XXII. PARTITION OR PACIFICATION?
He who gains nothing, loses.--CATHARINE II.
We cannot be considered as in any degree bound to support a system of an offensive nature, the great end of which appears to be aggrandisement rather than security.--PITT and the DUKE OF LEEDS, 24th June 1789.
The excess of an evil tends to produce its own cure. The resources of two great Empires were being used for a partition of the Turkish dominions, in a way which must have led to a succession of wars without benefiting the Christians of the East. But the prospect of the aggrandisement of Russia speedily led the hardy Gustavus to strike a blow at her northern capital; and when Catharine incited the Danes to deal a counterstroke at his unguarded rear, Great Britain and Prussia intervened to prevent the overthrow of Sweden and of the balance of power in the Baltic. Thus, forces which pressed on towards Constantinople produced a sharp reaction in widening circles and prompted States to attack or arm against their neighbours--Sweden against Russia, Denmark against Sweden, and England and Prussia against Denmark. Consequently Gustavus III might claim to have saved the Turkish Empire; for his action brought into the arena England and, to some extent, the Dutch Republic.
Less obvious but more potent was the influence of Prussia. Her forces, cantoned along the Austrian and Russian borders, halved the efforts of those Empires against the Turks and encouraged the Polish nationalists to resist Russian predominance at Warsaw. Thus, by the year 1789, instead of moving the forces of two Empires and of Poland against the Turks, Catharine found her energies clogged, her resources strained, and only one important conquest achieved, that of Oczakoff. Over against this triumph she had to set the menacing attitude of the Triple Alliance lately framed by Great Britain, Prussia, and the Dutch Republic.
For a time the Czarina cherished the hope that the insanity of George III, and the accession of the Regent, would lead to the downfall of Pitt and the reversal of British policy. On 8/19 December 1788 she wrote to her ambassador at London, Count Vorontzoff (Woronzow), charging him to make overtures to Fox and the Dukes of Portland and Devonshire for the renewal of the Anglo-Russian alliance, which for the last five years she had spurned. With a vehemence of style, in which feelings figured as facts, she inveighed against Pitt for slighting her many offers of friendship, for allowing Ainslie and Elliot to incite Turkey and Sweden to attack her, and for entangling himself in the dangerous and visionary schemes of Hertzberg. All this, however, would be changed when the Prince of Wales and Fox came to power.
On 19/30 January Vorontzoff replied that he had seen Fox, who accorded him a hearty welcome, and said that in a fortnight the Regency would be established. He (Fox) would then be Foreign Secretary, and would be able to speak of England’s treaty obligations to Prussia. The language of Fox showed some measure of caution, and partly palliated the gross imprudence of according an interview at all. A little later (perhaps before receiving Vorontzoff’s answer) the Empress expressed her admiration of the reply sent by the Prince of Wales (it was really Burke’s and Sheridan’s) to Pitt, as it argued distinguished talents. The Prince and Fox, she said, would certainly prevent their people being dragged at the heel of Prussia. As for herself, she declared her wish to grant them a commercial treaty, which she had refused two years before. The correspondence throws a curious light on the feline diplomacy of Catharine and on the singular folly of Fox.[825] It also prepares us for the unpatriotic part which he played in the Anglo-Russian dispute of the year 1791. The recovery of George III, about the time when Catharine indited the latter epistle, pricked the bubble, and left Pitt in a position of greater power than ever.
Thus, in the spring of 1789, the general position was somewhat as follows. England, Prussia, and Holland, acting in close concert, were resolved to prevent any revolutionary changes in the Baltic. This implied that Denmark could not attack Sweden, and that Gustavus might war against Catharine until she chose to accept the mediation of the Allies for the re-establishment of the status quo ante bellum. As for the other Powers, France was almost a nullity owing to the internal troubles which were leading up to the Revolution. Spain was friendly to the Allies and favoured the cause of Sweden and Turkey.[826] Moreover the Poles, acting on hints from Berlin, were beginning to shake off Russian tutelage and to feel their way towards a drastic reform of their chaotic polity. Early in 1789 the Prussian Court sought for a close political and commercial union with Poland. The ensuing compact freed the Poles from the obligations contracted by King Stanislaus with his former mistress, Catharine II; it further promised to bind their realm to England and Holland; above all, it opened up vast possibilities for the regeneration of that hapless people.
As for the concert of the two Empires, discords were already heard. Joseph II, alarmed at the turmoil in Hungary and Belgium, as well as disgusted at the results of his first Turkish campaign, talked of waging merely a defensive war, and of offering easy terms to the Ottomans. Potemkin, puffed up by the capture of Oczakoff, announced his resolve that Moldavia and Wallachia should never fall to the Hapsburgs--an aim that had been distinctly formulated at Vienna. Russia herself, a prey to the greedy gang who fawned on the Empress and drained her treasury, seemed unable to bear for long the strain of war on two frontiers, and of precautionary measures against Prussia. The Court of Berlin, as Mirabeau had pointed out, was honeycombed by intrigues and favouritism; but it was sound at the core compared with Russia. The French author of the “Secret Memoirs of the Court of St. Petersburg” states that in the declining years of Catharine the Russian finances were exploited in a way more disgraceful than even France had seen; that none were so little as the great; and that officers notoriously lived on the funds of their regiments. Catharine herself once jauntily remarked about a colonel--“Well! If he be poor, it is his own fault; for he has long had a regiment.” It speaks volumes for the patriotism and stupidity of the troops that they still had enough of the old Muscovite staunchness to carry them to victory over the Turks. But such was the case. In the campaigns of 1789 the army of Suvóroff gained several successes, and the troops of Joseph II, once more urged onwards by that ruler, also had their meed of triumph.
This was partly due to the death of Abdul Hamid I, which brought to the Ottoman throne a feebler successor, Selim III (April 1789). The Grand Vizier, the soul of the war party, was soon overthrown, and the next commander-in-chief, the Pacha of Widdin, impaired by his slothfulness the fighting power of the Ottomans.[827] Belgrade and Semendria were lost. But even more serious, perhaps, than these reverses was the emergence of plans at Berlin which portended gain to Prussia at the expense of Turkey. We are concerned here with European affairs only so far as they affected British policy, and must therefore concentrate our attention on the statecraft of the years 1789 and 1790, which threatened sweeping changes on the Continent and brought into play the cautious conservatism of Pitt. The French Revolution and its immense consequences will engage our attention later.
As we saw in Chapter XVI, the Prussian statesman, Hertzberg, had long been maturing an ingenious scheme for the aggrandisement of Prussia, by a general shuffling together of boundaries in the East of Europe.[828] On 13th May 1789 he presented it in its complete form to Frederick William, who, after long balancings on this question, now accorded his consent. The Prussian monarch thereby pledged himself, at a favourable occasion, to offer his armed mediation to Russia, Austria, and Turkey. If the two Empires overcame the Sultan, as seemed probable, Prussia was to threaten their frontiers with masses of troops and, under threat of war, compel them to accept her terms. If, however, victory inclined to the crescent, Dietz, the Prussian envoy at Constantinople, was to remind the Sublime Porte that the triumph was largely due to Prussia’s action in enabling Sweden to continue the war against Russia, and in thwarting Catharine’s plan of an invasion of Turkey by the Poles. Dietz was also to hint “in a delicate and not threatening manner,” that if Prussia threw her weight into the scales against the Turks, the new Coalition must speedily overwhelm her. “Therefore the Porte will do well not to balance on that point,” but will accept Prussia’s terms.[829] There was a third alternative, that the war would drag on indecisively, in which case the exhaustion of the belligerents must enable Prussia to work her will the more readily.
Accordingly Hertzberg hoped that, however the fortunes of war inclined, he would gain his ends. They were as follows. The Turks, if victorious, must sacrifice their gains (the Crimea, etc.) at the demand of Prussia, and thus enable her to compel Austria to restore to the Poles the great province of Galicia, torn from them in the partition of 1772. The Poles in their turn were to reward Frederick William by ceding to him the fortresses of Danzig and Thorn, along with part of Great Poland, which so inconveniently divided Prussia’s eastern lands.
The same general result was to follow in the event of Russia and Austria driving back the Turks to their last natural barrier, the Balkans. Prussia was then to draw the sword on behalf of Turkey and Sweden, restore the balance in the South-East, and give the law to all parties. In that case, it appeared (though Hertzberg wavered on this point), Austria might acquire Moldavia and Wallachia from Turkey, and thereby close against Russia the door leading to the Balkans. At times Hertzberg stated that Austria must in any case gain those commanding provinces, which would sever her friendship with Russia.[830] As for Catharine, she might retain the Crimea, and gain land perhaps as far as the Dniester. On the whole, however, Hertzberg hoped that Prussia need not go to war, but that the Turks would make a good enough stand at the Danube to enable the mere appearance of the splendid army of Prussia on the frontiers of the two Empires to enforce his demands.
Much has been written for and against this scheme. Among the many projects of that time it holds a noteworthy place. Certainly it would greatly have simplified the boundaries of Eastern Europe. The recovery by Poland of her natural frontier on the south-west, the Carpathians, would strengthen that State, and enable her, with the help of her Prussian ally, to defy the wrath of the two Imperial Courts. Hertzberg believed that the Poles would gladly accept the offer. For was not the great province of Galicia worth the smaller, though commercially valuable, districts on the lower Vistula which would go to Frederick William? Further, would not a good commercial treaty between the Allies (in which England, it was hinted, might have her share) make up for the loss of the prosperous city of Danzig? In truth, the proposal reminds one of the schemes for scientific frontiers which Rousseau outlined and Napoleon reduced to profitable practice.
