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

from public life, that the Government should not fall into the

    hands of those who had been engaged in violent opposition to

    you; and you yourself stated to me that you apprehended that

    must be the consequence if Mr. Addington should not be able to

    form an Administration.... Some of your last words to me induce

    me to think that you have not yourself abandoned the plan formed

    for giving to the Roman Catholic Church full establishment in

    Ireland--for such I consider the plan suggested by Lord

    Castlereagh, with any modification of which it is capable.

    Indeed, if all those who went out of office because that measure

    was not approved then (such being the ostensible cause of their

    quitting their stations) are to come into office again, there

    can be no doubt in the mind of the public that it is determined

    to carry that measure....

 

That at so critical a juncture a supporter of Addington, not of Cabinet

rank, should rake up personal reasons why Pitt should let things drift

to ruin is inconceivable. And did Redesdale really believe Protestantism

to be endangered by Pitt's return to office, after his assurance at

Bromley that he would not press any point at variance with the royal

resolves? The King, who knew Pitt far better than Redesdale did, had no

fear that he would belie his word by bringing forward Catholic

Emancipation. But the phrases in the letter quoted above show that some

of the Ministers were preparing to beat the drum ecclesiastic, and, in

the teeth of the evidence, to charge Pitt with ingratitude and duplicity

if he became Prime Minister. Ignoring the national crisis, they

concentrated attention solely on the personal questions at issue; and it

is humiliating to have to add that their petty scheming won the day. A

compromise between Pitt and Addington was exceedingly difficult, but

their reproaches and innuendoes made it impossible.[653]

 

The outcome was disastrous. The failure to form a strong and truly

national Administration ended all hope of peace. Over against Addington

set Bonaparte; with Hawkesbury compare Talleyrand; with Hobart,

Berthier.[654] The weighing need go no further. The British Ministry

kicks the beam; and in that signal inequality is one of the chief causes

of the war of 1803. The first Consul, like the Czar Alexander I,

despised the Addington Cabinet. He could not believe that men who were

laughed at by their own supporters would dare to face him in arms. Twice

he made the mistake of judging a nation by its Ministers--England by

Addington in 1803, Spain by Godoy in 1808. Both blunders were natural,

and both were irreparable; but those peoples had to pour forth their

life blood to recover the position from which weakness and folly allowed

them to slide. Politics, like meteorology, teaches that any sharp

difference of pressure, whether mental or atmospheric, draws in a strong

current to redress the balance. Never were the conditions more cyclonic

than in 1803. A decade of strife scarcely made good the inequality

between the organized might of France and the administrative chaos of

her neighbours; between the Titanic Corsican and the mediocrities or

knaves who held the reins at London, Vienna, Berlin, and Madrid.

 

War having been declared on 18th May 1803, Pitt sought the first

opportunity of inspiriting Parliament and the nation. On the 23rd a

great concourse crowded the House in the hope of hearing him speak; and

cries of "Pitt, Pitt" arose as he strode to his seat on the third row

behind Ministers, beside one of the pillars. The position gave point to

a remark of Canning to Lord Malmesbury, that Pitt would fire over the

heads of Ministers, neither praising nor blaming them, but merely

supporting the policy of the war. Such was the case. Replying to a few

criticisms of Erskine, he defended the Cabinet and powerfully described

the unbearable aggressions of the First Consul.

 

The speech aroused a patriotic fervour which cannot be fully realized

from the meagre and dreary summary of it which survives. Romilly

pronounced it among the finest, if not the very finest, which he had

ever made;[655] and Sheridan, in a vinous effusion to Lady Bessborough,

called it "one of the most magnificent pieces of declamation that ever

fell from that rascal Pitt's lips. Detesting the dog, as I do, I cannot

withhold this just tribute to the scoundrel's talents." There follows a

lament over Pitt's want of honesty, which betokens the maudlin mood

preceding complete intoxication.[656] On the morrow Fox vehemently

blamed the Cabinet in a speech which, for width of survey, acuteness of

dialectic, wealth of illustration and abhorrence of war, stands

unrivalled. Addington's reply exhibited his hopeless mediocrity; but,

thanks to Pitt, Ministers triumphed by 398 votes to 67. As they resented

the absence of definite praise in his speech, he withdrew to Walmer,

there to serve his country and embarrass his finances by raising the

Cinque Ports Volunteers.

 

Before recounting Pitt's services in East Kent, I must mention a

bereavement which he had sustained. His mother died, after a very short

seizure, at Burton Pynsent on 3rd April 1803. Thus was snapped a link

connecting England with a mighty past. A quarter of a century had

elapsed since her consort was laid to rest in the family vault in

Westminster Abbey; she followed him while the storm-fiends were

shrouding in strife the two hereditary foes; and the Napoleonic War was

destined to bring her gifted son thither in less than three years. The

father had linked the name of Pitt with military triumphs; the son, with

futile efforts for peace and goodwill; but the lives both of the

war-lord and of the would-be peacemaker were to be ended by tidings of

national disaster.

 

    No parleying now. In Britain is one breath;

    We all are with you now from shore to shore;

    Ye men of Kent, 'tis victory or death!

 

We all know these lines of Wordsworth. Do we know equally well that on

Pitt, as Lord Warden, fell the chief burden of organization on the most

easily accessible coast, that which stretches from Ramsgate to Rye?[657]

It was defenceless but for the antiquated works at Sandown, Deal,

Walmer, Dover, and a few small redoubts further west. Evidently men must

be the ramparts, and Pitt sought to stimulate the Volunteer Movement,

which now again made headway. He strove to make it a National Movement.

