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

    house, and we dine eight or ten almost every other day. Military

    and naval characters are constantly welcome here; women are not,

    I suppose, because they do not form any part of our society. You

    may guess, then, what a pretty fuss they make with me. Pitt

    absolutely goes through the fatigue of a drill sergeant. It is

    parade after parade at 15 or 20 minutes' distance from each

    other. I often attend him; and it is quite as much as I am equal

    to, although I am remarkably well just now. The hard riding I do

    not mind, but to remain almost _still_ so many hours on

    horseback is an incomprehensible bore, and requires more

    patience than you can easily imagine. However, I suppose few

    regiments for the time were ever so forward; therefore the

    trouble is nothing. If Mr. Pitt does not overdo and injure his

    health every other consideration becomes trifling. [She then

    states her anxiety on this score. She rarely speaks to him on

    it, as he particularly dislikes it. She adds:] I am happy to

    tell you, sincerely, I see nothing at all alarming about him. He

    had a cough when I first came to England, but it has nearly or

    quite left him. He is thin, but certainly strong, and his

    spirits are excellent.... Mr. Pitt is determined to remain

    acting colonel when his regiment is called into the field.

On this topic Pitt met with a rebuff from General (afterwards Sir John)

Moore, commander of the newly formed camp at Shorncliffe, near

Folkestone. Pitt rode over from Walmer to ask his advice, and his

question as to the position he and his Volunteers should take brought

the following reply: "Do you see that hill? You and yours shall be drawn

up on it, where you will make a most formidable appearance to the enemy,

while I with the soldiers will be fighting on the beach." Pitt was

highly amused at this professional retort; but at the close of 1804 his

regiment was pronounced by General David Dundas fit to take the field

with regulars. Life in the open and regular exercise on horseback served

to strengthen Pitt's frame; for Hester, writing in the middle of January

1804, when her uncle was away in London for a few days, says: "His most

intimate friends say they do not remember him so well since the year

'97.... Oh! such miserable things as these French gunboats. We took a

vessel the other day, laden with gin--to keep their spirits up, I

suppose." Bonaparte was believed to be at Boulogne; and there was much

alarm about a landing; but she was resolved "not to be driven up country

like a sheep."

This phrase refers to the arrangements for "driving" the country, that

is, sweeping it bare of everything in front of the invaders. The plans

for "driving" were thorough, but were finally pronounced unworkable. His

efforts to meet the Boulogne flotilla were also most vigorous. On 18th

October 1803 he informs Rose that he had 170 gunboats ready between

Hastings and Margate to give the enemy a good reception whenever they

appeared. He adds: "Our Volunteers are, I think, likely to be called

upon to undertake permanent duty, which, I hope, they will readily

consent to. I suppose the same measure will be recommended in your part

of the coast [West Hants]. I wish the arrangements for defence were as

forward everywhere else as they are in Hythe Bay under General Moore. We

begin now to have no other fear in that quarter than that the enemy will

not give us an opportunity of putting our preparations to the proof, and

will select some other point which we should not be in reach of in the

first instance." On 10th November he expresses a hope of repelling any

force that attempted to land in East Kent, but fears that elsewhere the

French cannot be stopped until they arrive disagreeably near to

London.[662]

It is clear, then, that Pitt was not dismayed by the startling disparity

of forces. On the coast of Flanders and Picardy were ranged regular

troops amounting to 114,554 men seemingly ready for embarkation on an

immense flotilla of small craft, part of which was heavily armed. It is

now known that these imposing forces were rarely, if ever, up to their

nominal strength; that part of the flotilla was unseaworthy; that the

difficulties of getting under way were never overcome; and that the

unwieldy mass would probably have been routed, if not destroyed, by the

cruisers and gunboats stationed on the Kentish coast. Still, even if

part of it made land, the crisis would be serious in view of the

paucity and want of organization of the British forces. As bearing on

this subject, a letter of Lord Melville to a relative deserves

quotation:

                                   "Dunira, _16 Dec., 1803_.[663]

    "DEAR ALEXANDER,

    "I received your letter from Walmer and was extreamly happy to

    learn from it that Mr. Pitt was in such excellent health. Long,

    I pray, may it continue. He has been very usefully and

    creditably employed, but not exactly in the way his country

    could have wished; but that is a subject on which I never now

    allow myself to think.... If Mr. Pitt, from what he feels within

    himself or from the enthusiasm he may have inspired in those he

    commands, conceives that the defence of the country could at any

    time be safely entrusted with the Volunteers alone, as the

    newspapers seem to convey as his sentiments, he is by much too

    sanguine. On the other hand it is talking wildly, or like old

    women, to contend, as Mr. Windham and Mr. Fox do, that great

    bodies of Britains [_sic_], with arms in their hands and trained

    to the use of them, are not a most important bulwark of security

    to the Empire. My opinion, however, lays perhaps in the middle,

    and I would have greatly preferred a much smaller number to have

    secured more effectually their uniform efficiency. I would much

    rather have had 200,000 on the footing of Lord Hobart's first

    letter in June than double that number selected and formed in

    the loose and desultory manner they have more recently been

    under the variety of contradictory orders they have since

    received and by which Government have annoyed every corner of

    the country." Melville adds that they would be useful if

    thoroughly trained and not allowed to leave their corps; but

    exemptions from the Militia and Army of Reserve ballots granted

    to the recent Volunteer Corps are mischievous, and interfere

    with the recruiting. The Militia is unnecessarily large and

    interferes with recruiting for the regular army. He would have

    enough trained troops at home to be able to send abroad "50,000

    infantry for offensive operations either by ourselves or in

    co-operation with such European Powers as may recover their

    senses, as sooner or later they must and will do."

