, and on 7th December Pitt set out
for Bath, arriving there on the 11th. He resided at Harrowby's house,
11, Laura Place. His stay in Bath aroused interest so intense that he
found it necessary to vary the time of his visits to the Pump Room in
order to escape the crowd which would otherwise have incommoded
him.[757] As has just appeared, he expected a speedy recovery; for, as
was the case with his father, if the attack of gout ran a normal course,
the system felt relief. Freedom from worry was the first condition of
amendment. After his retirement from office in 1768 Chatham recovered so
quickly that his opponents gibed at the illness as a political
device.[758] Ten years later he succumbed to excitement and strain.
During the first part of his stay at Bath, Pitt was in good spirits and
wrote cheerfully about his health. The following letter to his London
physician, Sir Walter Farquhar, is not that of a man who feels death
approaching:
Bath, _Dec. 15. 1805_.[759]
The gout continues pretty smartly in my foot; and I find from
Mr. Crooks that it is attended with a feverish pulse and some
other symptoms of the same nature. I have communicated to Mr.
Crooks your directions, and he is to send me the saline draughts
with some little addition, which he will explain to you. I
thought he would detail symptoms more precisely than I could,
and have therefore desired him to write to you. On the whole, I
have no doubt the plan you have laid down will answer, and I do
not at present see the smallest occasion to accept your kind and
friendly offer of coming here.
P.S. 4.30 P.M. I enclose Mr. Crooks' letter to you. His account
to me of the pulse was that it was not strong, but quick and
beating near an hundred. One of the saline draughts which I have
taken since I wrote the foregoing letter, seems, as far as I can
judge from feeling, already to have had a very good effect.
Not until ten days later do we find signs of alarm in the letters of his
friends; for it is characteristic of his buoyant nature that he never
wrote despondingly about himself. There is a well-known story to the
effect that, on hearing the news of Austerlitz, he called for a map of
Europe, to see where the place was, and then said with a sigh: "Roll up
that map: it will not be wanted these ten years." One version assigns
the incident to Shockerwick House, near Bath. Pitt is looking over the
picture gallery, and is gazing at Gainsborough's portrait of the actor
Quin. His retentive memory calls up the lines in Churchill's
"Characters":
Nature, in spite of all his skill, crept in--
Horatio, Dorax, Falstaff--still 'twas Quin.
At that moment he hears the beat of a horse's hoofs. A courier dashes
up. He comes in, splashed with mud, hands the despatches. Pitt tears
them open and hurriedly reads them. His countenance changes, he calls
for brandy, then for a map, and is finally helped to his carriage,
uttering the historic phrase.[760] In another version he mournfully
rolls out the words to Lady Hester Stanhope, as she welcomes him in the
hall of Bowling Green House, after his last journey to his home on
Putney Heath.[761] The words probably fell from him on some occasion.
But at the risk of incurring the charge of pedantry, I must point out
that the news of Austerlitz did not come on him as one overwhelming
shock: it filtered through by degrees. As we have seen, he wrote to
Harrowby on 21st December, stating that reports from Berlin and other
quarters represented the sequel to the battle as a great success for the
Russians. It appears that Thornton, our envoy at Hamburg, wrote as
follows on 13th December to Mulgrave: "From everything I can learn (for
the details are even yet far from being circumstantial and decisive) the
tide of success had completely turned in favour of the Russian and
Austrian armies, tho', as the conflict still continued to the 4th and
perhaps to the 5th, it could not be positively said on which side the
victory had been declared. The certain intelligence cannot now be long
delayed."[762]
Castlereagh also, writing to Pitt on 19th December, assured him that he
had heard similar news through various channels, and therefore cherished
high hopes that something good had happened.[763] Mulgrave, who was then
also at Bath along with Bathurst, Hawkesbury, and Canning, shared these
hopes. Despite the first reports of Austerlitz, which were promptly
contradicted, the Ministerial circle at Bath had no want of diversion.
On 12th December Mulgrave sent to Pitt a short poem on Trafalgar for his
correction, and Pitt touched up a few lines. On 21st December Mulgrave
wrote to him: "I send you Woronzow [Vorontzoff] and Ward, _faute de
mieux_. I was rejoiced to find you were gone out in your carriage when I
called at your home after church. As Bathurst, Canning, and the gout
have left you, I hope you will be able to return to the mess to-morrow."
This does not imply that Pitt was living the life of an invalid, or was
kept to so strict a diet as during his sojourn at Bath three years
before.
Equally hopeful was the estimate of Canning. He spent a week with Pitt
at Bath, and, after leaving him shortly before Christmas, informed a
friend that Pitt was "recovering from a fit of the gout, which has done
him abundance of good, and puts off the time of his driving after old
Frere--I trust to an incalculable distance.... There wants only an
official confirmation of all the good news (that has reached us through
every possible channel except those of Office) to complete it."[764]
Canning, we may note here, had discussed with Pitt his projected
poem--"Ulm and Trafalgar" (which bore the motto "Look here, upon this
picture, and on that"). It began:
While Austria's yielded armies, vainly brave,
Moved, in sad pomp, by Danube's blood-stained wave
and ended with a noble acclaim to Nelson:
Thou, bravest, gentlest Spirit, fare thee well.
On the first line Canning plumed himself until he remembered the warning
of an old tutor at Magdalen, that when anything in your verses pleased
you very much, it was best to strike it out. Canning referred the phrase
"yielded armies" to Pitt, who probably found relief from his cares in
touching up the poem.[765] That Christmastide, then, was a time of
anxiety, but not of settled gloom. There is no sign that Pitt or his
colleagues felt the position to be desperate until the end of the year.
On Christmas Day Castlereagh wrote from Downing Street to Pitt: "I am
sorry to add to your materials for criticism and speculation. I send you
Cooke's 'Courant,' There is intelligence in the City from Amsterdam of
the 21st. Nothing official known here of an _armistice_. You have
received from Lord B[arham?] every information from that quarter."[766]
Indeed, the hopefulness of Ministers now involved them in greater
difficulties. Building on Prussia's promises, they decided early in
December to order the despatch of strong reinforcements to the British
corps then on the point of entering Hanover.[767] In all, as many as
65,000 British and King's Germans were to be sent--the largest force
that had ever set sail from these shores, a fact which testifies to the
ardour of Pitt's desires for the liberation of Hanover and Holland. Even
the immediate results of this decision were disastrous. Sixty-seven
transports, forthwith setting sail, encountered a terrible storm, which
flung three of them on the enemy's coast, while one sank with all hands
on the Goodwins. Such was the purport of the news sent by Castlereagh to
Pitt at Bath on 19th December. He added that, in spite of these losses,
"the little Cabinet of five" (with Lord Barham in attendance) decided to
order all the remaining transports to sail, so that Prussia might be
encouraged to "throw her strength to the southward. We have acted for
the best, and I hope you and your companions will approve."[768] Pitt,
of course, did approve, not knowing that while England was encountering
heavy risks in order to effect the liberation of North Germany, her
Allies had come to terms with Napoleon.
At last, on 29th December, definite news concerning the armistice of 4th
December reached London. It must have chilled the hearts of the boldest.
For, trusting in the continued exertions of the Allies, England had sent
to North Germany as many as 257 transports, and of these 8 were now
known to be lost, involving the death of 664 men, and the capture of
about 1,000 on the enemies' coasts. All this effort and loss of life now
appeared to be useless, in view of the vacillating conduct of Prussia.
Only with her good will could the British troops, with the Russian and
Swedish contingents, hope to conquer Holland. If she declared against
us, the whole force would be in jeopardy. Such were the tidings which
Castlereagh bore with him to Pitt at the end of the year.[769] Not a
line survives respecting that mournful interview; but we can picture the
deathly look coming over Pitt's emaciated features as he now for the
first time faced the prospect of the dissolution of the mighty league
which he had toiled to construct. Probably it was this shock to the
system which brought on a second attack of the gout, accompanied with
great weakness and distaste for food.[770]
Nevertheless he clung to the hope that Prussia would stand firm. On 3rd
January 1806 further news reached him from the Austrian and Prussian
Governments. The Austrian despatches represented Austerlitz as a
repulse, but not a disaster, and the armistice as a device for enabling
Prussia to prepare her blow at Napoleon's flank or rear. On 5th January
Mulgrave found in the despatches from Berlin grounds for believing that
that Court might under certain conditions assist the two Emperors in
Moravia and the British force in Hanover. On the morrow he wrote to Pitt
in emphatic terms, urging him to offer to Prussia the Dutch Republic.
That little State (he urged) could not again be independent, save in
circumstances now scarcely imaginable, much less realizable. Further,
the Stadholder having very tamely accepted the domain of Fulda as an
indemnity, we need feel no qualms for the House of Nassau; and, as
Prussia was influenced solely by territorial greed, and Hanover was out
of the question, she might well acquire the Dutch Netherlands, which
would link her to British interests.[771] Again we have to admit
ignorance of Pitt's opinion on this degrading proposal. Certainly it
never took definite shape.[772] Though willing to assign to Prussia the
Belgic Netherlands, he laid great stress on the independence of the
Dutch Netherlands, which indeed was the corner-stone of his foreign
policy. Moreover, to barter away an unoffending little State was to
repeat the international crimes of the partitions of Poland and Venetia.