At the close of July he sent an official offer to raise 3,000 Volunteers

in Walmer and its neighbourhood; and he urged Ministers to have recourse

to a _levée en masse_, whereupon Yorke, Under Secretary at War, proposed

a scheme somewhat on those lines. Probably the encouragement offered to

Volunteers was too great; for, while they were required to do less than

was necessary to ensure efficiency, they were freed from all risk of

compulsory enrolment in the Militia. This force and the Army

consequently suffered, while the Volunteer Associations grew apace. On

27th October 1803 the King reviewed in Hyde Park as many as 27,000 of

the London Volunteers and showed his caustic wit by giving the nickname

of "the Devil's Own" to the Inns of Court Volunteers.

 

Pitt was not present on this occasion, he and his neighbour, Lord

Carrington, on whom in 1802 he bestowed the command of Deal Castle,

being busy in organizing the local Volunteers. As Constable of Dover

Castle, Pitt summoned the delegates of the Cinque Ports to meet him

there to discuss the raising of local corps; and he gave the sum of

£1,000 towards their expenses. Dover contributed £885; Sandwich, £887;

Margate, £538, and so on. As Lord Warden, he also took steps to secure

a large number of recruits for the new Army of Reserve, and he further

instructed local authorities to send in returns of all men of military

age, besides carts, horses, and stock, with a view to the "driving" of

the district in case of a landing.[658] At Walmer he kept open house for

officers and guests who visited that coast. By the end of the year 1803

more than 10,000 Kentishmen had enrolled as Volunteers, and 1,040 in the

Army of Reserve, exclusive of Sea Fencibles serving on gunboats. For the

whole of Great Britain the totals were 379,000 and 31,000

respectively.[659] Pitt's joke at the expense of a battalion which laid

more stress on privileges than drills, has become historic. Its

organizers sent up a plan containing several stipulations as to their

duties, with exceptions "in case of actual invasion." Pitt lost patience

at this Falstaff-like conduct, and opposite the clause that they were on

no account to be sent out of the country he wrote the stinging

comment--"except in case of invasion."

 

The pen of Lady Hester Stanhope gives life-like glimpses of him during

the endless drills between Deal and Dover. She had fled from the

levelling vagaries of Earl Stanhope at Chevening to Lady Chatham at

Burton Pynsent; but that home being now broken up, Pitt offered to

install her at Walmer Castle. He did so with some misgiving; for her

queenly airs and sprightly sallies, however pleasing as a tonic,

promised little for comfort and repose. But the experiment succeeded

beyond all hope. She soon learnt to admire his serenity, while his home

was the livelier for the coming of this meteoric being. Her complexion

was dazzlingly bright. Her eyes, usually blue, would flash black, as did

those of Chatham in moments of excitement. Her features, too, had a

magical play of expression, lighting up at a pleasing fancy, or again

darting forth scorn, with the April-like alternations that irradiated

and overclouded the brow of her grandsire. Kinglake, who saw her half a

century later in her Syrian fastness, was struck by the likeness to the

Chatham of Copley's famous picture.

 

Certainly she had more in common with him than with the younger Pitt.

During the time when she brought storm and sunshine to Walmer, Park

Place, and Bowling Green House, she often rallied her uncle on showing

undue complaisance to the King or to stupid colleagues whom the Great

Commoner would have overawed. Pitt laughingly took the second place, and

at times vowed that when her voice rang with excitement, he caught an

echo of the tones of his father.[660] Perhaps it was this which

reconciled him to her vagaries. For her whims and moods even then showed

the extravagance which made her the dreaded Sultana of that lonely

Syrian castle where she ended her days amidst thirty quarrelsome but

awe-struck servants, and an equal number of cats, over whom an

apprehensive doctor held doubtful sway.

 

But that bitter, repining, spirit-haunted exile was far different from

the joyous creature who shed light on Pitt. Her spasmodic nature needed

his strength; her waywardness, his affectionate control. As for her tart

retorts, terrifying to bores and toadies, they only amused him. In truth

she brought into his life a beam of the sunshine which might have

flooded it had he married Eleanor Eden. Hester soon found that, far from

being indifferent to the charms of women, he was an exacting judge of

beauty, even of dress. In fact, she pronounced him to be perfect in

household life. His abilities in gardening astonished her; and we may

doubt the correctness of the local legend which ascribes to her the

landscape-gardening undertaken in the grounds of Walmer Castle in 1803.

The dell at the top of the grounds was Hester's favourite haunt.

 

The varied excitements of the time are mirrored in her sprightly

letters. Thus, on 15th November 1803, she wrote at Walmer:

 

    We took one of their gunboats the other day: and, as soon as she

    came in, Mr. Pitt, Charles,[661] Lord Camden and myself took a

    Deal boat and rowed alongside of her. She had two large guns on

    board, 30 soldiers and 4 sailors. She is about 30 feet long, and

    only draws about 4 feet of water; an ill-contrived thing, and so

    little above the water that, had she as many men on board as she

    could really carry, a moderate storm would wash them

    overboard.... Mr. Pitt's 1st battalion of his newly-raised

    regiment was reviewed the other day by General Dundas, who

    expressed himself equally surprised and pleased by the state of

    discipline he found them in.... I like all this sort of thing,

    and I admire my uncle most particularly when surrounded with a

    tribe of military attendants. But what is all this pageantry

    compared with the unaffected simplicity of real greatness!

 

 

 

                                  Walmer Castle, _Nov. 19, 1803_.

 

    To F. R. Jackson, Esq.

 

    To express the kindness with which Mr. Pitt welcomed my return

    and proposed my living with him would be impossible; one would

    really suppose that all obligation was on his side. Here then am

    I, happy to a degree; exactly in the sort of society I most

    like. There are generally three or four