Produced by Paul Murray, Wolfgang Menges and the Online
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

    Transcriber's Notes:

    Italics have been marked with underscores, like '_this_'.

    Greek passages have been transcribed, using '+', like '+atê+'.

    OE ligature and oe ligature have been changed to 'OE' or 'oe'.

    Corrections, as listed in the "ERRATA" paragraph, have been made.

    Besides,
    Page 4, "disance" changed to "distance" (owing to the long distance,).

    Page 16, "circulalation" changed to "circulation" (and many of them
      helped on the circulation).

    Pages 83 and 167, "Barrère" equalized to "Barère" (according to Index).

    Page 104, "imdiately" changed to "immediately" (which was immediately
      granted.).

    Page 208, "Möllendorff" equalized to "Möllendorf" (according to Index).

    Page 325, "brother in-law" changed to "brother-in-law" (Pitt, owing to
      news of the death of his brother-in-law,)

    Page 399/400, "arewell" changed to "farewell" (just after saying
      farewell to Clare at Dublin,).

    Page 419, "of couse" changed to "of course" (This proposal of course
      implied).

    Page 422, "futher" changed to "further" (to make further concessions
      to that body.).

    Page 451, "symptons" changed to "symptoms" (From these extraordinary
      symptoms he augured).

    Page 456, Footnote 609, "Soo" changed to "So" (So, too, Tomline said).

    Page 496, "convicton" changed to "conviction" (But that he was drifting
      to this conviction).

    Page 528, "counsellers" changed to "counsellors" (and he and his
      counsellors saw far more hope).

    [Illustration: WILLIAM PITT, IN LATER LIFE. (From a painting by
    Hoppner in the National Portrait Gallery)]

    WILLIAM PITT

    AND

    THE GREAT WAR

    BY

    J. HOLLAND ROSE, LITT.D.

    England and France have held in their hands the fate of the
    world, especially that of European civilization. How much harm
    we have done one another: how much good we might have done!
    --_Napoleon to Colonel Wilks, 20th April 1816._

    [Illustration: Publisher's emblem]

    LONDON

    G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.

    1911

    CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
    TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

    PREFACE

In the former volume, entitled "William Pitt and National Revival," I
sought to trace the career of Pitt the Younger up to the year 1791.
Until then he was occupied almost entirely with attempts to repair the
evils arising out of the old order of things. Retrenchment and Reform
were his first watchwords; and though in the year 1785 he failed in his
efforts to renovate the life of Parliament and to improve the fiscal
relations with Ireland, yet his domestic policy in the main achieved a
surprising success. Scarcely less eminent, though far less known, were
his services in the sphere of diplomacy. In the year 1783, when he
became First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer,
nearly half of the British Empire was torn away, and the remainder
seemed to be at the mercy of the allied Houses of Bourbon. France,
enjoying the alliance of Spain and Austria and the diplomatic wooings of
Catharine II and Frederick the Great, gave the law to Europe.

By the year 1790 all had changed. In 1787 Pitt supported Frederick
William II of Prussia in overthrowing French supremacy in the Dutch
Netherlands; and a year later he framed with those two States an
alliance which not only dictated terms to Austria at the Congress of
Reichenbach but also compelled her to forego her far-reaching schemes on
the lower Danube, and to restore the _status quo_ in Central Europe and
in her Belgian provinces. British policy triumphed over that of Spain in
the Nootka Sound dispute of the year 1790, thereby securing for the
Empire the coast of what is now British Columbia; it also saved Sweden
from a position of acute danger; and Pitt cherished the hope of forming
a league of the smaller States, including the Dutch Republic, Denmark,
Sweden, Poland, and, if possible, Turkey, which, with support from Great
Britain and Prussia, would withstand the almost revolutionary schemes of
the Russian and Austrian Courts.

These larger aims were unattainable. The duplicity of the Court of
Berlin, the triumphs of the Russian arms on the Danube, and changes in
the general diplomatic situation, enabled Catharine II to foil the
efforts of Pitt in 1791. She worked her will on the Turks and not long
after on the Poles; Sweden came to an understanding with her; and
Prussia, slighting the British alliance, drew near to the new Hapsburg
Sovereign, Leopold II. In fact, the events of the French Revolution in
the year 1791 served to focus attention more and more upon Paris; and
monarchs who had thought of little but the conquest or partition of
weaker States now talked of a crusade to restore order at Paris, with
Gustavus III of Sweden as the new Coeur de Lion. This occidentation of
diplomacy became pronounced at the time of the attempted escape of
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to the eastern frontier at Midsummer
1791. Their capture at Varennes and their ignominious return to Paris
are in several respects the central event of the French Revolution. The
incident aroused both democrats and royalists to a fury which foredoomed
to failure all attempts at compromise between the old order and the new.
The fierceness of the strife in France incited monarchists in all lands
to importunate demands for the extirpation of "the French plague"; and
hence were set in motion forces which Pitt vainly strove to curb. War
soon broke out in Central Europe. His endeavours to localize it were
fruitless; and thenceforth his chief task was to bring to an honourable
close a conflict which he had not sought. It is therefore fitting that
this study of the latter, less felicitous, but equally glorious part of
his career should begin with a survey of the situation in Great Britain
and on the Continent at the time of the incident at Varennes which
opened a new chapter in the history of Europe.

In the present volume I have sought to narrate faithfully and as fully
as is possible the story of the dispute with France, the chief episodes
of the war, and the varied influences which it exerted upon political
developments in these islands, including the early Radical movement, the
Irish Rebellion of 1798, and other events which brought about the Union
of the British and Irish Parliaments, the break up of the great national
party at Westminster in 1801, and the collapse of the strength of Pitt
early in the course of the struggle with the concentrated might of
Napoleon.

That mighty drama dwarfs the actors. Even the French Emperor could not
sustain the rôle which he aspired to play, and, failing to discern the
signs of the times, was whirled aside by the forces which he claimed to
control. Is it surprising that Pitt, more slightly endowed by nature,
and beset by the many limitations which hampered the advisers of
George III, should have sunk beneath burdens such as no other English
statesman has been called upon to bear? The success or failure of such a
career is, however, to be measured by the final success or failure of
his policy; and in this respect, as I have shown, the victor in the
Great War was not Napoleon but Pitt.

To that high enterprise he consecrated all the powers of his being. His
public life is everything; his private life, unfortunately, counts for
little. The materials for reconstructing it are meagre. I have been able
here and there to throw new light on his friendships, difficulties,
trials, and, in particular, on the love episode of the year 1797. But in
the main the story of the life of Pitt must soar high above the club and
the _salon_ to

    ... the toppling heights of Duty scaled.

Again I must express my hearty thanks to those who have generously
placed at my disposal new materials of great value, especially to His
Grace the Duke of Portland, the Earl of Harrowby, Earl Stanhope, E. G.
Pretyman, Esq., M.P., and A. M. Broadley, Esq.; also to the Rev. William
Hunt, D.Litt., and Colonel E. M. Lloyd, late R.E., for valuable advice
tendered during the correction of the proofs, and to Mr. Hubert Hall of
H.M. Public Record Office for assistance during my researches there. I
am also indebted to Lord Auckland and to Messrs. Longmans for permission
to reproduce the miniature of the Hon. Miss Eden which appeared in Lord
Ashbourne's "Pitt, Some Chapters of his Life and Times," and to Mr. and
Mrs. Doulton for permission to my daughter to make the sketch of Bowling
Green House, the last residence of Pitt, which is reproduced near the
end of this volume. In the preface to the former volume I expressed my
acknowledgements to recent works bearing on this subject; and I need
only add that numerous new letters of George III, Pitt, Grenville,
Burke, Canning, etc., which could only be referred to here, will be
published in a work entitled "Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies," including
also essays and notes.

                                                         J. H. R.
MARCH 1911.

  CONTENTS

  CHAP.                                                      PAGE

  I.       ROYALISTS AND RADICALS                               1
  II.      BEFORE THE STORM                                    29
  III.     PEACE OR WAR?                                       57
  IV.      THE RUPTURE WITH FRANCE                             85
  V.       THE FLEMISH CAMPAIGN (1793)                        118
  VI.      TOULON                                             143
  VII.     THE BRITISH JACOBINS                               164
  VIII.    PITT AND THE ALLIES (1794-5)                       195
  IX.      THE WEST INDIES                                    219
  X.       SPAIN AND HAYTI                                    230
  XI.      THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE: CORSICA: QUIBERON           250
  XII.     PITT AS WAR MINISTER (1793-8)                      265
  XIII.    DEARTH AND DISCONTENT                              282
  XIV.     THE YEARS OF STRAIN (1796-7)                       299
  XV.      NATIONAL REVIVAL                                   321
  XVI.     THE IRISH REBELLION                                339
  XVII.    THE SECOND COALITION                               365
  XVIII.   THE UNION                                          389
  XIX.     THE UNION (CONTINUED)                              411
  XX.      RESIGNATION                                        431
  XXI.     PITT AND HIS FRIENDS (1794-1805)                   454
  XXII.    ADDINGTON OR PITT?                                 483
  XXIII.   PITT AND NAPOLEON                                  505
  XXIV.    THE LAST STRUGGLE                                  534
  EPILOGUE                                                    559
  STATISTICS OF THE YEARS 1792-1801                           571
  INDEX                                                       573

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

                                                          TO FACE
                                                             PAGE

  WILLIAM PITT, IN LATER LIFE. (From a painting by
  Hoppner in the National Portrait Gallery)        _Frontispiece_

  SEAT OF WAR IN FLANDERS.                                    141

  THE SIEGE OF TOULON. (By Emmanuel Toulougeon, Paris)        163

  THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN 1793. (From a painting in
  the National Portrait Gallery by K. A. Hickel)              164

  THE HON. ELEANOR EDEN. (From a miniature)                   300

  HENRY DUNDAS, FIRST VISCOUNT MELVILLE. (From a
  painting by Sir T. Lawrence)                                484

  BOWLING GREEN HOUSE, PUTNEY HEATH. (From a
  pencil sketch by Elsie H. Rose)                             554

  ERRATA

  Page 180, _ad fin._, _for_ "Hamilton, Rowan" _read_ "Hamilton Rowan."
   "   311, line 1, _for_ "formerly" _read_ "brother of."
   "   311, line 2, _for_ "Lord Hood" _read_ "Sir Alexander Hood."
   "   551, line 11 from end, _for_ "6th" _read_ "4th."

ABBREVIATIONS OF THE TITLES OF THE CHIEF WORKS REFERRED TO IN THIS
VOLUME

ANN. REG. = "Annual Register."

ASHBOURNE = "Pitt: some Chapters of his Life and Times," by the Rt. Hon.
Lord Ashbourne. 1898.

AUCKLAND JOURNALS = "The Journal and Corresp. of William, Lord
Auckland." 4 vols. 1861.

BEAUFORT P. = "MSS. of the Duke of Beaufort," etc. (Hist. MSS. Comm.).
1891.

B.M. ADD. MSS. = Additional Manuscripts of the British Museum.

BUCKINGHAM P. = "Mems. of the Court and Cabinets of George III," by the
Duke of Buckingham. 2 vols. 1853.

CAMPBELL = "Lives of the Lord Chancellors," by Lord Campbell. 8 vols.
1845-69.

CASTLEREAGH CORRESP. = "Mems. and Corresp. of Viscount Castlereagh." 8
vols. 1848-53.

CHEVENING MSS. = Manuscripts of Earl Stanhope, preserved at Chevening.

CUNNINGHAM = "Growth of Eng. Industry and Commerce (Modern Times)," by
Dr. W. Cunningham. 1892.

DROPMORE P. = "The Manuscripts of J. B. Fortescue, Esq., preserved at
Dropmore" (Hist. MSS. Comm.). 7 vols. 1892-1910.

FORTESCUE = "The History of the British Army," by the Hon. J. W.
Fortescue. vol. iv.

HÄUSSER = "Deutsche Geschichte (1786-1804)," by L. Häusser. 4 vols.
1861-3.

HOLLAND = "Memoirs of the Whig Party," by Lord Holland. 2 vols. 1852.

JESSE = "Mems. of the Life and Reign of George III," by J. H. Jesse. 3
vols. 1867.

LECKY = "Hist. of England in the Eighteenth Century," by W. E. H. Lecky.
8 vols. Fifth edit. 1891-1904.

MALMESBURY DIARIES = "Diaries and Corresp. of the First Earl of
Malmesbury." 4 vols. 1844.

PARL. HIST. = "History of the Parliamentary Debates" (after 1804
continued in Hansard).

PELLEW = "Life and Corresp. of the first Viscount Sidmouth," by Rev. C.
Pellew. 3 vols. 1847.

PITT MSS. = Pitt MSS., preserved at H.M. Public Record Office.

PORRITT = "The Unreformed House of Commons," by E. Porritt, 2 vols.
1909.

PRETYMAN MSS. = MSS. of E. G. Pretyman, Esq., M.P., preserved at Orwell
Park.

ROSE G., "DIARIES" = "Diaries and Corresp. of Rt. Hon. G. Rose." 2 vols.
1860.

ROSE, "NAPOLEON" = "Life of Napoleon," by J. H. Rose. 2 vols. 1909.

ROSE, "THIRD COALITION" = "Select Despatches ... relating to the
Formation of the Third Coalition (1804-5)," ed. by J. H. Rose (Royal
Historical Soc., 1904).

RUTLAND P. = "MSS. of the Duke of Rutland" (Hist. MSS. Comm.). 3 vols.
1894.

RUVILLE = "William Pitt, Earl of Chatham," by A. von Ruville (Eng.
transl.). 3 vols. 1907.