It might have succeeded had nations been mere amoebae, divisible at will. Traders and philosophers might acclaim Hertzberg as the Adam Smith of Prussia and Poland. In truth, his plan was defensible, even on its Machiavellian side--the aggrandisement of Prussia, ultimately at the expense of the Turks. For it might be argued that the ultimate triumph of the crescent was impossible, and that only the action of Sweden, Prussia, and to a less extent England, could avert disaster. Hertzberg also claimed that Prussia and her Allies should guarantee to Turkey the security of her remaining possessions, and deemed this a set-off to the disappointments brought by his other proposals.
Nevertheless the balance of argument was heavily against the scheme. As the Pitt Cabinet pointed out in a weighty pronouncement on 24th June, Hertzberg proposed to use Turkey as a medium for the attainment of his ends, which were the depression of Austria and the aggrandisement of Prussia. However well and successfully the Turks fought, the gain was to accrue to Frederick William, not to the Swedes, who were fighting desperately for the Ottoman cause. True, Prussia promised in the last resort to help the Sultan to recover some of his lost provinces; but even then, the acquisitions of the two Empires at the end of costly campaigns were scarcely to balance those of Prussia and Poland. Well might the British Cabinet say of the Turks: “It seems very doubtful whether either their power or their inclination would answer the expectations of the Court of Berlin.”
After this ironical touch the verdict of the Pitt Ministry was given to Ewart as follows:
You will not fail to assure the Ministers at Berlin of the satisfaction with which the King will see any real and solid advantages derived to His Prussian Majesty by such arrangements as may be obtained by way of negotiation and without the danger of extending those hostilities [which] it is so much the interest of all Europe to put an end to. We cannot but acknowledge the friendly attention manifested by His Prussian Majesty towards his Allies in taking care not to commit them in the event of the Porte acceding to the proposed plan of co-operation, the operations of which go so much beyond the spirit of our treaty of Alliance, which is purely of a defensive nature, and by which we cannot of course be considered as in any degree bound to support a system of an offensive nature, the great end of which appears to be aggrandisement rather than security, and which from its very nature is liable to provoke fresh hostilities instead of contributing to the restoration of general tranquillity.
In discussing these points, and indeed upon every other occasion, I must beg of you, Sir, to remember that it is by no means the idea of His Majesty, or of his confidential servants, to risk the engaging this country in a war on account of Turkey, either directly or indirectly; and I am to desire you would be particularly careful in your language, to prevent any intention of that nature being imputed to us. I think it necessary to mention this distinctly, as I observe in one of your dispatches, you state the continuance of the Northern War as in some degree advantageous, as it would be a powerful diversion in case the Allies should take part in the Turkish War. This I must again observe to you is an object by no means in our view.
With respect to any future guarantee of the Ottoman Empire it is impossible for us to commit ourselves at present. The consideration will naturally arise how far such a guarantee is either necessary or beneficial when the terms of peace come under discussion. The effect which a guarantee of the Turkish possessions might create in Russia likewise deserves some consideration; and I cannot but observe that the whole tenor of these Instructions [those sent to Dietz] seems likely to throw at a greater distance the chance of detaching Russia from Austria and connecting it with us; whereas hitherto it has been our object, and, as it appeared to us, that of Prussia, while we made Russia feel the disadvantage of being upon distant terms with us, and avoided doing anything which looked like courting her friendship, still to avoid pushing things to an extremity or precluding a future connection.[831]
At several points this pronouncement challenges attention. Firstly, it does not once refer to the feelings and prejudices of the peoples who were to be bartered about. Only four days previously the Commons of France had sworn by the Tennis Court Oath that they would frame a constitution for their land--a declaration which rang trumpet-tongued through England; but not the faintest echo of it appears in the official language of Pitt and the Duke of Leeds. Their arguments are wholly those of the old school, but of the old school at its best. For, secondly, they deprecate changes of territory forced by a mediating Power on the people it ostensibly befriends, which tend to their detriment and its own benefit. They question whether Prussia can press through these complex partitions without provoking a general war--the very evil which the Triple Alliance has sought to avoid. Certainly England will never go to war to bring them about; neither will she draw the sword on behalf of Turkey. On the contrary, she hopes finally to regain the friendship of Russia. Most noteworthy of all is the central criticism, that the aim of Hertzberg is “aggrandisement rather than security.” We shall have occasion to observe how often Pitt used this last word to denote the end for which he struggled against Revolutionary France and Napoleon; and its presence in this despatch bespeaks the mind of the Prime Minister acting through the pen of the Duke of Leeds.
The defensive character of Pitt’s policy further appears in a despatch to Ewart, also of 24th June, cautioning that very zealous envoy that all possible means are being taken to win over Denmark peacefully to the Triple Alliance, in order that it may “command the keys of the Baltic.” Gustavus is to be warned that the Allies cannot help him unless he agrees to forego his hopes of gain at the expense of Russia, and “to act merely upon the defensive.” The status quo ante bellum would be the fairest basis of peace in the Baltic, and it would prove “that the real object of our interference was calculated for general views of public utility, and not founded upon any motives of partiality for one Power or resentment to another.”
For a time events seemed to work against the pacific policy of Pitt and in favour of the schemes of Hertzberg. The summer witnessed not only the advance of the Russians and Austrians into the Danubian Provinces, but also the wrigglings to and fro of the Danish Court, which enabled the Russian squadron at Copenhagen to join the Cronstadt fleet and command the Baltic. Nevertheless, Prussia felt that she had the game in her own hands, however much her Allies might hold aloof; for the Austrian Government was distracted by news of the seething discontent of the Hungarians, of the Poles in Galicia, and, above all, of the Brabanters and Flemings. Joseph II, too, was obviously sinking under these worries, which seemed to presage the break up of his Empire.[832] The Prussian Court therefore resolved to concentrate its efforts on wresting Galicia and the Belgic Provinces from the Hapsburg Power, especially as the Porte, despite its recent defeats, refused to listen to Dietz when he mentioned the cession of Moldavia and Wallachia to the infidels.[833] Until the Moslems had learnt the lessons of destiny, it was obviously desirable to set about robbing Austria by more straightforward means.
* * * * *
The folly of Joseph II favoured this scheme of robbery. His reforms in the Belgic Provinces had long brought that naturally conservative people to the brink of revolt, so that in the spring of the year 1789 plans were laid not only at Brussels but also at Berlin for securing their independence. Hertzberg sought to work upon the fears of Pitt by hinting that Austria might call in the French troops to stamp out the discontent--a contingency far from unlikely, were it not that France was rapidly sliding into the abyss of bankruptcy and revolution. By a curious coincidence the repressive authority of Joseph II was exerted on 18th June, the day after the Third Estate of France defiantly styled itself the National Assembly. While Paris was jubilant at the news of this triumph, the mandates of the Emperor swept away the Estates and ancient privileges of Brabant. As this action involved the suppression of the ancient charter of privileges, quaintly termed La Joyeuse Entrée, the Brabanters put into practice its final clause, that the citizens might use force against the sovereign who infringed its provisions. “Act here as in Paris” ran the placards in Brussels and other cities. The capture of the Bastille added fuel to the fire in Belgium; and the nationalist victory was completed by a rising of the men of Liége against the selfish and deadening rule of their Prince Bishop.[834]
The likeness between the Belgian and French Revolutions is wholly superficial. Despite the effort of Camille Desmoulins to link the two movements in sympathy--witness the title of his newspaper “Les Révolutions de France et de Brabant”--no thinking man could confound the democratic movement in France with the narrowly national and clerical aims of the majority in Brabant and Flanders. True, an attempt was made by a few progressives, under the lead of Francis Vonck, to inculcate the ideas of Voltaire and Rousseau; but the influence of the Roman Church, always paramount in Flanders, availed to crush this effort. Van der Noot and the clericals gained the upper hand, and finally compelled the Vonckists to flee over the southern border.