We may be sure that that proud and just spirit would rather have
perished than stoop to such ignominy.
In effect, he fell a victim to his resolve never to barter away the
patrimony of George III. We now know that Prussia's policy at this
crisis turned mainly on the acquisition of Hanover. Her envoy, Haugwitz,
whom she sent to Napoleon's headquarters charged with the offer of
Prussia's armed mediation on behalf of Europe, had on 15th December
signed with him the humiliating Convention of Schönbrunn, whereby
Prussia agreed to make certain cessions of territory on condition of
acquiring Hanover. About Christmastide Frederick William decided to
close with this offer, which involved the expulsion of the Anglo-Russian
force from the Electorate. Premonitory signs of this change of front
were soon visible at Berlin. Indeed, the trend of Prussian policy during
the last decade prepared the British Ministry for the ruin of their
hopes. Pitt must have been racked with anxiety lest Prussia should doff
the lion's skin and don that of the jackal; for he alone knew of the
nervous breakdown of Harrowby.
Perhaps it was the hope of helping on that negotiation from Downing
Street, added to the verdict of Sir Walter Farquhar that the Bath waters
were now of no avail, which induced him on 9th January to set out on his
homeward journey. He was believed to be in better health than at the
time of his arrival; such at least was the announcement of the "Bath
Herald" on the 11th; and his hopeful outlook appears in a curious detail
which afterwards came to light. In order to beguile the tedium of the
journey he had taken out from a circulating library in Bath the
following works, each in two volumes, "The Secret History of the Court
of Petersburg," and Schiller's "History of the Thirty Years' War."[773]
A man who believes death to be near does not undertake a study of the
manifold intrigues of Catharine II, or of the Thirty Years' War. He also
had the prospect of seeing the liveliest and most devoted of friends,
Canning, at his country home, South Hill, Bracknell, in Windsor Forest.
Canning sent the invitation on the 5th, and it was accepted on the 8th
in terms which implied a sojourn of some days. He offered to accompany
him from Bath, if he felt strong enough to converse on the way; but Pitt
declined this offer, and it is doubtful whether he stayed at South Hill;
for Malmesbury declares that he had to remain a long time in bed at
Reading. On the other hand the Bishop of Lincoln declared that the
journey took only two days, and that at its close Pitt showed no very
marked signs of fatigue. Lady Hester Stanhope, however, was shocked by
his wasted appearance on reaching his home, Bowling Green House, on
Putney Heath.
Some eighteen months earlier he had leased that residence. It stands on
the (old) Portsmouth Road, and had earlier been an inn frequented by
lovers of that game and patrons of cockfighting. After enlargement it
had been converted into a gentleman's abode which well suited the modest
requirements of Pitt and of his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope.[774] There,
not far from the scenes of his youthful frolics with Wilberforce, and
only a quarter of a mile from the dell where he fought the duel with
Tierney, he found solace from the ever-increasing cares of state. In
those last months Hester felt for him feelings akin to adoration.
[Illustration: BOWLING GREEN HOUSE, PUTNEY HEATH. (From a pencil
sketch by Elsie H. Rose)]
On the morrow, Sunday, their circle was enlarged by the arrival of his
old friend and counsellor, Bishop Tomline, who was shocked at the change
which had taken place in him since he left for Bath. The physicians,
Farquhar, Reynolds, and Baillie, however, saw no cause for alarm, the
only disquieting symptoms being intense weakness and dislike of animal
food. There is a forcibly significant phrase in a recent letter of
George Rose to Tomline, that he dreaded the effect on the invalid of an
excessive use of medicines.[775] Evidently Rose believed the digestive
organs to be impaired by this habit. Pitt's daily potations of port wine
for many years past must further have told against recovery. Whether
Farquhar and his colleagues cut off medicine and sought to build up that
emaciated frame is uncertain. All that we know is that they prescribed
complete quiet, and therefore requested the bishop to open all Pitt's
letters so as to preclude all chance of excitement.
On 12th January, Pitt wrote an affectionate letter to the Marquis
Wellesley, welcoming him on his return from his memorable Vice-royalty
in India. He begged him to come to Bowling Green House at the earliest
opportunity. The letter closes with these remarkable words: "I am
recovering rather slowly from a series of stomach complaints, followed
by severe attacks of gout, but I believe I am now in the way of real
amendment."[776] The Bishop also describes him as gaining ground until
Monday the 13th. On that day he went out in his coach in the morning,
but in the evening Lords Castlereagh and Hawkesbury, having obtained
permission from the physicians to interview their chief, communicated
news which had a most agitating effect. Pitt afterwards assured the
Bishop "that he felt during that conversation some sensation in his
stomach which he feared it might be difficult to remove."[777] It is
surprising that the physicians allowed an interview of an agitating
nature; but the ministerial pressure brought to bear on them may have
overborne their better judgement. In matters of Cabinet discipline Pitt
was an autocrat, insisting that no important action should be taken
without his cognizance. Probably, then, it was his own sense of
responsibility which exposed him to the death blow.
Certainly the question at issue was of the gravest kind. Should
Ministers order the return of the British reinforcements last sent to
Hanover? That expedition was the work of Pitt. He it was who had reared
the fabric of a European Coalition; and, even after the withdrawal of
Austria, he clung to the hope that Prussia would take her place, and,
with the help of British, Prussian, Russian, and Swedish troops, drive
the French from North Germany and the Dutch Republic. How could his
colleagues order back a large part of the British force, thereby
justifying the vacillations of Prussia and ensuring a parliamentary
triumph to Fox and Grenville? And yet Ministers knew, better than Pitt
could know, the danger of relying on the Court of Berlin. Though not yet
fully aware of its resolve to take Napoleon's side, they had strong
reasons for expecting this course of action; and in that case the
British expedition would be in grave danger between the Prussians on the
east, the Franco-Dutch forces on the south-west and the ice-floes which
were forming on the River Weser. Prudence counselled the timely return
of our troops who were yet on board ship at or near Bremen.[778]
Patriotic pride prompted a bold offensive. But the King and Pitt alone
could utter the decisive words. The King approved the return of the
last reinforcements, and Pitt, it seems, must have conceded the point.
But the concession struck him to the heart. It was the last of the
deadly stabs which fate dealt him thick and fast in his time of
weakness.
Nevertheless, on the morrow he drove out in his carriage, but was
visibly weaker than before the interview. For a few minutes he saw his
brother and then Lord Wellesley. The latter found his mind as clear as
ever; and he uttered these remarkable words about Sir Arthur Wellesley:
"He states every difficulty before he undertakes any service, but none
after he has undertaken it." What a prophecy of Vittoria and Waterloo
there is in these words--the swan-song of Pitt. It was too much for him.
He fainted before Wellesley left the room. On the 18th he rallied for a
time, and the doctors saw a gleam of hope.[779]
In reality there was only one faint chance of recovery, that good news
might arrive. The chief cause of physical collapse was the torture of
the brain; and it was possible that the whole system might even now
rally under the vitalizing thrills of hope. But as day by day passed by
and brought nearer that dreaded occasion, the opening of Parliament on
22nd January, this last chance vanished. The news which reached the
Foreign Office became more and more gloomy. On 10th January Mulgrave
decided, when recalling Harrowby, to entrust his mission at Berlin to
the Earl of Harrington, in the hope that that Court would keep
troth.[780] But all negotiation was useless. By the 19th the conduct of
Prussia respecting Hanover appeared so threatening that Ministers
ordered the immediate recall of the whole British force.[781] Thus,
England had sent forth some 60,000 troops in order to bring them back
again. She had paid a million sterling to Austria, and the results were
Ulm and Austerlitz. Nearly as much had gone to Russia, and the outcome
was the armistice. A British subsidy had been claimed by Prussia, and in
return she was about to take Hanover as a gift from Napoleon. It is to
be hoped that Ministers kept the last bitter truth from Pitt; but from
their silence he must have augured the worst. Surely death itself was
better than to be driven from power by the combined attacks of Fox,
Grenville, and Windham, the success of which was now assured.
A touching instance of Pitt's thoughtfulness during these days of waning
strength is recorded by Robert Plumer Ward. He had accepted office as
Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs; but, in the event of the overthrow
of the Ministry, he would be in a far worse position than before. Pitt
remembered this fact, and whispered to Farquhar the words "Robert Ward."
He also made signs for paper and ink and sought to pen a request for a
pension; but he succeeded only in tracing strokes which could not be
deciphered.[782] His thoughts were also with his nieces, especially Lady
Hester Stanhope. Farquhar sought to prevent a parting interview with
her; but during his temporary absence she slipped into the bedroom,
there to receive the blessing of her uncle and an affectionate farewell.
To her brother James, who then came in, he said; "Dear soul, I know she
loves me. Where is Hester? Is Hester gone?" Early on the 22nd he
dictated these words to the bishop: "I wish £1,000 or £1,500 a year to
be given to my nieces if the public should think my long services
deserving it; but I do not presume to think I have earned it."[783] He
then named those to whom since 1801 he owed sums of money: Long, Steele,
Lords Camden and Carrington, the Bishop of Lincoln and Joseph Smith; he
also entrusted his papers to the bishop and to Lord Chatham.
