William Pitt and the Great War by John Holland Rose (book club reads txt) 📕

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