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

times in which to open a negotiation with triumphant France;

for she was certain to exact hard terms from a power whose credit and

whose prestige at sea had grievously suffered. Nevertheless, the

mistake, if mistake it was, is venial when compared with the

unstatesmanlike arrogance of the French Directors, who, when an

advantageous and brilliant peace was within their reach, chose to open

up a new cycle of war. Of late France had made use of the pretext that

she must gain her "natural frontiers"--the Rhine, the Alps, the

Pyrenees, and the Ocean--for the sake of security against the old

dynasties. By rejecting Pitt's overtures, her leaders now proclaimed

their resolve to dominate Italy and Germany and to secure supremacy at

sea. Their intrigues with British malcontents and the United Irishmen

also showed their determination to revolutionize our institutions. Thus

England was to be abased and insulted, while France lorded it over all

her neighbours and prepared to become mistress of the seas. The war

therefore ceased to be in any sense a war of principle, and became for

France a struggle for world-wide supremacy, for England a struggle for

national existence; and while democratic enthusiasm waned at Paris, the

old patriotic spirit revived everywhere in Great Britain. The newspapers

were full of appeals for unanimity; and on 20th November appeared the

first number of that bright and patriotic paper, the "Anti-Jacobin,"

under the editorship of Canning and Hookham Frere, which played no small

part in arousing national ardour. On the next day the French Directory

issued an appeal to France to bestir herself to overthrow the British

power, and to dictate peace at London.

 

There was need of unanimity; for while France was stamping out revolt,

and Great Britain felt increasingly the drag of Ireland, Pitt

encountered an antagonist of unsuspected strength. Over against his

diffuse and tentative policy stood that of Bonaparte, clear-cut, and for

the present everywhere victorious. While Pitt pursued that will o' the

wisp, a money-bought peace, the Corsican was bullying the Austrian

negotiators at Udine and Campo Formio. Finally his gasconnades carried

the day; and on 17th October Austria signed away her Netherlands to

France and her Milanese and Mantuan territories to the newly created

Cisalpine Republic. Bonaparte and the Emperor, however, agreed to

partition the unoffending Venetian State, the western half of which went

to the Cisalpines, the eastern half, along with Venice, Istria, and

Dalmatia, to the Hapsburgs. The Court of Vienna struggled hard to gain

the Ionian Islands; but on these, and on Malta, the young general had

set his heart as the natural stepping-stones to Egypt. At the close of

the year he returned to Paris in triumph, and was invited by the

Director, Barras, to go and conquer England.

 

Some such effort, either directly against London, or by a deadly

ricochet through Ireland, would have been made, had not Duncan, on 11th

October, crushed the Dutch off Camperdown, taking nine ships out of

fifteen. The consequences were far reaching. The Dutch navy was

paralysed; and without it the squadrons at Cherbourg and Brest were not

yet strong enough to attack our coasts, until the Toulon and Cadiz

fleets sailed northwards. Bonaparte, who was sent to survey the ports in

Flanders and the north of France, reported to the Directory on 23rd

February 1798 that there were fitting out at Brest only ten

sail-of-the-line, which moreover had no crews, and that the preparations

were everywhere so backward as to compel Government to postpone the

invasion until 1799. The wish was father to that thought. Already he had

laid his plans to seize Egypt, and now strongly advised the orientation

of French policy. A third possible course was the closing of all

continental ports against England, an adumbration of the Continental

System of 1806-13 for assuring the ruin of British commerce.

 

The news of Camperdown and Campo Formio added vigour to Pitt's appeal

for national union in his great speech of 10th November, in which he

gave proofs of the domineering spirit of the party now triumphant at

Paris. Very telling, also, was his taunt at the Whig press, "which knows

no other use of English liberty but servilely to retail and transcribe

French opinions." Sinclair, who had moved a hostile amendment, was so

impressed as to withdraw it; and thus at last the violence of the French

Jacobins conduced to harmony at Westminster.