SOREL = "L'Europe et la Révolution française," par A. Sorel. Pts. II,
III. 1889, 1897.

STANHOPE = "Life of ... William Pitt," by Earl Stanhope. 4 vols. 3rd
edition. 1867.

SYBEL = "Geschichte der Revolutionzeit (1789-1800)," von H. von Sybel.
Eng. translation. 4 vols. 1867-9.

VIVENOT = "Quellen zur Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserpolitik
OEsterreichs ..." von A. von Vivenot. 1873.

WRAXALL = "Memoirs of Sir N. W. Wraxall" (1772-84), edited by H. B.
Wheatley. 5 vols. 1884.

    WILLIAM PITT AND THE GREAT WAR

    CHAPTER I

    ROYALISTS AND RADICALS[1]

    Détruire l'anarchie française, c'est se préparer une gloire
    immortelle.--CATHARINE II, 1791.

    The pretended Rights of Man, which have made this havoc, cannot
    be the rights of the people. For to be a people and to have
    these rights are incompatible. The one supposes the presence,
    the other the absence, of a state of civil society.--BURKE,
    _Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs_.

    A constitution is the property of a nation and not of those who
    exercise the Government.--T. PAINE, _Rights of Man_, part ii.

In the midst of a maze of events there may sometimes be found one which
serves as a clue, revealing hidden paths, connecting ways which seem far
apart, and leading to a clear issue. Such was the attempted flight of
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to the eastern frontier of France at
midsummer 1791, which may be termed the central event of the French
Revolution, at least in its first phases. The aim of joining the armed
bands of _émigrés_ and the forces held in readiness by Austria was so
obvious as to dispel the myth of "a patriot King" misled for a time by
evil counsellors. True, the moderates, from sheer alarm, still sought to
save the monarchy, and for a time with surprising success. But bolder
men, possessed both of insight and humour, perceived the futility of
all such efforts to hold down on the throne the father of his people
lest he should again run away. In this perception the young Republican
party found its genesis and its inspiration. In truth, the attempted
flight of the King was a death-blow to the moderate party, into which
the lamented leader, Mirabeau, had sought to infuse some of his
masterful energy. Thenceforth, the future belonged either to the
Jacobins or to the out and out royalists.

These last saw the horizon brighten in the East. Louis XVI being under
constraint in Paris, their leaders were the French Princes, the Comte de
Provence (afterwards Louis XVIII) and the Comte d'Artois (Charles X).
Around them at Coblentz there clustered angry swarms of French nobles,
gentlemen, and orthodox priests, whose zeal was reckoned by the
earliness of the date at which they had "emigrated." For many months the
agents of these _émigrés_ had vainly urged the Chanceries of the
Continent to a royalist crusade against the French rebels; and it seemed
appropriate that Gustavus III of Sweden should be their only convert.
Now of a sudden their demands appeared, instinct with statecraft; and
courtiers everywhere exclaimed that "the French pest" must be stamped
out. In that thought lay in germ a quarter of a century of war.

Already the Prussian and Austrian Governments had vaguely discussed the
need of a joint intervention in France. In fact this subject formed one
of the pretexts for the missions of the Prussian envoy, Bischoffswerder,
to the Emperor Leopold in February and June 1791.[2] As was shown at the
close of the former volume, "William Pitt and National Revival," neither
Court took the matter seriously, the Eastern Question being then their
chief concern. But the flight to Varennes, which Leopold had helped to
arrange, imposed on him the duty of avenging the ensuing insults to his
sister. He prepared to do so with a degree of caution highly
characteristic of him. He refused to move until he knew the disposition
of the Powers, especially of England. From Padua, where the news of the
capture of Louis at Varennes reached him, he wrote an autograph letter
to George III, dated 6th July, urging him to join in a general demand
for the liberation of the King and Queen of France. He also invited the
monarchs of Europe to launch a Declaration, that they regarded the cause
of Louis as their own, and in the last resort to put down a usurpation
of power which it behoved all Governments to repress.[3]

The reply of George, dated St. James's, 23rd July, bears the imprint of
the cool and cautious personality of Pitt and Grenville, who in this
matter may be counted as one. The King avowed his sympathy with the
French Royal Family and his interest in the present proposals, but
declared that his attitude must depend on his relations to other Powers.
He therefore cherished the hope that the Emperor would consult the
welfare of the whole of Europe by aiding in the work of pacification
between Austria and Turkey now proceeding at Sistova. So soon as those
negotiations were completed, he would instruct his Ministers to consider
the best means of cementing a union between the Allies and the
Emperor.[4]

Leopold must have gnashed his teeth on reading this reply, which beat
him at his own game of _finesse_. He had used the difficulties of
England as a means of escaping from the pledges plighted at the
Conference of Reichenbach in July 1790. Pitt and Grenville retorted by
ironically refusing all help until he fulfilled those pledges. As we
have seen, they succeeded; and the pacification in the East, as also in
Belgium, was the result.

Equally chilling was the conduct of Pitt towards the _émigrés_. The
French Princes at Coblentz had sent over the former French Minister,
Calonne, "to solicit from His Majesty an assurance of his neutrality in
the event ... of an attempt being made by the Emperor and other Powers
in support of the royal party in France." Pitt and Grenville refused to
receive Calonne, and sent to the Comte d'Artois a letter expressing
sympathy with the situation of the King and Queen of France, but
declining to give any promise as to the line of conduct which the
British Government might pursue.[5]

No less vague were the terms in which George III replied to a letter of
the King of Sweden. Gustavus had for some little time been at
Aix-la-Chapelle in the hope of leading a royalist crusade into France as
a sequel to the expected escape of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. As
readers of Carlyle will remember, the Swedish noble, Count Fersen,
chivalrously helped their flight towards Metz; and deep was the chagrin
of Gustavus and his squire on hearing the news from Varennes. They
longed to strike at once. But how could they strike while Leopold,
Catharine, and Frederick William declared that everything must depend on
the action of England? The following significant sentence in Fersen's
diary shows the feeling prevalent at Brussels, as elsewhere, respecting
England: "We must know if that Power regards the continuation of anarchy
in France as more advantageous than order."[6] Fersen had imbibed this
notion at Brussels from Count Mercy d'Argenteau, the Austrian Minister,
whose letters often harp on this string. Thus on 7th March 1791 he
writes: "The worst obstacles for the King of France will always come
from England, which wishes to prolong the horrors in France and ruin
her." A little later he avers that the only way to save the French
monarchy is by a civil war, "and England (unless won over) will support
the popular party."[7]

In order to win Pitt over to the cause of neutrality from which he never
intended to swerve, Gustavus and Fersen persuaded an Englishman named
Crawford to proceed to London with letters for George III and Pitt,
dated 22nd July.[8] To the King he described the danger to all
Governments which must ensue if the French revolted with impunity. He
therefore begged to know speedily whether His Majesty would accord full
liberty "to the Princes of Germany and to those, who, owing to the long
distance, can only arrive by sea."[9] Evidently, then, Gustavus feared
lest England might stop the fleet in which he intended to convey Swedish
and Russian troops to the coast of Normandy for a dash at Paris. The
answer of George soothed these fears, and that of Pitt, dated August
1791, was a model of courtly complaisance.

Compared with the shrewd balancings of the Emperor Leopold and the cold
neutrality of Pitt, the policy of Frederick William II of Prussia seemed
for a time to be instinct with generosity. Despite the fears of his
counsellors that a _rapprochement_ to Austria would involve Prussia in
the ruin which the friendship of the Hapsburgs had brought on France,
the King turned eagerly towards Vienna; and on 25th July Kaunitz and
Bischoffswerder signed a preliminary treaty of alliance mutually
guaranteeing their territories, and agreeing to further the aims of the
Emperor respecting France. Frederick William was on fire for the
royalist crusade. He even assured Baron Rolle, the agent of the French
princes, that something would be done in that season.[10] Pitt and
Grenville disapproved the action of Prussia in signing this compact,
impairing as it did the validity of the Anglo-Prussian alliance of the
year 1788; but Frederick William peevishly asserted his right to make
what treaties he thought good, and remarked that he was now quits with
England for the bad turns she had played him.[11] On their side, the
British Ministers, by way of marking their disapproval of the warlike
counsels of Berlin and Vienna, decided not to send an envoy to Pilnitz,
the summer abode of the Elector of Saxony, where a conference was
arranged between Leopold and Frederick William.

As is well known, the Comte d'Artois and Calonne now cherished lofty
hopes of decisive action by all the monarchs against the French rebels.
But Leopold, with his usual caution, repelled alike the solicitations of
Artois and the warlike counsels of Frederick William, the result of
their deliberations being the famous Declaration of Pilnitz (27th
August). In it they expressed the hope that all the sovereigns of Europe

    will not refuse to employ, in conjunction with their said
    Majesties, the most efficient means in proportion to their
    resources, to place the King of France in a position to
    establish with the most absolute freedom, the foundations of a
    monarchical form of government, which shall at once be in
    harmony with the rights of sovereigns and promote the welfare of
    the French nation. In that case [_alors et dans ce cas_] their
    said Majesties, the Emperor and the King of Prussia, are
    resolved to act promptly and in common accord with the forces
    necessary to attain the desired common end.

Obviously, the gist of the whole Declaration lay in the words _alors et
dans ce cas_. If they be emphasized, they destroy the force of the
document; for a union of all the monarchs was an impossibility, it being
well known that England would not, and Sardinia, and Naples (probably
also Spain) could not, take up arms. In fact, on that very evening
Leopold wrote to Kaunitz that he had not in the least committed
himself.--"_Alors et dans ce cas_ is with me the law and the prophets.
If England fails us, the case is non-existent." Further, when the Comte
d'Artois, two days later, urged the Emperor to give effect to the
Declaration by ordering his troops to march westwards, he sent a sharp
retort, asserted that he would not go beyond the Declaration, and
forbade the French Princes to do so.[12]

To the good sense and insight of Grenville and Pitt, the Pilnitz
Declaration was one of the _comédies augustes_ of history, as Mallet du
Pan termed it. Grenville saw that Leopold would stay his hand until
England chose to act, meanwhile alleging her neutrality as an excuse for
doing nothing.[13] Thus, the resolve of Catharine to give nothing but
fair words being already surmised, the _émigrés_ found to their
annoyance that Pitt's passivity clogged their efforts--the chief reason
why they shrilly upbraided him for his insular egotism. Certainly his
attitude was far from romantic; but surely, after the sharp lesson which
he had received from the House of Commons in the spring of 1791 during
the dispute with Russia, caution was needful; and he probably discerned
a truth hidden from the _émigrés_, that an invasion of France for the
rescue of the King and Queen would seal their doom and increase the
welter in that unhappy land.

Pitt and Grenville spent the middle of September at Weymouth in
attendance on George III; and we can imagine their satisfaction at the
prospect of universal peace and prosperity. Pitt consoled himself for
the not very creditable end to the Russian negotiation by reflecting
that our revenue was steadily rising. "We are already £178,000 gainers
in this quarter," he wrote to George Rose on 10th August.[14] In fact,
the cyclonic disturbances of the past few years now gave place to a
lull. The Russo-Turkish War had virtually ended; Catharine and Gustavus
were on friendly terms; the ferment in the Hapsburg dominions had died
down, except in Brabant; the Poles were working their new constitution
well; and, but for Jacobin propaganda in Italy and the Rhineland, the
outlook was serene.

At this time, too, there seemed a chance of a reconciliation between
Louis XVI and his people. On 14th September he accepted the new
democratic constitution, a step which filled France with rejoicing and
furnished the desired excuse for Leopold to remain passive. Kaunitz, who
had consistently opposed intervention in France, now asserted that Louis
had voluntarily accepted the constitution. The action of Louis and Marie
Antoinette was in reality forced. Amidst the Queen's expressions of
contempt for the French Princes at Coblentz, the suppressed fire of her
fury against her captors flashes forth in this sentence written to Mercy
d'Argenteau (28th August)--"The only question for us is to lull them to
sleep and inspire them with confidence so as to trick them the better
afterwards."--And again (12th September)--"My God! Must I, with this
blood in my veins, pass my days among such beings as these, and in such
an age as this?" Leopold must have known her real feelings; but he chose
to abide by the official language of Louis, and to advise the Powers to
accept the new situation.[15]

This peaceful turn of affairs sorely troubled the French Princes and
Burke. In August and September 1791 his son Richard was at Coblentz, and
informed his father of the consternation of the _émigrés_ on hearing
that the Emperor declined to draw the sword. Burke himself was equally
agitated, and on or about 24th September had a long interview with Pitt
and Grenville, at the house of the latter. We gather from Burke's
"Letters on the Conduct of our Domestic Parties," that it was the first
time he had met Pitt in private; and the meeting must have been somewhat
awkward. After dining, with Grenville as host, the three men conferred
together till eleven o'clock, discussing the whole situation "very
calmly" (says Burke); but we can fancy the tumult of feelings in the
breast of the old man when he found both Ministers firm as adamant
against intervention in France. "They are certainly right as to their
general inclinations," he wrote to his son, "perfectly so, I have not a
shadow of doubt; but at the same time they are cold and dead as to any
attempt whatsoever to give them effect." The heat of the Irish royalist
failed to kindle a spark of feeling in the two cousins. He found that
their "deadness" proceeded from a rooted distrust of the Emperor
Leopold, and from a conviction that Britain had nothing to fear from
Jacobinical propaganda. Above all they believed that the present was not
the time for action, especially as the imminence of bankruptcy in France
would discredit the new Legislative Assembly, and render an invasion
easier in the near future.

