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

treason, it imposed dire penalties on those who devised evil against the

King, who sought to coerce Parliament or help the invaders. Even those

who spoke or wrote against the constitution came under the penalties for

treason and might be transported for seven years. As Fox indignantly

exclaimed, if he criticized a system which allotted two members to Old

Sarum and none to Manchester, he might be sent to Botany Bay. The alarm

of Pitt at the state of affairs appears in a request which he and

Portland sent to the Duke of York, on 14th November, for reinforcements

of cavalry. They asked him to despatch three troops of the 1st Dragoon

Guards from Romford to Hackney, replacing the Pembroke Fencible Cavalry,

which was utterly useless; to order up two troops of the Cornish

Fencible Cavalry from Barnet to Hampstead and Highgate; to despatch the

11th Light Dragoons from Guildford to Ewell or Kingston, and the 1st

Fencibles from Reading to Uxbridge. These, along with the Lancashire

Militia at Lewisham and Greenwich, and the Guards in London, would

suffice for the crisis.[422]

Such were the conditions under which the debates on the two Bills

proceeded. They turned largely on the connection between the Islington

meeting and the outrage on the King. Canning stoutly affirmed that

connection, which Sheridan and Fox no less vehemently denied.

Wilberforce on this occasion supported the Government. Pitt showed

little zeal in defending his Bill, promising to safeguard the right of

public meeting when lawfully exercised. The debate in the Lords elicited

from the Bishop of Rochester the significant statement that he did not

know what the great mass of the people had to do with the laws except to

obey them. The Earl of Lauderdale pilloried this utterance, thereby

consoling himself for being in a minority of 5. In the Commons Fox

mustered 22, as against 167 for the Government (6th November-14th

December 1795). Meanwhile monster meetings of protest were held on 12th

November and 2nd and 7th December, the two last in Marylebone Fields,

which now form the greater portion of Regent's Park. The orderliness of

these vast throngs, comprising perhaps a quarter of a million of men,

affords a strong argument against the two Acts. Lord Malmesbury much

regretted that there was no rioting, now that all was ready for its

repression. After the passing of those "barbarous bloodthirsty" measures

(as Place called them) the country settled down into a sullen silence.

Reformers limited their assemblies to forty-five members; but even so

they did not escape the close meshes of the law. Binns and Jones,

delegates of the London Corresponding Society who went to Birmingham,

were arrested there; and the Society soon gave up its propaganda. All

but the most resolute members fell away, and by the end of 1796 it was

£185 in debt.[423]

Undoubtedly these measures mark the nadir of Pitt's political career.

Nevertheless, the coincidence between the London Corresponding Society's

meeting at Islington and the attempted outrage on George III was

suspiciously close in point of time; and a dangerous feeling prevailed

throughout the country. Pitt, as we shall see, took steps to alleviate

the distress which was its chief cause; but after the insult to the King

he could not but take precautionary measures against sedition. After

such an incident, a Minister who did nothing at all would be held

responsible if the monarch were assassinated. Some coercive measures

were inevitable; and it is clear that they cowed the more restive

spirits. Among other persons who wrote to Pitt on this topic, Wilson,

formerly his tutor at Burton Pynsent and Cambridge, sent him a letter

from Binfield, in which occur these sentences: "The Sedition Bills also

have had so good an effect. Our farmers can now go to market without

being exposed to the danger of having republican principles instilled

into them while they are dining." Apparently, then, the loyal efforts of

Berkshire magistrates extended to the interiors of inns. Whether the two

Acts were not needlessly prolonged is open to grave question. Certainly,

while driving the discontent underground, they increased its explosive

force. General David Dundas, in his Report on National Defence of

November 1796, states that at no time were there so many people disposed

to help the invaders. Perhaps we may sum up by declaring the two Acts a

disagreeable but necessary expedient during the time of alarm, and

mischievous when it passed away.[424]

The insult to the King was but one symptom of a distemper widely

prevalent. Its causes were manifold. Chief among them was a feeling of

disgust at the many failures of the war. The defection of Prussia and

Spain, the fruitless waste of British troops in the West Indies, the

insane follies of the French _émigrés_, the ghastly scenes at Quiberon,

and the tragi-comedy of Vendémiaire in the streets of Paris, sufficed to

daunt the stoutest hearts. By the middle of the month of October 1795,

Pitt decided to come to terms with France, if the Directory, newly

installed in power, should found a stable Government and exhibit

peaceful tendencies. His position in this autumn is pathetic. Reproached

by the _émigrés_ for recalling the Comte d'Artois from Yeu, taunted by

Fox for not having sought peace from the Terrorists, and reviled by the

populace as the cause of the dearth, he held firmly on his way, shelving

the _émigrés_, maintaining that this was the first opportunity of

gaining a lasting peace, and adjuring the people to behave manfully in

order the more speedily to win it.

This advice seemed but cold comfort to men and women whose hardships

were severe. Political discontent was greatly increased by dear food and

uncertainty of employment. The symptoms had long been threatening. At

midsummer of the year 1795 the men of Birmingham assembled in hundreds

opposite a mill and bakehouse on Snow Hill, crying out: "A large loaf.

Are we to be starved to death?" They were dispersed by armed force, but

not without bloodshed. At that time insubordination in the troops was

met by summary executions or repression at Horsham, Brighton, and

Dumfries. In July a drunken brawl at Charing Cross led to a riot, in the

course of which the mob smashed Pitt's windows in Downing Street, and

demolished a recruiting station in St. George's Fields, Lambeth. The

country districts were deeply agitated by the shortage of corn resulting

from the bad harvest of 1794. A report from Beaminster in Dorset stated

that for six weeks before the harvest of 1795 no wheat remained; and the

poor of that county would have starved, had not a sum of money been

raised sufficient to buy cargoes of wheat which then reached Plymouth.