Already Bishop Tomline had warned him of his approaching change and
besought him to prepare his mind for the Sacrament. This he declined,
alleging his unworthiness to receive it. Thereupon the bishop prayed
with him. He calmly murmured the responses and humbly confessed that he
had too much neglected prayer. Nevertheless, he affirmed the steadiness
of his religious faith and principles, and declared that he had ever
sought to fulfil his duty to God and to mankind, though with many errors
and failures. While the bishop was overcome with emotion, the dying man
thanked him earnestly for all his kindness throughout life. Once his
thoughts recurred to his own conduct; he expressed heartfelt
satisfaction at the innocency of his life, and declared that he died in
perfect charity with all mankind.[784]
He lingered on to the early hours of 23rd January, the twenty-fifth
anniversary of his entry into Parliament. During that night the cares of
state once more pressed upon him. He spoke often about a private letter
from Lord Harrowby, probably the pathetic effusion quoted above. At
times he asked his nephew the direction of the wind, and on hearing it
was in the east he murmured: "East--ah that will do: that will bring him
quick."[785] Then he fell into conversation with a messenger, or, again,
he murmured "Hear, hear," until sleep enfolded him. The last thoughts of
Napoleon are said to have centred in his early love and his
army--"Joséphine:--Tête d'armée" he gasped as he neared his end. In
Pitt's being there was but one master passion; and to it his wandering
fancies returned during a last brief spell of consciousness. As James
Stanhope listened to the breathing, there fell on his ears with a
strange clearness the words: "My country! How I leave my country!" Then
the sufferer fell once more into a deep sleep; and so he lay, until,
some three hours before the dawn, his spirit passed away in a long-drawn
sigh.
FOOTNOTES:
[735] G. Jackson ("Diaries," i, 270) gives a supposed instance of her
interference in favour of Haugwitz.
[736] _Ibid._, i, 301, 305, 314-9.
[737] Metternich, "Mems.," i, 57 (Eng. ed.); Hardenberg, "Mems.," ii,
220-4.
[738] Hardenberg, "Mems.," ii, 292-300.
[739] "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 340.
[740] Pretyman MSS.; "Life of Wilberforce," iii, 412.
[741] Rose, "Third Coalition," 208-20. In "F. O.," Russia, 59, is a
ciphered despatch of 25th October 1805 that, if circumstances favoured,
a second British expedition (_i.e._, besides that destined for Hanover)
would be made ready to seize Walcheren.
[742] Pitt MSS., 142.
[743] See Hansing, "Hardenberg und die dritte Coalition" (Appendix), for
a comparison of these terms with those of the Anglo-Russian treaty of
11th April 1805.
[744] Czartoryski, "Mems.," ii, ch. ix. The editor wrongly gives the
date of Vorontzoff's letter as 17/29 September 1805, though it contains
references to Ulm and Trafalgar. It is of 18th-21st November. "F. O.,"
Prussia, 70. Mulgrave to Harrowby, 23rd November.
[745] _I.e._, the Prussian mediation by Napoleon.
[746] Harrowby MSS.
[747] See "Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies" for the letter in full.
[748] Rose, "Third Coalition," 230-5.
[749] The French held the fortress of Hameln.
[750] Rose, "Third Coalition," 259.
[751] _Ibid._, 260, 261.
[752] Pitt MSS., 142.
[753] Pretyman MSS.
[754] G. Jackson, "Diaries," i, 377, 381, 384. Harrowby left Berlin on
7th or 8th January 1806 (_ibid._, 390).
[755] Harrowby MSS.
[756] G. Jackson, "Diaries," i, 381.
[757] Peach, "Historic Houses of Bath." The "Bath Herald" of 11th
January 1806 has an ode containing the lines:
Oh prepare, prepare
The renovating draught! He comes by stealth
(For so unconscious worth is ever seen)
With thoughts uplifted but retiring mien.
[758] Ruville, "Chatham," iii, 246.
[759] Chevening MSS.
[760] Thomas Hardy ("The Dynasts," i, Act vi, sc. 7) places the incident
in the week after Austerlitz. The date is impossible.
[761] Stanhope, iv, 369.
[762] Pitt MSS., 337.
[763] _Ibid._, 121. See, too, in his letter of 23rd December
("Castlereagh Corresp.," vi, 92).
[764] J. Bagot, "Canning and his Friends," i, 227. The statement about
the gout corrects Malmesbury ("Diaries," iv, 343) that the attack of
gout left Pitt far weaker and with digestion impaired. Malmesbury was
not at Bath. Frere's father had lately died.
[765] Bagot, "Canning, etc.," 415-9; H. Newbolt, "Year of Trafalgar,"
190-3.
[766] Pitt MSS., 121.
[767] "Castlereagh Corresp.," vi, 70-85.
[768] Pitt MSS., 121.
[769] "Castlereagh Corresp.," vi, 100; "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 344.
[770] Gifford, "Life of Pitt," vi, 802; Lord Rosebery, "Tomline's
Estimate of Pitt" (1903), p. 16.
[771] Pitt MSS., 142.
[772] In the "Hardenberg Memoirs" (ii, 353) it is stated that Harrowby
offered Holland to Prussia. Every despatch that I have read runs counter
to this assertion. If Harrowby made the offer, it was in sheer
desperation and on his own authority; but he nowhere mentions it.
[773] Chevening MSS.; "Notes and Queries," 12th November 1864. Mr. John
Upham of Bath on 10th March 1806 sent these particulars to Lord Chatham.
Gifford ("Life of Pitt," vi, 803) wrongly states that the journey took
four days.
[774] The house has been very little altered since 1806, and not at all
on the side shown in the accompanying sketch, which, by kind permission
of Mr. and Mrs. Doulton, was done by my daughter. The room over the
veranda is that in which Pitt died.
[775] Pretyman MSS.
[776] Stanhope, iv, 374.
[777] Pretyman MSS.
[778] "Castlereagh Corresp.," vi, 103-112, 119.
[779] Stanhope, iv, 375; "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 346; "Dropmore P.,"
vii, 327
[780] "F. O.," Austria, 77. Mulgrave to Harrington, 10th January 1806.
[781] "Castlereagh Corresp.," vi, 126.
[782] R. P. Ward, "Memoirs," i, 176.
[783] Pretyman MSS.
[784] Lord Rosebery, "Tomline's Estimate of Pitt," 18; "Dropmore P.,"
vii, 330.
[785] Stanhope, iv, 381.
EPILOGUE
Now is the stately column broke
The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke,
The trumpet's silver sound is still
The warder silent on the hill.
SCOTT, _Marmion_.
This noble epitaph to the memory of Pitt conveys an impression alike of
heroic endeavour and of irretrievable failure. It is the Funeral March
of Chopin, not of Handel, and it echoes the feeling of the time. An
impenetrable darkness hung over England. Ulm, Austerlitz, the armistice,
and the desertion of the Allies by Prussia were successive waves of
calamity, which obliterated all landmarks and all means of safety. The
dying words of Pitt found response in every breast, with this
difference, that, while he was proudly conscious of the correctness of
his aims, the many, who judge solely by tangible results, imputed to him
the disasters of the war and the collapse of the Coalition. Even
Auckland exclaimed that the continental alliances had been wretchedly
mismanaged, a remark which Malmesbury treated with quiet contempt.
Grenville, who was about to move a vote of censure on the Ministry,
burst into an agony of tears on hearing that Pitt was at death's door.
His distress of mind probably arose from a belated perception of the
factiousness of his own conduct and from grief at the unrelieved gloom
of the end of a career whose meridian splendour had shed lustre upon
him.
The House of Commons did not whole-heartedly accord to the deceased
statesman a burial in Westminster Abbey in the tomb of Chatham. A motion
to that effect, moved by Lascelles and seconded by the Marquis of
Titchfield, was strongly opposed by Fox, George Ponsonby, Windham, and
three other speakers. It passed by 258 votes to 59. Still more painful
was the discussion in the Common Council of the City of London, where a
proposal to erect a monument to Pitt was carried only by 77 votes to 71.
It is safe to say that, if the fortune of war had gone against France at
Ulm and Austerlitz, Pitt would have been ecstatically hailed as the
saviour of Europe, as indeed he was at the Guildhall after Trafalgar.
How long was it before it dawned on Auckland, Windham, and the
seventy-one councillors of the City of London, that the censures cast on
the memory of Pitt ought to have been levelled at the defender of Ulm,
the Czar Alexander and his equally presumptuous advisers at Austerlitz,
and most of all at the cringing politicians of Berlin?
It is now abundantly clear that Pitt fell a victim to his confidence in
the rulers of three great monarchies, whose means were vast, whose
promises were lofty, and whose surrender after the first reverses
baffled all forecasts. The descendants of Maria Theresa and Catharine
tamely retired from the fray after a single adverse blow; and the
successor of the great Frederick sheathed his sword after the
unpardonable insult at Anspach.