 

Already there were signs that the struggle was one of financial

endurance. At the close of November 1797 Pitt appealed to the patriotism

of Britons to raise £25,500,000 for the estimated expenses of the next

year, in order to display the wealth and strength of the kingdom. He

therefore proposed to ask the Bank of England to advance £3,000,000 on

Exchequer bills; and he urged the propertied classes to submit to the

trebling of the Assessed Taxes on inhabited houses, windows, male

servants, horses, carriages, etc. The trebling of these imposts took the

House by surprise, and drew from Tierney, now, in the absence of Fox,

the leader of Opposition, the taunt that Pitt had to cringe to the Bank

for help. A few days later Pitt explained that the triple duty would

fall only upon those who already paid £3 or more on that score. If the

sum paid were less than £1 it would be halved. Those who paid £3 or more

would be charged at an increasing rate, until, when the sum paid

exceeded £50, the amount would be quadrupled. Nor was this all. By a

third Resolution he outlined the scheme of what was in part a

progressive Income Tax. Incomes under £60 were exempt; those between £60

and £65 paid at the rate of 2_d._ in the pound; and the proportion rose

until it reached 2_s._ in the pound for incomes of £200 or more.

 

Though Pitt pointed out the need of a patriotic rejoinder to the threats

of the French Government, the new Assessed Taxes aroused a furious

opposition. "The chief and almost only topic of conversation is the new

taxes," wrote Theresa Parker to Lady Stanley of Alderley. "How people

are to live if the Bill is passed I know not. I understand the

Opposition are much elated with the hope of the Bill's being passed, as

they consider Mr. Pitt infallibly ruined if it does, and that he must go

out."[468] The patriotism of London equalled that of the Foxites. City

men, forgetting that the present proposals were due to the shameless

evasions of the Assessed Taxes, raised a threatening din, some of them

declaring that Pitt would be assaulted if he came into the City. Several

supporters of Pitt, among them the Duke of Leeds, Sir William Pulteney

and Henry Thornton, opposed the new imposts, and the Opposition was

jubilantly furious. Sheridan, who returned to the fray, declared that

though the poor escaped these taxes they would starve; for the wealth

which employed them would be dried up. Hobhouse dubbed the Finance Bill

inquisitorial, degrading, and fatal to the virtues of truthfulness and

charity. Squires bemoaned the loss of horses and carriages and the hard

lot of their footmen. Arthur Young warned Pitt that if the taxes could

not be evaded, gentlemen must sell their estates and live in town. Bath,

he was assured, welcomed the new imposts because they would drive very

many families thither. He begged Pitt to reconsider his proposals, and,

instead of them, to tax "all places of public diversion, public dinners,

clubs, etc., not forgetting debating societies and Jacobin meetings";

for this would restrain "that violent emigration to towns, which the

measure dreadfully threatens."[469]

 

A sign of the hopes of the Opposition was the re-appearance of Fox.

Resuming his long vacant seat, he declared Pitt to be the author of the

country's ruin. For himself, he upheld the funding system, that is, the

plan of shelving the debt upon the future. The palm for abusiveness was,

however, carried off by Nicholls and Jekyll. The former taunted Pitt

with losing all his Allies and raising France to undreamt-of heights of

power, with failing to gain peace, with exhausting the credit and the

resources of England until now he had to requisition men's incomes. As

for Jekyll, he called the present proposals "a detestable measure of

extortion and rapacity." The debates dragged on, until, after a powerful

reply by Pitt in the small hours of 5th January 1798 the Finance Bill

passed the Commons by 196 to 71. The Lords showed a far better spirit.

Carrington declared that Pitt's proposals did not go far enough. Lord

Holland in a maiden speech pronounced them worse than the progressive

taxes of Robespierre. But Liverpool, Auckland, and Grenville supported

the measure, which passed on 9th January 1798 by 75 to 6.

