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

tidings from the Nile. At Naples the news aroused a delirium of joy, and

filled Queen Maria Carolina with a resolve to drive the French force

from the Roman States.

To Pitt also the news of Nelson's triumph brought intense relief. The

disappearance of Bonaparte's armada after the capture of Malta had

caused much concern. True, Naples, which was thought to be his

objective, was safe; but Ireland and Portugal were deemed in jeopardy.

No one at Whitehall anticipated the seizure of Malta and Egypt, still

less the emergence of plans for a French conquest of India. A tone of

anxiety pervades Pitt's letter of 22nd August to his mother: "The

account of Bonaparte's arrival at Alexandria is, I am afraid, true; but

it gives us no particulars, and leaves us in entire suspense as to

Nelson."[505] All the greater, then, was the relief on 2nd October, when

tidings of Aboukir at last arrived.

Further, there were signs of a Russo-French war. The romantic nature of

the Czar was fired by the hope of acquiring Malta. At Ancona, early in

1797, Bonaparte had intercepted a Russian envoy bearing offers of

alliance to the Knights of the Order of St. John; and their expulsion by

the French at Midsummer 1798 seemed to Paul a personal affront. Some of

the Knights proceeded to St. Petersburg and claimed his protection. The

affairs of the Order became his most cherished concern; and on 24th July

Sir Charles Whitworth, British ambassador at that Court, reported that

Russia would now become a principal in the war against France, her aim

being the re-establishment of peace on safe and honourable terms, but

not the restoration of the French monarchy, on which Catharine had

insisted. With this declaration the British and Austrian Cabinets were

in full accord; and thus at last there was a hope of framing a compact

Coalition. Fortunate was it that Bonaparte's seizure of Malta incensed

Paul against France; for, early in August, the Swiss thinker, Laharpe,

tutor of the future Czar Alexander I, brought tempting offers from

Paris, with a view to the partition of the Turkish Empire.[506] That

glittering prize was finally to captivate the fancy of Paul; but for the

present he spurned the offer as degrading.

Nevertheless, the news of Aboukir did not wholly please him. For, while

rejoicing at the discomfiture of the French atheists, he saw in Nelson's

victory a sign of England's appropriation of Malta. In truth, that

island now became the central knot of far-reaching complications.

Formerly the bulwark of Christendom against the infidels, it now

sundered European States.[507] So doubtful was the attitude of Paul and

Francis that Pitt, in October 1798, twice wrote despondingly as to any

definite decision on their part. All that was clear was their inordinate

appetite for subsidies. These he of course withheld, knowing full well

that neither would Paul tolerate for long the presence of the French at

Malta, nor Francis their occupation of Switzerland. In any case he

resolved not to give more than £2,000,000 to the two Empires for the

year 1799.[508] For the time his hope lay only in the exertions of

England, Europe being meantime "left to its fate." In order to humour

the Czar, who was about to become Grand Master of the Knights of St.

John, Grenville, on 23rd November, wrote to assure his Government that

England renounced all aims of conquest in the Adriatic, or of the

possession of Malta.

At the close of the year Pitt proudly displayed the inexhaustible

resources of Great Britain. His Budget speech of 3rd December 1798 marks

an epoch in economic history, alike for the boldness of the underlying

conception and the statesmanlike assessment of the national resources.

Well might Mallet du Pan declare that the speech surpassed all previous

efforts in its illuminating exposition of a nation's finance. As

appeared in our survey of the Budget of 1797, Pitt then sought to meet

the year's expenses within the year. To a generation accustomed to shift

present burdens on to its successors the proposal seemed Quixotic; and

Fox blamed him for not adopting this device. Pitt held to his plan, and

outlined a ten per cent. tax upon income. Having failed to gain the

requisite tenth by means of the Assessed Taxes, he proposed to raise it

by methods which even the shirkers could with difficulty circumvent.

In order to lay a first rough actuarial basis for his Income Tax, he

made a careful study of the nation's resources in the autumn of 1798.

The results he summarized in an interesting statement. There were

available at that time only rough estimates, even as to the area of

cultivated land and its average rental. Relying upon Davenant, King,

Adam Smith, Arthur Young, and Middleton, he estimated the area at

40,000,000 acres, and the average rental at 15_s._ an acre. He prudently

fixed the taxable value at 12_s._ 6_d._ an acre. The yearly produce of

mines, timber, and canal shares he assessed at £3,000,000. He reckoned

house rent at double that sum, and the earnings of the legal profession

at one half of it. Half a million he deemed well within the total of

doctors' fees. He assessed the incomes derived from the British West

Indies at £4,000,000, and those from the rest of the world at

£1,000,000, a highly suggestive estimate. Tithes were reckoned at

£4,000,000; annuities from the public funds at £12,000,000; the same sum

for profits derived from foreign commerce; and £28,000,000 for the

profits of internal trade, whether wholesale or retail. Fixing the

rental of land at £6,000,000, he computed the total national income as

£102,000,000, which should therefore yield not less than £10,000,000 a

year. He proposed to safeguard the collection by imposing an oath at the

declaration of income, and enjoining absolute secrecy on the Crown

commissioners. The new tax, beginning from April 1799, would take the

place of the Assessed Taxes. As will appear in a later chapter, the new

impost did not yield the amount which Pitt expected; but the failure was

probably due to defects in the methods of collection. Pitt further

proposed to set aside £1,200,000 for the Sinking Fund.

His purpose in making this prodigious effort was to inspirit other

nations to similar patriotic exertions. He pointed out with pride that

after nearly six years of war British exports and imports exceeded those

of any year of peace. Thus, far from declining in strength and prowess,

as croakers averred, England had never shone so transcendently in the

arts of peace and the exploits of war, a prodigality of power which

presaged the vindication of her own rights and of the liberties of

Europe.

