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

embroglio. In that anxious time, the

autumn of 1794, the most urgent needs were to save Holland from the

Jacobins, to distract them by helping the Royalists of Brittany, and

from our new base in Corsica to clog their attempts at an invasion of

Italy. Owing to the slackness of our Allies, these enterprises proved

unexpectedly difficult. In truth any two of them would have strained the

scanty resources of the British army; and Pitt is open to censure for

not ruling out all but the most essential of them. But here a word of

caution is needful. For us, with our knowledge of the sequel, it is a

comparatively easy task to assess the gains and losses of the war, and

to blame perseverance in one course as wasteful folly or backwardness in

another as stupid slothfulness. If later critics would seek to realize

the amount of information possessed by fallible mortals at the time of

their decisions, the world would be spared floods of censure. How was

Pitt to know that the Dutch were about to hamper, rather than assist,

the defence of their land by the Allies; that Prussia would play him

false; that the schisms among the French Royalists would make Quiberon a

word of horror; that Paoli would stir up strife in Corsica; or that

Spain was preparing to ruin British rule in Hayti? With loyal

cooperation on the part of the Allies, all these enterprises might have

proceeded successfully side by side.

 

There were no solid reasons for distrusting Spain. The Court of Madrid

had eagerly taken up arms against the regicides of Paris; and Pitt, as

we shall see, early sought to avoid friction in the West Indies.

Otherwise, he would be highly blameable; for England's easy acquisition

of Hayti could not but ruffle the feelings of the Dons. No chord in the

highly strung nature of the Spaniard vibrates so readily and so

powerfully as that of pride in the retention or recovery of the

conquests of his ancestors. The determination of the Court of Madrid to

win back Louisiana and the Floridas, not to speak of Minorca, had

potently influenced its policy in the recent past, and the prospect of

seeing the Union Jack wave over Hayti and Corsica now envenomed the ever

open wound of Gibraltar. True, the French colonists of Hayti, acting

through their local Assemblies, had the right to will away their land to

England. Spain, at least, could not say them nay; but none the less she

longed to see her flag float once more over the western districts which

had slipped from her grasp.

 

Pitt and Grenville had early foreseen trouble ahead with Spain on the

subject of the West Indies. When affairs at Toulon were causing

friction, Grenville instructed Lord St. Helens, British ambassador at

Madrid, to urge that Court to secure the hoped-for indemnities in the

French districts north of the Pyrenees. As for England, she had in view

Hayti and certain of the French Leeward Islands. This plan, continued

Grenville, could not offend Spain, seeing that the Haytian or western

part of San Domingo fronted Jamaica and fell naturally to the Power

holding that island. But, as the Court of Madrid was known to cherish

desires for a part of Hayti, St. Helens must endeavour to ascertain

their extent so as to come to a friendly compromise.[381] The Spanish

Government, at that time incensed by the quarrels at Toulon, vouchsafed

no reply to these courteous overtures. They were renewed during the year

1794, but with no better result.

 

Meanwhile, Don Garcia, the Spanish Governor of San Domingo sought to

pour oil on the flames of civil strife. He allowed the bands of negroes

to retire into the Spanish districts, and replenish their stores. In

fact, his conduct was so openly hostile to England, that on 11th

November 1794 Grenville instructed Jackson, British _chargé d'affaires_

at Madrid, to demand the recall of that arrogant official.[382]

Charmilly also averred that the brigands often sallied forth from

Spanish territory to ravage the western districts.[383] Other facts

point in the same direction. Whence could the Republicans and their

black allies have gained supplies of arms and ammunition but from the

Spaniards? The survey of the British over the western coasts was close

enough to bar those supplies, at least in the quantities that the

negroes demanded. In truth, the enigmas of the Hayti affair can be

solved only by delving in the Spanish archives. The whole question is

closely connected with the extraordinary change that came over

Anglo-Spanish relations in the years 1795-6, a topic which will be

treated in the following chapter.

 

FOOTNOTES

 

[363] See "Eng. Hist. Rev.," October 1909.

 

[364] "Dropmore P.," ii, 395, 438, 443, 444, 464.

 

[365] Pitt MSS., 349.

 

[366] Pitt MSS., 121.

 

[367] "F. O.," France, 40.

 

[368] Malouet, "Méms.," ii, 209-11; Morse Stephens, "French Rev.," ii,

481-4; "Dropmore P.," ii, 388.

 

[369] Fortescue, iv, pt. i, 77, 78.

 

[370] "Dropmore P.," ii, 402, 403.

 

[371] Pitt MSS., 349.

 

[372] Pitt MSS., 155, 349. In the latter packet is Malouet's letter of

10th March 1793 from Kingston, Jamaica, to M. Franklyn at London,

dwelling on the woes of San Domingo and Martinique--all due to the folly

and wickedness of one man, probably Brissot. He despairs of the French

West Indies. See, too, "Dropmore P.," ii, 388.

 

[373] Pitt MSS., 349.

 

[374] "Parl. Hist.," xxxiii, 586.

 

[375] The facts stated above suffice to refute the strange statement of

Mr. Morse Stephens ("Fr. Rev.," ii, 476) that the English invasion of

San Domingo was "absurd." It was not an invasion, but an occupation of

the coast towns after scarcely any resistance.