The suffering was increased by the extraordinary cold of that midsummer

which destroyed hundreds of newly-shorn sheep and blighted the corn.

Driving storms of rain in August laid the crops. On heavy land they were

utterly spoilt, so that even by October the poor felt the pinch. From

all parts there came the gloomiest reports. In Oxfordshire there was no

old wheat left, and the insatiable demands from the large towns of the

north sent up prices alarmingly. In November Lord Bateman wrote from

Leominster that the wheat crop was but two thirds of the average, and,

if Government did not import wheat directly, not through fraudulent

contractors, riots must ensue. Reports from Petworth, East Grinstead,

and Battle told of the havoc wrought by blight and rains. At Plymouth

the price of wheat exceeded all records. Lord Salisbury reported a

shortage of one third in the wheat crop of mid-Hertfordshire. Kensington

sent a better estimate for its corn lands. But the magistrates of

Enfield and Edmonton deemed the outlook so threatening that they urged

Pitt and his colleagues (1) to encourage the free importation of wheat,

(2) to facilitate the enclosure of all common fields and the conversion

of common and waste lands into tillage; (3) to pass an Act legalizing

relief of the poor in every parish by the weekly distribution of bread

and meat at reduced prices in proportion to the size of the family and

of its earnings.[425]

The protests against the Corn Laws are significant. In 1773 the bounty

system of the reign of William III was revised, the average price of

wheat being reckoned at forty-four shillings the quarter. If it fell

below that figure, a bounty of five shillings a quarter was granted on

export, so as to encourage farmers to give a wide acreage to wheat, in

the assurance that in bountiful seasons they could profitably dispose of

their surplus. But when the price rose to forty-four shillings

exportation was forbidden, and at forty-eight shillings foreign corn was

admitted on easy terms so as to safeguard the consumer; for, as Burke

said: "he who separates the interest of the consumer from the interest

of the grower starves the country." Unfortunately, in 1791, Government

raised the price at which importation was allowed to fifty-four

shillings the quarter. The upward trend of prices may have called for

some change; but it was too drastic. In view of the increase of the

manufacturing townships, Pitt should have favoured the import of foreign

corn, though not in such a way as unduly to discourage agriculturists.

England, in fact, was then reaching the stage at which she needed

foreign corn when nature withheld her bounties at home, and it is well

to remember that 1792 was the last year in which England exported any

appreciable amount of wheat. During the Great War she became an

importing country, and at no time was the crisis worse than in the

winter of 1795-6. Early in the year 1796 the best wheat sold at six

guineas the quarter, or four times its present price; the inferior kinds

were very dear, and many poor people perished from want if not from

actual starvation. So grave was the crisis as to evoke a widespread

demand for Free Trade in corn. This feeling pervaded even the rural

districts, a report by John Shepherd of Faversham being specially

significant. In the towns there was an outcry against corn merchants,

who were guilty of forestalling and regrating. Possibly but for these

tricks of trade the supply of home wheat might almost have sufficed.

Pitt seems to have thought so; for he wrote to the Marquis of Stafford,

stating his desire to have powers for compelling exhaustive returns of

the wheat supply to be sent in. On the whole, however, he deemed such an

expedient high-handed and likely to cause alarm. He therefore decided to

call for a special committee to inquire into the high price of corn, and

explained his reasons to the House of Commons on 3rd November 1795. He

urged the need of modifying the old and nearly obsolete law relating to

the assize of bread, and he suggested the advisability of mixing wheat

with barley, or other corn, which, while lessening the price of bread,

would not render it unpalatable. As to prohibiting the distillation of

whiskey, he proposed to discontinue that device after February 1796, so

that the revenue might not unduly suffer. The committee was equally

cautious. In presenting its report eight days later, Ryder moved that

the members should pledge themselves to lessen the consumption of wheat

in their households by one third. These proposals appeared wholly

inadequate to Bankes and Sheridan, who urged that all classes should be

compelled to eat the same kind of bread. Francis, however, asserted that

the poor in his district now refused to eat any but the best wheaten

bread. There was therefore every need for a law compelling bakers to

make bread only two thirds of wheat. Nevertheless, the House agreed to

the proposals of the committee. Members also bound themselves to

forswear pastry, and by all possible means to endeavour to lessen the

consumption of fine wheaten flour. History does not record how far these

resolves held good, and with what hygienic results. An external sign of

the patriotic mania for economy in wheat was the disuse of hair-powder,

which resulted from the tax now imposed on that article. Thus Rousseau,

Pitt, and Nature are largely responsible for a change which in its turn

hastened the disappearance of wigs.

Pitt and his colleagues sought to check the practice of forestalling.

But, as usually happens in a struggle with human selfishness, success

was doubtful. More fruitful was the expedient of attracting foreign corn

by granting large bounties on imports. As if this were not enough,

British warships sometimes compelled neutral corn-vessels, bound for

France, to put in at our harbours and sell their cargoes at the high

prices then prevailing, a high-handed practice which prepared the way

for the Armed Neutrality League of 1800. These exceptional expedients

seem to have been due to what Sheffield called "a sure little

junto,"--Pitt, Ryder, and Jenkinson. He further accused them of taking

the corn trade out of the hands of the merchants and then dropping State

management prematurely. Over against this captious comment may be placed

the undoubted fact that, early in the year 1796, wheat