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

people, scarcely more capable of

resisting a torrent of French invaders than the herds and flocks of

Smithfield." How, then, could the danger be averted? Solely (he replied)

by trusting the people and by reviving the ancient laws which compelled

householders to bear arms. But this implied the concession of the

franchise. Be bold, he said. Make the Kingdom a Commonwealth and the

nation will be saved. He continued in these noteworthy words: "The enemy

is at the gates, and we must be friends or perish. Adversity is a school

of the sublime virtues. Necessity is an eloquent reconciler of

differences.... By saying to Britain--Be an armed nation, she secures

her defence and seals her freedom. A million of armed men, supporting

the State with their purse, and defending it with their lives, will know

that none have so great a stake as themselves in the Government....

Arming the people and reforming Parliament are inseparable."

 

At first sight this seems mere rhetoric, but on reflection it will

appear the path of prudence. By the talisman of trust in the people

France conjured up those armed hosts which overthrew old Europe. At the

stamp of Napoleon's heel a new Europe arose, wherein the most potent

defiance came from the peoples which drew upon their inmost reserves of

strength. That these consist in men, not in money, is clear from the

course of the struggle against the great Emperor. Spain, Russia, and

Prussia adopted truly national systems of defence, and quickly forged to

the front. Britain and Austria clung to their old systems, and, thanks

to Wellington's genius and Metternich's diplomacy, they survived. But

they did not play the decisive part which they might have done if

George III and Pitt, Francis II and Thugut, had early determined to

trust and arm their peoples. Unfortunately for England, she underwent no

military disaster; and therefore Pitt was fain to plod along in the old

paths and use the nation's wealth, not its manhood. He organized it

piecemeal, on a class basis, instead of embattling it as a whole. In the

main his failure to realize the possibilities of the situation arose

from his abandonment of those invigorating principles which nerved him

to the achievements of the earlier and better part of his career. It is

conceivable that, had he retained the idealism of his youth and

discovered a British Scharnhorst, Waterloo might have been fought in

1796 and won solely by British troops.

 

FOOTNOTES

 

[411] "Diary of a Tour through Great Britain in 1795," by W. MacRitchie

(1897).

 

[412] "Dropmore P.," ii, 172.

 

[413] In "H. O.," Geo. III (Domestic), 27, are Dundas's instructions to

Moira, dated 20th November 1793, appointing him Major-General in an

expedition to Guernsey, with Admiral MacBride, taking with him a Hessian

corps as soon as it arrives. He is to seize St. Malo or any place near

it suitable for helping the Royalists and harassing the enemy. If he

deems success doubtful, he is to await reinforcements. The aim is to

help the cause of Louis XVII and lead to a general pacification.

 

[414] "Malmesbury Diaries," iii, 96-8.

 

[415] Chevening MSS.

 

[416] Pretyman MSS.

 

[417] "Cornwallis Corresp.," ii, 289.

 

[418] "Life of Wilberforce," ii, 92.

 

[419] Sorel, v, 41; "Wickham Corresp.," i, 269-74, 343. Some

mis-statements of Sorel may be noted here. On pp. 39, 40 of vol. v he

states that Pitt was intent on acquiring Malta and Egypt (though he was

then in doubt whether to retain Corsica): also that, after the insult to

George III in London on 29th October 1795, Pitt proposed a loan of

£18,000,000 and new taxes, which Parliament refused. The facts are that

Pitt asked for that loan on 7th December 1796, and it was subscribed in

twenty-two hours. On the same day Parliament voted the new taxes.

 

CHAPTER XIII (DEARTH AND DISCONTENT)

 

    The Waste Land Bill will turn the tide of our affairs and enable

    us to bear without difficulty the increased burdens of the

    war.--SINCLAIR TO PITT, _13th March 1796_.

 

 

On 29th October 1795 occurred an event unparalleled within the memory of

Englishmen then living. An immense crowd, filling the Mall, broke into

loud hissing and hooting when George III left Buckingham House in the

state carriage to proceed to Westminster for the opening of Parliament.

The tumult reached its climax as the procession approached the Ordnance

Office, when a small pebble, or marble, or shot from an air-gun, pierced

the carriage window. The King immediately said to Westmorland, who sat

opposite, "That's a shot," and, with the courage of his family, coolly

leaned forward to examine the round hole in the glass. Similar scenes

occurred on his return to St. James's Palace. The mob pressed forward

with an eagerness which the Guards could scarcely restrain, calling out

"Peace, Peace; Bread, Bread; No Pitt; No Famine." With some difficulty

the gates of the Horse Guards were shut against them. Opposite Spring

Gardens a stone struck the woodwork of the carriage; and the intrepid

monarch alighted at St. James's amidst a commotion so wild that one of

the horses took fright and flung down a groom, breaking his thigh.

Thereafter the rabble set upon the state carriage, greatly damaging it;

and when George later on proceeded in his private carriage to Buckingham

House, he again ploughed his way through a din of curses. Pitt kept

discreetly in the background, or he would have been roughly handled.