In the month of July Van der Noot declared in favour of a Belgian Republic under the guarantee and protection of England, Prussia, and Holland. He set on foot overtures to this end which met with a friendly response at Berlin and The Hague.[835] The Prussian Court sent General Schliessen to discuss the matter with the British Government; but Pitt and Leeds behaved very guardedly on a question involving a recognition of the Belgian revolt and the end of the Barrier System on which we had long laid so much stress. Their despatch of 14th September to Ewart emphasized the difficulties attending Van der Noot’s proposal, even if his statements were correct. At the same time Ministers asserted that the Allies must at all costs prevent the Belgians becoming dependent on France, a noteworthy statement which foreshadows Pitt’s later policy of resisting the annexation of those rich provinces to the French Republic or Empire. For the present, he strongly advised Prussia and Holland to await the course of events and do nothing “to threaten the interruption of that tranquillity it is so much their interest, and, I trust, their intention, to preserve.” Above all, it would be well to wait for the death of Joseph II, already announced as imminent, seeing that his successor might grant to the Belgians the needed concessions.[836]
The Belgians seem to have trusted the Pitt Cabinet far more than Hertzberg, whose restless policy aroused general distrust. They made two overtures to the British Court. The former of these, strange to say, came through a French nobleman, the Comte de Charrot, who called on Lord Robert Fitzgerald, our envoy at Paris, on or about 21st October, and confided to him his resentment against France, his warm sympathies with the Belgians (he was a descendant of the old Counts of Flanders), and his fear that France would dominate that land after the downfall of Austrian authority. He besought Fitzgerald to forward to the Duke of Leeds a letter warning the Cabinet of the efforts of the National Assembly to form a party among the Brabanters and Flemings, who, however, were resolved not to accept the rule of a foreign prince, but to form a Republic under the protection of Great Britain. To this end they were willing to place in her hands the city of Ostend as a pledge of their fidelity to the British connection. A German prince, he added, would never be tolerated, save in the eastern provinces, Limburg and Luxemburg. His letter, dated Antwerp, 15th October, to the Duke of Leeds, is couched in the same terms.[837]
The proposal opens up a vista of the possibilities of that strange situation. By planting the British flag at Ostend, and by allowing Prussia to dominate the eastern Netherlands, Pitt could have built up once more a barrier on the north-east of France. All this was possible, provided that Charrot’s proposals were genuine and represented the real feelings of the Belgians. Evidently Pitt and Leeds distrusted the offer, which seems to have been left unanswered.
Early in November, when the plans of the Belgian patriots for ousting the Austrians were nearing completion, they sent as spokesman Count de Roode to appeal for the protection of George III. Pitt laid the request before the King; and the result will be seen in Pitt’s letter to the Count:
Downing St. Nov. 13, 1789.
I have received the letter which you honoured me with, informing me that you were employed on the part of the people of Brabant to solicit the King’s protection, and desiring to see me for the purpose of delivering a letter to me on that subject. I thought it my duty to lay these circumstances before His Majesty, who has not been pleased to authorize me to enter into any discussion in consequence of an application which does not appear to be made by any regular or acknowledged authority. I must therefore, Sir, beg you to excuse me, if, on that account, I am under the necessity of declining seeing you for the purpose which you propose.[838]
Somewhat earlier the Duke of Orleans had come on a mission to London, ostensibly on the Belgian Question, but really for a term of forced absence from Paris. It will therefore be well to describe his visit in a later chapter.
Cold as were Pitt’s replies to de Roode, he certainly kept a watchful eye on Belgian affairs. For, on the one hand, if Joseph II succeeded in establishing despotic power at Brussels, he would gain complete control over the finances and armed forces of that flourishing land, with results threatening to the Dutch and even to Prussia. If, however, the Brabanters succeeded as the Flemings had done, French democracy might rush in as a flood and gallicize the whole of that land to the detriment of England. Pitt therefore approved of the Prussian proposal to send troops to occupy the Bishopric of Liége, seeing that the deposed bishop had appealed to Austria for armed aid. With the prestige gained by the military occupation of Liége, Hertzberg hoped to dominate the situation both in the Low Countries and in the East. Most pressingly did he urge the need of instantly recognizing the independence of the Belgian provinces; but after long arguments Ewart convinced him that it might be better, even for Prussia, to press for the restoration of their old constitution, with all its limitations to the power of the Emperor, under the guarantee of the three Allies. If Ewart succeeded with Hertzberg, he failed with Frederick William, who on that and other occasions showed himself “very elated” and determined to tear from Austria that valuable possession, as well as Galicia.[839] Hertzberg did his utmost to persuade England to combine the two questions so as the more to embarrass Austria; but he met with steady refusals.
On 30th November Pitt took the sense of the Cabinet. It was clearly in favour of non-intervention and the restoration as far as possible of the previous state of things. Nevertheless, the men of Brabant, in case of defeat by the Imperialists, were encouraged to hope that the Allies would declare for the restoration of the old constitution. On the other hand, in case of victory, they were to be induced “to take steps for preventing the prevalence of democratical principles.”[840] Obviously, then, Pitt desired to keep out both Prussian and French influence, and to leave the Belgians free to come to terms with the successor of Joseph II after the imminent demise of that monarch. Events favoured this solution. In December Brussels and all parts of Brabant shook off the yoke of the Imperialists, who retired to Luxemburg. Early in the year 1790 deputies from the nine Belgic provinces met at Brussels, declared the deposition of Joseph, and formed a Federal Congress for mutual protection. The clerical and conservative party, headed by Van der Noot, sent to Paris an appeal for support, which found no favour either with Louis or the National Assembly, the King desiring not to offend Austria, and the French deputies distrusting the aims of the majority at Brussels.
Pitt and his colleagues were equally cautious. On the news of the successful revolt of Brussels, they seemed for a time to incline to the Prussian plan of recognizing the independence of Belgium,[841] and on 9th January 1790 they framed a compact with Prussia and Holland with a view to taking common action in this affair. But the most urgent demands from Berlin in favour of immediate action failed to push Pitt on to this last irrevocable step. It does not appear that the King controlled his action; for at that time he was so far absorbed in the escapades of his sons (those of Prince Edward were an added trouble) as to be a cipher in all but domestic concerns. Pitt and Leeds therefore had a free hand. They were influenced probably by the news that Joseph, despite the progress of his mortal disease, had resolved to subdue the Netherlands. The tidings opened up two alternatives--war between Austria and Prussia, or the possibility of a peaceful compromise after the death of Joseph and the accession of his far more tractable brother, Leopold.
These seem to have been the motives underlying the decision of the Pitt Cabinet, early in 1790, to defer any decisive action by the Allies. The Duke of Leeds pointed out to Ewart on 9th February that the feuds between the Belgic provinces made them useless as allies; that any immediate recognition of their independence would have “mischievous effects”; and that a reconciliation between them and their future ruler seemed highly probable. They should, therefore, not be encouraged to hope for recognition by the Allies. Leeds closed by very pertinently asking the Court of Berlin “how far this new Republic, once established, could be (and by whom) prevented from becoming indirectly, if not directly, totally dependent upon France.” The argument derived added force from the fact that a “French emissary” was then at Brussels offering the recognition by France of the proposed Belgian Republic, with the help of 20,000 troops against any who should oppose it.[842] This offer was not official; but as the moods of the National Assembly varied day by day, it might at any time become so. Certainly the chance of French invervention added a sting to the reproaches soon to be levelled at Pitt from Berlin.
They were called forth by the missive above referred to, and by a “secret and confidential” despatch of the same date. In the latter Pitt and Leeds warned Ewart that the proposed armed mediation of Prussia against Catharine and Joseph was outside the scope of the Triple Alliance. The British Government wished Prussia the success which might be expected from the power of her army, the flourishing state of her revenue, and the present doubtful condition both of Russia and Austria; but it could not participate in “measures adopted without the previous concurrence of the Allies.”[843]
A storm of obloquy broke upon Ewart when he announced these decisions. The Court of Berlin insisted on the need of immediately recognizing Belgian independence, adding a threat that otherwise those provinces would do well to throw themselves upon France. Our ambassador partly succeeded in stilling the storm, especially when news came of tumults at Brussels and the uncertainty of the outlook throughout Brabant. Frederick William then recognized the wisdom of waiting until affairs were more settled, but he declared that he “was abandoned by his Allies,” and that, unless Galicia could be detached from Austria, he would prefer to see the Netherlands go to France.[844] This piece of royal pettishness served at least to show that his friendship for England depended on her serving his designs against Austria.
Here was the weakness of the Triple Alliance. The Allies had almost nothing in common, except that the British and Dutch both wished to live in peace and develop their trade. Prussia, on the contrary, saw in this time of turmoil the opportunity of consolidating her scattered Eastern lands by a scheme not unlike the Belgic-Bavarian Exchange. On the score of morality we may censure such plans; but vigorous and growing States will push them on while their rivals are abased, and will discard Allies who oppose them. In this contrariety of interests lay the secret of the weakness of the Anglo-Prussian alliance during the upheavals of the near future. It also happened that the House of Hohenzollern matured these plans at the very time when the fortunes of the House of Hapsburg, after touching their nadir, began once more to rise; and the revival of Austria under Leopold II helped Pitt to maintain the existing order of things in Central Europe against all the schemings of Hertzberg. The success of Pitt in this work of statesmanlike conservation marks the climax of his diplomatic career; and, as it has never received due attention, I make no apology for treating it somewhat fully in the following chapter.
XXIII. PARTITION OR PACIFICATION (CONTINUED)
I want the trumpet of an angel to proclaim to the ears of sovereigns that it is become their universal interest as well as their moral duty to have a period of peace.--LORD AUCKLAND TO SIR ROBERT MURRAY KEITH, 7th May 1790.
Probably at no time in the history of Europe have all the leading States been so bent on plans of mutual spoliation as in the closing weeks of the life of Joseph II of Austria. The failure of his schemes and the probability of a break up of the Hapsburg dominions whetted the appetites of all his neighbours and brought Europe to the verge of a general war. In these circumstances it was providential that one Great Power stood for international morality, and that its counsels were swayed by a master-mind. The future of Europe depended on the intelligent conservatism of Pitt and the duration of the life of his political opposite, Joseph II. That life had long been wearing rapidly away; and on 20th February 1790 he died, full of pain, disappointment, and regret that crowned the tragedy of his career.