Are we to infer from this that Pitt and his cousin looked forward to a
time when the monarchs could invade France with safety? Such an
inference would be rash. It is more probable that they here found an
excuse for postponing their decision and a means of calming an insistent
visitor. Certainly they impressed Burke with a belief in their sincere
but secret sympathy with the royalist cause. The three men also agreed
in suspecting Leopold, though Burke tried to prove that his treachery
was not premeditated, but sprang from "some complexional inconstancy."
Pitt and Grenville, knowing the doggedness with which the Emperor pushed
towards his goal, amidst many a shift and turn, evidently were not
convinced.

At this time they had special reasons for distrusting Leopold and his
advisers. The Austrian Government had received a letter, dated Dresden,
27th August (the day of the Declaration of Pilnitz), stating that
England promised to remain neutral only on condition that the Emperor
would not withdraw any troops from his Belgic lands, as they were needed
to uphold the arrangements of which she was a guarantee. This
extraordinary statement grew out of a remark of Grenville to the
Austrian Ambassador in London, that, in view of the unrest in the
Netherlands, it might be well not to leave them without troops.[16] The
mis-statement was not only accepted at Vienna, but was forwarded to
various Courts, the final version being that England might attack
Austria if she withdrew her troops from Flanders, and that therefore
Leopold could not draw the sword against France until his army on the
Turkish borders arrived in Swabia. Some were found who believed this odd
_farrago_; but those who watched the calculating balance of Hapsburg
policy saw in it one more excuse for a masterly inactivity.

Still less were our Ministers inclined to unite with Catharine in the
universal royalist league then under discussion at St. Petersburg. The
Czarina having charged her ambassador, Vorontzoff, to find out the
sentiments of Pitt and Grenville on this subject, he replied that
England would persevere in the strict neutrality which she had all along
observed, "and that, with respect to the measures of active intervention
which other Powers might have in contemplation, it was His Majesty's
determination not to take any part either in supporting or in opposing
them." Now Russia, like Austria and Spain, had decided not to act unless
England joined the concert;[17] and this waiting on the action of a
Power which had already declared its resolve to do nothing enables us to
test the sincerity of the continental monarchs. As for the Czarina, her
royalist fervour expended itself in deposing the busts of democrats, in
ordering the French Minister to remain away from Court, and in
condemning any Russian who had dealings with him to be publicly flogged.
Moreover, while thus drilling her own subjects, the quondam friend of
Diderot kept her eyes fixed upon Warsaw. The shrewdest diplomatist of
the age had already divined her aims, which he thus trenchantly summed
up: "The Empress only waits to see Austria and Prussia committed in
France, to overturn everything in Poland."[18] Kaunitz lived on to see
his cynical prophecy fulfilled to the letter.

The reader will have noticed with some surprise the statement of Burke
that Pitt and Grenville had not the slightest fear of the spread of
French principles in England. As we know, Burke vehemently maintained
the contrary, averring that the French plague, unless crushed at Paris,
would infect the world. In his survey of the European States he admitted
that we were less liable to infection than Germany, Holland, and Italy,
owing to the excellence of our constitution; but he feared that our
nearness to France, and our zeal for liberty, would expose us to some
danger. Why he should have cherished these fears is hard to say; for to
him the French Revolution was "a wild attempt to methodize anarchy," "a
foul, impious, monstrous thing, wholly out of the course of moral
nature."[19] Surely if British and French principles were so utterly
different, we were in no more danger of infection from the Jacobins than
of catching swine fever.

This was virtually the view of Pitt and Grenville; for there were no
premonitory symptoms of infection, but much the reverse. Londoners
showed the utmost joy at the first news of the escape of the King and
Queen from Paris, and were equally depressed by the news from Varennes.
As we shall presently see, it was with shouts of "Long live the King,"
"Church and State," "Down with the Dissenters," "No Olivers," "Down with
the Rump," "No false Rights of Man," that the rabble of Birmingham
wrecked and burnt the houses of Dr. Priestley and other prominent
Nonconformists of that town. Only by slow degrees did this loyal
enthusiasm give place to opinions which in course of time came to be
called Radical. It may be well to trace briefly the fluctuations of
public opinion, to which the career of Pitt stands in vital relation.

The growth of discontent in Great Britain may be ascribed to definite
evils in the body politic, and it seems to have arisen only secondarily
from French propaganda. The first question which kindled the fire of
resentment was that of the civic and political disabilities still
imposed on Nonconformists by the Corporation and Test Acts of the reign
of Charles II. Pitt's decision in the session of 1787 to uphold those
Acts ensured the rejection of Beaufoy's motion for their repeal of 176
votes to 98; but undeterred by his defeat, Beaufoy brought the matter
before the House on 8th May 1789, and, despite the opposition of Pitt,
secured 102 votes against 122. The Prime Minister's chief argument was
that if Dissenters were admitted to civic rights they might use their
power to overthrow the Church Establishment.[20] Clearly the opinion of
the House was drifting away from him on that question; and it is a proof
of his growing indifference to questions of Reform that now, four days
after the assembly of the States-General of France at Versailles, he
should have held to views so repugnant to the spirit of the age.

Thenceforth that question could not be debated solely on its own merits.
The attacks made by the French National Assembly on the Church of
France, particularly the confiscation of its tithes and landed property,
soon aroused heated feelings in this country, though on a subject of a
wholly different kind. The result was that, while Dissenters peacefully
agitated for permission to act as citizens, they were represented as
endeavouring to despoil the Church, after the fashion of Talleyrand and
Mirabeau. A work by a Manchester merchant, Thomas Walker, reveals the
influence of this question on the political activities of the time. The
Nonconformists of that town and county hoped to gain a majority in next
session or in the following Parliament, while the High Churchmen, to the
cry of "The Church in Danger," declared the two Acts of Charles II to be
the bulwarks of the constitution.[21] This cry was everywhere taken up,
with the result that in the Parliament elected in 1790 the Tories gained
ground. Consequently, even the able advocacy of Fox on behalf of
religious liberty failed to save Beaufoy's motion from a crushing
defeat. Pitt spoke against the proposal and carried the House with him
by 294 votes to 105. This vote illustrates the baleful influence exerted
by the French Revolution on the cause of Reform in these islands.

A second example soon occurred. Only three days later Flood brought
forward a motion for Parliamentary Reform which the wildest of alarmists
could not call revolutionary. He proposed to add to the House of Commons
one hundred members, elected by the resident householders of the
counties, those areas being far less corrupt than the towns; and he
suggested that, if the total number of members were deemed excessive,
fifty seats in the smallest boroughs might be declared vacant. This
proposal differed but little from that of Pitt in the session of 1785,
which aimed at disfranchising thirty-six decayed boroughs and
apportioning their seventy-two members to the larger counties, as also
to London and Westminster. In a speech which might have been made by
Pitt in pre-Revolution times Flood declared that the events in France
showed the need of a timely repair of outworn institutions.

This was as a red rag to Windham, a prominent recruit from the Whigs,
who now used all the artifices of rhetoric to terrify his hearers. He
besought them in turn not to repair their house in the hurricane season,
not to imitate the valetudinarian of the "Spectator," who read medical
books until he discovered he had every symptom of the gout except the
pain. These fallacious similes captivated the squires; and Pitt himself
complimented the orator on his ingenious arguments. For himself, he
declared his desire of Reform to be as zealous as ever; but he "could
see no utility in any gentleman's bringing forward such a motion as the
present at that moment," and feared that the cause might thereby suffer
disgrace and lose ground. Fox, on the other hand, ridiculed all thought
of panic on account of the French Revolution, but he admitted that the
majority both in Parliament and the nation did not want Reform.
Grenville, Wilberforce, and Burke opposed the motion, while even
Duncombe declined to vote for it at present. It was accordingly
adjourned _sine die_.[22]

Disappointment at the course of these debates served to band
Nonconformists and reformers in a close alliance. Hitherto they had
alike supported Pitt and the royal prerogative, especially at the time
of the Regency struggle. In May 1789, when Pitt opposed the
Nonconformist claims, Dr. Priestley wrote that Fox would regain his
popularity with Dissenters, while Pitt would lose ground.[23] Now, when
the doors of the franchise and of civic privilege were fast barred,
resentment and indignation began to arouse the groups of the
unprivileged left outside. The news that Frenchmen had framed a
Departmental System, in which all privileges had vanished, and all men
were citizens, with equal rights in the making of laws and local
regulations, worked potently in England, furthering the growth of an
institution little known in this country, the political club. As the
Jacobins had adapted the English idea of a club to political uses, so
now the early Radicals re-adapted it to English needs. "The Manchester
Constitutional Society"[24] was founded by Walker and others in October
1790, in order to oppose a "Church and King Club," which High Churchmen
had started in March, after the news of the triumph of their principles
in Parliament. The Manchester reformers struck the key-note of the
coming age by asserting in their programme that in every community the
authority of the governors must be derived from the consent of the
governed, and that the welfare of the people was the true aim of
Government. They further declared that honours and rewards were due only
for services rendered to the State; that all officials, without
exception, were responsible to the people; that "actions only, not
opinions, are the proper objects of civil jurisdictions"; that no law is
fairly made except by a majority of the people; and that the people of
Great Britain were not fully and fairly represented in Parliament.[25]

The Church and King Club, on the contrary, reprobated all change in "one
of the most beautiful systems of government that the combined efforts of
human wisdom has [_sic_] ever yet been able to accomplish." The issue
between the two parties was thus sharply outlined. The Tories of
Manchester gloried in a state of things which shut out about half of
their fellow-citizens from civic rights and their whole community from
any direct share in the making of laws. In their eyes the Church and the
monarchy were in danger if Nonconformists became citizens, and if a
score of Cornish villages yielded up their legislative powers to
Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and other hives of industry.

Scotland also began to awake. The torpor of that keen and intellectual
people, under a system of misrepresentation which assigned to them
forty-five members and forty-four to Cornwall, is incomprehensible,
unless we may ascribe it to the waning of all enthusiasm after the
"forty-five" and to the supremacy of material interests so
characteristic of the age. In any case, this political apathy was now to
end; and here, too, as in the case of England, Government applied the
spur.

On 10th May 1791 Sir Gilbert Elliot (afterwards Earl of Minto) brought
forward a motion in Parliament for the repeal of the Test Act, so far as
it concerned Scotland. He voiced a petition of the General Assembly of
the Church of Scotland, and declared that the Presbyterians felt the
grievance of being excluded from civic offices unless they perverted. On
wider grounds also he appealed against this petty form of persecution,
which might make men hypocrites but never sincere converts. Henry Dundas
and his nephew, Robert Dundas (Lord Advocate for Scotland), opposed the
motion, mainly because it would infringe the terms of the Act of Union;
but Henry added the curious argument that, if Scottish Presbyterians
were relieved from the Test Act, then the English Dissenters would have
been "unjustly, harshly, and cruelly used." Pitt avowed himself "not a
violent friend, but a firm and steady friend" of the Test Act, as being
essential to the security of the Church and therefore of the civil
establishment of the country. Accordingly, Elliot's motion was defeated
by 149 votes to 62.[26] It is curious that, a month earlier, the House
had agreed to a Bill granting slightly wider toleration to "Catholic
Dissenters."[27]

While Pitt was thus strengthening the old buttresses of Church and
State, the son of a Quaker had subjected the whole fabric to a battery
of violent rhetoric. It is scarcely too much to call Thomas Paine the
Rousseau of English democracy. For, if his arguments lacked the novelty
of those of the Genevese thinker (and even they were far from original),
they equalled them in effectiveness, and excelled them in
practicability. "The Rights of Man" (Part I) may be termed an insular
version of the "Contrat Social," with this difference, that the English
writer pointed the way to changes which were far from visionary, while
the Genevese seer outlined a polity fit only for a Swiss canton peopled
by philosophers. Paine had had the advantage of close contact with men
and affairs in both hemispheres. Not even Cobbett, his literary
successor, passed through more varied experiences. Born in 1737 at
Thetford in Norfolk, Paine divided his early life between stay-making,
excise work, the vending of tobacco, and a seafaring life. His keen
eyes, lofty brow, prominent nose, proclaimed him a thinker and fighter,
and therefore, in that age, a rebel. What more natural than that he, a
foe to authority and hater of oppression, should go to America to help
on the cause of Washington? There at last he discovered his true
vocation. His broadsides struck home. "Rebellious staymaker, unkempt,"
says Carlyle, "who feels that he, a single needleman, did by his
'Common Sense' pamphlet, free America; that he can, and will free all
this world; perhaps even the other." Tom Paine, indeed, had the rare
gift of voicing tersely and stridently the dumb desires of the masses.
Further, a sojourn in France before and during the early part of the
Revolution enabled him to frame a crushing retort to Burke's
"Reflections." The result was Part I of the "Rights of Man," which he
flung off at the "Angel" in Islington in February 1791.[28]

The general aims of the pamphlet are now as little open to question as
the famous Declaration which he sought to vindicate. Paine trenchantly
attacked Burke's claim that no people, not even our own, had an inherent
right to choose its own ruler, and that the Revolution Settlement of
1688 was binding for ever. Paine, on the contrary, asserted that "every
age and generation must be as free to act for itself _in all cases_ as
the ages and generations that preceded it. The vanity and presumption of
governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all
tyrannies." Further, on the general question at issue, Paine remarked:
"That men should take up arms, and spend their lives and fortunes, _not_
to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have _not_ rights, is an
entirely new species of discovery and suited to the paradoxical genius
of Mr. Burke." In reply to the noble passage: "The age of chivalry is
gone ...," Paine shrewdly says: "In the rhapsody of his imagination he
has discovered a world of windmills, and his sorrows are that there are
no Quixotes to attack them."

