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

back Addington climbed to power,

forthwith received a direct intimation to withdraw. The Lord Chancellor

therefore closed his career, the King bestowing on him for his services

to religion the title Earl of Rosslyn. To finish with him, we may note

that his settlement near Windsor and his assiduous courting of the royal

favour finally secured an epitaph quite as piquant as any which George

bestowed. On hearing of Rosslyn's sudden death early in 1805, the King

earnestly asked the messenger whether the news was trustworthy; and, on

receiving a reassuring reply, he said: "Then, he has not left a greater

knave behind him in my dominions." The comment of Thurlow on this

gracious remark is equally notable: "Then I presume that His Majesty is

quite sane at present."

 

One of Pitt's friendships was severed by the crisis. As we have seen, he

deeply resented the part played by Auckland. To his letter of

remonstrance he replied very briefly that, widely as they differed on

the topic at issue, they differed quite as much as to the question on

which side there had been a failure of friendship, confidence, or

attention. The rupture became complete on 20th March, when Auckland

declared in the Lords that Pitt's resignation was involved in mystery

which the eye could not penetrate. The insinuation wounded Pitt deeply;

and his intercourse with Auckland entirely ceased. Pitt was not exacting

in his social intercourse; but no man of high feeling can endure secret

opposition, followed by a veiled insinuation that what he has done from

high principle resulted from motives that cannot bear the light. This is

an unpardonable sin that ends friendship.

 

                  *       *       *       *       *

 

With all his outward composure, Pitt must have felt deep distress at his

failure to complete the Union by the act of grace which he had in

contemplation. The time was ripe, indeed overripe, for a generous

experiment, whereby seven tenths of the Irish people would have gained

religious equality. If the populace of Dublin hailed with joy the St.

Patrick's cross on the new Union Jack,[605] we may be sure that

Irishmen, irrespective of creed, would have joined heart and soul in the

larger national unity which it typified. It is probable that Pitt, when

granting the franchise to Irish Catholics in 1793, resolved to make the

other concessions at an early date. But the cause of Catholic

Emancipation having been prejudiced by the unwise haste of Fitzwilliam

in 1795, and by raids and revolts soon after, the time of the Union was

the first which he could seize with any chance of success; and he hoped

to vitalize that Union by an act which would then have been hailed as a

boon. Such acts of grace are all too rare in the frigid annals of

British Parliaments. The Anglo-Saxon race builds its political fabric

too exclusively on material interests; and the whole structure is the

uglier and weaker for this calculating hardness. At the time of the

Union with Scotland, the counsellors of Queen Anne utterly failed to

touch the hearts of the Scots; and it was left to commerce sluggishly

and partially to mingle the two peoples. In contrast with this dullness,

how inspiring are the annals of France in the early and best days of the

Revolution. Then the separatist Provincial System vanished as a miasma;

and amidst the eager hopes and class renunciations of that golden day

the French people found a unity such as legislators alone can neither

make nor unmake. With the insight of a statesman Pitt now sought to

clinch legislation by sentiment. He desired to vivify the Union with

Ireland by a concession which would come with all the more graciousness

because he had not introduced it into the legal contract of marriage.

But the outcome of it all was, for himself resignation, for the two

peoples the continuance of their age-long feud.

 

FOOTNOTES

 

[572] "Dropmore P.," iv, 337.

 

[573] "Dropmore P.," v, 82; "Malmesbury Diaries," ii, 507. Sir John

Macpherson called Loughborough by far the cleverest man in the country

("Glenbervie Journals," 54).

 

[574] Campbell, viii, 172; G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 300.

 

[575] "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 21; "Auckland Journals," iv, 114-25.

 

[576] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iv 8-12.

 

[577] _Ibid._, iii, 418; iv, 13, 17-20.

 

[578] Pellew, i, _ad fin._ The original is in "H. O.," Ireland

(Corresp.), 99, together with nine others for or against Catholic

Emancipation, some with notes by Castlereagh.

 

[579] The first Imperial Parliament met on 22nd January; but time was

taken up in swearing in members and choosing a Speaker. Addington was

chosen. The King's Speech was fixed for 2nd February.

 

[580] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iv, 17-20; G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 303.

 

[581] _Ibid._, iv, 81.

 

[582] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 309; Pellew, i, 287. Addington afterwards

destroyed those letters of the King to him which he considered

unsuitable for publication.

 

[583] Grenville agreed with Pitt's letter to the King, but doubted the

possibility of precluding discussion on the question, as it was already

in the papers. He assured Pitt that he would act closely with him

(Grenville to Pitt, 1st February 1801; Pretyman MSS.). Pitt afterwards

declared that his resignation was largely due to the manner in which the

King opposed him.

 

[584] "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 224.

 

[585] Pitt MSS., 122.

 

[586] Pretyman MSS.

 

[587] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iv, 8-12. Both Grenville and Windham

declared in Parliament in May 1805 that hopes were held out to the Irish

Catholics, and that their support of the Union was the result (Hansard,

iv, 659, 1022).

 

[588] "H. O.," Ireland (Corresp.), 99.

 

[589] Hansard, iv, 1015.

 

[590] Pretyman MSS.

 

[591] Pretyman MSS.