 

For a time the Finance Bill injured Pitt's popularity in the City.

During the State procession on 19th December 1797, when the King, Queen,

and Ministers went to St. Paul's to render thanks for the naval triumphs

of that year, he was hooted by the mob; and on the return his carriage

had to be guarded by a squadron of horse. Nevertheless, it is now clear

that Pitt's proposals were both necessary and salutary. The predictions

of commercial ruin were soon refuted by the trade returns. Imports in

1798 showed an increase of £6,844,000 over those of 1797; exports, an

increase of £3,974,000. In part, doubtless, these gratifying results may

be ascribed to renewed security at sea, the bountiful harvest of 1798,

and the recent opening up of trade to Turkey and the Levant. But, under

a vicious fiscal system, trade would not have recovered from the severe

depression of 1797. Amidst all the troubles of the Irish Rebellion of

1798, Pitt derived comfort from the signs of returning prosperity.

 

The confidence which he inspired was proved by the success of a

remarkable experiment, the Patriotic Contribution. In the midst of the

acrid debates on the Finance Bill, the Speaker, Addington, tactfully

suggested the insertion of a clause enabling the Bank of England to

receive voluntary gifts, amounting to one-fifth of the income. Pitt

gratefully adopted the proposal, and early in the year 1798 patriots

began to send in large sums. Pitt, Addington, Dundas, the Lord

Chancellor, and Lords Kenyon and Romney at once gave £2,000 each; the

King graciously allotted from the Privy Purse £20,000 a year during the

war. The generous impulse speedily prevailed, and the City once more

showed its patriotism by subscribing £10,000; the Bank gave £200,000. A

platform was erected near the Royal Exchange for the receipt of

contributions. Among others, a wealthy calico printer, Robert Peel,

father of the statesman, felt the call of duty to give £10,000. He went

back to Bury (Lancashire) in some anxiety to inform his partner, Yates,

of this unbusinesslike conduct, whereupon the latter remarked, "You

might as well have made it £20,000 while you were about it." If all

Britons had acted in this spirit, the new taxes would have met the needs

of the war. But, as will subsequently appear, they failed to balance the

ever growing expenditure, and Pitt in 1799-1800 had to raise loans on

the security of the Income Tax to make up its deficiencies.

 

A pleasing proof of the restoration of friendship between Auckland and

Pitt appears in a letter in which the former asked advice as to the

amount which he should give to this fund. He was now Postmaster-General,

and stated that his total gross income was £3,600, out of which the new

taxes took £320. Should he give £1,000? And what should he give for his

brother, Morton Eden, ambassador at Vienna? Pitt answered that £700

should be the utmost for him; the sum of £500 for Morton would also be

generous.[470] On the whole, £2,300,000 was subscribed--a sum which

contrasts remarkably with the driblets that came in as a response to

Necker's appeal in the autumn of 1789 for a patriotic contribution of

one fourth of the incomes of Frenchmen.

 

Even so, Pitt had to impose new taxes in his Budget of 1798, and to

raise a loan of £3,000,000. Further, on 2nd April, he proposed a

commutation of the Land Tax. Of late it had been voted annually at the

rate of 4_s._ in the pound, and produced about £2,000,000. Pitt now

proposed to make it a perpetual charge upon parishes, but to enable

owners to redeem their land from the tax at the existing valuation. The

sums accruing from these sales were to go to the reduction of the

National Debt. His aim, that of enhancing credit, was as praiseworthy as

his procedure was defective. For there had been no valuation of the land

for many years, and the assessments varied in the most surprising manner

even in neighbouring districts. Doubtless it was impossible during the

Great War to carry out the expensive and lengthy process of a national

valuation; but, as manufactures and mining were creating a new

Industrial England, the time was most unsuited to the imposition of a

fixed quota of Land Tax.

 

Nevertheless, Pitt took as basis