After thus exposing the weak points of the royalist case, Paine
proceeded to defend the mob, firstly, because the aristocratic plots
against the French Revolution were really formidable (a very disputable
thesis), and secondly, because the mob in all old countries is the
outcome of their unfair and brutal system of government. "It is by
distortedly exalting some men," he says, "that others are distortedly
debased, till the whole is out of nature. A vast mass of mankind are
degradedly thrown into the background of the human picture, to bring
forward with greater glare the puppet show of State and aristocracy."
Here was obviously the Junius of democracy, for whom the only effective
answer was the gag and gyve. Indeed, Burke in his "Appeal from the New
to the Old Whigs" suggested that the proper refutation was by means of
"criminal justice."[29]

Pitt's opinions at this time on French and English democracy tend
towards a moderate and reforming royalism--witness his comment on
Burke's "Reflections," that the writer would have done well to extol the
English constitution rather than to attack the French.[30] In this
remark we may detect his preference for construction over destruction,
for the allaying, rather than the exciting, of passion. Nevertheless the
one-sidedness of the English constitution made for unrest. So soon as
one bold voice clearly contrasted those defects with the inspiring
precepts of the French Rights of Man, there was an end to political
apathy. A proof of this was furnished by the number of replies called
forth by Burke's "Reflections." They numbered thirty-eight.[31] Apart
from that of Paine, the "Vindiciae Gallicae" of Sir James Mackintosh
made the most impression, especially the last chapter, wherein he
declared that the conspiracy of the monarchs to crush the liberties of
France would recoil on their own heads.

Fear of the alleged royalist league quickened the sympathy of Britons
with the French reformers; while the sympathy of friends of order with
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette after the Varennes incident deepened
their apprehension of all change. Thus were called into play all the
feelings which most deeply move mankind--love of our richly storied past
and its embodiment, the English constitution; while on the other hand no
small part of our people harboured resentment against the narrow
franchise and class legislation at home, and felt a growing fear that
the nascent freedom of Frenchmen might expire under the heel of the
military Powers of Central Europe. Accordingly clubs and societies grew
apace, and many of them helped on the circulation of cheap editions of
Paine's pamphlet.

The result of this clash of opinion was seen in the added keenness of
party strife and in the disturbances of 14th July 1791. The occasion of
these last was the celebration by a subscription dinner of the second
anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. Both at Manchester and
Birmingham the announcement of this insular and inoffensive function
aroused strong feelings either of envy or of opposition. The Tories of
Manchester resolved that, if the local Constitutional Club chose to dine
on that day it should be at their peril. The populace was urged to pull
down the hotel on their heads, "as the brains of every man who dined
there would be much improved by being mingled with bricks and mortar."
Thomas Walker's control of the local constables sufficed to thwart this
pleasantry.

But on that day the forces of reaction broke loose at Birmingham. In the
Midland capital political feeling ran as high as at Manchester. The best
known of the reformers was Dr. Priestley, a Unitarian minister, whose
researches in physical science had gained him a world-wide reputation
and a fellowship in the Royal Society. He and many other reformers
proposed to feast in public in honour of the French national festival.
Unfortunately, the annoyance of the loyalists at this proposal was
inflamed by a recent sermon of Priestley on the death of Dr. Price and
by the circulation of a seditious handbill. Dr. Keir, a Churchman who
was to preside at the dinner, did not prove to the satisfaction of all
that this was a trick of the enemy. Public opinion was also excited by
the discovery of the words "This barn to let" chalked on some of the
churches of the town; and charges were bandied to and fro that this was
the work of the Dissenters, or of the most virulent of their opponents.

What is certain is that these _hors d'oeuvres_ endangered the rest of
the _menu_. The dinner-committee, however, struggled manfully with their
difficulties. They had a Churchman in the chair, and Priestley was not
present. The loyalty of the diners also received due scenic warrant in
the work of a local artist. The dining-hall of the hotel was "decorated
with three emblematical pieces of sculpture, mixed with painting in a
new style of composition. The central was a finely executed medallion of
His Majesty, surrounded with a Glory, on each side of which was an
alabaster obelisk, one exhibiting Gallic Liberty breaking the bonds of
Despotism, and the other representing British Liberty in its present
enjoyment." The terms in which the fourteen toasts were proposed
breathed of the same flamboyant loyalty, the only one open to criticism
being the following: "The Prince of Wales! May he have the wisdom to
prefer the glory of being the chief of an entire [_sic_] free people to
that of being only the splendid fountain of corruption."[32]

The dinner passed with only occasional rounds of hissing from the
loyalists outside. But, as the evening wore on and the speeches inside
still continued, the crowd became restive. Stone-throwing began and was
not discouraged by the two magistrates, the Rev. Dr. Spencer and John
Carles, who had now arrived. In fact, the clergyman with an oath praised
a lad who said that Priestley ought to be ducked; Carles also promised
the rabble drink; and when a local humourist asked for permission to
knock the dust out of Priestley's wig, the champions of order burst out
laughing. A witness at the trial averred that he saw an attorney, John
Brook, go among the mob and point towards Priestley's chapel. However
that may be, the rabble moved off thither and speedily wrecked it. His
residence at Fair Hill was next demolished, his library and scientific
instruments being burnt or smashed. This was but the prelude to
organized attacks on the houses of the leading Nonconformists, whether
they had been at the dinner or not. The resulting riots soon involved in
ruin a large part of the town. Prominent Churchmen who sought to end
these disgraceful scenes suffered both in person and property. A word of
remonstrance sufficed to turn into new channels the tide of hatred and
greed; for, as happened in the Gordon riots of 1780, rascality speedily
rushed in to seize the spoils.

The usually dull archives of the Home Office yield proof of the terror
that reigned in the Midland capital. A Mr. Garbett wrote to Dundas on
17th July that the wrecking still went on, that the Nonconformists were
in the utmost dread and misery, and all people looked for help from
outside to stay the pillage. As for himself, though he was not a "marked
man," his hand trembled at the scenes he had witnessed. There can be
little doubt that the magistrates from the first acted with culpable
weakness, as Whitbread proved in the House of Commons, for they did not
enrol special constables until the rioters had got the upper hand.
Dundas, as Home Secretary, seems to have done his duty. The news of the
riot of the 14th reached him at 10 a.m. on the 15th (Friday); and he at
once sent post haste to Nottingham, ordering the immediate despatch of
the 15th Dragoons. By dint of a forced march of fifty-six miles the
horsemen reached Birmingham on the evening of that same day (Sunday);
but two days more elapsed before drunken blackmailers ceased to molest
Hagley, Halesowen, and other villages. Few persons lost their lives,
except about a dozen of the pillagers who lay helpless with drink in the
cellars of houses which their more zealous comrades had given over to
the flames.[33]

The verdict of Grenville was as follows: "I do not admire riots in
favour of Government much more than riots against it." That of his less
cautious brother, the Marquis of Buckingham, is as follows: "I am not
sorry for this _excess, excessive as it has been_." That of Pitt is not
recorded. He did not speak during the debate on this subject on 21st May
1792; but the rejection of Whitbread's motion for an inquiry by 189
votes to 46 implies unanimity on the Ministerial side.[34]

In the winter of 1791-2 various incidents occurred which further excited
public opinion. On 17th February 1792 appeared the second part of
Paine's "Rights of Man." He started from the assumption that the birth
of a democratic State in America would herald the advent of Revolutions
not only in France, but in all lands; and that British and Hessians
would live to bless the day when they were defeated by the soldiers of
Washington. He then proceeded to arraign all Governments of the old
type, and asserted that constitutions ought to be the natural outcome of
the collective activities of the whole people. There was nothing
mysterious about Government, if Courts had not hidden away the patent
fact that it dealt primarily with the making and administering of laws.
We are apt to be impressed by these remarks until we contrast them with
the majestic period wherein Burke depicts human society as a venerable
and mysterious whole bequeathed by the wisdom of our forefathers. An
admirer of Burke cannot but quote the passage in full: "Our political
system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of
the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body
composed of transitory parts; wherein by the disposition of a
stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation
of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged,
or young, but in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through
the varied tenour of perpetual decay, fall, renovation and progression.
Thus, by preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the State, in
what we improve we are never wholly new; in what we retain we are never
wholly obsolete."[35]

This is a majestic conception. But, after all, the practical question at
issue is--how much of the old shall we retain and how much must be
discarded? Unfortunately for himself and his cause, Burke was now urging
his countrymen to support two military Powers in their effort to compel
the French people to revert to institutions which were alike obsolete
and detested. Is it surprising that Paine, utterly lacking all sense of
reverence for the past, should brand this conduct as treasonable to the
imperious needs of the present? Viewing monarchy as represented by
Versailles or Carlton House, and aristocracy by the intrigues of
Coblentz and the orgies of Brooks's Club, he gave short shrift to both
forms of Government. Monarchy he pronounced more or less despotic; and
under aristocracy (he says) the interests of the whole body necessarily
suffer; democracy alone secures the rule of the general will; and this
can be thoroughly secured only in a democratic republic. He then attacks
the English constitution as unjust and extravagant, claiming that the
formation of a close alliance between England, France, and America would
enable the expenses of government (Army, Navy, and Civil List inclusive)
to be reduced to a million and a half a year.

With regard to the means of raising revenue, Paine sketched a plan of
progressive taxation on incomes, ranging from 3d. in the pound on
incomes less than £500 to punitive proportions after £10,000 was
reached; while in his Spartan arithmetic great wealth appeared so dire a
misfortune that he rid the possessors of the whole of incomes of £23,000
and upwards. As for Pitt's financial reforms, he laughed them to scorn.
He also accused him of throwing over the fair promises that marked his
early career, of advertising for enemies abroad, while at home he
toadied to the Court. "The defect lies in the system.... Prop it as you
please, it continually sinks into Court government, and ever will."
Finally he urged a limitation of armaments, and prophesied that wars
would cease when nations had their freely elected Conventions. The cynic
will remember with satisfaction that, two months later, began the war
between France and Austria, which developed into the most tremendous
series of wars recorded in history.

The republican and levelling doctrines frankly advocated in Paine's
second pamphlet made a greater sensation than the first part had done;
and Fox, who approved the former production, sternly reprobated the
latter. It is possible that Government sought to stop its publication;
for Chapman, the publisher, to whom Paine first applied, offered him
£1,000 for the manuscript, and yet very soon afterwards declared it to
be too dangerous for him to print.[36] Certainly the work soon quickened
the tone of political thought. Already the London Society for promoting
Constitutional Information, which had died of inanition in 1784, had
come to life again before the close of the year 1791. And at the end of
that year a determined man, Thomas Hardy, a poor shoemaker of
Westminster, set to work to interest his comrades in politics. He
assembled four men at an ale-house, and they agreed to take action. At
their second meeting, on 25th January 1792, they mustered eight strong,
and resolved to start "The London Corresponding Society for the Reform
of Parliamentary Representation." Its finances were scarcely on a par
with its title: they consisted of eightpence, the first weekly
subscription. But the idea proved infectious; and amidst the heat
engendered by Paine's second pamphlet, the number of members rose to
forty-one.[37] The first manifesto of the Society, dated 2nd April,
claimed political liberty as the birthright of man, declared the British
nation to be misrepresented by its Parliament, and, while repudiating
all disorderly methods, demanded a thorough reform of that body.

So far as I have been able to discover, this was the first political
club started by English working-men at that time. But now the men of
Sheffield also organized themselves. Their "Association" began in an
assembly of five or six mechanics, who discussed "the enormous high
price of provisions" and "the waste and lavish [_sic_] of the public
property by placemen, pensioners, luxury and debauchery,--sources of the
grievous burthens under which the nation groans." The practical
character of their lamentations attracted many working men, with the
result that they resolved to reprint and circulate 1,600 copies of
Paine's "Rights of Man" (Part I), at sixpence a copy. On 15th January
1792 they wrote up to the "London Society for Constitutional
Information" to plan co-operation with them.

At first the ideas of the Sheffield Association were somewhat parochial.
But the need of common action all over the Kingdom was taking shape in
several minds, and when Scotland awoke to political activity (as will
appear in Chapter VII) the idea of a General Convention took firm root
and led to remarkable developments. For the present, the chief work of
these clubs was the circulation of Paine's volumes (even in Welsh,
Gaelic, and Erse) at the price of sixpence or even less. They also
distributed "The Catechism of the French Constitution" (of 1791), drawn
up by Christie, a Scot domiciled at Paris, which set forth the beauties
of that child of many hopes. Less objectionable was a pamphlet--"The
Rights of Men and the Duties of Men." For the most part, however, their
literature was acridly republican in tone and of a levelling tendency.
Thus, for the first time since the brief attempt of the Cromwellian
Levellers, the rich and the poor began to group themselves in hostile
camps, at the strident tones of Paine's cry for a graduated Income Tax.
Is it surprising that the sight of the free institutions of France and
of the forced economy of the Court of the Tuileries should lead our
workers to question the utility of the State-paid debaucheries of
Carlton House, and of the whole system of patronage and pensions? Burke
and Pitt had pruned away a few of the worst excrescences; but now they
saw with dismay the whole of the body politic subjected to remorseless
criticism by those whose duty was to toil and not to think or question.