In truth, the career of Pitt came to a climax at a time of unexampled
decadence of the ancient dynasties. The destinies of the allied Houses
of Bourbon rested upon Louis XVI of France and Charles IV of Spain. To
the ineptitude of the former the French Revolution was in large measure
due. To the weakness and falsity of the latter we may ascribe the
desertion of the royalist cause by Spain in 1795-6, with the train of
disastrous results in the Mediterranean and the West Indies. In Central
Europe Francis of Austria was scarcely more than a tool in the hands of
those subtle schemers, Thugut and Cobenzl. The boundless resources of
Russia were at the disposal of Paul and Alexander, who, with all their
generous impulses, were incapable of steadily applying them to one
definite end. Only after weary years of subservience to Napoleon did
Alexander develop that firmness of character which finally brought
salvation to the Continent. From Frederick William even deeper
humiliations failed to evoke any heroic resolve. Among the statesmen of
those three monarchies at the time of Pitt there is but one who was a
fit compeer to him; and the fates willed that Stein should not control
affairs until the year 1807. The age of Pitt was the age of Godoy,
Thugut, and Haugwitz--weavers of old-world schemes of partition or
barter, and blind to the storm gathering in the West.
The importance of his achievements in curbing their ambitions and
saving the smaller States has not received due recognition. He did much
to rescue the Dutch Netherlands from anarchy, and Sweden and Turkey from
the clutches of powerful neighbours. He failed, indeed, in his
diplomatic contest with Catharine; but the duplicity of the Court of
Berlin, and the factious opposition of the Whigs, made success
impossible; and he had thereafter to look on helplessly at the final
Partitions of Poland. Only those who have probed the policy of Russia,
Austria, and Prussia in the years 1787-92 can fully realize the
difficulties which attended his efforts to frame a solid league against
Revolutionary France. As well might one attempt out of rubble to build a
cannon-proof rampart.
At home Pitt had to deal with George III. Now, even under a limited
monarchy the fortunes of a statesman depend largely on the character of
his Sovereign. While possessing the initiative which proffers timely
advice, it should be under the control of unfailing tact. Dowered with
insight into character and foresight as to the trend of events, the
Monarch must, for the most part, subordinate energy to self-repression
and the prophetic instinct to the warnings of courtly sagacity. Yet the
ideal British ruler must at times assert his will, albeit indirectly,
and with the personal charm which ensures the smooth working of this
delicately poised machine. He should therefore be the embodiment of all
the political virtues. Will even the admirers of George claim that he
realized that ideal? However excellent as Elector of Hanover, he was a
doubtful blessing as King of Great Britain and Ireland.
In truth, the Hanoverian strain in his nature had not been toned to the
degree of fineness needful for the kingly office in these islands. In a
time of peculiar difficulty he sought to govern almost absolutely by
means which ensured the temporary subservience of Parliament, and in a
spirit which brought disruption upon the Empire. The former half of
Pitt's career was largely occupied in repairing the financial waste
consequent on the American War, or in making good long arrears of
legislation. Here, indeed, is his most abiding contribution to the
national welfare. But his indebtedness to the King on questions of
foreign and domestic policy is rarely apparent. Reform, whether
Economical or Parliamentary, encountered the more or less declared
opposition of the Sovereign. On the other hand, George showed marked
ability in the support of corporate interests and the management of
men; so that his relations to Pitt were not unlike those of the Duke of
Newcastle to Chatham. The Pitts supplied the brain power while the
Monarch or the Duke by the award of favours ensured the needful degree
of subservience at the polls or in the lobbies of St. Stephens.
After the "surrender" at the close of the American War, the attitude of
George towards his British subjects was one of scarcely concealed scorn.
Now and again his feelings burst forth uncontrollably. Shortly before
his second attack of lunacy, which occurred near the end of the fortieth
year of his reign, he astonished the congregation in church by repeating
in loud and emphatic tones the response: "Forty years long was I grieved
with this generation and said: 'It is a people that do err in their
hearts, for they have not known My ways.'" The tones of the voice
betokened the approach of lunacy, but the conviction of the mind was
always the same. For the most part, however, scorn was tempered by
calculation. His letters to Pitt are full of commendation of the House
of Commons when it unquestioningly passed Government Bills or the
Supplies; whereas he looked on Fox and Burke as baneful and wearisome
talkers, consumers of time, and foes to healthful slumber. Similarly, in
his political catechism, the whole duty of Parliament was to help
Ministers to govern; while their proper function was to raise the
maximum of revenue with the minimum of fuss and change. In short, to
maintain the existing social order; to allow no change in a constitution
which aroused the wonder or envy of other nations; to use peerages and
bishoprics, pocket boroughs and sinecures, as a means of buttressing
that fabric, such were the aims of the third George.
Failing materially to weaken the force of this mighty engine of
patronage, Pitt was fain to make the best of things as they were. The
defeat of his Reform Bill in 1785 was the chief crisis in his early
career; for it involved the failure of the Abolition Bill, perhaps also
of the schemes for the relief of the poor which he outlined in 1797. In
fact, after the year 1785, and still more so after 1790, he had to
govern mainly as King's Minister, not as the people's Minister. Worst of
all, the centre of political gravity remained dangerously high
throughout the storms of the Revolutionary Era. How much of the nation's
energy then went forth in justifiable discontent and futile efforts at
repression has already appeared. Up to the year 1798 the struggle
against France was largely one of the governing class against a nation;
and for this the King and the British oligarchy, not Pitt, were
responsible. Personal charm and the magnetic gift of evoking enthusiasm
have in some monarchs counterbalanced defects of narrowness and
intolerance. George was not deficient in courtly grace and tact--witness
his remark to Pitt at their first interview after the long separation of
the years 1801-1804. When Pitt ventured to compliment the King on his
looking better than after the illness of 1801, the latter at once
replied: "That is not to be wondered at: I was then on the point of
parting with an old friend. Now I am about to regain one." But these
gracious remarks came rarely in his closing years, which were marked by
increasing harshness to his family, petulance on the most trivial
affairs, and an outlook more narrowly personal than ever.
Such a nature chafes its surroundings. It arouses no enthusiasm; it
merely begets heat by friction. Pitt has been blamed for spending too
much time and energy in speeches about the war. But there was no other
way of kindling the nation's zeal. The Princes very rarely spoke in the
House of Lords, except under an overmastering fear of the abolition of
the Slave Trade. None of the Ministers, except Windham, had the gift of
oratory. On Pitt alone devolved the task of arousing a national spirit;
and a cruel destiny cut short his life at the very time when his
inspiring presence was most needed. How much England then lost can never
be known. Vorontzoff, Russian ambassador at London, who had earlier been
a bitter enemy of Pitt, now expressed the fervent desire that death had
carried off his weary old frame, rather than that of the potential
Saviour of Europe. The words are instinct with prescience. The
personality and the actions of Pitt were alike a summons to a life of
dignity and manly independence. His successors had perforce to take a
course not unlike that which they were about to censure in him; and the
distrust which the Czar Alexander felt for them in part accounts for the
collapse at Tilsit and the ensuing years of bondage to Napoleon.
The disintegrating effects of the party system, or rather of its
factious use by the Whig leaders, have been explained in these pages.
Its first result was seen in the divergence of the careers of Pitt and
Fox. The cause of Reform ought to have received their undivided support;
but little by little they were edged apart, and their hostility was
perhaps the most lasting of the many evils wrought by the unnatural
Coalition of Fox and North. For a time Pitt gathered around him a
national party, which became avowedly so on the junction of the Old
Whigs in 1794. But in the last years of his life the denuding influences
of partisan and personal feuds disastrously thinned his following. From
the refusal of George to grant Catholic Emancipation, and the consequent
resignation of Pitt in the spring of 1801, we may trace three sinister
results. The Union with Ireland was bereft of its natural sequel,
Catholic Emancipation; the Ministerial ranks were cleft in twain; and
the crisis brought to the front Addington, a man utterly incapable of
confronting Napoleon. Had Pitt remained in power, the Peace of Amiens
would have been less one-sided, its maintenance more dignified; and the
First Consul, who respected the strong but bullied the weak, would
probably have acquiesced in a settlement consonant with the reviving
prestige of England. But though the Union Jack won notable triumphs in
the spring of 1801, yet at London everything went awry. Moved by
consideration for the King, then recovering from lunacy, Pitt weakly
promised not to bring forward Catholic Emancipation during his life, an
act which annoyed the Grenville-Windham group. His rash promise to
support Addington tied his hands in the following years; and even after
the renewal of war he too scrupulously refrained from overthrowing a
Ministry whose weakness had invited foreign aggressions and was
powerless to avenge them. Finally, the Grenvilles joined Fox; and thus
the King's perversity nullified the efforts of Pitt to form an
Administration worthy to cope with Napoleon.
Nevertheless, the challenge flung down to England by the French
regicides in 1793 was such as to enhance the person of the Monarch in
these islands; and the Revolutionary War, which was fatal to several
dynasties on the Continent, served to consolidate the power of the House
of Brunswick. For, though Pitt sought to keep the war from becoming a
royalist crusade, it almost inevitably assumed that character. During
hostilities there can be but two sharply defined parties. Accordingly,
Pitt, who opened his career with a bold attack upon the prerogatives of
George III, ended it as his champion, even consenting to surrender a
cherished conviction in order that the Monarch's peace of mind might not
be troubled. Was ever a Minister beset by more baffling problems, by
more hampering restrictions? Peace might have solved and shattered
them. But peace he could not secure in the years 1796, 1797; and when
finally it came it proved to be no peace, merely a pause before a still
greater cycle of war.
