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

written there on 20th April 1799, he expressed a hope of the capture of

Seringapatam, and continues thus: "I assure you that my nerves are much

strengthened by all the exertions which I have been obliged to make, and

in this land of indolence I pass for rather an active, stout, hardy

fellow and can now fast till four o'clock (save only a bit of biscuit

and a glass of port). I am happy to hear that you are better than you

have ever been in your life. There is no comfort in mine but the distant

hope of seeing you all again safe, well, and quizzing in England. I have

only one request to make to you if you do not mean to abridge either my

doleful days or the period of my Government--do not suffer that

_cantancerous_ [_sic_] fellow, Sir J[ames] Craig, to be made

commander-in-chief in Bengal. Send me a sober discreet decent man, but

do not allow the etiquette of throwing inkstands to be revived at the

Council Board."[618]

On 12th May, after announcing to Pitt the capture of Seringapatam,

Mornington adds: "If Buonaparte should now chuse to visit Malabar, I

think he will find supper prepared for him before he has reached

Calcutta." Reviewing the events of his Viceroyalty he writes on 8th

August: "I suppose you will either hang me or magnificently honour me

for my deeds (mine they are, be they good or bad). In either case I

shall be gratified; for an English gallows is better than an Indian

throne; but these words must be buried in your own breast; for here I

pretend to be very happy and humble; although I am as proud as the D.

and as wretched as his dam. I think you will enjoy 'Le Citoïen Tipou'

and 'Citoïen Sultan' in the papers found at Seringapatam. I admire your

conduct with respect to the Union [with Ireland]. I hope you will

persevere, but I _trust_ you will not _trust_ Ireland to my old friend

Hobart. He used to be a good humoured fellow; but from what I have heard

of his reign here, he is utterly unfit to govern anywhere."[619]

Pitt did not receive this letter by 6th November, when he informed

Wellesley that the King, as a mark of high approbation, conferred on him

the title the Marquis Wellesley, suitable arrangements being also in

contemplation for his family. An Irish marquisate was far from the

magnificent reward which the Viceroy desired; and on 28th April 1800 he

expressed his anguish of mind at receiving only an Irish and pinchbeck

reward for exploits neither Irish nor pinchbeck. Nevertheless, while

requesting a speedy recall so that he might hide his chagrin in

retirement, he uttered no vindictive word against Pitt. Despite its

morbid expressions, the letter is that of a friend to a friend. On 27th

September Pitt wrote in reply one of the longest of his private letters.

With equal tact and frankness he reviewed the whole question, proving

that Wellesley's services were not undervalued, that the bestowal of an

English marquisate would have been an advance of four steps in the

peerage for what was after all a short Viceroyalty; and that the present

honour equalled that conferred on Cornwallis at the end of his term. The

question was whether Wellesley should receive an English earldom or an

Irish marquisate; and the latter was deemed preferable. Further, if the

notion prevailed at Calcutta that Wellesley had been slighted, it might

be due to a suspicion that he himself harboured it. Pitt then begged

Wellesley to regard this frankness as the best proof of real

friendship.[620]

Wellesley showed his good sense by acquiescing, and their letters though

rare, became thoroughly cordial. Writing at Patna on 6th October 1801,

he gently reproached Pitt for his long silence, especially for not

explaining the reason of his resignation; he also expressed the hope

that he approved his remaining at Calcutta until a successor was

appointed. He added that his state progress up the Ganges to Patna had

been favoured by an easterly gale of unusual strength which the natives

ascribed either to his happy star or to an Order in Council. As for his

health, it was better than in "the reeking House of Commons." Again at

the beginning of 1804 he expressed regret that Pitt had neither written

nor vouchsafed any sign of approbation at recent events, including the

victory of Assaye, which assured British ascendancy in the East.

At last, on 30th August 1804, three months after resuming office, Pitt

apologized for his neglect on the ground of excess of work in preparing

to meet a French invasion, in which he had so far succeeded as to hope

that the attempt might be made. At that time he expected Wellesley to

come home in order to escape the petty cabals of the Company's

Directors; but he left the decision entirely to him. Pitt's next letter,

at Christmastide, breathes a profound hope for Wellesley's speedy

arrival as a means of lightening the then heavy burden of political

life. Wellesley, however, on 25th March 1805, announced his chivalrous

resolve to remain in India another season owing to financial troubles

and disputes with the Company. To Dundas, in May 1805, he wrote: "I

imagined myself to be one of the best friends of the Company, but I hear

that I am a traitor, and a conspirator, and an interloper. Time

discovers truth, and I must leave the Honourable Courts' opinions to

that test."[621] In August, after transferring his duties to Cornwallis,

he set sail for England, and landed in time to have a few last words

with Pitt. The interview must have been deeply affecting. At its

conclusion Pitt fainted away. Of all the estimates of Pitt none breathes

deeper devotion than that of Wellesley. Was it not because he at last

saw the pettiness of his own pride and petulance when contrasted with

the self-abnegation of him who was truly the Great Commoner? And did not

even his meteoric career in the East pale before the full-orbed

splendour of the quarter of a century of achievement which made up the

public life of Pitt?

The other enthusiastic friend was typically Irish in temperament. Celtic

in vivacity and charm, feminine in sensitiveness, Canning was dowered

with virile persistence and pugnacity. In histrionic and versifying

power he rivalled his countryman, Sheridan, who never forgave him for

deserting the Whigs and going over to Pitt. The loss was indeed serious;

for the young orator was far more than a _frondeur_. As editor of the

"Anti-Jacobin," conjointly with Hookham Frere, he covered with ridicule

the detractors of their country, and helped on the revival of national

spirit which began in 1798. But he also possessed great administrative

talents, displaying as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs an insight

into character in which his chief, Grenville, was signally lacking.