This was a new departure in eighteenth-century England. Hitherto working
men had taken only a fleeting and fitful interest in politics. How
should they do so in days when newspapers were very dear, and their
contents had only the remotest bearing on the life of the masses? The
London mob had bawled and rioted for "Wilkes and Liberty," but mainly
from personal motives and love of horse-play. Now, however, all was
changed; and artisans were willing to sacrifice their time and their
pence to learn and teach a political catechism, and spread the writings
of Paine. Consequently the new Radical Clubs differed widely from the
short-lived County Associations of 1780 which charged a substantial fee
for membership. Moreover, these Associations expired in the years
1783-4, owing to the disgust at Fox's Coalition with Lord North. We are
therefore justified in declaring that English democracy entered on a new
lease of life, and did not, as has been asserted,[38] merely continue
the movement of 1780. The earlier efforts had been wholly insular in
character; they aimed at staying the tide of corruption; their methods
were in the main academic, and certainly never affected the great mass
of the people. Now reformers were moved by a wider enthusiasm for the
rights of humanity, and sought not merely to abolish pocket boroughs and
sinecures, but to level up the poor and level down the wealthy. It was
this aspect of Paine's teaching that excited men to a frenzy of
reprobation or of hope.

A certain continuity of tradition and method is observable in a club,
called The Friends of the People, which was founded at Freemasons'
Tavern in April 1792, with a subscription of five guineas a year. The
members included Cartwright, Erskine, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Philip
Francis, Charles Grey, Lambton, the Earl of Lauderdale, Mackintosh,
Sheridan, Whitbread, and some sixty others; but Fox refused to join.
Their profession of faith was more moderate than that of Hardy's Club;
it emphasized the need of avoiding innovation and of restoring the
constitution to its original purity.[39] This was in the spirit of the
Associations of 1780; but the new club was far less characteristic of
the times than the clubs of working men described above.

The appearance of Paine's "Rights of Man" (Part II), the founding of
these societies, and the outbreak of war between France and Austria in
April 1792 made a deep impression on Pitt. He opposed a notice of a
motion of Reform for the following session, brought forward by Grey on
30th April. While affirming his continued interest in that subject, Pitt
deprecated its introduction at that time as involving the risk of
anarchy.

    My object [he continued] always has been, and is now more
    particularly so, to give permanence to that which we actually
    enjoy rather than remove subsisting grievances.... I once
    thought, and still think, upon the point of the representation
    of the Commons, that, if some mode could be adopted by which the
    people could have any additional security for a continuance of
    the blessings which they now enjoy, it would be an improvement
    in the constitution of this country. That was the extent of my
    object. Further I never wished to go; and if this can be
    obtained without the risk of losing what we have, I should think
    it wise to make the experiment. When I say this, it is not
    because I believe there is any existing grievance in this
    country that is felt at this hour.

At the end of the American War (he continued) when bankruptcy seemed
imminent, he believed Reform to be necessary in order to restore public
confidence and remedy certain notorious grievances. Even then very many
moderate men opposed his efforts as involving danger to the State. How
much more would they deprecate sweeping proposals which rightly aroused
general apprehension? He then censured the action of certain members of
the House in joining an Association (the "Friends of the People") which
was supported by those who aimed at the overthrowing of hereditary
monarchy, titles of nobility, and all ideas of subordination. He would
oppose all proposals for Reform rather than run the risk of changes so
sweeping.--"All, all may be lost by an indiscreet attempt upon the
subject." Clearly, Pitt was about to join the ranks of the alarmists.
But members generally were of his opinion. In vain did Fox, Erskine,
Grey, and Sheridan deprecate the attempt to confuse moderate Reform with
reckless innovation. Burke illogically but effectively dragged in the
French spectre, and Windham declared that the public mind here, as in
other lands, was in such a state that the slightest scratch might
produce a mortal wound.

The gulf between Pitt and the reformers now became impassable. His
speech of 10th May against any relaxation of the penal laws against
Unitarians is a curious blend of bigotry and panic. Eleven days later a
stringent proclamation was issued against all who wrote, printed, and
dispersed "divers wicked and seditious writings." It ordered all
magistrates to search out the authors and abettors of them, and to take
steps for preventing disorder. It also inculcated "a due submission to
the laws, and a just confidence in the integrity and wisdom of
Parliament." Anything less calculated to beget such a confidence than
this proclamation, threatening alike to reformers and levellers, can
scarcely be conceived. On 25th May Grey opposed it in an acrid speech;
he inveighed against Pitt as an apostate, who never kept his word, and
always intended to delude Parliament and people. The sting of the speech
lay, not in these reckless charges, but in the citing of Pitt's opinions
as expressed in a resolution passed at the Thatched House Tavern in May
1782, which declared that without Parliamentary Reform neither the
liberty of the nation nor the permanence of a virtuous administration
was secure. Pitt's reply, however, convinced all those whose minds were
open to conviction. He proved to demonstration that he had never
approved of universal suffrage; yet that was now the goal aimed at by
Paine and the Societies founded on the basis of the Rights of Man. The
speech of Dundas also showed that the writings of Paine, and the
founding of clubs with those ends in view, had led to the present action
of the Cabinet.

Undoubtedly those clubs had behaved in a provocative manner. Apart from
their correspondence with the Jacobins Club (which will be described
later), they advocated aims which then seemed utterly subversive of
order. Thus, early in May 1792, the Sheffield Society declared their
object to be "a radical Reform of the country, as soon as prudence and
discretion would permit, and established on that system which is
consistent with the Rights of Man." Further, the hope is expressed that
not only the neighbouring towns and villages, most of which were forming
similar societies, but also the whole country would be "united in the
same cause, which cannot fail of being the case wherever the most
excellent works of Thomas Paine find reception."[40]

Now, this banding together of societies and clubs pointed the way to the
forming of a National Convention which would truly represent the whole
nation. In judging the action of Pitt and his colleagues at this crisis,
we must remember that they had before them the alarming example of the
Jacobins Club of Paris, which had gained enormous power by its network
of affiliated clubs. This body again was modelled on the various
societies of the Illuminati in Germany, whose organizer, Weishaupt,
summed up his contention in the words: "All their union shall be carried
on by the correspondence and visits of the brethren. If we can gain but
that point, we shall have succeeded in all we want."[41] This is why the
name Corresponding Society stank in the nostrils of all rulers. It
implied a parasitic organization which, if allowed to grow, would
strangle the established Government. Signs were not wanting that this
was the aim of the new Radical Clubs. Thus the delegates of the United
Constitutional Societies who met at Norwich drew up on 24th March 1792
resolutions expressing satisfaction at the rapid growth of those bodies,
already numbering some hundreds, "which by delegates preserve a mutual
intercourse." ... "To Mr. Thomas Paine our thanks are specially due for
his first and second parts of the 'Rights of Man'; and we sincerely wish
that he may live to see his labours crowned with success in the general
diffusion of liberty and happiness among mankind." ... "We ... earnestly
entreat our brethren to increase in their Associations in order to form
one grand and extensive Union of all the friends of liberty."[42] It is
not surprising that this plan of a National Convention of levellers
produced something like a panic among the well-to-do; and it is futile
to assert that men who avowed their belief in the subversive teaching of
Part II of Paine's book were concerned merely with the Reform of
Parliament. They put that object in their public manifestoes; but, like
many of the Chartists of a later date, their ultimate aim was the
redistribution of wealth; and this it was which brought on them the
unflinching opposition of Pitt.

Nevertheless even these considerations do not justify him in opposing
the reformers root and branch. The greatest statesman is he who
distinguishes between the real grievances of a suffering people and the
visionary or dangerous schemes which they beget in ill-balanced brains.
To oppose moderate reformers as well as extremists is both unjust and
unwise. It confounds together the would-be healers and the enemies of
the existing order. Furthermore, an indiscriminate attack tends to close
the ranks in a solid phalanx, and it should be the aim of a tactician
first to seek to loosen those ranks.

Finally, we cannot forget that Pitt had had it in his power to redress
the most obvious of the grievances which kept large masses of his
countrymen outside the pale of political rights and civic privilege.
Those grievances were made known to him temperately in the years 1787,
1789, and 1790; but he refused to amend them, and gradually drifted to
the side of the alarmists and reactionaries. Who is the wiser guide at
such a time? He who sets to work betimes to cure certain ills which are
producing irritation in the body politic? Or he who looks on the
irritation as a sign that nothing should be done? The lessons of history
and the experience of everyday life plead for timely cure and warn
against a nervous postponement. Doubtless Pitt would have found it
difficult to persuade some of his followers to apply the knife in the
session of 1791 or 1792. But in the Parliament elected in 1790 his
position was better assured, his temper more imperious, than in that of
1785, which needed much tactful management. The fact, then, must be
faced that he declined to run the risk of the curative operation, even
at a time when there were no serious symptoms in the patient and little
or no risk for the surgeon.

The reason which he assigned for his refusal claims careful notice. It
was that his earlier proposals (those of 1782-5) had aimed at national
security; while those of the present would tend to insecurity. Possibly
in the month of April 1792 this argument had some validity; though up to
that time all the violence had been on the Tory side. But the plea does
not excuse Pitt for not taking action in the year 1790. That was the
period when the earlier apathy of the nation to Reform was giving way to
interest, and interest had not yet grown into excitement. Still less had
loyalty waned under the repressive measures whereby he now proposed to
give it vigour.

Thus, Pitt missed a great opportunity, perhaps the greatest of his
career. What it means is clear to us, who know that the cause of Reform
passed under a cloud for the space of thirty-eight years. It is of
course unfair to censure him and his friends for lacking a prophetic
vision of the long woes that were to come. Most of the blame lavished
upon him arises from forgetfulness of the fact that he was not a seer
mounted on some political Pisgah, but a pioneer struggling through an
unexplored jungle. Nevertheless, as the duty of a pioneer is not merely
to hew a path, but also to note the lie of the land and the signs of the
weather, we must admit that Pitt did not possess the highest instincts
of his craft. He cannot be ranked with Julius Caesar, Charlemagne,
Alfred the Great, Edward I, or Burleigh, still less with those giants of
his own age, Napoleon and Stein; for these men boldly grappled with the
elements of unrest or disloyalty, and by wise legislation wrought them
into the fabric of the State. Probably the lack of response to his
reforming efforts in the year 1785 ingrained in him the conviction that
Britons would always be loyal if their burdens were lessened and their
comforts increased; and now in 1792 he looked on the remissions of
taxation (described in the following chapter) as a panacea against
discontent. Under normal conditions that would have been the case. It
was not so now, because new ideas were in the air, and these forbade a
bovine acceptance of abundant fodder. In truth, Pitt had not that gift
without which the highest abilities and the most strenuous endeavours
will at novel crises be at fault--a sympathetic insight into the needs
and aspirations of the people. His analytical powers enabled him to
detect the follies of the royalist crusaders; but he lacked those higher
powers of synthesis which alone could discern the nascent strength of
Democracy.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] I am perfectly aware that the term "Radical" (in its first form,
"Radical Reformer") does not appear until a few years later; but I use
it here and in the following chapters because there is no other word
which expresses the same meaning.

[2] See Vivenot, i, 176-81; Beer, "Leopold II, Franz II, und Catharina,"
140 _et seq._; Clapham, "Causes of the War of 1792," ch. iv.

[3] B.M. Add. MSS., 34438; Vivenot, i, 185, 186. "He [the Emperor] was
extremely agitated when he gave me the letter for the King" (Elgin to
Grenville, 7th July, in "Dropmore P.," ii, 126).

[4] B.M. Add. MSS., 34438.

[5] _Ibid._ Grenville to Ewart, 26th July. Calonne for some little time
resided at Wimbledon House. His letters to Pitt show that he met with
frequent rebuffs; but he had one interview with him early in June 1790.
I have found no details of it.

[6] "Diary and Corresp. of Fersen," 121.

[7] Arneth, "Marie Antoinette, Joseph II, und Leopold II," 148, 152.

[8] Mr. Nisbet Bain (_op. cit._, ii, 129) accuses Pitt and his
colleagues of waiving aside a proposed visit of Gustavus III to London,
because "they had no desire to meet face to face a monarch they had
already twice deceived." Mr. Bain must refer to the charges (invented at
St Petersburg) that Pitt had egged Gustavus on to war against Russia,
and then deserted him. In the former volume (chapters xxi-iii) I proved
the falsity of those charges. It would be more correct to say that
Gustavus deserted England.

[9] B.M. Add. MSS., 34438.

[10] Martens, v, 236-9; "F.O.," Prussia, 22. Ewart to Grenville, 4th
August.

[11] On 15th August Prussia renounced her alliance with Turkey (Vivenot,
i, 225).

[12] Sybel, bk. ii, ch. vi; Vivenot, i, 235, 243.

[13] "Dropmore P.," ii, 192.

[14] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 111.

[15] Arneth, 206, 210; Vivenot, i, 270.

[16] Burke ("Corresp.," iii, 308, 342, 346) shows that Mercy
d'Argenteau, after his brief mission to London, spread the slander. Pitt
and Grenville said nothing decisive to him on this or any other topic.
Kaunitz partly adopted the charge. (See Vivenot, i, 272.)

[17] "F.O.," Russia, 22. Grenville to Whitworth, 27th October, and W. to
G., 14th October 1791.

[18] Larivière, "Cath. II et la Rév. franç.," 88-90, 110-17.

[19] Burke's "Works," iii, 8, 369 (Bohn edit.).

[20] "Parl. Hist.," xxviii, 1-41.

[21] T. Walker, "Review of ... political events in Manchester
(1789-1794)."

[22] T. Walker, "Review of ... political events in Manchester
(1789-1794)," 452-79. I cannot agree with Mr. J. R. le B. Hammond
("Fox," 76) that Pitt now spoke as the avowed enemy of parliamentary
reform. Indeed, he never spoke in that sense, but opposed it as
inopportune.