 

[592] In "H. O.," Ireland (Corresp.), 99, are long reports of the Irish

Catholic bishops, dated November 1800, on the state of their dioceses.

The bishops' incomes did not average more than £300 a year. The

Archbishops of Dublin and Tuam reckoned the total number of parish

priests and curates at 1,800, of whom 1,400 were seculars and 400

regulars. The benefices numbered 1,200; each required the services of

two priests. The destruction of the seminaries in France and the poverty

of the Irish made it impossible to supply or support 2,400 clergy. Other

papers follow for and against Catholic Emancipation. See also

"Castlereagh Corresp.," iii, _ad fin._

 

[593] "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 3, 8, 9, 14.

 

[594] "Dropmore P.," vi, 445. Mulgrave, who knew Pitt well, was

convinced of his sincerity in resigning. His letter of 9th February 1801

(quoted by R. Plumer Ward, "Memoirs," i, 44) refutes the insinuations of

Sorel (vi, 101) that Pitt resigned because he could not make peace with

France.

 

[595] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iii, 285.

 

[596] "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 286.

 

[597] Pretyman MSS.

 

[598] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 313, 330; "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i,

244.

 

[599] "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 31, 32.

 

[600] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 360; Stanhope, iii, 304, 305.

 

[601] "Cornwallis Corresp.," iii, 343-9.

 

[602] _Ibid._, iii, 346; "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 243. The writer

in the "Edinburgh Review" for 1858, who censured Pitt, failed to notice

the entire change in the political situation brought about by the King's

acute malady.

 

[603] Pretyman MSS.

 

[604] Bagot, "Canning and his Friends," i, 180.

 

[605] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iv, 14.

 

CHAPTER XXI (PITT AND HIS FRIENDS (1794-1805))

 

    Nothing could be more playful, and at the same time more

    instructive, than Pitt's conversation on a variety of topics

    while sitting in the library at Cirencester. You never would

    have guessed that the man before you was Prime Minister of the

    country, and one of the greatest that ever filled that

    situation. His style and manner were quite those of an

    accomplished idler.--"Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 34.

 

 

The conflict of parties and interests is apt to thin the circle of a

statesman's friends; and in that age of relentless strife the denuding

forces worked havoc. Only he who possesses truly lovable qualities can

pass through such a time with comparatively little loss; and such was

the lot of Pitt. True, his circle was somewhat diminished. The

opposition of Bankes had been at times so sharp as to lessen their

intimacy; and the reputation of Steele had suffered seriously from

financial irregularities.[606] Pitt's affection for Dundas and Grenville

had also cooled; but on the whole his friendships stood the test of time

better, perhaps, than those of any statesman of the eighteenth century.

Certainly in this respect he compares favourably with his awe-inspiring

father. Not that Pitt possessed the charm of affability. On most persons

his austere self-concentration produced a repellent effect; and it must

be confessed that the Grenville strain in his nature dowered him with a

fund of more than ordinary English coldness. Such was the opinion not

only of the French _émigrés_, whom he designedly kept at arm's length,

but even of his followers, to whom his aloofness seemed a violation of

the rules of the parliamentary game. But it was not in his nature to

expand except in the heat of debate or in congenial society. In general

his stiffness was insular, his pre-occupation profound. Lady Hester

Stanhope, who saw much of him in the closing years, pictures his thin,

tall, rather ungainly figure, stalking through Hyde Park, oblivious of

all surroundings, with head uptilted, "as if his ideas were _en air_, so

that you would have taken him for a poet."[607]

 

The comparison is as flighty as Lady Hester's remarks usually were,

though the passage may depict with truth the air that Pitt assumed when

walking with her. No one else accused him of having affinities to poets.

In truth, so angular was his nature, so restricted his sympathies, that

he never came in touch with literary men, artists, or original thinkers.

His life was the poorer for it. A statesman should know more than a part

of human life; and Pitt never realized the full extent of his powers

because he spent his time almost entirely amongst politicians of the

same school. His mind, though by no means closed against new ideas,

lacked the eager inquisitiveness of that of Napoleon, who, before the

process of imperial fossilization set in, welcomed discussions with men

of all shades of opinion, and encouraged in them that frankness of

utterance which at once widens and clarifies the views of the

disputants. It is true that Pitt's private conversations are almost

unknown. They appear to have ranged within political grooves, with

frequent excursions into the loved domains of classical and English

literature; but he seems never to have explored the new realms of

speculation and poetry then opened up by Bentham and the Lake Poets. A

letter of the poet Hayley to him will serve to suggest the extent of his

loss in limiting his intercourse to a comparatively small coterie:

 

                     Felpham, near Chichester, _Sept. 9_[?].[608]

 

    DEAR PITT,

 

    Why are you slow in doing the little good in your power? Yes:

    great as you are, the real good you can do must be little; but

    that little I once believed you would ever haste to do with a

    generous eagerness and enthusiasm, and therefore I used to

    contemplate your character with an enthusiastic affection. That

    character, high as it was, sunk in my estimation from the

    calamitous delay concerning the promised pension of Cowper, a

    delay which allowed that dear and now released sufferer to sink

    into utter and useless distraction before the neglected promise

    was fulfilled. Will you make me some amends for the affectionate

    concern I