The grandeur of Pitt's efforts for ensuring the independence of Europe
has somewhat obscured his services as Empire builder. Yet, with the
possible exception of Chatham, no statesman has exercised a greater
influence on the destinies of the British race. On two occasions he
sternly set his face against the cession of Gibraltar; he took keen
interest in the settlement of New South Wales; his arrangements for the
government of Canada deserve far higher praise than they have usually
secured; and his firmness in repelling the archaic claims of Spain to
the shores of the Northern Pacific gained for his people the future
colony of British Columbia. Cherishing a belief in the pacific nature of
Bonaparte's policy at the time of the Treaty of Amiens, he condoned the
retrocession of the Cape of Good Hope and of Malta, on condition of the
gain of Ceylon and Trinidad; but after the revival of French schemes of
aggression in the East he saw the imperative need of planting or
maintaining the Union Jack at those commanding points. He, who has been
accused of excessive trust in allies, prepared to forego the alliance of
Russia rather than give up Malta; and, even before Nelson gained the
mastery at sea, Pitt sent forth an expedition to conquer the Cape. In
his magnanimous desire of securing to Europe the blessings of a lasting
peace he was ready to surrender maritime conquests of greater pecuniary
value so long as England held the keys of the overland and sea routes to
India. To that empire his just and statesmanlike policy brought a new
sense of confidence and therefore a time of comparative rest, until the
threatening orientation of Bonaparte's plans once more placed everything
at hazard. Thanks to the exertions of Dundas and the Wellesleys, the
crisis was averted; but the policy which assured British supremacy in
the East was essentially that of Pitt.
* * * * *
It is far easier to assess the importance of the life work of Pitt than
to set forth his character in living traits. Those who knew him well
agree as the charm of his personality; but they supply few illuminating
details, perhaps out of respect for the reserve which was his usual
panoply. Like Chatham he rarely revealed his inmost self. The beauties
of his conversation, informed with learning, sparkling with wit, always
vivacious yet never spiteful, never appeared in their full glow except
in the circle of his dearest friends; but by singular ill fortune they
who could have handed on those treasures, were satisfied with entries
such as: "Pitt talked a great deal among his friends"; or, "In society he
was remarkably cheerful and pleasant, full of wit and playfulness";[786]
or again, "His great delight was society. There he shone with a degree
of calm and steady lustre which often astonished me more than his most
splendid efforts in Parliament; ... he seemed utterly unconscious of his
own superiority and much more disposed to listen than to talk; ... his
appearance dispelled all care, his brow was never clouded even in the
severest public trials."[787] These are only the _hors d'oeuvres_ of
what must have been a feast of delight; but even they suffice to refute
the Whig slanders as to Pitt's austerity and selfishness. Under happier
auspices he would have been known as the most lovable of English
statesmen; and his exceptional fondness for children would alone suffice
to expose the falsity of his alleged reply to a manufacturer who
complained that he could not get enough men--"Then you must take the
children."[788] Cynicism at the expense of the weak was a trait utterly
alien to him. It is also incorrect to assert, with Macaulay, that "pride
pervaded the whole man, was written in the harsh rigid lines of his
face, was marked by the way in which he walked, in which he sat, in
which he stood, and, above all, in which he bowed." The Whig historian,
here following the Whig tradition, formed his estimate of the whole man
from what was merely a parliamentary mannerism. Pitt, as we have seen,
was a prey to shyness and _gaucherie_; and the rigid attitude which he
adopted for the House was not so much the outcome of a sense of
superiority (though he had an able man's consciousness of worth) as a
screen to hide those defects. A curiously stilted manner has been the
bane of many gifted orators and actors; but the real test is whether
they could throw it off in private. That Pitt threw it off in the circle
of his friends they all agree. The only defects which Wilberforce saw in
him were an inadequate knowledge of human nature, a too sanguine
estimate of men and of the course of events, and, in later years,
occasional displays of petulance in face of opposition.[789] The first
are the defects of a noble nature, the last those of a man whose
strength has long been overtaxed.
In fact, Pitt's constitution was unequal to the prolonged strain. In
childhood his astonishingly precocious powers needed judicious
repression. Instead, they were unduly forced by the paternal pride of
Chatham. At Cambridge, at Lincoln's Inn, and in Parliament the
intellectual pressure was maintained, with the result that his weakly
frame was constantly overwrought and attenuated by a too active mind.
Further, the pressure at Westminster was so continuous as to preclude
all chance of widening his nature by foreign travel. He caught but a
glimpse of the life of France in 1783; and his knowledge of other
peoples and politics was therefore perforce derived from books. It is
therefore surprising that the young Prime Minister displayed the
sagacity and tolerance which marked his career.
But his faculties, though not transcendently great, were singularly well
balanced, besides being controlled by an indomitable will and tact that
rarely was at fault. In oratory he did not equal Sheridan in wit and
brilliance, Burke in richness of thought and majesty of diction, or Fox
in massive strength and debating facility; but, while falling little
short of Fox in debate, he excelled him in elegance and conciseness,
Burke in point and common sense, Sheridan in dignity and argumentative
power, and all of them in the felicitous wedding of elevated thought or
vigorous argument to noble diction. By the side of his serried yet
persuasive periods the efforts of Fox seemed ragged, those of Burke
philosophic essays, those of Sheridan rhetorical tinsel. And this
harmony was not the effect of long and painful training. His maiden
speech of 26th February 1781 displayed the grace and forcefulness which
marked his classic utterance at the Lord Mayor's banquet ten weeks
before his death.
Precocious maturity also characterized his financial plans, which
displayed alike the shrewd common sense of those of Walpole and the
wider aims of Adam Smith. Before his twenty-sixth year Pitt laid the
basis of a system which, whatever its defects, ensured the speedy
recovery of national credit and belied the spiteful croakings of foreign
rivals. Four days after his death, Fox freely admitted that the
establishment of the Sinking Fund had been most beneficial; and this
belief, though we now see it to be ill-founded, certainly endowed the
nation with courage to continue the struggle against the overgrown power
of France. Scarcely less remarkable is his record of legislative
achievement. His India Bill of 1784, his attempt to free Anglo-Irish
trade from antiquated shackles, his effort to present to Parliament a
palatable yet not ineffective scheme of Reform, raise him above the
other law-givers of the eighteenth century in the grandeur of his aims
if not in his actual achievements. By the India Bill of 1784 he
reconciled the almost incompatible claims of eastern autocracy and
western democracy. If he failed to carry fiscal and Parliamentary
Reform, it was due less to tactical defects on his part than to
prejudice and selfishness among those whom he sought to benefit.
On the other hand, his intense hopefulness often led him to overlook
obstacles and to credit all men with his own high standard of
intelligence and probity, a noble defect which not seldom marred his
diplomatic and military arrangements during the Great War. At no point
have I slurred over his mistakes, his diffusion of effort over too large
an area of conflict, and his perhaps undue trust in doubtful allies.
But, even so, as I have shown, a careful examination of all the
available evidence generally reveals the reasons for his confidence; and
failures due to this cause are far less disastrous, because less
dispiriting to the nation, than those which are the outcome of
sluggishness or cowardice. Of those unpardonable sins Pitt has never
been accused even by his severest critics. After the repulse of his
pacific overtures by the French Directory in September 1797 his attitude
was one almost of defiance, witness his curt rejection of similar offers
by Bonaparte early in 1800, which may be pronounced the gravest defect
of his diplomatic career.
In that age the action of statesmen was often dilatory; and we must
admit that in regard to the Act of Union with Ireland Pitt's procedure
was halting and ineffective, so that finally he was driven to use
corrupt means to force through the corrupt Irish Parliament a measure
which in the autumn of 1798 would have been accepted thankfully by the
dominant caste. His Bill of 1797 for the relief of the poor and his Land
Tax Commutation Act of 1798 are examples of improvident legislation. But
from a leader overburdened with the details of war and diplomacy we
should not expect the keen foresight, the minute care as to details,
which distinguished Gladstone. To compare the achievements of a
statesman hard pressed by the problems of the Revolutionary Era with
those of a peaceful age when the standard of legislative effort had been
greatly raised is unfair; and the criticism of Pitt by a distinguished
historian evinces partiality towards the Victorian statesman rather than
an adequate appreciation of the difficulties besetting a Minister of
George III in those times of turmoil.[790] It is true that Pitt did not
inaugurate Factory legislation; that was the work of the Addington
Cabinet in 1802; he did not link his name with the efforts of Romilly
and others for the reform of the brutal Penal Code; and he did little
for art and literature; but neither the personality of George nor the
state of the national finances favoured the rise of a Maecenas.
Concentration of effort on political and diplomatic questions was the
alpha and omega of Pitt's creed. The terrible pressure of events forbade
his looking far ahead or far afield; he marched straight onward, hoping
by his untiring efforts first to restore national prosperity and
thereafter to secure a peace which would inaugurate a brighter future.