What was the new Europe which Pitt sought to call to being? The question

is of deep interest, not only as a psychological study, but as revealing

glimpses of British policy in the years 1814-15. The old order having

been rudely shaken in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy,

Pitt sought to effect a compromise between the claims of tradition and

those of expediency. It being of paramount importance to safeguard

Europe against France, Pitt and Grenville insisted on the limitation of

that Power within its old boundaries, and the complete independence of

Switzerland and Holland. That of the Kingdom of Sardinia afterwards

figured in their stipulations. But one significant change now appears.

The restoration of Austrian rule at Brussels being impracticable, it was

suggested that the Belgic Provinces should go to the Prince of Orange

when restored to his rights at The Hague. In the desperate crisis of

1805, as we shall see, Pitt sought to allure Prussia by offering Belgium

to her; but that was a passing thought soon given up. The other solution

of the Netherlands Question finally prevailed, thanks to the efforts of

Pitt's pupil, Castlereagh, in 1814. The Foreign Office did not as yet

aim at the retention of the Cape of Good Hope and Ceylon as a set off to

British efforts for the Dutch and their acquisition of Belgium; but this

thought was already taking shape. The barrier against French aggressions

in the south-east was to be found in the reconstituted Kingdom of

Sardinia, the House of Savoy rendering in that quarter services similar

to the House of Orange in Flanders and Brabant. In other respects the

British Cabinet favoured Austria's plans of aggrandisement in Italy as

enhancing her power in a sphere which could not arouse the jealousy of

Prussia. The aims of Berlin not being known, except that the restoration

of the House of Orange was desired, Pitt and Grenville remained silent

on that topic.[509]

The question whether the peoples concerned would submit to this

under-girding of the European fabric did not trouble them. They saw only

the statics of territories; they had no conception of the dynamics of

nations. A future in which Nationality, triumphant in Italy and Germany,

would bring about a Balance of Power far more solid than any which their

flying buttresses could assure, was of course entirely hidden from them.

But they failed to read the signs of the times. The last despairing

efforts of the Poles, and the _levée en masse_ of the French people, now

systematized in the Conscription Law of 5th September 1798, did not open

their eyes to the future. For they were essentially men of the

Eighteenth Century; and herein lay the chief cause of their failure

against Revolutionary France. They dealt with lands as with blocks. She

infused new energy into peoples.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Meanwhile the return of Nelson to the Neapolitan coast intoxicated that

Court with joy. Queen Maria Carolina, ever the moving spirit at Naples,

now laid her plans for the expulsion of the French from Italy. Trusting

to her influence over her son-in-law, Francis II, and to a defensive

compact which the Courts of Vienna and Naples had framed on 20th May

1798, she sought to incite him to take the offensive. Her close

friendship with Lady Hamilton, wife of the British ambassador at Naples,

also enabled her to gain complete ascendancy over Nelson, who, with his

usual hatred of "the French villains," counselled open and immediate

war. For abetting this design, Sir William Hamilton received a sharp

rebuke from Downing Street. Francis II and Thugut were even more

annoyed. They repulsed the Neapolitan emissary who begged for help, and

roundly accused the Pitt Ministry of inciting Naples to war in order to

drag in Austria. Their anger was not appeased by the successes of the

Neapolitans near Rome, which the French evacuated on 29th November. The

counter-stroke soon fell. The French, rallying in force, pushed the

Bourbon columns southwards; and the early days of 1799 witnessed in

swift succession the surrender of Naples, the flight of its Court and

the Hamiltons to Palermo on Nelson's fleet, the foundation of the

Parthenopean Republic, and the liquefaction of the blood of St.

Januarius in sign of divine benediction on the new _régime_.[510]

Nevertheless, Nelson and the royal fugitives had set in motion forces

which elsewhere made for triumph. Paul, re-assured as to England's

desire to re-establish the Order of St. John at Malta, entered into an

alliance with her on 29th December 1798, whereby the two Powers agreed

to reduce France within her old boundaries, Russia furnishing to England

an army of 45,000 men, mainly with a view to the support of Prussia, on

condition of receiving £75,000 per month and three months' subsidies in

advance. She also promised to send 3,000 men to help in the siege of the

French garrison at Malta and others to assist England in the defence of

the Neapolitan lands. Austria, resentful towards Pitt and fearful of

Prussia's designs, still held back, though the events in Italy,

especially the dethronement of Charles Emmanuel IV of the House of Savoy

by the French should have spurred her to action. Probably she waited

until the needs of England and Russia should enable her to dictate her

terms. The cupidity of Thugut had been whetted by Pitt's speech as to

the wealth of England; and the efforts of Cobenzl at St. Petersburg led

Whitworth to sign a compact on terms so onerous to the British Treasury

as to draw on him a sharp disclaimer and reprimand from London.[511] So

matters dragged on far into the year 1799, when plans for the ensuing

campaign ought to have been matured.

Still more luckless were the dealings of the British Cabinet with

Prussia. In the hope of winning over Frederick William III, Grenville in

November 1798 despatched his brother Thomas on a mission to Berlin. His

journey thither was one of the longest and most eventful on record. At

Yarmouth he was detained by easterly gales; and when at last the packet

boat made the mouth of the Elbe it was wrecked. The passengers and crew

succeeded in making their way to shore over the pack-ice, Grenville

saving his papers, except the "full-power" needful for signing a treaty.

He reached Cuxhaven in great exhaustion; and arrived at Berlin on 17th

March, only to find that the French by