Canning's letters to Pitt on the negotiation at Lille in 1797 show signs

of those inductive powers which appear at their zenith in his

brilliantly correct inference ten years later that the Danish fleet must

be snatched from the clutch of Napoleon.

The statuesque calm of Pitt's personality charmed and overawed this

impressionable Irishman from the time of their first interview in the

summer of 1792. Always versatile and sometimes shifty, he seems

instinctively to have felt in him the needed counterpart. As the Czar

Alexander leaned on the rock-like Stein in the crisis of 1812, so

Canning gained strength and confidence from reliance on Pitt. He on his

side took a keen interest in his disciple, discerning in him the

propagator of the Pitt doctrine and tradition. At times the fostering

care became fatherly. A case in point was Canning's marriage with a

wealthy Scottish heiress (July 1800). Pitt regarded this event as

essential to his success as the future leader of the party. Indeed, so

absorbed was he in his own thoughts during the ride to the church as not

to notice a pert remark of Canning's friend, Hookham Frere. The

clergyman, Frere, and he were in a coach driving along Swallow Street

towards Brook Street when a carter who saw them called out: "What! Billy

Pitt! and with a parson too!" Thereupon Frere burst out with the daring

jest, "He thinks you are going to Tyburn to be hanged privately!" But

Pitt was too pre-occupied to notice the gibe. Again, after the

ceremony, in the vestry Pitt was so nervous as to be unable to sign as a

witness, and Canning had to whisper to Frere to sign without waiting for

him.[622] They ascribed his strange inaction to extreme regard for

Canning. But surely another explanation is more natural. How could a man

of keenly affectionate nature share in that ceremony without feeling

deeply his own lonely lot? Three and a half years ago poverty and debt

had stepped in to part him and Eleanor Eden. Was it not the wraith of

his buried love which now hovered before him, blotting out the sight of

the carter, deafening his ears to the jest, and palsying his hand?

                  *       *       *       *       *

Pitt's resignation of office sorely tried his friends; for, without

informing them of the inmost reasons that prompted that step, he pressed

them to remain in office under his successor, Addington. As we have

seen, some of them refused. Of those not holding Cabinet appointments,

Rose and Long, joint Secretaries of the Treasury, Lord Granville

Leveson-Gower, a Lord of the Treasury, and Canning, joint Paymaster of

the Forces, decided to resign. Pitt's silence and his urgent requests to

his friends to remain in office were of course open to misconstruction;

and several of his supporters echoed the malicious assertion of Frere,

that his aim was for Addington to take office as a _locum tenens_, and

sign a discreditable peace, whereupon he (Pitt) would come back to power

and find his former supporters in their old places. Malmesbury gave

colour to the story by stating that Addington described himself as

_locum tenens_, a remark utterly inconsistent with all that is known of

his complacent pride. Nevertheless the slander gained general currency,

and, even now, despite convincing refutation, dies hard. That Canning

and others resented Pitt's silence and his pressure to remain in office

is undeniable; but, while saying nothing as to the cause of his own

conduct, he explained clearly to Canning that, as a friend, he was

gratified by his conduct in resigning, however much he deplored his

action on public grounds. Of course the _tu quoque_ retort was

inevitable; but Canning's curiosity was not gratified.[623]

For a time he talked of breaking with Pitt, and sent him a copy of a

letter to Frere couched in those terms. Pitt replied calmly on 26th

April 1801 that on reviewing his conduct he found it neither unkind nor

unfair. While lamenting that Canning should thus have misunderstood his

conduct, he expressed a resolve to forget the incident and a hope that

their friendship might endure. Serenity such as this is the best cure to

Celtic susceptibility. But other grievances were discovered, and on 12th

July Canning dashed off to Frere a furious missive full of dashes and

underlinings, charging Pitt with showing to him "confidence just enough

to mislead and not enough to guide"; on which promising theme he fired

off clause upon clause of an incoherent sentence which fills thirty-five

lines of print and then expires in a dash. What it was all about is far

from clear, except that Canning believed Pitt to have done "scrupulously

and magnanimously _right_ by everybody but _me_."[624] Before long the

sensitive youth was moving heaven and earth to bring back Pitt to power.

But, even in December 1803, when his whole soul was bound up in him, he

reproached him with lover-like vehemence for having inspired a

derogatory article in the "Accurate Observer." Apparently the wounded

friend had no proof whatever that Pitt had sped or barbed the shaft.

Among those who won Pitt's confidence in his closing years was Spencer

Perceval, an able young barrister, who entered Parliament in 1796 as

member for Northampton, and showed considerable skill in finance and

debating powers of no mean order. "He spoke (says Sinclair) without the

disagreeable cant of the Bar, was never tedious, was peculiarly distinct

in matters of business, and explained his financial measures with

clearness and ability. His style was singularly acute, bold, sarcastic,

and personal." The same authority avers that Pitt, on being asked--"If

we lose you, where could we find a successor?"--answered at once,

"Perceval." The reply is remarkable; for Perceval, besides opposing

Catholic Emancipation, displayed little tact in dealing with men and a

strangely narrow outlook. Probably it was his power of hard work, his

grasp of finance, and his resolute disposition which led Pitt to prefer

him to Canning, who in other respects was far better qualified to act as

leader.

I must here notice charges which have been brought against Pitt, that

his creations of peers, or promotions in the peerage, which by the