His death brought new life and hopes to the Hapsburg peoples. The new sovereign, Leopold II, his brother, soon proved to be one of the astutest rulers of that race. He has been termed the only ruler of that age who correctly read the signs of the times.[845] If Joseph was called the crowned philosopher, Leopold may be styled the crowned diplomatist. Where the former gave the rein to the impulses of Voltairian philosophy and romantic idealism, his successor surveyed affairs with a calculating prudence which resulted, perhaps, from the patriarchal size of his family--he had twelve children--and from his long rule in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.[846] Certainly he knew how impossible it was to thrust advanced Liberal ideas and central institutions on the tough and unenlightened peoples of the Hapsburg realm. Above all he discerned the folly of aggressive foreign policy while all was turmoil at home. He therefore prepared to pacify his subjects before the war cloud hanging over the Riesengebirge burst upon Bohemia.
His caution and pliability opened up a new future for Central Europe. Had the headstrong and pertinacious Joseph lived much longer (though some gleams of prudence lighted on him in his last months) revolts could scarcely have been staved off in Hungary and the Low Countries, where even his belated concessions inspired distrust. Above all, he could never have coped with the forceful policy of Prussia. There is little room for doubt that the continuance of his life would have involved the loss of the Belgic provinces, Galicia, and, perhaps, even Bohemia. The Hohenzollerns would have leaped to heights of power that would always challenge to conflict; and Europe, a prey to Revolution in the West, must have been torn at the heart by deadly strifes, both dynastic and racial.
In closing the sluices against the currents about to be let loose at Berlin, Pitt had latterly counted on the well-known prudence of Leopold of Tuscany. On 26th February, before the decease of Joseph was known in London, the British Government stiffly opposed the Prussian plan of acknowledging the independence of the Austrian Netherlands. Great Britain--so ran the despatch to Ewart, our envoy to Berlin--had covenanted merely to prevent the Emperor making “an unrestrained use of the wealth and population” of those provinces, and to obviate the possibility of their going to swell the power of France. England (added Pitt in a side note of his own) must counteract French intrigues in Brabant; but they were unofficial, and would probably fail.[847] He therefore deprecated any action which must lead to a war with Austria; but he offered to help Prussia in restoring the former state of things in the Low Countries. Stress was then laid on “the necessity of enabling Sweden to defend herself by another campaign against Russia”; England would pay her part of the sum needed for the support of Gustavus, and would also secure the neutrality of Denmark; but war against Russia and Austria was denounced as altogether foreign to our cardinal principle of restoring the former condition of things. Pitt and Leeds closed their despatch with the following noteworthy words:
The commencement of hostilities against the Imperial Courts, either indirectly by an immediate recognition of the Belgic Independence, or directly by our joining in the measures of offensive operations which Prussia may feel it her interest to adopt, would go beyond the line which this country has uniformly laid down, and from which it does not appear that the present circumstances should induce her to depart. If either the joint representations of the Allies, or the subsequent measures such as they have been here stated, should be successful in bringing about a peace on the terms of the status quo, this country would then be willing to include Turkey, Poland, and Sweden in the alliance and to guarantee to them the terms of that pacification.[848]
In order to understand the importance of this pronouncement, we must remember that at this time the chances of success attending the dismembering schemes of the two Empires and those of Prussia were curiously equal. In bulk Russia and Austria had the advantage. Their armies also seemed likely to drive the Turks over the Balkans in the next campaign, unless potent diversions in the rear impaired their striking power. But these diversions were imminent. The fate of the Hapsburg dominions still hovered in the balance. Catharine was face to face with another Swedish campaign which her exhausted exchequer could scarcely meet. How then could these two Empires withstand the shock of 200,000 trained Prussians, with the prospect that an Anglo-Dutch fleet would sweep the Russian warships from the sea? And this was not all. Hertzberg had already detached Poland from the Russian alliance and was on the point of adding the resources of that kingdom to his own;[849] and the prospect of consolidating Poland, both politically and geographically, opened up hopeful vistas for that interesting people and the whole European polity. Above all it promised to strengthen Prussia on her weakest flank.
It is not surprising, then, that the ambitious and enterprising Dietz exceeded his instructions by signing a treaty with the Porte on 31st January 1790. He thereby pledged Prussia to make war on Russia and Austria in the spring, and not to lay down her arms until she secured for the Sultan an “honourable and stable peace,” which assured safety for Constantinople against an attack by sea. If the Turks were victorious, Prussia promised to secure the Crimea for them. The Sultan, on his side, promised to compel Austria to restore Galicia to the Poles, who were, if possible, to be brought into the Triple Alliance. Finally Prussia, England, Holland, Sweden, and Poland were to guarantee the Turkish possessions as then defined.
These grandiose designs were furthered by the Prusso-Polish treaty, signed at Warsaw on 29th March. By it Frederick William, in case of hostilities, would send 18,000 men to assist the Republic, which would send 8,000 horsemen and half that number of footmen, or an equivalent in money or corn.[850] In case of great need the numbers of troops might be raised to 30,000 and 20,000 respectively. More important than this material succour was the advantage of marching through Polish Volhynia down the valley of the Dniester to cut the communications of the Russian army on the lower Danube. Meanwhile the Poles would overrun Galicia, and the Prussians invade Bohemia and Moravia for the purpose of inciting the Czechs and Hungarians to open revolt. On the whole the chances of war favoured Frederick William and his Allies, especially when the British Government agreed to join with Prussia in subsidizing Sweden for the campaign of 1790. The valour of the Swedes and their nearness to the Russian capital compelled Catharine to concentrate her efforts largely against them, and the prospect of a Prusso-Polish alliance aroused grave fears at Petersburg. “Everyone here wears a look of consternation,” wrote the Prussian envoy to his Court on 5th February. Probably this explains the passing flirtation of Catharine with England, which Pitt seems to have taken at its true value, in view of the exorbitant terms previously offered by her to Gustavus.[851]
In fact, the air was charged with insincerity and intrigue. The Prussian alliance with the Poles, which might have brought salvation to that distracted people, was accompanied with extremely hard conditions. Hertzberg saw in it the opportunity of once more forcing on his scheme of gaining Danzig and Thorn in return for the halving of the Prussian duties on Polish trade down the Vistula. His Shylock-like insistence on these terms deprived the compact of all worth from the outset; for the Poles claimed, and with reason, that the cession of those valuable districts should be bought, not by the halving of certain customs dues, but by the recovery of the whole of Galicia from Austria. In these demands the Court of Berlin seemed to concur; but ultimately, as we shall see, it allowed them to be frittered away under pressure from Vienna. As a result, the Poles felt no less distrust of Prussia than of the two Empires; and our envoy at Warsaw, Daniel Hailes, found that British policy alone inspired a feeling of confidence, and that a keen desire prevailed for a close alliance with England.[852]
Pitt also, guided by our naval experts, who wished England to be freed from dependence on Russia for naval stores, saw the advantage of a compact with Poland, provided her trade were freed from Prussian shackles. But his hands were so far tied by his alliance with Prussia, that he supported her demand for Danzig (not Thorn), if it were accompanied by an enlightened commercial treaty in which England might have a share. Events soon proved that greed rather than enlightenment prevailed at Berlin. That Court clung to its demand for Danzig and Thorn, and its envoy at Warsaw, the subtle, scheming, and masterful Lucchesini, more than once showed a disposition to hark back to the policy of Frederick the Great, and to choke the disputes with Austria and Russia by a partition of Poland.[853]
For a time this seemed to be the natural upshot of an entente which unexpectedly came about between Berlin and Vienna. Not long after his accession Leopold wrote to his brother of Prussia in the terms of sensibility then in vogue. Frederick William answered in equally effusive strains; and but for the austere domination of the old Chancellor, Kaunitz, at Vienna, and the “turbulent genius” of Hertzberg at Berlin, there seemed a faint hope of a reconciliation.[854] But Kaunitz knew well how to keep up the bitterness against the upstart Protestant State; and Hertzberg had resolved to keep his master up to the high level of his own ambitions. Ingeniously he sowed the seeds of discord between the Imperial Courts by suggesting that Catharine should accept the mediation of the Allies with a view to a peace with the Porte.[855] This would leave Austria at the mercy of Prussia, and involve the loss of Galicia and the Netherlands. This last topic lay near to the heart of his Sovereign. Lord Auckland wrote thus on 19th March from his new Embassy at The Hague: “I have the fullest evidence that nothing less than absolute and inevitable necessity will induce him [Frederick William II] to contribute by word or deed to replacing the Netherlands under their old Government.” And three weeks later he expressed his astonishment that, in view of the widespread anarchy, Prussia and all Governments should not feel it their prime duty to restore those ideas of order and just subordination to legal authority which the world so urgently needed. Otherwise the European fabric would be sapped by French theories and succumb to a new series of barbarian invasions.[856]
These were the views of Pitt, though he expressed them with less nervous vehemence. His aim, and that of his colleagues, was to bring Austria first, and afterwards Russia, to a pacification. They reminded the Court of Berlin that Leopold had “neither the same predilection for Russia, the same jealousy of Prussia, [n]or dislike to the mediation of England” as Joseph had displayed, and that the status quo might now find favour at Vienna. Leopold, they added, could not possibly accept the last proposal of Hertzberg, of ceding Galicia to the Poles on condition of being allowed to regain the Netherlands.[857] The British Cabinet also, on 30th March, charged Keith to press for an immediate armistice between Austria and Turkey, with a view to summoning a Congress of the Powers for a general pacification, which Great Britain earnestly desired. But, they added, with a touch of guile, as it would take much longer to communicate with St. Petersburg, they hoped that Austria would act alone, and immediately grant an armistice to the Turks. If Austria would further pledge herself to admit the restoration of the old constitution in the Netherlands, Keith might accept this as satisfactory, and send off a courier to Constantinople to warn Ainslie to bring the Porte to reason.[858]