Pitt did not leave his post for long, except when high winds made an

invasion impossible. At such times he would make a trip to London. A

short sojourn in town in the early spring elicits from Lady Hester the

words: "I cannot but be happy anywhere in Mr. Pitt's society"; and she

hoped that she helped to amuse and entertain him. Certainly Pitt did his

utmost to enliven her stay at the little residence at Park Place. In

the Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne, who claims to have known her

well, we catch a glimpse of Pitt acting as _chaperon_ at balls which

obviously bored him. Yet he would patiently wait there until, perhaps,

four a.m., when Lady Hester returned to end his _ennui_. Is it

surprising that after his death she called him that adored angel?

                  *       *       *       *       *

Early in the year 1804 a ministerial crisis seemed at hand. The personal

insignificance of Ministers, the hatred felt for St. Vincent at the

Admiralty, the distrust of Hobart at the War Office, and the deep

depression caused by the laboured infelicities of Addington's speeches

presaged a breakdown. So threatening was the outlook that Grenville

urged Pitt to combine with him for the overthrow of an Administration

which palsied national energy. For reasons which are far from clear,

Pitt refused to take decisive action. During his stay in London in

mid-January he saw Grenville, but declined to pledge himself to a

definite opposition. Grenville and his coadjutors, among them Lord

Carysfort, were puzzled by this wavering conduct, which they ascribed to

_finesse_, pettiness, or even to insincerity.[664] But it is clear that

Pitt objected only to their proposed methods, which he termed a teasing,

harassing opposition. In vain did the Bishop of Lincoln, who came to

town at Pitt's request, seek to reconcile their differences. The most to

be hoped for was that Pitt would be compelled by force of circumstances

to concert a plan with the Grenvilles for Addington's overthrow. The

following letter of Carysfort to the bishop is of interest:

                                          _Jany. 18, 1804_.[665]

    Lord Grenville and Mr. Pitt being agreed upon so material a

    point as the necessity of removing Mr. A[ddington] from his

    present situation, it must be a matter not only of regret but of

    surprise, that they should not be able to reconcile any

    difference of opinion between them as to the sort of opposition

    to be carried on in Parliament; and I cannot help thinking that

    Mr. Pitt's avowal that he intends opposition would in itself be

    sufficient to incline (not merely Lord Grenville and his

    friends, who have made it a principal object to be united with

    Mr. Pitt and place him again at the head of affairs) but all the

    parties who may mean to oppose, to leave the mode pretty much

    at his option!... [Your letter] leads me to think that Mr. Pitt

    and he may not have understood each other. Lord Grenville's

    attachment to Mr. Pitt has been so conspicuous, and I am

    persuaded his communications have been so frank and so explicit,

    that I cannot account for Mr. Pitt using any reserve with him,

    and must be of opinion that greater openness, where there is

    such solid ground of confidence, would lead to more satisfactory

    results. [Lord Carysfort then says that Pitt should not keep

    public opinion so long in suspense; for] the public danger from

    a Ministry confessedly incapable is already great and urgent and

    will be continually increasing.

Failing to get help from Pitt, Grenville, at the end of January, sought

the help of Fox! Through his brother, Thomas Grenville, as go-between he

offered the Whig leader his alliance for the overthrow of Addington and

the formation of a Ministry of the talented men of all parties. Here,

then, is the origin of the broad-bottomed or All the Talents

Administrations which produced so singular a muddle after the death of

Pitt. The Fox-Grenville bargain cannot be styled immoral like that of

Fox and North in 1782; for it expressly excluded all compromise on

matters of conviction. Nevertheless it was a tactical mistake, for which

Pitt's exasperating aloofness was largely responsible. Few occurrences

in this time of folly and blundering were more untoward. Pitt's letter

of 4th February to Grenville shows that he discerned the magnitude of

the error, little though he saw his own share in it. The result of the

union of Fox and Grenville was likely to be the fall of Addington, an

appeal of the King to him (Pitt) to form a Cabinet, which would be

narrowed and weakened by the present effort of Grenville to form a

strong and comprehensive Administration.[666]

Presumably the national crisis was not yet acute enough to satisfy Pitt

that he might conscientiously oppose Addington. But that he was drifting

to this conviction appears in the following letter from Rose to the

Bishop of Lincoln.

                                            _Feb. 11, 1804._[667]

    I showed Mr. Pitt your letter because it expressed so entirely

    my own view of the interesting subject: he appeared at first

    against anything like hostility, but I think is now disposed to

    point out pretty strongly the neglect of proper measures of

    defence in the naval and military departments and to suggest

    the necessary ones; so [as] to throw on the Government the just

    responsibility and odium of rejecting them if they shall

    determine to do so.

Rose then states that the Bishop of St. Asaph calls the new Volunteer

Bill "the most wishy-washy thing that ever was produced." He also adds

that the King is ill, probably of dropsy. The fact was even worse.