[23] Rutt, "Mems. of Priestly," ii, 25. As is well known, Burke's
"Reflections on the Fr. Rev.," was in part an answer to Dr. Price's
sermon of 4th November 1789 in the Old Jewry chapel, to the Society for
celebrating the Revolution of 1688.

[24] It was more of a club than the branches of the "Society for
Constitutional Information," which did good work in 1780-4, but expired
in 1784 owing to the disgust of reformers at the Fox-North Coalition--so
Place asserts (B.M. Add. MSS., 27808).

[25] T. Walker, _op. cit._, 18, 19.

[26] "Parl. Hist.," xxix, 488-510.

[27] _Ibid._, 113-9.

[28] M. D. Conway, "Life of T. Paine," i, 284.

[29] Burke's Works, iii, 76 (Bohn edit.).

[30] _Ibid._, iii, 12. So, too, on 30th August 1791 Priestley wrote that
Pitt had shown himself unfavourable to their cause (Rutt, "Life of
Priestley," ii, 145).

[31] Prior, "Life of Burke," 322, who states very incorrectly that not
one of them has survived.

[32] "H. O.," Geo. III (Domestic), 19.

[33] _Ibid._ As late as 9th August a proclamation was posted about
Birmingham: "The friends of the good cause are requested to meet us at
Revolution Place to-morrow night at 11 o'clock in order to fix upon
those persons who are to be the future objects of our malice." Of course
this was but an incitation to plunder. See Massey, iii, 462-6, on the
Birmingham riots.

[34] "Dropmore P.," ii, 133, 136; "Parl. Hist.," xxix, 1464.

[35] Burke "Reflections on the Fr. Rev.," 39 (Mr. Payne's edit.).

[36] Conway, _op. cit._, ii, 330. The printer and publisher were
prosecuted later on, as well as Paine, who fled to France.

[37] "Mem. of T. Hardy," by himself (Lond., 1832).

[38] Leslie Stephen, "The Eng. Utilitarians," i, 121. I fully admit that
the Chartist leaders in 1838 went back to the Westminster programme of
1780. See "The Life and Struggles of William Lovett"; but the spirit and
methods of the new agitation were wholly different. On this topic I feel
compelled to differ from Mr. J. L. le B. Hammond ("Fox," ch. v, _ad
init._). Mr. C. B. R. Kent ("The English Radicals," 156) states the case
correctly.

[39] "Parl. Hist.," xxix, 1303-9.

[40] "Application of Barruel's 'Memoirs of Jacobinism' to the Secret
Societies of Ireland and Great Britain," 32-3.

[41] "Application of Barruel's 'Memoirs of Jacobinism' to the Secret
Societies of Ireland and Great Britain," Introduction, p. x.

[42] "H. O.," Geo. III (Domestic), 20.

    CHAPTER II

    BEFORE THE STORM

    I find it to be a very general notion, at least in the Assembly,
    that if France can preserve a neutrality with England, she will
    be able to cope with all the rest of Europe united.--GOWER TO
    GRENVILLE, _22nd April 1792_.

Indirect evidence as to the intentions of a statesman is often more
convincing than his official assertions. The world always suspects the
latter; and many politicians have found it expedient to adopt the
ironical device practised frequently with success by Bismarck on his
Austrian colleagues at Frankfurt, that of telling the truth. Fortunately
the English party game has nearly always been kept up with sportsmanlike
fair play; and Pitt himself was so scrupulously truthful that we are
rarely in doubt as to his opinions, save when he veiled them by
ministerial reserve. Nevertheless, on the all-important subject of his
attitude towards Revolutionary France, it is satisfactory to have
indirect proofs of his desire to maintain a strict, if not friendly,
neutrality. This proof lies in his handling of the nation's armaments
and finances.

The debate on the Army Estimates on 15th February 1792 is of interest in
more respects than one. The news of the definitive signature of peace
between Russia and Turkey by the Treaty of Jassy, put an end to the last
fears of a resumption of war in the East; and, as the prospects were
equally pacific in the West, the Ministry carried out slight reductions
in the land forces. These were fixed in the year 1785 at seventy-three
regiments of 410 men each, divided into eight companies, with two
companies _en second_. In 1789 the number of companies per regiment was
fixed at ten, without any companies _en second_. Now the Secretary at
War, Sir Charles Yonge, proposed further reductions, which, with those
of 1789, would lessen each regiment by seventy privates, and save the
country the sum of £51,000. No diminution was proposed in the number of
officers; and this gave Fox a handle for an attack. He said that the
natural plan would be to reduce the number of regiments to sixty-four.
Instead of that, the number of seventy regiments was retained, and new
corps were now proposed for the East Indies, one for the West Indies,
and one for Canada, chiefly to be used for pioneer work and clearance of
woods. General Burgoyne and Fox protested against the keeping up of
skeleton regiments, the latter adding the caustic comment that the plan
was "the least in point of saving and the greatest in point of
patronage."[43]

The practices prevalent in that age give colour to the charge. On the
other hand, professional men have defended a system which kept up the
_cadres_ of regiments in time of peace, as providing a body of trained
officers and privates, which in time of war could be filled out by
recruits. Of course it is far inferior to the plan of a reserve of
trained men; but that plan had not yet been hammered out by Scharnhorst,
under the stress of the Napoleonic domination in Prussia. As to the
reduction of seven men per company, now proposed, it may have been due
partly to political reasons. Several reports in the Home Office and War
Office archives prove that discontent was rife among the troops,
especially in the northern districts, on account of insufficient pay and
the progress of Radical propaganda among them. The reduction may have
afforded the means of sifting out the ringleaders.

Retrenchment, if not Reform, was the order of the day. Pitt discerned
the important fact that a recovery in the finance and trade of the
country must be encouraged through a series of years to produce a marked
effect. For then the application of capital to industry, and the
increase in production and revenue can proceed at the rate of compound
interest. Already his hopes, for which he was indebted to the "Wealth of
Nations,"[44] had been largely realized. The Report of the Select
Committee of the House of Commons presented in May 1791 showed the
following growth in the ordinary revenue (exclusive of the Land and Malt
Taxes):

  1786      £11,867,055
  1787       12,923,134
  1788       13,007,642
  1789       13,433,068
  1790       14,072,978

During those five years the sum of £4,750,000 had been allotted to the
Sinking Fund for the payment of the National Debt; and a further sum of
£674,592, accruing from the interest of stock and expired annuities, had
gone towards the same object--a crushing retort to the taunts of Fox and
Sheridan, that the Sinking Fund was a mere pretence. On the whole the
sum of £5,424,592 had been paid off from the National Debt in five
years. It is therefore not surprising that three per cent. Consols,
which were down at fifty-four when Pitt took office at the end of 1783,
touched ninety in the year 1791. The hopes and fears of the year 1792
find expression in the fact that in March they stood at ninety-seven,
and in December dropped to seventy-four.

For the present Pitt entertained the highest hopes. In his Budget Speech
of 17th February he declared the revenue to be in so flourishing a state
that he could grant relief to the taxpayers. In the year 1791 the
permanent taxes had yielded £14,132,000; and those on land and malt
brought the total up to £16,690,000; but he proposed to take £16,212,000
as the probable revenue for the following year. The expenditure would be
lessened by £104,000 on the navy (2,000 seamen being discharged), and
about £50,000 on the army; £36,000 would also be saved by the
non-renewal of the subsidy for Hessian troops. There were, however,
additions, due to the establishment of the Government of Upper Canada,
and the portions allotted to the Duke of York (on the occasion of his
marriage with a Prussian princess) and the Duke of Clarence. The
expenditure would, therefore, stand at £15,811,000; but, taking the
average of four years, he reckoned the probable surplus at no more than
£401,000. On the other hand, he anticipated no new expenses except for
the fortification of posts in the West Indies and the completion of
forts for the further protection of the home dockyards. On the whole,
then, he reckoned that he had £600,000 to spare; and of this amount he
proposed to allocate £400,000 to the reduction of the National Debt and
the repeal of the extra duty on malt, an impost much disliked by
farmers. He also announced a remission of permanent taxes to the extent
of £200,000, namely, on female servants, carts, and waggons, and that of
three shillings on each house having less than seven windows. These were
burdens that had undoubtedly affected the poor. Further, he hoped to add
the sum of £200,000 every year to the Sinking Fund, and he pointed out
that, at this rate of payment, that fund would amount to £4,000,000 per
annum in the space of fifteen years, after which time the interest might
be applied to the relief of the nation's burdens.

Then, rising high above the level of facts and figures, he ventured on
this remarkable prophecy:

    I am not, indeed, presumptuous enough to suppose that, when I
    name fifteen years, I am not naming a period in which events may
    arise which human foresight cannot reach, and which may baffle
    all our conjectures. We must not count with certainty on a
    continuance of our present prosperity during such an interval;
    but unquestionably there never was a time in the history of this
    country, when, from the situation of Europe, we might more
    reasonably expect fifteen years of peace than at the present
    moment.

Imagination pictures what might possibly have been the outcome of events
if Great Britain and France had continued to exert on one another the
peaceful and mutually beneficent influence which Pitt had sought to
bring about. In that case, we can imagine the reformed French monarchy,
or a Republic of the type longed for by Mme. Roland, permeating the
thought and action of neighbouring States, until the cause of
Parliamentary Reform in England, and the cognate efforts for civic and
religious liberty on the Continent achieved a lasting triumph. That Pitt
cherished these hopes is seen not only in his eloquent words, but in the
efforts which he put forth to open up the world to commerce. The year
1792 ought to be remembered, not only for the outbreak of war and the
horrors of the September massacres at Paris, but also for the attempt to
inaugurate friendly relations with China. Pitt set great store by the
embassy which he at this time sent out to Pekin under the lead of Lord
Macartney. In happier times this enterprise might have served to link
East and West in friendly intercourse; and Europe, weary of barren
strifes, would have known no other rivalries than those of peace.

Alas: this is but a mirage. As it fades away, we discern an arid waste.
War broke out between France and Austria within two months of this
sanguine utterance. It soon embroiled France and England in mortal
strife. All hope of retrenchment and Reform was crushed. The National
Debt rose by leaps and bounds, and the Sinking Fund proved to be a
snare. Taxation became an ever-grinding evil, until the poor, whose lot
Pitt hoped to lighten, looked on him as the harshest of taskmasters,
the puppet of kings, and the paymaster of the Continental Coalition. The
spring of the year 1807 found England burdened beyond endurance, the
Third Coalition stricken to death by the blows of Napoleon, while Pitt
had fourteen months previously succumbed to heart-breaking toils and
woes.

Before adverting to the complications with France which were thenceforth
to absorb his energies, I must refer to some incidents of the session
and summer of the year 1792.

One of the most noteworthy enactments was Fox's Libel Bill. In May 1791
that statesman had proposed to the House of Commons to subject cases of
libel to the award of juries, not of judges. Pitt warmly approved the
measure, maintaining that, far from protecting libellers, it would have
the contrary effect. The Bill passed the Commons on 31st May; but owing
to dilatory and factious procedure in the Lords, it was held over until
the year 1792. Thanks to the noble plea for liberty urged by the
venerable Earl Camden, it passed on 21st May.[45] It is matter of
congratulation that Great Britain gained this new safeguard for freedom
of speech before she encountered the storms of the revolutionary era.

There is little else to chronicle except two occurrences which displayed
the power and the foresight of Pitt. They were the fall of Thurlow and
the endeavour of the Prime Minister to form a working alliance with the
Old Whigs. The former of these events greatly impressed the
contemporaries of Pitt, who likened the ejected Chancellor to Lucifer or
to a Titan blasted by Jove's thunderbolt. In this age we find it
difficult to account for the prestige of Thurlow. His legal learning was
far from profound, his speeches were more ponderous than powerful, and
his attacks were bludgeon blows rather than home thrusts. Of the lighter
graces and social gifts he had scant store. Indeed, his private life
displayed no redeeming feature. Everyone disliked him, but very many
feared him, mainly, perhaps, because of his facility for intrigue, his
power of bullying, and his great influence at Court. As we have seen,
the conciliatory efforts of the monarch had hitherto averted a rupture
between Pitt and Thurlow. But not even the favour of George III could
render the crabbed old Chancellor endurable. His spitefulness had
increased since Pitt's nomination of Pepper Arden to the Mastership of
the Rolls; and he showed his spleen by obstructing Government measures
in the House of Lords. In April 1792 he flouted Pitt's efforts on behalf
of the abolition of the Slave Trade; and on 15th May he ridiculed his
proposal that to every new State loan a Sinking Fund should necessarily
be appended. The Commons had passed this measure; but in the Lords
Thurlow spoke contemptuously of the proposal; and his influence, if not
his arguments, brought the Government majority down to six.

Pitt was furious. Despite a letter from Windsor urging the need of
forbearance in the interests of the public service, he resolved to end
this intolerable situation. Respectfully but firmly he begged the King
to decide between him and Thurlow. The result was a foregone conclusion.
Having to choose between an overbearing Chancellor, and a Prime Minister
whose tact, firmness, and transcendent abilities formed the keystone of
the political fabric, the King instructed Dundas to request Thurlow to
deliver up the Great Seal.[46] For the convenience of public business,
his resignation was deferred to the end of the session, which came at
the middle of June. The Great Seal was then placed in commission until
January 1793 when Lord Loughborough, formerly a follower of the Prince
of Wales and Fox, became Lord Chancellor.