The aim of saving Austria from many dangers is here so obvious that one learns with astonishment that Kaunitz received these offers most haughtily. The belated concessions granted by Joseph on his death-bed to his malcontent subjects had met with his approval, but only, as it seems, in order to press on the war with Turkey à outrance, as if that, and that alone, would impose on the Court of Berlin. With senile obstinacy and old-world hauteur, he repulsed Keith, who thereupon executed a skilful flanking move by appealing to the Vice-Chancellor, Count Cobenzl. This astute diplomat saw the gain that might accrue from the British proposals, and assured Keith that his Sovereign had received them with “very great satisfaction.” Seeing his advantage, the British envoy warned Cobenzl against the extravagant claims of Potemkin, and urged him to work hard for a separate armistice with Turkey, now that “the most upright Court in Europe” offered its good services for that purpose. He further hinted that the recent treaties of Prussia with Turkey and Poland were a serious menace to Austria, and that the British proposal now made to her was “pointed and peremptory.” Finally they agreed that Kaunitz should so far be humoured as to draft the official reply, but that Cobenzl should be its interpreter on behalf of Leopold II. With this odd arrangement Keith had to put up for some weeks; and in that time the desire for peace grew apace at Vienna.[859]
Any other way of looking at things was sheer madness. The ablest of Austrian Generals, Marshal Laudon, warned Leopold of the terrible risks of a war against both Prussia and Turkey. The Aulic Council also knew full well that the almost unbounded influence of Prince Potemkin over the Czarina was ever used against Hapsburg interests, that pampered favourite having sworn vengeance against all who promoted the erection of Moldavia and Wallachia, which he coveted for himself,[860] into an independent principality. This scheme, so fatal to Hapsburg hopes, played no small part in sundering the two Empires. While, therefore, Leopold armed, as if for war with Prussia, he was secretly disposed to treat for a separate peace with the Turks if they would cede to him the limits of the Peace of Passarowitz, namely, North Servia and Wallachia as far east as the River Aluta. On the other hand he was resolved (so he told Keith on 9th May) to fight rather than lose the Netherlands, and in that case intended to gain the alliance of France by a few cessions of Belgian land. Still he hoped for a peaceful settlement through “the wise and kind intervention of England.”[861]
The position was now somewhat as follows: Leopold had staved off a general revolt in his dominions by soothing concessions or promises, but he insisted on the continuance of hostilities against Turkey in order, as he said, to predispose her to peace. To the Brabanters and Flemings he granted an armistice, but seemed about to send forces thither as if for the restoration of unlimited power. Meanwhile Sweden and Turkey continued the unequal fight against Russia, and the Triple Alliance imposed prudence on Denmark. In this uneasy equipoise England offered her mediation, not only to the belligerents--Russia, Austria, Turkey, and Sweden--but also to Prussia, with a view to a general armistice for the discussion of a settlement.[862]
Nowhere did this proposal meet with a cooler reception than at Berlin. Accordingly, on 21st May, Pitt and Leeds justified their conduct in a despatch to Ewart, in which the hand of the Prime Minister is plainly visible. He declared his earnest desire for the joint intervention of the three Allies, but explained that it was possible only by adhering to “that system of moderation to which he [His Majesty] has uniformly endeavoured to adhere.” England desired to see the power of Sweden and Turkey maintained, and would secretly advance a subsidy to Gustavus, but did not feel justified in going to war with the two Empires. If Prussia drew the sword, England would not only keep France and Denmark quiet, but would also prevent the march of Austrian troops to the Netherlands during the armistice there. The earnest hope was expressed that Prussia would give up the Galician project, and limit her gains to the restoration of the former boundaries, with a few reasonable changes. Nothing was further from the wish of England than to sacrifice the interests of Prussia to those of Austria.[863]
It soon appeared that Pitt and Leeds were prepared to meet the Court of Berlin half way. On receiving the curt refusal of Catharine to the British offer of mediation, they admitted that the Prussian plan of exchanges of territory was not objectionable in itself, if Austria agreed to it--a large assumption. The arrangement might be that Russia should retain the Crimea and all her present conquests up to the Dniester, that is, inclusive of Oczakoff. In that case she must restore to Sweden the wider Finnish limits of the Peace of Nystadt. As for Austria, she should gain North Servia and West Wallachia as far as the River Aluta--the Passarowitz limits; and she ought to retain the whole of Galicia except the districts about Brody, Belez, and Cracow. As a reward for these services to Poland, Prussia would gain her heart’s desire--Danzig, Thorn, and the Wartha territory. These would be “not sacrifices, but exchanges of territory.”[864]
The British Cabinet would clearly have preferred the status quo; but in this alternative scheme it sketched arrangements highly favourable to Prussia, Austria, Russia, and Sweden, less so to Poland, but wholly unfavourable to the Turks. Certainly it corresponded more nearly to the actual or probable fortune of war, the prospects of the Moslems being at this time gloomy, those of the Swedes doubtful, but those of Prussia brilliant. The Sultan, it was hinted, might be soothed by the guarantee of his possessions and the hope of admission to the Triple Alliance along with Sweden and Poland.[865] This curious despatch shows that Pitt and Leeds cared little about Turkey, and that their adhesion to the status quo was conditioned by a politic opportunism.
A sudden and perplexing change now came over Hapsburg policy. Possibly Leopold relied on the wheedling assurances of support received from Catharine. Certain it is that in the middle of June he demanded “indemnities” for the proposed gains to Poland and Prussia; and his haughty tone was not lowered by the news of a sharp defeat inflicted by the Turkish garrison of Giurgevo on the Austrian besiegers. Bared to the waist, and armed with sword and dagger, they suddenly burst from the gates in three uncontrollable torrents, which swept the Imperialists out of trenches and camp, and far on to the plain. In vain also did Keith warn Cobenzl not to rely on Russia. The Hapsburgs now seemed bent on dismembering Turkey and defying their northern neighbours.[866] At the end of June Leopold declared his resolve not to treat with the rebels in the Netherlands, and to denounce the armistice with them. Probably this threatening tone was a screen to hide the weakness of Austria’s position. On all sides her enemies held her fast. The Hungarians and Flemings firmly demanded their ancient rights; and persistence in the game of bluff must have led to the break up of her dominions.
Another curious change also came over the scene on the arrival of news at Berlin that Potemkin had offered to restore to the Porte all the Russian conquests of the present war, on condition of peace. This sudden adoption of the rôle of peacemaker by that ambitious and masterful favourite has never been fully explained.[867] It may have been due either to Turkish bribes or to a crafty resolve to checkmate Hertzberg’s scheme of making Turkey pay for Prussia’s gains. For how could the professed friend and ally impose on the Porte sacrifices far greater than those demanded by the enemy? The report that Leopold was disposed to accept the status quo, finding it far less objectionable than Hertzberg’s plan of exchanges, also gave food for thought. Accordingly, Frederick William, before opening negotiations with Austria, decided that this should form the general basis, but with certain modifications. The Turks were to be warned that, as Prussia’s armaments had saved them from destruction, they would now do well to conclude an armistice with Austria and hope for admission to the Triple Alliance. They should also humour their preserver by giving up Western Wallachia to Austria, so that she in her turn might cede the outer districts of Galicia to the Poles, who of course would yield to Prussia her reward for these troublesome bargainings. As for Great Britain, she was expected to favour these scientific readjustments because the trade of the Vistula would then be freed from obstacles, and be opened to her by favourable commercial treaties. Such was Hertzberg’s final plan for the preservation of the status quo.[868] In order to secure the acquiescence of the Turks, he had long kept the Porte on tenter-hooks by delaying the ratification of Dietz’s treaty, and by ordering the recall of that masterful envoy. On the other hand, the Turks were left with a glimmer of hope of eventual assistance from Berlin.
Accordingly, Prussian policy seemed about to win a brilliant triumph at the proposed Conference of Reichenbach, where the Triple Alliance and Austria (Russia having refused Britain’s mediation) were to thrash out these questions; and nothing is more curious than to watch the collapse of Hertzberg’s ingenious web. In order at the outset to settle matters separately with the Austrian envoy, Spielmann, the King of Prussia held Ewart aloof because the British Ambassador consistently warned Hertzberg against the complicated exchanges projected by him. Thereupon Ewart drew up a Memorial insisting that England must be a principal party, and that, as both Austria and Prussia had promised to admit the status quo as the basis of negotiation, the latter could not make war on the former if she consented to it. In that case, or even if he (Ewart) were excluded from the Conference, Great Britain must cancel her engagements to Prussia. He further declared his conviction that Austria would retract her extreme claims and listen to reason.[869]
This sharp protest had some effect on Hertzberg; but the chief difficulty was now with Frederick William. At the head of his splendid army, he seemed to court war. He sent a courier to the Porte to ratify Dietz’s treaty; and he cut off all communications with Austria as though hostilities had begun. At the first three sessions of the Conference (27th-29th June) the Austrian and Prussian envoys indulged in eager but vague wrangling; but the arrival of news from Constantinople that the Turks would never concede the Prussian demands sufficed to depress the bellicose ardour of the monarch. As there was a serious risk of the Porte coming to terms with Russia and Austria, he now harked back towards the status quo. This move, which the Duke of Brunswick and Möllendorf heartily supported, gathered strength when it appeared that Poland would accept none of Hertzberg’s benefits. The arrival of the British note of 2nd July to the same general effect ended the last efforts of Frederick William for Danzig and Thorn.[870] He now gave Hertzberg written orders to abandon at once the whole scheme of exchanges “since it could only serve to commit him with Great Britain as well as with the Porte and Poland.” Whence it appears that Hertzberg’s scientific and philanthropic plans fell through simply because all the States concerned utterly repudiated them.