His overtaxed strength collapsed when the strain was most tense; and his
life therefore figures as a torso, which should not be criticized as if
it were the perfect statue. Yet, as moral grandeur is always inspiring,
Pitt's efforts were finally to be crowned with success by the statesmen
who had found wisdom in his teaching, inspiration in his quenchless
hope, enthusiasm in his all-absorbing love of country. An egoist never
founds a school of the prophets. But Pitt, who
Spurn'd at the sordid lust of pelf
And served his Albion for herself,
trained and inspired a band of devoted disciples such as no other leader
of the eighteenth century left behind him. Some were unimaginative
plodders, as Perceval; others were capable administrators and shrewd
diplomatists, as Castlereagh; to one alone was vouchsafed the fire of
genius, the sympathetic insight, the soaring ambition held in check by
overmastering patriotism, which were commingled in the personality of
the master; and Canning afterwards declared that he buried his political
allegiance in the grave of Pitt. It was granted to these men to labour
on in the cause for which he gave his life, and finally, in the years
1814-15, to bring back France to her old frontiers by arrangements which
he clearly outlined in the years 1798 and 1805. Of the numerous
annexations and changes of boundaries effected by Napoleon, only one,
the Valtelline, was destined to survive. But Europe after Waterloo
testified alike to the sagacity and the limitations of the mind of
William Pitt.
FOOTNOTES:
[786] "Life of Wilberforce," v, 260; "Private Papers of Wilberforce,"
68.
[787] Marquis Wellesley, "Quarterly Rev." (1836).
[788] Michelet, "La Femme," Introd., ch. ii, quoted by Stanhope, iv,
405.
[789] "Private Papers of Wilberforce," 67-72.
[790] Lord Acton, "Letters to Mary Gladstone," 45, 46, 56.
STATISTICS OF THE YEARS 1792-1801
_N.B._--The figures under the heading "money borrowed" are taken from
the official statistics presented by the Rt. Hon. George Rose, "Brief
Examination into the Increase of the Revenue, Commerce and Navigation of
Great Britain" (London, 1806), p. 16. The total statistics are given in
round numbers.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
YEAR.| PERMANENT | | | | | MONEY
| TAXES. | IMPORTS. | EXPORTS. | NAVY. | ARMY. | BORROWED.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1792 | 14,284,000| 19,659,000| 24,465,000| 1,985,000| 1,819,000| ----
1793 | 13,941,000| 19,256,000| 19,676,000| 3,971,000| 3,993,000| 4,500,000
1794 | 13,858,000| 22,288,000| 25,111,000| 5,525,000| 6,641,000| 12,907,000
1795 | 13,557,000| 22,736,000| 25,036,000| 6,315,000| 11,610,000| 19,490,000
1796 | 14,292,000| 23,187,000| 28,025,000| 11,883,000| 14,911,000| 29,726,000
1797 | 13,332,000| 21,013,000| 26,315,000| 13,033,000| 15,488,000| 44,029,000
1798 | 14,275,000| 27,857,000| 30,289,000| 13,449,000| 12,852,000| 15,000,000
1799 | 15,727,000| 26,837,000| 33,640,000| 13,642,000| 11,840,000| 15,500,000
1800 | 14,238,000| 30,570,000| 38,119,000| 13,619,000| 11,941,000| 18,500,000
1801 | 14,641,000| 32,795,000| 37,786,000| 15,857,000| 12,117,000| 25,500,000
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
INDEX
Abbot, Charles (afterwards Lord Colchester), 298, 306 _n._, 330 _n._, 346;
Speaker, 520.
Abercorn, Lord, 402.
Abercromby, Sir Ralph, 216;
Commander-in-Chief in the West Indies, 226, 239, 240, 241, 246;
in Ireland, 352-354;
resigns, 354, 363;
campaign in Holland, 381, 382;
in Egypt, 387;
his death, 240.
Aboukir Bay, 367-369.
"Accurate Observer," the, 466.
Acton, General, 150 _n._
Acton, Lord, on Pitt and the execution of Louis XVI, refuted, 94 _n._, 569.
Adair, Robert, 337 _n._
Adams, W. D., Pitt's secretary, 531.
Addington, Henry (afterwards Viscount Sidmouth), Speaker, 180, 255, 302,
368, 436 _n._;
suggests the Patriotic Contribution, 331;
at the duel between Pitt and Tierney, 334, 335;
Pitt at his house, 435;
tries to dissuade Pitt from Catholic Emancipation, 437;
urged by the King to form a Ministry, 437;
Prime Minister, 439, 445-448, 450, 451, 468, 469, 487, 488;
Pitt supports him, 471, 472, 478, 479, 488, 496, 503, 504;
visits Pitt at Walmer, 473, 477;
his finance, 480-482;
failure of his negotiations with Pitt, 483-487;
plans for his overthrow, 495-499;
resigns, 499;
opposes abolition of the Slave Trade, 502;
union with Pitt, 517;
created Viscount Sidmouth, 517;
Lord President, 517, 520-522;
resigns, 530.
Addington, Hiley, 530.
Agriculture, Board of, instituted, 165, 293.
Agriculture, flourishing state of, 291;
influence of enclosures on, 291, 292.
Alava, General, 524.
Alcudia, Duke of. _See_ Godoy.
Alexander I, Czar, 487, 508, 515;
his instructions to Novossiltzoff, 522, 525;
his terms of alliance, 525-527;
his designs on Malta, 527;
at Berlin, 537;
treaty of Potsdam, 539;
battle of Austerlitz, 544, 560.
Aliens' Bill (1792), 94;
its withdrawal demanded by France, 101, 103;
renewal of (1798), 333.
Alkmaar, Convention of, 382.
All the Talents, Administration of, 496.
Alsace, 46, 53, 122, 129, 142, 197, 199, 200.
Alvanley, Lord. _See_ Arden, Richard Pepper.
Amherst, Lord, Commander-in-Chief, 270.
Amiens, Treaty of, 248, 470, 472, 477, 564, 565.
Anckarström, Johann Jakob, assassinates Gustavus III, 46.
Anspach, Principality of, overrun by Napoleon, 534, 537, 560.
"Anti-Jacobin," the, 327, 336, 337, 464.
"Anti-Levelling Society," the, 68.
Antwerp, trade of, strangled by the Dutch, 72;
reduction of the citadel, 76;
proposed fortification of, 83;
conference at (1793), 132.
Aranda, Count of, Spanish Minister, 46.
Arcola, battle of, 321.
Arden, Sir Richard Pepper (Lord Alvanley), Master of the Rolls, 34, 476;
on Irish affairs, 341.
"Argus," the, 66;
in the pay of the French Embassy, 66 _n._
Armed Neutrality League, 290;
collapse of, 468, 478.
Army, the, debate on the Estimates, 29, 30;
state of 1793, 124, 266, 267;
Pitt's measures for increasing, 278-280, 305;
disaffection in, 318, 319.
Army of Reserve Act, 499, 509, 510.
Artois, Comte d' (afterwards Charles X), 2, 3, 5, 6;
and the Quiberon Expedition, 259, 261-263, 287;
retires to Holyrood, 263;
dines with Pitt and Grenville, 377.
Assaye, battle of, 463, 505.
_Assignats_, royalist, manufacture of, 261.
"Associated Friends of the Constitution," the, at Glasgow, 173, 174.
Auckland, Lord (William Eden), Ambassador at The Hague, 38, 51, 68, 69,
71 _n._, 72-74, 76, 82, 97, 99, 107, 109, 111, 126, 189;
Pitt's intimacy with his daughter, 299-303;
Postmaster-General, 303, 330, 331, 342, 355, 356, 394-396, 415, 421, 434;
his reported intrigues, 443, 445;
rupture with Pitt, 452;
his "inquisitiveness," 479, 480 _n._;
559, 560.
Augereau, P. F. C., Duc de Castiglione, 324.
Austerlitz, battle of, 536, 544, 560;
reception of the news of in England, 548, 549.
Austria, alliance with Prussia (1791), 5, 43;
war with France, 23, 46;
her share in the partition of Poland, 53, 122;
evacuates Brussels, 74;
end of estrangement with England, 84;
her aims in the war, 122, 123, 129;
alliance with England (1793), 123, 143, 147;
fails to send reinforcements to Toulon, 152, 153, 157, 158, 161, 268;
disputes with Prussia, 200-202;
evacuation of the Netherlands, 209, 211, 212;
treaty with Russia and England (1795), 235;
receives financial aid from England, 304;
her struggle with Napoleon, 304, 321, 322;
treaty of Campo Formio (1797), 327, 365;
appeals to England, 366;
schemes for expansion in Italy, 371, 378;
declares War against France (1799), 374;
negotiations with England (1799), 383;
her defeats at Marengo, 386, 387,
Ulm, 534, 542,
and Austerlitz, 544, 552, 560.
_See_ Francis II.
Avignon, annexed by France, 220, 276.
Aylesbury, county meeting at, 188.
Baillie, Dr., 554.
Baird, Sir David, his expedition to the Cape, 532, 539.
Bank of England, crisis in 1797, 304, 308, 309.
Bankes, Sir Henry, 290, 428, 454, 520.
Bantry Bay, expedition to, 277, 308, 346.
Barère de Vieuzac, Bertrand, 83, 167.
