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

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

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