The dismissal of Thurlow is interesting on general as well as
constitutional grounds. It marks an important step in the evolution of
the Cabinet. Thenceforth the will of the Prime Minister was held to be
paramount whenever any one of his colleagues openly and sharply differed
from him. Thus the authority of the Prime Minister became more clearly
defined. Not even the favour of the Sovereign could thenceforth uphold a
Minister who openly opposed and scorned the head of the Cabinet. The
recognition of this fact has undoubtedly conduced to the amenity of
parliamentary life; for etiquette has imposed on Ministers the
observance of outward signs of deference to their chief, and (save a few
times in the breezy careers of Canning and Palmerston) dissensions have
been confined to the council chamber.

As to Thurlow's feelings, they appear in his frank admission to Sir John
Scott, the future Chancellor, Lord Eldon: "I did not think that the King
would have parted with me so easily. As to that other man [Pitt], he
has done to me just what I should have done to him if I could."[47] It
is not often that a plotter shows his hand so clearly; and we must
admire Pitt's discernment no less than his firmness at this crisis.
Would that he had found a more faithful successor. Possibly some
suspicion as to Loughborough's powers of intrigue led Pitt to make
cautious advances to that promising lawyer, Sir John Scott. To his
honour, be it said, Scott at once declared that he must cease to be
Solicitor-General, as he had received much assistance from Thurlow. In
vain did Pitt expostulate with him. At last he persuaded him to consult
Thurlow, who advised him to do nothing so foolish, seeing that Pitt
would be compelled at some future time to confer the Great Seal upon
him. With this parting gleam of insight and kindliness, the morose
figure of Thurlow vanishes.

More than once in the session of 1792 rumours were afloat as to a
reconstruction of the Cabinet. Early in that year, when the debates on
the Russian armament somewhat shook Pitt's position, it was stated that
the King desired to get rid of him. Gillray heard of the story, and
visualized it with his usual skill. He represented the Marquis of
Lansdowne ("Malagrida") as driving at full speed to St. James's Palace,
heralded by the dove of peace, while Fox, Sheridan, etc., hang on behind
and cry out, "Stop; stop; take us in." Pitt and Dundas are seen leaving
the palace. The rumour gains in credibility from a Memorandum of the
Marquis; but it is doubtful whether George ever thought seriously of
giving up Pitt, still less of seeking support from the discredited and
unpopular Lansdowne, whose views on the French Revolution were utterly
opposed to those of the King. Probably the King put questions to him
merely with the view of gratifying his own curiosity and exciting unreal
hopes. Certainly Pitt scoffed at the idea of resignation. On 3rd March
he referred to the rumour, in a letter to the Earl of Westmorland,
merely to dismiss it as ridiculous.[48]

Far more important were the negotiations that began in May-June 1792.
Pitt paved the way for a union with the Old Whigs by consulting the
opinions of the Duke of Portland and other leading Whigs, assembled at
Burlington House, respecting the proclamation against seditious
writings. They suggested a few alterations in his draft and he adopted
them. Fox alone declared against the whole scheme, and afterwards hotly
opposed it in the House of Commons. This step having shown the cleavage
in the Whig party, Dundas and Loughborough sought to effect a union of
the Portland Whigs with the Government. The Duke of Portland strongly
approved of it. Even Fox welcomed the proposal, but only on the
understanding that the Whigs joined the Ministry on fair and even terms,
sharing equally in the patronage. The Duke further suggested that Pitt
should give up the Treasury and allow a neutral man like the Duke of
Leeds to take that office. We can picture the upward tilt of the nose
with which Pitt received this proposal.

Lord Malmesbury, who was present at this discussion of the Whig leaders
on 13th June, himself saw great difficulties in such a plan, as also
from the opposition of the King and the Prince of Wales. On the next day
Loughborough met Pitt at Dundas's house, and reported him to be
favourable to the idea of a coalition. Pitt further said that the King
and the Queen would welcome it, except in so far as it concerned Fox,
whose conduct in Parliament during the last few months had given great
offence. Pitt further declared that he did not remember a single word in
all the disputes with Fox which could prevent him honourably and
consistently acting with him. He added that it might be difficult to
give him the Foreign Office at once, but he could certainly have it in a
few months' time. On 16th June Malmesbury saw Fox at Burlington House,
and found him in an unusually acrid and suspicious mood, from the notion
that the whole affair was a plot of Pitt to break up the Whig party.
Beside which, Fox said that it was idle to expect Pitt to admit the Whig
leaders on an equal footing. Malmesbury, however, maintained that, if
Fox and the Duke were agreed, they would lead the whole of their party
with them, at which remark Fox became silent and embarrassed.

Pitt, on the other hand, was very open to Loughborough, and expressed a
wish to form a strong and united Ministry which could face the
difficulties of the time. The chief obstacle to a coalition, he said,
was Fox's support of French principles, which must preclude his taking
the Foreign Office immediately. The remark is noteworthy as implying
Pitt's expectation that either Fox might tone down his opinions, or the
Revolution might abate its violence. Further, when Loughborough
reminded him of the ardour of his advocacy of the Abolitionist cause, he
replied that some concession must be made on that head, as the King
strongly objected to the way in which it was pushed on by addresses and
petitions, a method which he himself disliked. Further, he freely
admitted that the "national Aristocracy" of the country must have its
due weight and power.[49] These confessions (assuming that Loughborough
reported them correctly) prepare us for the half right turn which now
becomes the trend of Pitt's political career. In order to further the
formation of a truly national party, he was willing, if necessary, to
postpone the cause of the slaves and of Parliamentary Reform until the
advent of calmer times.

At this stage of the discussions, then, Pitt was willing to meet the
Whigs half way. But the chief difficulty lay, not with Fox and his
friends, but with the King. When Pitt mentioned the proposal to him,
there came the characteristic reply: "Anything complimentary to them,
but no power."[50] How was it possible to harmonize this resolve with
that of Fox, that the Whigs must have an equality of power? Grenville
was a further obstacle. How could that stiff and ambitious man give up
the Foreign Office to Fox, whose principles he detested? We hear little
of Grenville in these days, probably because of his marriage to Lady Ann
Pitt, daughter of Lord Camelford. But certainly he would not have
tolerated a half Whig Cabinet.

It is therefore strange that the proposals were ever renewed. Renewed,
however, they were, in the second week of July. Loughborough having
spread the impression that Pitt desired their renewal, Leeds was again
pushed to the front, it being suggested that he might be First Lord of
the Treasury. Finally, on 14th August, the King granted him a private
interview at Windsor, but stated that nothing had been said on the
subject for a long time, and that it had never been seriously
considered, it being impossible for Pitt to give up the Treasury and act
as _Commis_ to the Whig leaders. This statement should have lessened the
Duke's astonishment at hearing from Pitt on 22nd August that there had
been no thought of any change in the Government.[51] This assertion
seems to belie Pitt's reputation for truthfulness. But it is noteworthy
that Grenville scarcely refers to the discussions on this subject,
deeply though it concerned him. Further, Rose, who was in close touch
with Ministers, wrote to Auckland on 13th July that he had heard only
through the newspapers of the "negotiations for a sort of Coalition,"
and that he knew there had been none; that Dundas had conferred with
Loughborough, but there had been no negotiation.[52]

Now the proneness of these two men to scheming and intrigue is well
known; and it seems probable that they so skilfully pulled the wires at
Burlington House as to quicken the appetites of the Whig leaders. Dundas
may have acted with a view to breaking up the Whig party, and
Loughborough in order to bring about a general shuffle of the cards
favourable to himself. Malmesbury and others, whose desires or interests
lay in a union of the Portland Whigs with Pitt, furthered the scheme,
and gave full credence to Loughborough's reports. But we may doubt
whether Pitt took the affair seriously after the crushing declaration of
the King: "Anything complimentary to them, but no power." The last blow
to the scheme was dealt by Pitt in an interview with Loughborough, so we
may infer from the following letter from George III to the former:

                                 Weymouth, _August 20, 1792_.[53]

    I cannot but think Mr. Pitt has judged right in seeing Lord
    Loughborough, as that will convince him, however [whoever?] were
    parties to the proposal brought by the Duke of Leeds, that the
    scheme can never succeed: that the Duke of Portland was equally
    concerned with the former appeared clearly from his letters....

The King, then, looked on the whole affair as a Whig plot; and Pitt,
whatever his feelings were at first, finally frowned upon the proposal.
Doubtless, in an official sense, there was justification for his remark
to the Duke of Leeds, that the coalition had never been in
contemplation; for the matter seems never to have come before the
Cabinet. But as a statement between man and man it leaves something to
be desired on the score of accuracy. Annoyance at the very exalted
position marked out for the Duke, whose capacity Pitt rated decidedly
low, may have led him to belittle the whole affair; for signs of
constraint and annoyance are obvious in his other answers to his late
colleague. There, then, we must leave this question, involved in
something of mystery.[54] We shall not be far wrong in concluding that
Pitt wished for the formation of a national Ministry, and that the plan
failed, partly from the resolve of Fox never to play second to Pitt; and
still more from the personal way in which the King regarded the
suggestion.

The King meanwhile had marked his sense of the value of Pitt's services
by pressing on him the honourable position of Warden of the Cinque
Ports, with a stipend of £3,000 a year, intimating at the same time that
he would not hear of his declining it (6th August).[55] It is a proof of
the spotless purity of Pitt's reputation that not a single libel or gibe
appeared in the Press on his acceptance of this almost honorary
post.[56]

One brilliant recruit to the Whig ranks was now won over to the national
cause, of which Pitt was seen to be the incarnation. Already at Eton and
Oxford George Canning had shown the versatility of his genius and the
precocious maturity of his eloquence. When his Oxford friend, Jenkinson
(the future Earl of Liverpool) made a sensational _début_ in the House
on the Tory side, Sheridan remarked that the Whigs would soon provide an
antidote in the person of young Canning. Great, then, was their
annoyance when the prodigy showed signs of breaking away from the
society of the Crewes and Sheridan, in order to ally himself with Pitt.
So little is known respecting the youth of Canning that the motives
which prompted his breach with Sheridan are involved in uncertainty. It
is clear, however, from his own confession that, after some discussion
with Orde, he himself made the first offer of allegiance to Pitt in a
letter of 26th July 1792. He then informed the Prime Minister that,
though on terms of friendship with eminent members of the Opposition, he
was "in no way bound to them by any personal or political obligation,"
and was therefore entirely free to choose his own party; that he was
ambitious of being connected with Pitt, but lacked the means to win an
election, and yet refused to be brought in by any individual--a
reference, seemingly, to an offer made to him by the Duke of Portland.
In reply, Pitt proposed an interview at Downing Street on Wednesday,
15th August.[57]

At noon on that day the two men first met. We can picture them as they
faced one another in the formal surroundings of the Prime Minister's
study. Pitt, at this time thirty-three years of age, had lost some of
the slimness of youth, but his figure was bony, angular, and somewhat
awkward. His face was as yet scarcely marked by the slight Bacchic
blotches which told of carouses with Dundas at Wimbledon. Months and
years of triumph (apart from the Russian defeat) had stiffened his
confidence and pride; but the fateful shadow of the French Revolution
must have struck a chill to his being, especially then, on the arrival
of news of the pitiable surrender of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and
the shooting down of the Swiss Guards at the Tuileries. No royalist
could look on the future without inward shuddering; and both these men
were ardent royalists. We know from Canning's confession that it was the
starting of the club, the Friends of the People, in April 1792, which
disgusted him with the forward section of the Whigs; and their
subsequent action completed the breach. Pitt's endeavour to form a
national Administration must have gained a new significance from the
terrible news from Paris. We may be sure, then, that the youth of
twenty-two years gazed with eager interest on the stately form before
him as at the embodiment of political wisdom, purity, and patriotism.

They shook hands. Then for a time they ambled coyly around the subject
at issue, and talked of "France and Jenkinson, and other equally
important concerns." Indeed Pitt seems to have been as nervous and
awkward as the novice. At length he plunged into business. "It is your
wish, I believe, Mr. Canning (and I am sure it is mine), to come in,
etc." On Canning bowing assent, Pitt remarked that it was not easy to
find an inexpensive seat, and commented on his expressed desire not to
tie himself to any borough-owner. Whereupon the young aspirant, with
more pride than tact, threw in the remark that he would not like to be
personally beholden to such an one, for instance, as Lord Lonsdale (who
first brought Pitt into Parliament). The Prime Minister seemed not to
notice the _gaucherie_, and stated that the Treasury had only six seats
at its disposal, but could arrange matters with "proprietors of
burgage-tenures." Thereupon Canning broke in more deftly. In that case,
he said, it must be made clear that he bound himself to follow, not the
borough-owner, but the Prime Minister. Here he more than recovered lost
ground, if indeed he had lost any. Pitt expressed his sense of the
compliment, and said that this could be managed, unless the young member
came to differ absolutely from his patron. Canning then frankly
confessed his inability to follow Pitt in maintaining the Test Act.
Equally frank and cordial was the reply, that he (Pitt) did not claim
exact agreement, especially on "speculative subjects," but only "a
general good disposition towards Government," which might be
strengthened by frequent contact.

Such was the course of this memorable interview. It sealed for ever the
allegiance of the youth to his self-chosen leader. He had prepared
Sheridan, and through him Fox and Bouverie, for this change of front.
The openness, the charm, the self-effacing patriotism of the Minister
thenceforth drew him as by an irresistible magnet. The brilliance and
joviality of Fox and Sheridan counted as nothing against the national
impulse which the master now set in motion and the pupil was destined to
carry to further lengths. There was a natural sympathy between these men
both in aim and temperament. It is a sign of the greatness of Pitt that
from the outset he laid the spell of his genius irrevocably upon
Canning.

Deferring to the next chapter a study of the democratic movement in
Great Britain, we now turn our attention to the relations of Pitt to
France, a topic which thenceforth dominates his life story and the
destinies of mankind.

