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

the dawn of a more resolute

patriotism. Though the methods were varied, the soul of them all was

Pitt.[475]

 

The tone of public opinion astonished that experienced writer, Mallet du

Pan, who, on coming from the Continent to England, described the change

of spirit as astounding. There the monarchical States, utterly devoid of

dignity and patriotism, were squabbling over the details of a shameful

peace. "Here," he writes in May 1798, "we are in the full tide of war,

crushed by taxation, and exposed to the fury of the most desperate of

enemies, but nevertheless security, abundance, and energy reign supreme,

alike in cottage and palace. I have not met with a single instance of

nervousness or apprehension. The spectacle presented by public opinion

has far surpassed my expectation. The nation had not yet learnt to know

its own strength or its resources. The Government has taught it the

secret, and inspired it with an unbounded confidence almost amounting to

presumption." No more striking tribute has been paid by a foreigner to

the dauntless spirit of Britons. Rarely have they begun a war well; for

the careless ways of the race tell against the methodical preparation to

which continental States must perforce submit. England, therefore,

always loses in the first rounds of a fight. But, if she finds a good

leader, she slowly and wastefully repairs the early losses. In September

1797 the French Directory made the unpardonable mistake of compelling

her to prepare for a war to the knife. Thenceforth the hesitations of

Pitt, which had weakened his war policy in 1795-6, vanished; and he now

stood forth as the inspirer of his countrymen in a contest on behalf of

their national existence and the future independence of Europe.

 

FOOTNOTES

 

[462] "Malmesbury Diaries," iii, 259-368; "Dropmore P.," iii, 239-42,

256, 287, 290.

 

[463] Pitt MSS., 102. See Stanhope, iii, App., for the letters of the

King and Pitt; "Dropmore P.," iii, 310 _et seq._; also C. Ballot, "Les

Négociations de Lille," for an excellent account of these overtures and

the European situation.

 

[464] See Pitt's letter of 16th June to the King and new letters of

Grenville in "Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies"; "Windham's Diary," 368;

Ballot, _op. cit._, ch. v and App.; Luckwaldt (_vice_ Huffer)

"Quellen," pt ii, 153, 161, 176, 183.

 

[465] On 1st August 1797 Wilberforce wrote to Pitt a letter (the last

part of which is quoted in Chapter XX of my former volume) urging him,

even if the negotiation failed, to declare on what terms he would resume

In Mr. Broadley's library is a letter of Lord Shelburne to

Vergennes, dated 13th November 1782, which makes it clear that Pitt in

1782-3 was wholly against the surrender or the exchange of Gibraltar.

 

[466] Ballot, _op. cit._, 302, who corrects Thiers, Sorel, and Sciout on

several points.

 

[467] "Dropmore P.," iii, 377, 380-2; "Malmesbury Diaries," iii, 590.

 

[468] "Parl. Hist.," xxxiii, 1076; "The Early Married Life of Lady

Stanley," 149.

 

[469] Pitt MSS., 193. Mr. Abbott, afterwards Lord Colchester, differed

from his patron, the Duke of Leeds, on this question. See "Lord

Colchester's Diaries," i, 124-31.

 

[470] B.M. Add. MSS., 34454.

 

[471] "Parl. Hist.," xxxiii, 1434-54, 1481; "Mems. of Sir John

Sinclair," i, 310, 311.

 

[472] Addington's description (Pellew, "Sidmouth," i, 206) fixes the

spot. Mr. A. Hawkes, in an article in the "Wimbledon Annual" for 1904,

places it in front of the house called "Scio," but it must be the deeper

hollow towards Kingston Vale. Caricatures of the time wrongly place the

duel on the high ground near the windmill. A wag chalked on Abershaw's

gibbet a figure of the two duellers, Tierney saying: "As well fire at

the devil's darning-needle."

 

[473] Pretyman MSS.; "Dropmore P.," iv, 222.

 

[474] The hero is probably Robert Adair, the Whig "envoy" to St.

Petersburg in 1791,

 

                 "the youth whose daring soul

    With _half a mission_ sought the frozen pole."

 

Pitt's authorship of the lines quoted above is denied by Mr. Lloyd

Sanders in his Introduction to the "Anti-Jacobin" (Methuen, 1904); but

his arguments are not conclusive. Lines 370-80 of "New Morality" are

also said to be by Pitt.

 

[475] In "Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies" I shall describe Pitt's work

in the national defence. See an excellent account of the popular

literature of the time in "Napoleon and the Invasion of England," by H.

B. Wheeler and A. M. Broadley, i, ch. vii.

 

CHAPTER XVI (THE IRISH REBELLION)

 

    The dark destiny of Ireland, as usual, triumphed.--T. MOORE,

    _Mems. of Lord Edward Fitzgerald_.

 

 

Various orders of minds ascribe the Irish Rebellion of 1798 to widely

different causes. The ethnologist sees in it the incompatibility of Celt

and Saxon. To the geographer it may yield proofs of Nature's design to

make Ireland a nation. If approached from the religious standpoint, it

will be set down either to Jesuits or to the great schism of Luther. The

historian or jurist may trace its origins back to the long series of

wrongs inflicted by a dominant on a subject race. Fanatical Irishmen see

in it a natural result of the rule of "the base and bloody Saxon"; and

Whig historians ascribe it to Pitt's unworthy treatment of that most

enlightened of Lords-Lieutenant, Earl Fitzwilliam. Passing by the

remoter causes, I must very briefly notice the last topic.