The renunciation, however, was made not unskilfully. The Prussian and British Ministers were careful to keep secret Hertzberg’s change of front and thus prepared a surprise for Spielmann. That envoy having put forward some equally untenable schemes of aggrandisement, Ewart rose and read out a Memorial, drawn up in concert with his Prussian and Dutch colleagues, demanding an exact restitution of the old boundaries. In vain did the Hapsburg Minister seek to wriggle out of the dilemma by betraying Prussia into glaring inconsistency. Prussia stood firm; and finally he reduced his demands to Orsova and district. Even this cold comfort was denied him. The Triple Alliance was inexorable. Thereupon he demanded the dissolution of Prussia’s compacts with Turkey and Sweden, only to meet with the reply that the Austro-Russian alliance must first be annulled.[871] Thus Hertzberg, even in the hour of personal defeat, brought down the Hapsburg schemes in utter collapse; and the result of the discussions at Reichenbach was the recurrence to the status quo--the very same arrangement which Pitt and Leeds had throughout declared to be the best of all solutions.
Hertzberg’s annoyance at the destruction of his pet plans must have diminished when he heard from Vienna that Austria had secretly empowered Potemkin to make her peace with the Turks on that same basis. If this be true, each of the rivals was playing a game of bluff at Reichenbach; and the sight of the two Ancient Pistols eating the leek in turn must have filled Ewart with a joy such as falls to few diplomatists. Even as regards the Belgians, the British suggestion held good. They were to regain their ancient constitution together with an amnesty for past offences, and a guarantee by the three Allied Powers.[872] Frederick William, in complimenting Hertzberg on the end of the negotiations at Reichenbach, added that they must now assure themselves, through Ewart, of England’s support in imposing the status quo on Russia.[873] A new chapter in the relations of the Powers and in the career of Pitt lay enfolded in this suggestion.
* * * * *
Shortly after this happy ending to the disputes in Central Europe came the news of a settlement of the war in the Baltic. Once again Gustavus III startled the world. After his sudden and furious attack on Catharine, and her no less fierce counter stroke, it seemed that the struggle must be mortal. But many circumstances occurred to allay their hatred. The aims of the Czarina had always trended southwards; and the war in Finland was ultimately regarded chiefly as an annoying diversion from the crusade against the Turks. Moreover the valour of the Swedes, who closed the doubtful campaign of 1790 with a decided success at sea, added to the difficulties of campaigning in Finland, left little hope of conquest in that quarter so long as the Triple Alliance kept the Danes quiet and subsidized Gustavus. Catharine was in fact fighting against the forces of nature and the resources of England, Prussia, and Holland. Gustavus, too, even in the year 1789 felt the sobering influences of poverty. In 1790 they threatened him with bankruptcy, and at that same time the outlook was far from bright in Finland. Fortunately, the Russians were not in a position to press Gustavus hard. But nothing could stave off the advent of bankruptcy unless the Allies promptly advanced a considerable sum. This they were not prepared to do, for his unceasing importunities had wearied them out. The Dutch declined to help in a matter which concerned them but little, and after long negotiations at Stockholm Great Britain and Prussia agreed on 31st July to advance £200,000, or only two-thirds of the minimum named by the King. By the month of August 1790 the treasury at Stockholm was absolutely empty, so our envoy, Liston, reported.
While Gustavus was chafing at the restraints of poverty, Catharine held out to him alluring hopes. So soon as she heard of the turn which affairs were taking at Reichenbach she resolved to end her quarrel with him in order the better to browbeat Prussia and England. Leopold had early informed her of his resolve to conclude the Turkish war, in accordance with the demands of the Allies; and he also warned her of their intention to deprive Russia of her chief conquest. With a quickness of insight and a magnanimous resolve instinct with the highest statesmanship, she resolved to end the war in the Baltic by offers which would appeal irresistibly to a knight-errant struggling with debts and worries. She therefore despatched a courier to him in Finland, holding out virtually the same terms which the Allies had guaranteed to him.
Gustavus did not long hesitate. It is true that he had the promise of seventeen British battleships, which were in the Downs ready to sail to his succour; Prussia also had already sent one half of the subsidy which he demanded; and he had pledged his troth to the Allies not to make a separate peace with Russia. That step, however, he now decided to take; and the impression afterwards prevailed at London and Berlin, that Russian money had some influence on his decision.[874] However that may be, he sent Baron Armfelt to treat for peace. Where both sides were bent on a speedy settlement, difficulties vanished; and thus on 14th August 1790, the Peace of Werela was signed. It restored the few gains of territory which the belligerents had made, and gave permission to the Swedes to buy grain in Russian ports. The treaty was remarkable chiefly for its omissions. No mention was made of previous Russo-Swedish treaties, which gave the Empire some right to interfere in Swedish affairs. As Liston pointed out, the absence of any such claim was a personal victory for Gustavus; for it increased his authority and depressed that of the Russophile nobles. The King at once asserted his prerogative by condemning to death, despite the entreaties of Liston, the ringleader of the mutiny in Finland and by incarcerating two others for life.[875] Events were to show that the faction was cowed but not wholly crushed. The bullet of Ankerström repaid the debt of vengeance stored up in September 1790.
Equally strange was the abandonment of the Turks by their headstrong ally. Gustavus had gone to war ostensibly in order to prevent their overthrow, and now he left them at the mercy of Catharine. It is true that the signature of the Reichenbach Convention three weeks earlier ended their conflict with Austria; but the indignation of the Sultan, the wrath of the King of Prussia, and the quiet contempt of Pitt manifested the general feeling of the time.[876] Gustavus had salved his conscience by requiring Catharine to accord lenient treatment to the Moslems. The Czarina was quite ready to make any promises to this effect, if they formed no part of the treaty with Sweden. She assured Gustavus of her desire to renew the Treaty of Kainardji rather than continue the war; and Gustavus decided, so he informed Liston, “to trust to the elevated and honourable character of the Empress” on this point. Liston had his doubts. He ventured to express his surprise at the generosity of the imperial promises, which implied the restoration of the Crimea to Turkey, and he remarked that the combined pressure of Great Britain and Prussia had not availed to extort so great a boon. Gustavus, however, persisted in his estimate of the character of Catharine, doubtless because she humoured his latest plan, a crusade to Paris on behalf of the French monarchy, while she further promised him the sum of 2,000,000 roubles for his immediate needs.[877] She, too, sang loudly the praises of the man whom she had sworn to ruin. The cause of this new-born enthusiasm will appear in due course.
From the Swedish point of view much might be said for the action of Gustavus. He had rid himself and his land from the irksome tutelage of Russia: he came out of the war with no loss of territory, the first Russo-Swedish war of the century of which this can be said; his martial energy had inspirited his people; and he had overthrown a corrupt and unpatriotic aristocracy. But, from the standpoint which he took up at the outset of the war, his conduct had proved him a shifty ally, who merited the suspicion of his former comrades. Nevertheless he had played no small part in checking the subversive schemes of Catharine and Joseph. Thanks to him the Moslems maintained a struggle which gave time for the army of Prussia and the diplomacy of Pitt to exert themselves with effect. Had he stood by his promises, the Triple Alliance would probably have brought Russia to terms favourable to the interests both of Turkey and of Poland.
Even as matters stood at the end of that year of turmoil, 1790, Pitt might reflect with something of pride that his efforts had decisively made for peace and stability. He it was who had been mainly instrumental in saving Sweden from ruin, the Hapsburg States from partition, and Prussia from Hertzberg’s policy of exchange and adventure. Moreover, at that same time British policy won another success at a point which has always been deemed essential to the maintenance of equilibrium in Europe.
* * * * *
The recovery of his authority in the Belgic provinces lay near the heart of Leopold II. His letters and those of Kaunitz show that he consented to patch matters up at Reichenbach largely in order that he might be free to subdue Brabant and Flanders. True, he admitted the mediation of the Triple Alliance in those affairs; but his missive to Catharine shows that he acquiesced in that convention only in order to prevent the disruption of his dominions, and that he hoped to evade some at least of its provisions by means of an “eternal alliance” with Russia. As will appear in a later chapter, fidelity to Russia involved a policy of procrastination and trickery towards Turkey, Prussia, England, and the Belgians. The conduct of Austria in the Eastern Question helped to checkmate Pitt and secure a diplomatic triumph for Catharine in the year 1791.