 

A loyalist caricature of the period gives an imaginative version of the

incident. In it Pitt figures as the coachman whipping on the horses of

the royal carriage amidst a shower of stones, eggs, and cats. The King

sits inside absolutely passive, with large protruding eyes; Lansdowne,

Bedford, Whitbread, and others strive to stop the wheels; Fox and

Sheridan, armed with bludgeons, seek to force open the door; while

Norfolk fires a blunderbuss at the King. The sketch illustrates the

fierce partisanship of the time, which stooped to incredibly coarse

charges. But scarcely less strange was the insinuation of Lansdowne,

immediately after the affair, that Ministers had themselves planned it

in order to alarm the public and perpetuate their despotic rule. The

same insinuation found favour with Francis Place, a rabid tailor of

Holborn, and a prominent member of the London Corresponding Society, who

charged Pitt with imperilling the life of George III in order to keep

office. "It is a curious circumstance," he wrote, "that Pitt carried all

his obnoxious measures, silenced or kept down his opponents and raised

vast sums of money by means of the alarms which he and his coadjutors

had created. The war was commenced after an alarm had been created, and

it was kept up by the same means."[420] Fox and his followers often

uttered similar taunts.

 

The insults to the King were but the climax of an agitation which had

previously gone to strange lengths. On 27th October 1795 the London

Corresponding Society convened a monster meeting in the fields near

Copenhagen House, Islington, in order to protest against the war and to

press for annual Parliaments and universal suffrage. A crowd said to

number nearly 150,000 persons assembled under the chairmanship of John

Binns, and passed an "Address to the Nation," which concluded as

follows: "If ever the British nation should loudly demand strong and

decisive measures, we boldly answer, 'We have lives and are ready to

devote them either separately or collectively for the salvation of our

country.'" Outwardly the meeting was orderly, if that epithet can be

applied to a monster meeting which advocated civil war. But probably

less than one tenth of the assemblage heard the resolution. Equally

threatening was a hand-bill circulated in London on the practice of

"King-killing." Place says nothing about this, and ridicules the

"Address to the Nation" as a foolish production, which he had opposed no

less strongly than the convocation of the meeting. This was the usual

attitude of Place. He sought to figure as the apostle of reasonableness,

deprecating all unwise acts and frothy talk on the part of his

associates, but minimizing the follies of British democrats, which he

usually ascribed to the insidious advice of the emissaries of Pitt.

 

Let us enlarge our survey. From the Home Office Records it is clear that

dear food and uncertain work had aggravated the political discontent of

the years 1792-4, until the autumn of 1795 witnessed almost an epidemic

of sedition. To take one significant episode. An inflammatory placard,

dated Norwich, 16th October 1795, was widely circulated. That city, as

we have seen, was a hotbed of Radicalism. There it was that the

democratic clubs sought to federate with the view of forming a National

Convention. One of their members, named Besey, now posted up the

following placard. After stating that the prevailing misery is due to

the present unjust and unnecessary war, the number of abuses and

sinecures, and "the monopoly of farms which disgraces this country," it

continues thus: "The Minister would gladly instigate you to riot and

plunder that he might send against you those _valiant_ heroes who

compose his devoted Volunteer corps.... This would accelerate his

darling object of governing us by a military aristocracy. The countries

which supplied us with quantities of corn now groan under the iron yoke

of the Tigress of the North or lie desolate from this infernal war. We

send immense stores to the emigrants and the _Chouans_. Those rebels,

not satisfied with traitorously resisting the constituted authorities of

their country, have desolated the face of it. These honourable Allies

must be fed, as others of the kind are paid, by us." He then urges them

to form popular Societies and demand redress of grievances. He concludes

thus: "You may as well look for chastity and mercy in the Empress of

Russia, honour and consistency from the King of Prussia, wisdom and

plain dealing from the Emperor of Germany, as a single speck of virtue

from our HELL-BORN MINISTER."[421]

 

In view of these facts, is it surprising that Ministers decided to issue

a royal proclamation against seditious assemblies and the circulation of

treasonable papers? Sheriffs, magistrates, and all law-abiding men were

charged to apprehend those who distributed such papers and to help in

the suppression of seditious meetings (4th November). Six days later

Grenville introduced the Treasonable Practices Bill, while Pitt in the

Commons moved the Seditious Meetings Bill. The Prime Minister stated

that, as soon as the Habeas Corpus Act came again into operation, the

political clubs renewed their propaganda and brought about the present

dangerous situation. In order to suppress gatherings of a definitely

seditious character, he proposed that, before a meeting of more than

fifty persons which was not convened by the local authorities, notice

must be given by seven householders and sent to the magistrates. The

Bill also required the presence of a magistrate, and invested him with

power to stop any speech, disperse the meeting, and order the arrest of

the speaker. But this was not all. The authorities had been alarmed by

the popularity of Thelwall's racy discourses, resumed early in 1795,

which represented Government as the source of all the country's ills.

Whether his sprightly sallies were dangerous may be doubted; but Pitt,

with characteristic lack of humour, paid Thelwall the compliment of

ordaining that lecture-halls must be licensed by two magistrates; and a

magistrate might enter at any time. The Bill was passed for three years.

 

Equally drastic was the Treasonable Practices Bill. Declaring the

planning or levying war within the kingdom to