Barham, Lord (Sir Charles Middleton), Pitt visits him at Teston, 479;
appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, 521, 522, 532, 550, 551;
created Lord Barham, 522.
Baring, Sir Francis, on the Cape, 251.
Barlow, Joel, 66, 70, 115, 172.
Barnard, Lady Anne, her "South Africa a Century Ago," 254.
Barras, Paul François Nicolas, Comte de, 263, 325, 328;
promises help to Ireland, 348, 363.
Barrington, Sir Jonah, 411, 412.
Barthélemy, François, Marquis de, French envoy in Switzerland, 105, 217,
233, 236, 346.
Basle, Treaties of (1795), 217, 233, 236, 237.
Bassano, Duc de. _See_ Maret.
Bath, French refugees in, 165;
Pitt's stay at, 479, 547-553.
Bathurst, Bragge, 517, 518.
Bathurst, Lord, 476, 549, 550.
Bavaria, Electorate of, proposal for exchange, 122, 123, 129, 210.
Beaufoy, Henry, M.P., 10, 11.
Bedford, Duke of, 312.
Belfast, French sympathies in, 71, 78;
sedition in, 181.
Belgic Provinces, French designs on, 47, 48;
French conquest of, 69, 79;
demand independence, 83;
annexed by France, 111, 121;
Austrian proposal for exchange, 122, 129, 210;
reconquered, 126;
Austrian evacuation of, 208-212;
plans for, 371.
Belmore, Lord, 402.
Benoît, Pierre Victor, 60.
Beresford, John, Irish Chief Commissioner of the Revenue, 340, 346, 355,
356, 418, 419, 420, 424;
Lord Fitzwilliam and, 341, 342;
on the Irish Rebellion, 394, 395;
on the Union, 401-404, 410.
Berg, Duchy of, 46.
Bergen-op-Zoom, 126, 213;
failure of attack on, 382.
Bethencourt, battle of, 208.
Binns, John, 283, 286, 349, 350.
Birmingham, riots in (1791), 10, 17-19;
malcontents in, 186;
the "Loyal True Blues," 188, 189;
riots in (1795), 287, 288.
Biron, Duc de, his mission to London, 42, 43;
arrested for debt, 43.
Bischoffswerder, Baron von, Prussian Minister, 2, 5, 203.
Blankett, Commodore, expedition to the Cape, 251.
Boissy d'Anglas, François Antoine de, 233.
Bolton, Lord. _See_ Orde, Thomas.
Bonaparte, Joseph, 506, 526.
Bonaparte, Napoleon. _See_ Napoleon.
Bond, 530.
Bone, John, 318.
Bonham, arrested, 350.
Bonney, arrested, 190;
discharged, 193.
Booth, his evidence against Thomas Walker, 185.
Boyd, Sir R., 158.
Boyd, Walter, 325, 326.
Brabant. _See_ Belgic Provinces.
Breda, captured by Dumouriez, 126.
Brest, naval preparations at, 349, 418, 420, 421;
proposed attack on, 383, 386.
Bridport, Lord (Alexander Hood), 261;
and the mutiny at the Nore, 311-313;
blockades Brest, 420, 421.
Brissot, Jacques Pierre, 107, 223 _n._, 248.
British Columbia, 565.
British Convention, meets at Edinburgh, 181, 182, 184.
Brook, John, attorney and Mayor of Birmingham, 18, 186.
Brooks's Club, 20.
Brown, Matthew C., of Sheffield, 181, 182.
Brown, Colonel, 512.
Bruix, Admiral, 381 _n._, 420, 430.
Brunswick, Charles, Duke of, 46;
his manifesto, 52, 57;
his retreat through the Argonne, 62;
campaign on the Rhine, 142, 200, 201;
superseded, 201;
opposed to continuation of the war, 207;
refuses to take command in Holland, 214-216, 274.
Brunswick, Duchess of, 214, 215, 216.
Brunswick-Oels, Frederick, Duke of, 121.
Brussels, evacuated by the Austrians, 74.
Buccleugh, Duke of, 476.
Buckingham, Marquis of (George Grenville, Earl Temple), 19, 62, 158,
240, 336;
on the state of Ireland, 395, 396, 412;
on Lord Loughborough, 432.
Buckinghamshire, Earl of (Lord Hobart), 462, 487, 494, 495;
Chancellor of the Duchy, 517, 521;
resigns, 530.
Buckner, Vice-Admiral, 314.
Burdett, Sir Francis, 332.
Burges, Bland, 51, 64, 86, 259.
Burgh, Dr., 472.
Burgoing, special envoy to Madrid, 233, 235.
Burgoyne, General, 30.
Burke, Edmund, interview with Pitt and Grenville, 7, 8;
fears the spread of French principles, 9, 10, 61;
on Reform, 12, 24;
Paine's reply to his "Reflections," 15, 16;
other replies, 16;
his "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs," 16;
his "Reflections," 19, 20, 70 _n._;
letter to Grenville after the September massacres, 60, 61;
on the Treasury Bench, 89;
declares the death of Louis inevitable, 91, 92;
his speech on the Aliens Bill, 64, 94;
his view of the war, 119, 120, 136, 137, 259, 275, 321;
on the Traitorous Correspondence Bill, 164;
proposes Coalition Ministry (1794), 191;
his Economy Bill, 467;
as an orator, compared with Pitt, 567;
his death, 326.
Burke, Richard, at Coblentz, 7.
Burney, Fanny, 64.
Burton Pynsent, expenses of, 476.
Butler, Simon, 180, 181.
Bute, Earl of, sent to Madrid, 233, 235-237, 242-244.
Buzot, F. L. Nicolas, 62.
Cadusey, de, 220.
Calder, Admiral, 532, 536.
Caldiero, battle of, 321.
Calonne, Charles Alexandre de, his mission to England, 3, 5.
Calvi, capture of, 256.
Camage, W., of Sheffield, arrested, 186, 191.
Cambacérès, J. J. Régis de, 233.
Camden, Charles Pratt, 1st Earl, 33, 44.
Camden, John Jeffreys Pratt, 2nd Earl (afterwards Marquis), Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, 342-348, 352-364, 391, 392, 393, 395, 402, 406, 409, 422;
his friendship with Pitt, 475, 476, 481, 491;
Secretary at War, etc., 501, 507, 514;
President of the Council, 530, 557.
Camelford, Lord (Thomas Pitt), 37;
on Pitt's duel with Tierney, 336.
Campbell, Thomas, at the trial of Gerrald, 183.
Camperdown, battle of, 328, 347.
Campo Formio, Treaty of, 327, 328, 365.
Canada, Upper, establishment of Government of, 31.
Canning, George, 39;
his interview with Pitt, 40, 41;
the "Anti-Jacobin," 327, 336, 337, 464;
on conditions of peace with France, 383, 384;
resigns the Under-Secretaryship, 376, 421;
strongly supports the Union, 421, 422;
on Catholic Emancipation, 442;
resigns office (1801), 451, 465;
on Pitt's generosity, 457;
his relations with Pitt, 459, 464-466, 567;
his marriage, 464;
opposed to peace (1801), 469, 470;
on Pitt's position, 471;
his poems, 474, 518;
urges Pitt to action, 481, 482;
Treasurer of the Navy, 501;
falls out with Hawkesbury, 518;
defends Melville, 520;
his sympathy with Spanish patriots, 524;
disapproves of the expedition to Hanover, 542, 547;
anxious for Pitt's health, 547;
with Pitt at Bath, 549, 550, 553;
mentioned, 286, 325, 375, 390, 450, 488.
Canterbury, Archbishop of. _See_ Moore, John, and Sutton, Charles Manners.
Cape of Good Hope, the, 216, 250;
British conquest of, 251-255, 274, 276, 323, 325, 371, 469, 470, 478,
480, 565;
Baird's expedition to, 532, 539.
Cape Town, capture of, 252-254;
population of, 253.
Carew, 294.
Carles, John, of Birmingham, 18, 186.
Carlisle, Earl of, 322, 350;
on Irish affairs, 391, 392, 394.
Carlyle, Thomas, on the September massacres, 61.
Carmarthen, Marquis of. _See_ Leeds, Duke of.
Carnot, L. N. M., French general and Minister of War, 125, 135, 138, 141,
208, 212, 217, 266, 272, 279, 280.
Caroline, Princess, of Brunswick, 214, 216;
as Princess of Wales, 508.
Carrington, Lord, 330, 476, 489, 557.
Carteaux, Jean François, 145.
Cartwright, Major John, 23;
his "Commonwealth in Danger," 280.
Carver, Edward, of Birmingham, 189.
Carysfort, Lord, 412, 495.
Castiglione, battle of, 243.
"Castlebar Races," the, 362.
Castlereagh, Viscount, 370, 569;
account of, 398, 399;
Irish Chief Secretary, 399, 402, 408, 410-412, 416, 423-425, 435-437,
441, 446, 449, 486;
resigns, 440;
President of the India Board, 501;
defends Melville, 520;
Minister at War, 530;
letters to Pitt, 531, 532, 549-551;
interview with Pitt at Bath, 551, 552;
at Putney, 555.
Catalonia, French invasion of, 197;
Republican rising in, 231, 233, 234.