 

The appointment of the Whig magnate, Fitzwilliam, to the Irish

Viceroyalty in 1794 resulted from the recent accession of the "Old

Whigs," led by the Duke of Portland, to the ministerial ranks. That

union, as we have seen, was a fertile cause of friction. Fitzwilliam was

at first President of the Council; but that post did not satisfy the

nephew and heir of the Marquis of Rockingham. He aspired to the

Viceroyalty at Dublin; and Portland, who, as Home Secretary, supervised

Irish affairs, claimed it for him. Pitt consented, provided that a

suitable appointment could be arranged for the present Viceroy, the Earl

of Westmorland. This was far from easy. Ultimately the position of

Master of the Horse was found for him; but, long before this decision

was formed, Fitzwilliam wrote to the Irish patriot, Grattan, asking him

and his friends, the Ponsonbys, for their support during his

Viceroyalty. This move implied a complete change of system at Dublin,

Grattan and the Ponsonbys having declared for the admission of Roman

Catholics to the then exclusively Protestant Parliament. True, this

reform seemed a natural sequel to Pitt's action in according to British

Catholics the right of public worship and of the construction of schools

(1791). Further, in 1792, he urged Westmorland to favour the repeal of

the remaining penal laws against Irish Catholics; but the Dublin

Parliament decisively rejected the proposal. Nevertheless, in 1793 he

induced Westmorland to support the extension of the franchise to

Romanists, a measure which seemed to foreshadow their admission to

Parliament itself. There is little doubt that Pitt, who then expected

the war to be short, intended to set the crown to this emancipating

policy; for even in the dark times that followed he uttered not a word

which implied permanent hostility to the claims of Catholics. His

attitude was that of one who awaited a fit opportunity for satisfying

them.

 

Unfortunately, the overtures of Fitzwilliam to Grattan and the Ponsonbys

became known at Dublin, with results most humiliating for Westmorland.

The exultation of the Ponsonbys and the Opposition aroused the hopes of

Catholics and the resentment of the more extreme Protestants. Chief

among the champions of the existing order was the Irish Lord Chancellor,

Baron Fitzgibbon, afterwards Earl of Clare. A man of keen intellect and

indomitable will, he swayed the House of Lords, the Irish Bar, and the

Viceregal councils. It was he who had urged severe measures against the

new and powerful organization, the United Irishmen, started in Ulster by

Wolfe Tone, which aimed at banding together men of both religions in a

solid national phalanx. Scarcely less influential than Fitzgibbon was

Beresford, the chief of the Revenue Department, whose family connections

and control of patronage were so extensive as to earn him the name of

the King of Ireland. Like Fitzgibbon he bitterly opposed any further

concession to Catholics; and it was therefore believed that the

dismissal of these two men was a needful preliminary to the passing of

that important measure. Rumours of sweeping changes began to fly about,

especially when Grattan came to London, and had interviews with the Lord

Chancellor. The frequent shifts whereby the Scottish Presbyterian,

Wedderburn, became the reactionary Lord Loughborough were notorious; and

it is one of the suspicious features of the Fitzwilliam affair that he,

now Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, should urge Pitt to treat

Fitzwilliam with the confidence due to his prospective dignity. The

Attorney-General, Sir Richard Pepper Arden, sent to Pitt the following

caution:

 

                                           _September 1794._[476]

 

    ... My wife says she dined the other day with Grattan at the

    Chancellor's. I am sadly afraid that preferment in Ireland will

    run too much in favour of those who have not been the most

    staunch friends of Government; but, pray, for God's sake, take

    care that the new Lord Lieutenant does not throw the Government

    back into the hands of Lord Shannon and the Ponsonbys, nor turn

    out those who behaved well during the King's illness to make way

    for those who behaved directly the reverse. Excuse my anxiety on

    this head but I fear there is good reason for it.

 

Arden was correctly informed. Now or a little later, Fitzwilliam formed

the resolve to dismiss Fitzgibbon and Beresford. On the other hand, the

lowering outlook in Holland in the autumn of 1794 induced in Pitt the

conviction that the time had not yet come for sweeping changes at

Dublin. Accordingly, late in October, or early in November, he and

Grenville thoroughly discussed this subject with the newly appointed

Ministers, Portland, Fitzwilliam, Spencer, and Windham. Grenville's

account of this conference, which has but recently seen the light,

refutes the oft repeated statement,[477] that Pitt accorded to

Fitzwilliam a free hand at Dublin. On the contrary, it was agreed,

apparently with the full consent of the Viceroy-elect, that he should

make no change of system.[478] Fully consonant with this decision was

the reply of Pitt to Sir John Parnell, Grattan, and the two Ponsonbys,

who in the third week of November 1794 begged him to lower the duties on

inter-insular imports. While expressing his complete sympathy with their

request, he declared the present critical time to be inopportune for a

change which must arouse clamour and prejudice.[479] The conduct of

Fitzwilliam was far different. Landing near Dublin on 4th January 1795,

he on the 7th sent Daly to request Beresford to retire from office.

Beresford refused, and sent off an appeal to his old friend, Auckland,

with the result that the Cabinet soon met to consider the questions

aroused by this and other curt dismissals. It being clear that

Fitzwilliam was working with the Ponsonbys for a complete change of

system, he was asked to modify his conduct. He refused to do so.

 

The King now intervened in an unusually incisive manner. He informed

Pitt that it would be better to recall Fitzwilliam than to allow further

concessions to Catholics, a subject which was "beyond the decision of

any Cabinet of Ministers." Accordingly, Fitzwilliam was recalled, his

departure from Dublin arousing a storm of indignation which bade fair to

overwhelm the Administration of his successor, Earl Camden.

 

Such is a brief outline of the Fitzwilliam