Here we may notice that Leopold and Kaunitz, so soon as the threat of war from the Prussian side passed away, and their own troops in Luxemburg were reinforced, took a stern tone with the men of Brabant and Flanders. At the Conference held at The Hague for the settlement of those affairs, the Austrian envoy, Count Mercy, refused to extend the time of the armistice in those provinces, and warned the three mediating Powers that their services would no longer be recognized by the Viennese Court. Austrian troops also began to march towards Brussels. Thereupon Lord Auckland hotly protested against this high-handed proceeding; and the British Cabinet threatened to send a large fleet to co-operate with the Prussians and Dutch in preventing the re-conquest of Belgic lands by Leopold.[878] This threat, formidable in view of the large armament kept up by England, even after the end of the Spanish dispute, emanated largely from Pitt himself. For Ewart, who was then in London on furlough, wrote to Auckland on 28th November 1790 concerning the opinions of Ministers:
Some difference of opinion existed; but I trust Mr. Pitt will write to your lordship himself in a satisfactory manner; and you know better than I do of what consequence the opinions of others are. I confess I am very uneasy about the explosion this affair must have produced at Berlin; but I trust the explanations sent from hence will have given satisfaction both there and with you on the great principle of making the Emperor adhere--bon gré, mal gré--to his engagements for re-establishing the [Belgic] Constitution: and it appears impossible he should venture in his present situation to risk the consequences of a refusal.[879]
Pitt’s firmness won the day. Leopold shrank from a contest with the Allies, and consented to a convention which was signed on 10th December at The Hague. The ancient customs and privileges of the Pays Bas were to be restored (including those of the University of Louvain and the Catholic seminaries), and an amnesty granted to all concerned in the recent revolt. Leopold promised never to apply the conscription to his Belgian subjects, and he recognized the guarantee of Great Britain, Prussia, and Holland for the present arrangements.
The satisfaction of Pitt at this turn of affairs appeared in the order to place the British navy on a peace footing--a measure which we can now see to have been premature, in that it encouraged Catharine to reject the demands of the Allies, and Leopold to display the duplicity which often marred his actions. The failure of Pitt to coerce the Czarina will engage our attention later; but we may note here that, on various pretexts, Leopold refused to ratify the Hague Convention, and left Belgian affairs in a state which earned the hatred of that people and the suspicion of British statesmen.[880]
For the present, as the shiftiness of Leopold and the defiance of Catharine could not be surmised, there seemed to be scarcely a cloud on the political horizon. By the end of the year 1790, the policy of Pitt, cautious at the beginning of a crisis, firm during its growth, and drastic at the climax, had raised Great Britain to a state of prosperity and power which contrasted sharply with the unending turmoil in France, the helplessness of Spain, the confusion in the Hapsburg States, and the sharp financial strain in Russia. In truth, the end of the year 1790 marks the zenith of Pitt’s career. In seven years, crowded with complex questions, he had won his way to an eminence whence he could look down on rivals, both internal and external, groping their way doubtfully and deviously.
Of these triumphs, those gained over foreign Powers were by far the most important, except in the eyes of those who look at British history from the point of view of party strife. To them the events of this fascinating period will be merely a confused background to the duel between Pitt and Fox. Those, however, who love to probe the very heart of events, and to pry into the hidden springs of great movements, which uplift one nation and depress another, will not soon tire even of the dry details of diplomacy, when they are seen to be the gauge of human wisdom and folly, of national greatness and decline.
In the seven years now under survey, England emerged from defeat, isolation, and discredit which bordered on bankruptcy, until she soared aloft to a position of prestige in the diplomatic and mercantile spheres which earned the envy of her formerly triumphant rivals. Strong in herself, and strengthened by the alliance of Prussia and Holland, she had to all appearance assured the future of the Continent in a way that made for peace and quietness. Pitt had helped to compose the strifes resulting from the reckless innovations of Joseph II, strifes which, had Hertzberg succeeded, must have led to a general war. The importance of this work of pacification has escaped notice amidst the dramatic incidents of the Revolution and Napoleonic Era. For in the panorama of history, as in its daily diorama, it is the destructive and sensational which rivets attention, too often to the exclusion of the healing and upbuilding efforts on which the future of the race depends. A more searching inquiry, a more faithful description, will reveal the truth, that a statesman attains a higher success when he averts war than when he wages a triumphant war.
XXIV. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.--BURKE, Reflections on the French Revolution.
Ideas rule the world and its events. A Revolution is the passage of an idea from theory to practice.--MAZZINI, The French Revolution of 1789.
That the career of Pitt is divided into two very diverse portions by the French Revolution is almost a commonplace. Macaulay in artful antitheses has pointed the contrast between the earlier and the later Pitt; poets, who lacked his art but abounded in gall, descanted on the perversion of the friend of liberty into the reactionary tyrant; and Jacobins hissed out his name as that of “the enemy of the human race.”
If we carefully study the attitude of Pitt towards the French Revolution, we shall find it to be far from inflexible. It changed with changing events. It was not that of a doctrinaire but of a practical statesman, who judges things by their outcome. He has often been blamed for looking at this great movement too much from the standpoint of a financier; and the charge is perhaps tenable as regards the years of the Jacobin ascendancy, when the flame kindled by Rousseau shrivelled up the old order of things. But the ideas prevalent in 1793 differed utterly from those of 1789, which aimed at reforms of a markedly practical character.
There was urgent need of them. As is well known, the unprivileged classes of France were entangled in a network of abuses, social, fiscal, and agrarian, from which the nobles had refused to set them free. Despite the goodwill of Louis XVI, the well-meant efforts of his chief minister, Necker, and the benevolent attempts of many of the clergy and some nobles, the meshes of Feudalism and the absolute monarchy lay heavily on the land up to the time of the Assembly of the States-General at Versailles in May 1789. It is of course a gross error to assume that the French peasants were more oppressed than those of other continental lands. Their lot was more favoured than that of the peasantry of Spain, South Italy, Prussia, and most parts of Germany, to say nothing of the brutish condition of the serfs of Poland and Russia.[881] Those of France were more prosperous than Arthur Young believed them to be. They kept on buying up plot after plot in ways that illustrate the ceaseless land-hunger of the Celt and his elusive stubbornness.
But he would be a shallow reasoner who argued that, because the poverty of the French peasants was less grinding than it appeared, therefore the old agrarian and fiscal customs were tolerable. The most brilliant display of what Carlyle called “tongue-fencing” cannot justify a system which compels millions of men to live behind a perpetual screen of misery. To notice the case of that worthy peasant whose hospitality was sought by Rousseau during his first weary tramp to Paris. The man gave him only the coarsest food until he felt sure of his being a friend of the people and no spy. Then wine, ham, and an omelette were forthcoming, and Jacques Bonhomme opened his heart. “He gave me to understand,” said Rousseau, “that he hid his wine on account of the duties, and his bread on account of the tax; and that he would be a lost man if he did not lead people to suppose that he was dying of hunger. All that he told me about this subject--of which previously I had not had the slightest idea--made an impression upon me which will never be effaced. There was the germ of that inextinguishable hatred which developed later in my heart against the vexations endured by the poor, and against their oppressors.”[882] Multiply the case of that hospitable peasant a million times over, and the outbreak of the Revolution becomes a foregone conclusion. The only surprising thing is that the débâcle did not come far earlier.
But the old order rarely breaks up until the vernal impulses of hope begin potently to work. These forces were set in motion, firstly, by the speculations of philosophers, the criticisms of economists and the social millennium glowingly sketched by Rousseau. Ideas which might have been confined to the study, were spread to the street by the French soldiers who had fought side by side with the soldiers of Washington, and became on their return the most telling pleaders for reform. Thus, by a fatal ricochet, the bolt launched by the Bourbons at England’s Colonial Empire, glanced off and wrecked their own fabric.
The results, however, came slowly. It is often assumed that the destructive teachings of the Encyclopaedists, the blighting raillery of Voltaire, and the alluring Utopia of Rousseau would by themselves have been the ruin of that outworn social order. But it is certain that no one in France or England, up to the eve of the Revolution, anticipated a general overturn. Ultimately, no doubt, ideas rule the world; but their advent to power is gradual, unless the champions of the old order allow decay to spread. Furthermore, constructors of ingenious theories about the French Revolution generally forget that nearly all the ideas given to the world by Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, were derived from the works of Hobbes, Locke, and Bolingbroke. The sage of Ferney drew his arrows from the quiver of English philosophy, and merely added the barbs of his own satire; Montesquieu pleaded on behalf of a balance of political powers like that of England; and all that was most effective in the “Social Contract” of the Genevese thinker came from Hobbes and Locke. The verve of Frenchmen gave to these ideas an application far wider than that which they had gained in their island home. Here the teachings of Locke formed a prim parterre around the palace of the King, the heir to the glorious Revolution of 1688. When transferred to that political forcing-bed, France, they shot up in baleful harvests.