 

[376] "Dropmore P.," ii, 443, 454, 464.

 

[377] Fortescue, iv, pt. i, chs. xiii, xiv; James, i, 250-2.

 

[378] Pinckard, "Notes on the Expedition to the West Indies," ii,

especially Letter 15.

 

[379] Bryan Edwards, "Hist. Survey of S. Domingo" (1801), 204. Fortescue

(iv, 385) assesses the British losses in the West Indies in 1794 at

12,000 men, apart from deaths in battle.

 

[380] Pitt MSS., 121.

 

[381] "F. O.," Spain, 28. Grenville to St. Helens, 30th November 1793.

On 1st October Pitt pressed Grenville to open this question to the

Spanish Court ("Dropmore P.," ii, 433, 438).

 

[382] "H. O." (Secretaries of State), 5.

 

[383] Pitt MSS., 349. He added that in 1788, 584 European and 699

American ships set sail from Hayti: 37,447 negroes were imported.

 

CHAPTER X (SPAIN AND HAYTI)

 

    Are not Martinique, Mole St. Nicholas, and the Cape of Good Hope

    most important conquests?--PITT, _Speech of 9th December 1795_.

 

 

More than once it has happened that, after a time of national revival,

Spain has fallen under the dominion of a ruler led by wrongheaded

counsellors and intriguing favourites. Such was the case in the year

Charles III, who then passed away, had restored the finances, the

prosperity, the navy, and the prestige of that land. But his successor,

Charles IV, proved to be one of the weakest and most indolent members of

that dynasty. Fond of display, and devoted to the pleasures of the chase

and the table, he squandered the resources of the State, and soon saw

his finances fall into hopeless confusion. Worse still, his consort, a

princess of the ducal House of Parma, and a woman of much energy,

conceived a violent passion for Manuel Godoy, a young private in the

royal guards, on whom she heaped favours and dignities, so that he

forced his way into the highest circles with the title Duke of Alcudia.

He was endowed with a dignified mien, handsome features, affable

manners, and good abilities, so that the British ambassador, Lord St.

Helens, happily characterized him as a Birmingham Villiers. The measure

of his importance and of the degradation of the Sovereigns may be gauged

from the fact that the paramour of the Queen became the chief Minister

of the King. In truth, the Queen, her lover, and her two confessors

governed Spain.

 

The habits of the favourite were as follows. He rose early, drove or

rode for an hour, and after breakfast transacted business for a time. He

then relieved the tedium of that time by witnessing exhibitions of skill

and daring by his private matadors, after which he spent about three

hours in the society of the Queen. He then devoted the same length of

time to the conduct of public business with the King; and the day ended

with dinner, fêtes, the opera, or the consideration of requests for

patronage. This function of State generally occupied three evenings in

the week; and on these occasions a crowd of some 250 suitors filled his

meanly lit ante-room with jealous expectancy and long baffled

hopes.[384]

 

Certainly the representatives of monarchy at this time of acute trial

were unequal to the strain. Catharine of Russia was supremely able, but

no less corrupt. Frederick William of Prussia equalled her in vice and

in nothing else. Francis of Austria had the brain of a master of

ceremonies; George III that of a model squire; Ferdinand of Naples was

in his place in the kennel; Victor Amadeus of Sardinia, in the

confessional. It is difficult to say to what place Charles IV of Spain

and his consort can most fitly be assigned; for they could not live

apart from Godoy; and with Godoy they would have been excluded from any

residence but the royal palace of Spain. The policy of that Court

wavered under his whims and devices. Hated by the grandees, loathed by

honest people, and yet fawned on by all alike, he sought to strengthen

his power by jobbery, with results fatal to the public services. Such a

man evades difficulties instead of grappling with them. He lives for the

day. "After me the deluge" is the motto of all Godoys.

 

The favourite soon perceived that the war with France pleased neither

the Court, the merchants, nor the people. Charles IV had gone to war for

the restoration of royalty; but, thanks to the perfidy of Prussia and

the vacillations of Austria, that ideal had vanished; and in its place

there appeared the spectres of want and bankruptcy. By the end of 1794

the Republicans had gained a firm foothold in Catalonia and Biscay; and

the prospect of further campaigns was highly distasteful to a Court

which kept up the traditional pomp of the Spanish monarchy. Even when

the Spanish forces in Catalonia and Biscay were wellnigh starving, the

Court borrowed £160,000 to defray the expenses of the usual migration to

San Ildefonso; and the British ambassador computed that the cost of a

campaign could be saved by a sojourn in Madrid for the whole year. But

parsimony such as this was out of the question. Accordingly the only

possible alternatives were, peace with France, an issue of paper money,

or a bankruptcy. Godoy inclined strongly to peace, and discovered in

Anglophobia a means of betraying the French House of Bourbon. England,

so he averred, had entered on the war solely for her own aggrandisement,

with the view of appropriating first Dunkirk, then Toulon, and, failing

them, Corsica and Hayti, to the manifest detriment of Spain. The

argument was specious; for Pitt's resolve to cripple France by colonial

conquests necessarily tended to re-awaken the old jealousies of the

Spaniards; and herein, as in other respects, the son had to confront

difficulties unknown in the days of his father. The task of the elder

Pitt was simple compared with that of humouring and spurring on five

inert