In the month of January 1792, there arrived in London an envoy charged
with important proposals from the French Government. It was Talleyrand,
ex-bishop of Autun. Pitt had become acquainted with him during his
residence at Rheims in the summer of 1783; but the circumstances of the
case now forbade anything more than passing intercourse with that most
charming of talkers and subtlest of diplomatists. Talleyrand, having
been a member of the first, or Constituent, Assembly, was prevented by
the constitution of September 1791 from holding any office for two
years after that date. Therefore his visit to London was ostensibly on
private affairs. The Duc de Biron was the envoy, and Talleyrand merely
his adviser. He was instructed to seek "to maintain and strengthen the
good understanding which exists between the two Kingdoms."[58]

This was only the official pretext for the mission, the secret aim of
which was to win the friendship, if not the alliance, of England in case
of a Franco-Austrian war. In the early days of January 1792 the
constitutional Ministry, holding office, though not power, at Paris,
seemed to be working for a rupture with the Hapsburgs, partly in order
to please the Jacobins, and partly to escape the ever increasing
difficulties of its position. The earlier causes of dispute do not
concern us here. As we have seen, the Emperor Leopold was far from
desirous of war; but the provocative attitude of the Legislative
Assembly at Paris and the humiliations of his sister, Marie Antoinette,
aroused his resentment; and, early in January, he was heard to say "that
if the French madmen were determined to force him into a war, they
should find that the pacific Leopold knew how to wage it with the
greatest vigour, and would oblige them to pay its expenses in something
more solid than assignats." Our ambassador, Sir Robert Keith, was,
however, convinced that this outburst and the westward march of troops
were but "empty parade."[59]

On the other hand Earl Gower, British ambassador at Paris, reported that
the Ministry, the Assembly, and the Jacobins Club (with the exception of
Robespierre and his clique) desired war.[60] In truth, there seemed
little risk in a struggle with the exhausted Hapsburg States, provided
that they had support neither from Prussia nor from England. De Ségur
therefore set out for Berlin, and Talleyrand for London, to secure the
friendly neutrality or support of those Governments. The latter envoy
was specially suited for his mission, as he carried on the traditions of
Mirabeau, who in the closing months of his life urged the need of an
Anglo-French _entente_.[61]

Talleyrand and Biron reached London on 24th January 1792. Before
reaching the capital they read in the English papers that they had
arrived there, and had been very coldly received by Pitt--a specimen of
the arts by which the French _émigrés_ in London sought to embitter the
relations between the two lands. Talleyrand had the good fortune to
occupy a seat in the Strangers' Gallery at the opening of Parliament
close to two ardent royalists, Cazalès and Lally-Tollendal. What must
have been their feelings on hearing in the King's speech the statement
of his friendly relations to the other Powers and his resolve to reduce
the army and navy?

Already Pitt had seen Talleyrand. He reminded him in a friendly way of
their meeting at Rheims, remarked on the unofficial character of the
ex-bishop's "mission," but expressed his willingness to discuss French
affairs, about which he even showed "curiosity." Grenville afterwards
spoke to the envoy in the same courteous but non-committal manner.
Talleyrand was, however, charmed. He wrote to Delessart, the Foreign
Minister at Paris: "Your best ground is England; ... Believe me the
rumours current in France about the disposition of England towards us
are false."[62] He urged the need of showing a bold front; for "it is
with a fleet that you must speak to England."

Talleyrand throughout showed the sagacity which earned him fame in
diplomacy. He was not depressed by the King's frigid reception of him at
St. James's on 1st February, or by the Queen refusing even to notice
him. Even the escapades of Biron did not dash his hopes. That envoy ran
up debts and bargained about horses _avec un nommé Tattersall, qui tient
dans sa main tous les chevaux d'Angleterre_, until he was arrested for
debt and immured in a "sponging house," whence the appeals of the
ex-bishop failed to rescue him. As Biron had come with an official order
to buy horses with a view to the impending war with Austria, we may
infer that his arrest was the work of some keen-witted _émigré_.

Even this, however, was better than the fortunes of Ségur, who found
himself openly flouted both by King and courtiers at Berlin. For
Frederick William was still bent on a vigorous policy. On 7th February
his Ministers signed with Prince Reuss, the Austrian envoy, a secret
treaty of defensive alliance, mainly for the settlement of French
affairs, but also with a side glance at Poland. The Prussian Ministers
probably hoped for a peaceful but profitable settlement, which would
leave them free for a decisive intervention in the Polish troubles now
coming to a crisis; but Frederick William was in a more warlike mood,
and longed to overthrow the "rebels" in France. Ségur's mission to
Berlin was therefore an utter failure. That of Talleyrand, on the other
hand, achieved its purpose, mainly because Pitt and Grenville never had
any other desire than to remain strictly neutral. It was therefore
superfluous for Talleyrand to hint delicately at the desirability of the
friendship of France for England, in view of the war with Tippoo Sahib
in India, and the increasing ferment in Ireland.[63]

On 1st March Grenville again assured him of the earnest desire of the
British Government to see the end of the troubles in France, and
declared that Pitt and he had been deeply wounded by the oft-repeated
insinuations that they had sought to foment them. All such charges were
absurd; for "a commercial people stands only to gain by the freedom of
all those who surround it." We may reasonably conclude that these were
the words of Pitt; for they recall that noble passage of the "Wealth of
Nations": "A nation that would enrich itself by trade is certainly most
likely to do so when its neighbours are all rich, industrious, and
commercial nations."[64] For the rest, Grenville defied the calumniators
of England to adduce a single proof in support of their slanders, and
requested Talleyrand to remain some time in England for the purpose of
observing public opinion. He warned him, however, that the Cabinet could
not give an answer to his main proposal.

More than this Talleyrand could scarcely expect. He had already divined
the important secret that the Cabinet was divided on this subject, the
King, Thurlow, and Camden being hostile to France, while Pitt,
Grenville, and Dundas were friendly. When Talleyrand ventured to ascribe
those sentiments to Pitt and Grenville, the latter did not deny it, and
he at once echoed the desire expressed by the envoy for the conclusion
of an Anglo-French alliance. That the greater part of the British people
would have welcomed such a compact admits of no doubt. On the walls were
often chalked the words: "No war with the French." Talleyrand advised
the Foreign Minister, Delessart, to send immediately to London a fully
accredited ambassador; for the talk often was: "We have an ambassador at
Paris. Why have not you one here?" Nevertheless, a despatch of Grenville
to Gower, on 9th March, shows that Pitt and he keenly felt the need of
caution. They therefore enjoined complete silence on Gower. In truth,
Grenville's expressions, quoted above, were merely the outcome of the
good will which he and Pitt felt towards France. But these words from
the two powerful Ministers meant safety for France on her coasts,
whatever might betide her on the Meuse and the Rhine.

On the day when Grenville spoke these words of peace, two events
occurred which portended war. Leopold II died; and an irritating
despatch, which he and Kaunitz had recently sent to Paris, was read out
to the Legislative Assembly. Thereafter a rupture was inevitable.
Francis II, who now ascended the throne of his father, was a shy, proud,
delicate youth of twenty-four years, having only a superficial knowledge
of public affairs, scarcely known to the Ministers, and endowed with a
narrow pedantic nature which was to be the bane of his people. He lacked
alike the sagacity, the foresight, and the suppleness of Leopold.
Further, though his inexperience should have inspired him with a dread
of war for his storm-tossed States, yet that same misfortune subjected
him to the advice of the veteran Chancellor, Kaunitz. That crabbed old
man advised the maintenance of a stiff attitude towards France; and
this, in her present temper, entailed war.

The last despatch from Vienna to Paris contained strongly worded advice
to the French Government and Assembly to adopt a less provocative
attitude, to withdraw its troops from the northern frontier, and, above
all, to rid itself of the factious minority which controlled its
counsels. If Leopold had hoped to intimidate France or to strengthen the
peace-party at Paris, he made the greatest mistake of his reign. The war
party at once gained the ascendancy, decreed the arrest of Delessart for
his tame reply to Vienna, and broke up the constitutional Ministry.
Their successors were mainly Girondins. The most noteworthy are Roland,
who took the Home Office; Clavière, Finance; and Dumouriez, Foreign
Affairs. The last was a man of great energy and resource. A soldier by
training, and with a dash of the adventurer in his nature, he now leapt
to the front, and astonished France by his zeal and activity. He was not
devoid of prudence; for, as appears from Gower's despatch of 30th March,
he persuaded the Assembly to postpone action until an answer arrived to
his last despatch to Vienna. Gower found from conversation with
Dumouriez that a rupture must ensue if a satisfactory reply did not
arrive by 15th April.[65] Four days later, as no answer came, the
Council of Ministers decided on war; and on the next day Louis formally
proposed it to the Assembly, which assented with acclamation.

Secondary causes helped on the rupture. Frederick William encouraged the
young Emperor to draw the sword, and led him to expect Alsace and
Lorraine as his share of the spoil, the duchies of Jülich and Berg
falling to Prussia. Catharine also fanned the crusading zeal at Berlin
and Vienna in the hope of having "more elbow-room," obviously in
Poland.[66] Further, the news from Madrid and Stockholm indisposed the
French Assembly to endure any dictation from Vienna. At the end of
February Floridablanca fell from power at Madrid, and his successor,
Aranda, showed a peaceful front. And, on 16th March Gustavus of Sweden
was assassinated by Anckarström, a tool of the revengeful nobles. This
loss was severely felt. The royalist crusade now had no Tancred, only an
uninspiring Duke of Brunswick.

Though France took the final step of declaring war, it is now known that
Austria had done much to provoke it and nothing to prevent it. The young
Emperor refused to withdraw a word of the provocative despatch; and in
his letter to Thugut at Brussels, he declared he was weary of the state
of things in France and had decided to act and put an end to it; "that
he should march his troops at once, and the French must be amused for
two months until the troops arrived; then, whether the French attacked
him or not, he should attack them."[67] Keith also wrote from Vienna to
Grenville on 2nd May, that the French declaration of war had come in the
nick of time to furnish the Hapsburgs with the opportunity of throwing
the odium of the war upon France.[68] Other proofs might be cited; and
it seems certain that, if France had not thrown down the gauntlet, both
the German Powers would have attacked her in the early summer of 1792.
Pitt and Grenville, looking on at these conflicting schemes, formed the
perfectly correct surmise that both sides were bent on war, and that
little or nothing could be done to avert it.

We must now trace the policy of Pitt somewhat closely. The question at
issue is, whether he favoured the royalist or the democratic cause, and
was responsible for the ensuing friction between England and France,
which culminated in the long and disastrous strifes of 1793-1801.

Dumouriez, as we have seen, threw down the gauntlet to Austria in the
hope of securing the neutrality of Prussia and the friendship of
England. Accordingly he decided to send Talleyrand on a second mission
to London. That skilful diplomat had recently returned to Paris; and the
Foreign Minister drew up, perhaps in concert with him, a Memoir entitled
"Reflections on a Negotiation with England in case of War," which
provided the text for Talleyrand's discourse to Pitt and Grenville. The
gist of it is that Talleyrand must convince the British Government of
the need of a French attack on the Belgic provinces of Austria as the
sole means of safety. For, while offensive in appearance, it is in
reality defensive. France does not intend to keep those provinces; and,
even if her conquest of them brings about the collapse of the
Stadholder's power in Holland, England will do well not to intervene in
favour of the Orange _régime_. For what good can the Island Power gain
by war with France? She may take the French colonies; but that will mean
a tiresome struggle with the revolted negroes in the West Indies.
France, meanwhile, with her new-born strength, will conquer Central
Europe and then throw her energy into her fleet. The better course,
then, for England will be to remain neutral, even if Holland be
revolutionized, and the estuary of the Scheldt be thrown open to all
nations. Or, still better, England may help France to keep in check the
King of Prussia and the Prince of Orange. In that case the two free
Powers will march hand in hand and "become the arbiters of peace or war
for the whole world."

This remarkable pronouncement claims attention for several reasons.
Firstly, it proves that Dumouriez and Talleyrand believed their sole
chance of safety to lie in the conquest of Austria's Belgic provinces,
where a cognate people would receive them with open arms. That is to
say, they desired war with Austria, and they did not dread the prospect
of war with Prussia, provided that England remained neutral and
friendly. Pitt and Grenville were well aware of this from Gower's
despatches. Our ambassador had warned them that France recked little of
a war with the whole of Europe, provided that England held aloof.
Secondly, this fact disposes of the subsequent charge of Fox against
Pitt, that he ought to have sided with France in 1792 and thereby to
have prevented the attack of the German Powers. For, as we have seen, it
was she who took the irrevocable step of declaring war on Austria; and
further, the details given above prove that all that Frenchmen expected
from Pitt was neutrality. By remaining neutral, while the French overran
Belgium, Pitt was favouring the French plans more than any British
statesman had done since the time of James II. Thirdly, we notice in the
closing sentences of these Reflections signs of that extraordinary
self-confidence which led Girondins and Jacobins to face without
flinching even the prospect of war with England.

What was Pitt's conduct at this crisis? He knew enough of the politics
of Berlin and Vienna to see that those Courts would almost certainly
make war on France. He adopted therefore the line of conduct which
prudence and love of peace dictated, a strict neutrality. But he refused
to proclaim it to the world, as it would encourage France to attack
Austria. At the same time Grenville let it be known that Austria must
not be deprived of her Belgic lands, which England had assured to her,
firstly by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), and quite recently by the
Reichenbach Convention. As Grenville phrased it--"The Pays Bas form the