Catharine II, Czarina, 4, 6, 7, 231;
her designs on Poland, 9, 46, 122;
encourages Polish malcontents, 52;
invades Poland, 53, 54;
her success, 55;
offers alliance to England, 99;
treaty with England and Austria (1795), 235;
her death, 258, 321.
Cathelineau, Jacques, 136.
Catholic Emancipation, question of, 396-401, 414, 418, 426, 428, 431, 433,
452, 486, 487;
opposed by the King, 433-439, 564;
division in the Cabinet on, 443-445;
motion for, rejected, 518, 519.
Catholics, the, in Ireland, 390, 395-401;
in favour of the Union, 412, 417-419;
courted by Cornwallis, 422, 423;
question of promises made to them, 441-446.
Cazalès, Jacques Antoine Marie de, 43.
Ceylon, 323, 325, 371, 468-470, 565.
Chalk Farm, mass meeting at, 188, 193.
Chandermagore, 198.
Charette, François, 261-263.
Charlemont, Lord, 408.
Charleroi, surrender of, 209, 210.
Charles, Archduke of Austria, 126, 205, 206, 377, 378.
Charles IV, of Spain, appeals to France on behalf of Louis, 93;
his weakness and extravagance, 197, 230, 231, 513, 560;
his policy, 231, 233.
Charles X, 2.
Charles Emmanuel IV, King of Sardinia (1796-8), his abdication, 373, 378.
Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria, 122, 123.
Charlotte, Queen, her relations with the King, 506, 507.
Charmilly, de, delegate from Hayti, 220, 227, 229, 239.
Chatham, John Pitt, Earl of, First Lord of the Admiralty, 68, 125,
145, 268;
his incompetence, 137, 140, 215;
made Lord Privy Seal, 216, 273, 299;
borrows money of Pitt, 302, 303, 476;
engaged in Holland, 382;
Lord President, 440, 446;
letter to Pitt on his resignation, 440;
Master of the Ordnance, 501, 557.
Chatham, William Pitt, 1st Lord, and Pitt compared, 320, 474, 490,
562, 565.
Chatham, Lady, 68.
Chatham, Dowager Lady, Pitt's mother, 299, 302, 476;
her death, 488, 490.
Chaumont, Treaty of (1814), 523.
Chauvelin, Marquis de, French Ambassador in London, 48, 84;
his cold reception, 49, 50;
account of, 59, 60;
tries to stir up discontent, 69;
interview with Grenville, 78, 79;
piqued at Pitt's interview with Maret, 80, 82, 116, 117;
refused official recognition, 84, 98, 101, 115;
conversation with Sheridan, 87;
Lebrun's instructions to, 96;
note to Grenville, 97, 98;
protests against the Aliens Bill, 101, 103;
interview with Grenville, 104, 105;
ordered to leave England, 108-111, 117;
his responsibility for the war, 115-117.
China, British embassy to, 32.
Chouans, the, 260-264, 284, 326.
Christie, William, his "Catechism of the French Constitution," 22;
175.
"Church and King Club," 13, 185.
Churchill, Charles, on Lord Loughborough, 432.
Cinque Ports Volunteers, Pitt and the, 474, 477, 488-490.
Cisalpine Republic, the, 470.
Clare, Earl of (Baron Fitzgibbon), Lord Chancellor of Ireland, 340, 342,
393, 406, 410;
interviews with Pitt, 397-400;
opposes Catholic Emancipation, 437.
Clarence, Duke of, 31.
Clarke, Major-General Alured, his expedition to the Cape, 251, 253.
Clarke, General, agrees to send a French expedition to Ireland, 345, 346.
Clarkson, Thomas, 502.
Clavière, Etienne, French Minister of Finance, 45, 58.
Clerfait, Field Marshal, 209, 213-215.
Clifden, Lord, 346, 402.
Clubs, political, growth of, 12, 13, 16, 21-23;
their aims, 25, 26;
accused of foreign connections, 51;
their rejoicings at the Revolution, 61;
addresses to French National Convention, 65-67, 70, 71, 73, 76, 77, 86,
114, 115, 164, 172;
growth of, in 1793, 167;
their organization, 168, 169.
_See_ Chap. VII.
Coalition, the First, 123, 125, 132;
weakness of, 195, 196, 278;
the Second, _see_ Chap. XVII;
the Third, 529, 534 _et seq._
Cobenzl, Count Ludwig, 373, 375.
Cobenzl, Count Philip, Austrian Chancellor, 75, 120 _n._, 560;
his fall, 129.
Coblentz, Royalist leaders at, 2, 3, 20.
Coburg, Duke of, his campaign in Flanders, 121, 126, 127, 130-133, 138-141,
205, 206, 209, 210, 267.
Cochrane, Admiral, 514.
Cockburn, Lord, on the Scots, 173.
Coke of Norfolk, 188, 294.
Colchester, Lord. _See_ Abbot, Charles.
Colpoys, Vice-Admiral, 311, 312.
Condé, captured by the Allies, 134, 136;
surrendered, 210.
Conolly, Captain, 159.
Conscription, in France, 266.
Consols, great rise in (1783-1792), 31;
rise in (1796), 305;
fall after the Nore mutiny, 315.
Constitutional Information, London Society for, 12 _n._, 21, 22, 65, 66,
70, 167, 181, 184, 190.
Cooke, Edward, his letters to Auckland and Castlereagh on the Irish
question, 355, 356, 362 _n._, 395, 396, 404, 405, 418-420, 422,
424, 425, 435-437;
his pamphlet on the Union, 405, 408;
his conduct during the debate on the Union, 412.
Coote, General, 379.
Copenhagen, battle of, 388, 450.
Cork, despatch of troops from, 146, 152 _n._, 153;
sentiments of the Grand Jury on the Union, 416, 417.
Corn Laws, 288, 289.
Cornwall, representation of, 173.
Cornwallis, Admiral, 514, 532.
Cornwallis, Marquis, suggested as Commander-in-Chief in Flanders, 205,
214, 272;
Master-General of the Ordnance, 273;
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 359, 362, 363, 389, 391-412, 417, 418,
421-426, 435, 436, 441, 443, 449;
resigns, 440;
Viceroy of India, 463;
negotiates the Treaty of Amiens, 470, 477.
Corporation Act, the, efforts to repeal, 10, 11.
Corresponding Society for Reform of Parliamentary Representation, 21, 26,
65, 66, 167, 168, 184, 186-190, 193;
monster meeting at Islington, 283, 286;
supposed connection with the mutiny at the Nore, 316-318;
becomes a revolutionary body, 349, 350;
its papers seized, 351.
Corsica, 143, 144, 150 _n._, 155, 156, 158, 210, 228, 232, 233, 235,
244, 267;
British occupation of, 255-257, 269;
evacuated, 258, 275.
County Reform Associations, the, 23.
"Courier," the, 67.
Courtenay, John, M.P., 238.
Couthon, Georges, 134, 135.
Coutts, Thomas, 306 _n._, 308 _n._, 475-477.
Cowper, W., his pension, 455 _n._, 456.
Craig, Major-General Sir James, in command at the Cape, 251-254;
his expedition to Malta, 368, 524, 525;
Mornington's opinion of, 461.
Crancé, Dubois, 266.
Craufurd, Major-General Robert, 510.
Creevey, Thomas, 497, 521.
Crossfield, Secretary of the London Corresponding Society, 349.
Cumberland, Duke of, 448.
Curragh, affair on the, 357, 358.
Curt, delegate from Guadeloupe, 221.
Custine, General, Comte de, 73, 85, 121, 133.
Czartoryski, Prince, 522, 526.
Daer, Lord, 174.
Dalrymple, Colonel William, 173, 174.
Daly, Denis, 341.
Danton, George Jacques, Minister of Justice, 58;
his alleged offer to save Louis, 94 _n._;
his decree annexing Belgium, 111, 112, 116, 121.
D'Arçon, 135.
Davison, Richard, of Sheffield, 189, 191, 193.
De Clifford, Lord, 420, 422.
Delacroix, Jacques Vincent, French Foreign Minister, 322.
Del Campo, Marquis, 233.
Delessart, A. de Valdec, French Foreign Minister, 43, 44;
arrested, 45.
Demerara, Dutch, 241.
Democracy, new birth of, 23;
progress of, 62-68;
opposition to, 68.
Derby, Society for Constitutional Information at, 70.
Despard, Colonel, arrested, 350.
"Devil's Own," the, 489.
Devonshire, Duke of, 402, 497.
Devonshire, Duchess of, 497.
Dibdin, Charles, 337.
Dillon, General Theobald, murdered by his troops, 49.
Dissenters. _See_ Nonconformists.
Dominica, revolt in, 239.
Don, General, 542, 545.
Donegal, Lord, 420, 422.
Dover Loyal Association, address to Pitt, 86.
Downes, Sir William, 395.
Downshire, Lord, 398;
his opposition to the Union, 402, 418, 420, 422-424.
Doyle, General, expedition to la Vendée, 237, 262, 263.
Drake, Francis, British agent at Genoa, 155.
Drane, Mr., Mayor of Reading, 180.
Duckworth, Sir James, 532 _n._
Duff, General, 357, 358.