It is the seed-bed which counts as well as the seed. The harmlessness of philosophic speculation in England and its destructive activity in France may be explained ultimately by the condition of the two lands. In the Island State able Ministers succeeded in popularizing an alien dynasty and promoting the well-being of the people. Retrenchment and Reform were not merely topics of conversation in salons; they were carried out in many parts of the administration. This was specially the case after the peace of 1783, which left France victorious and England prostrate. There the fruits of victory were not garnered; and the political fabric, strained by the war, was not underpinned. Thinking men talked of repair, but, thanks to the weakness of the King and the favouritism of the Queen, nothing was done. Here the ablest constructive statesman since the time of Cromwell set about the needed repairs; and his work, be it remembered, coincided with the joyous experiments of the Court of Versailles to maintain credit by a display of luxury. The steady recovery of England and the swift decline of France may be ascribed in large measure to Pitt and Calonne.
It was against definite and curable ills in the body politic that the French reformers at first directed their efforts. In May–June 1789 the ideals of Rousseau remained wholly in the background. The Nobles and Clergy (as appears in their cahiers, or instructions) were, with few exceptions, ready to give up the immunities from taxation to which they had too long clung. Those of the Tiers Etat, or Commons, laid stress on fair taxation, on the abolition of the cramping customs of Feudalism, whether social, agrarian, or judicial, on the mitigation of service in the militia, while some even demanded better lighting of the streets. The Nobles and Clergy asked for a limitation of the powers of the Crown; and the Commons desired a constitution; but it was to resemble that of England, save that larger powers were left to the King, the Ministers being responsible to him alone. Few of the cahiers of the Commons asked for a fusion of the three Orders in one Assembly; and not one breathed the thought of a Republic.[883] Their bugbear was the game laws, not the monarchy; the taille à miséricorde and the corvées, not the Nobles; the burdensome tithes, not the Church.
As at Paris and Versailles, so among the peasants. At first, even in troublous Franche Comté, their thoughts did not soar beyond taxes and feudal burdens. Arthur Young calmed a demonstration against himself by telling excited patriots near Besançon of the differences between taxes in England and France:
Gentlemen [he said] we have a great number of taxes in England which you know nothing of in France; but the tiers état, the poor, do not pay them, they are laid on the rich; every window in a man’s house pays; but if he has no more than six windows, he pays nothing; a Seigneur, with a great estate, pays the vingtièmes and taille, but the little proprietor of a garden pays nothing; the rich, for their horses, their carriages, their servants, and even for liberty to kill their own partridges; but the poor farmer nothing of all this; and what is more, we have in England a tax paid by the rich for the relief of the poor.[884]
Who would not sympathize with these people! They were staggering under burdens piled up by a monarchy absolute in name, but powerless in all that made for reform and retrenchment. Where Louis XVI by his weakness, and the Queen by her caprice, had failed to right the wrong, the nation was bent in succeeding; and it is highly probable that, if the King had shown more tact in dealing with the Commons, and they a little more patience, the popular movement might have progressed peacefully for a decade, with wholly beneficent results. We, who know how one event led on to another, find it difficult to escape from the attractive but fallacious conclusion that the sequence was inevitable. The mind loves to forge connecting links, and then to conclude that the chain could not have been made otherwise--a quite gratuitous assumption. At several points it was the exceptional which happened. A perusal of the letters of intelligent onlookers shows that they foresaw, and most naturally, a wholly different outcome of events. They looked to see a few drastic reforms, a time of unrest, and then the remodelling of the monarchy à l’Anglaise.
As for Pitt, he waited to see whither all this would tend. His attitude towards France in the early part of 1789 was distinctly friendly. He assured the French ambassador, M. de Luzerne, that France and England had the same principles, namely, not to aggrandize themselves and to oppose aggrandizement in others, and he added that he hoped for the assistance of France to assist Sweden and Turkey against the powerful Empires that were seeking their overthrow.
This declaration bespoke his fixed resolve to save Europe from the ambitious schemes of the other monarchs; and, now that France accepted Anglo-Prussian ascendancy in Holland and abandoned her forward policy in the Orient, she might serve to redress the balance of power. Such views were consonant with Pitt’s lofty aim of winning over “the natural enemy.” In truth, they were the outcome of common sense, even of self-interest. The suspicion and dislike were all on the side of the Court of Versailles. Montmorin and Luzerne were haunted by the fear that Pitt meant to pour oil on the smouldering discontent in France, and shrivel up the Bourbon power. There is not a shred of evidence that he ever entertained these notions. That they were harboured at Versailles merely showed that a Power which has rent another in twain cannot believe in the goodwill of the injured nation; and this suspicion was one of the many causes begetting irritation and alarm in Paris. On the other hand it must be remembered, as one of Pitt’s greatest services, that his protests against the American War and his subsequent efforts for an entente cordiale with France, had so far effaced resentment on this side of the Channel, that the strivings of Frenchmen after political freedom and social equality aroused the deepest interest. The majority of our people sympathized with Fox, when, on hearing of the fall of the Bastille, he exclaimed: “How much is this the greatest and best event that has happened in the world.”[885]
Official prudence or natural reserve kept Pitt silent on these affairs, and on the horrors of the ensuing Jacquerie, which speedily cooled the first transports of Britons. We know, however, that he must have viewed the financial collapse of France with secret satisfaction; for in August–September 1788 he wrote to Grenville in terms which implied that the recovery of the credit of France, then expected under the fostering care of Necker, would be a very serious blow, implying as it did the resumption of her aggressive schemes in the East.[886] Now, however, the disorders in France aroused his pity; and on 14th July, before he can have heard of the fall of the Bastille, he wrote to his mother that France was fast becoming “an object of compassion even to a rival.”[887] There is no sign that he feared the spread of democratic opinions into England. The monarchy had never been so popular as since the mental malady of the King. On the whole, then, Pitt surveyed the first events of the Revolution from the standpoint of a diplomatist and financier. France seemed to him doomed to a time of chastening and weakness which might upset the uneasy equilibrium of Europe.
Already he had come into touch with the French people at a very sensitive point, and in a way which illustrated their eager expectancy and his cool and calculating character. On 25th June Necker sent to him an urgent appeal begging that he would sanction the export of flour from Great Britain to France in order to make good the scarcity which there prevailed. If the request must come before Parliament, he trusted that the boon would speedily be granted by a generous nation, and by a statesman “whose rare virtues, sublime talents, and superb renown have long rivetted my admiration and that of all Europe.”[888]
* * * * *
In sharp contrast to this personal and effusive request was the cold and correct demeanour of Pitt. He sent the following formal reply, not to Necker, but to the French ambassador, the Marquis de Luzerne:
Downing Street, 3rd July, 1789.[889]
Mr. Pitt presents his compliments to the Marquis de Luzerne. He has felt the strongest desire to be able to recommend sending the supply of flour desir’d by Mons^r Necker and had hopes from the information at first given him by Mr. Wilson that it would be practicable; but, having afterwards received some contrary information, he thought it necessary that the subject should be examined by the Committee of Council for the Affairs of Trade, whose enquiry was not clos’d till this morning. Mr. Pitt has now the mortification to find that, according to the accounts of the persons most conversant with the corn trade, the present supply in this country compar’d with the demand, and the precarious prospect of the harvest render it impossible to propose to Parliament to authorize any exportation.
Three days later Pulteney brought the matter before the House of Commons and deprecated the export of 20,000 sacks of flour to France which had been talked of. Pitt thereupon stated that skilled advice was being taken as to the advisability of allowing such an export, in view of the shortness at home, and the gloomy prospects for the harvest. Wilberforce, Dempster, and Major Scott urged the more generous course towards our suffering neighbours; but others pointed out that, as the price of home wheat was rising (it rose seven shillings the bushel on that very day), any such proposal would enhance that perilous tendency at home without materially benefiting the French. Even at the present figures export was forbidden under the existing Corn Law; but Pitt mentioned that a curious attempt was on foot at Shoreham to depress the price from forty-eight shillings to forty-four in order to procure the export of 8,000 sacks of flour to Havre. As the transaction was clearly fictitious, he had directed the Customs officers to stop the export. On 13th July Grenville, in the absence of Pitt, asked leave to introduce a Bill for the better ascertaining and regulating the export of corn; and the House at once agreed.[890]
Such, then, was the beginning of Pitt’s relations to French democracy. They are certainly to be regretted. His reply to Necker’s request is icily correct and patriotically insular; and his whole attitude was a warning to the French not to expect from him any deviation from the rules of Political Economy. Of course it is unfair to tax him with blindness in not recognizing the momentous character of the crisis. No one could foresee the banishment of Necker, the surrender of the Bastille, on the very day after Grenville’s motion, still less the stories of the pacte de famine, and their hideous finale, the march of the dames des halles to Versailles, ostensibly to get food. Nevertheless, the highest statesmanship transcends mere reason. The greatest of leaders knows instinctively when economic laws and the needs of his own nation may be set aside for the welfare of humanity. The gift of 20,000 sacks of flour outright would have been the best bargain of Pitt’s career. It would have spoken straight to the heart of France, and brought about a genuine entente cordiale. His conduct was absolutely justified by law. The Commercial Treaty of 1786 with France had not included the trade in corn or flour, which had long been subject to strict regulations, and therefore remained so. Moreover, the Dublin Government did not allow the export of wheat to Great Britain until home wheat sold at more than thirty shillings the barrel; and in that year of scarcity, 1789, when the harvest was extremely late, and the yield uncertain even at the beginning of December, the fiat went forth from Dublin Castle that no wheat must for the present cross the Irish Sea to relieve the scarcity in England.[891] If that was the case between the sister kingdoms, Pitt certainly acted correctly in forbidding the export of flour to France.
Meanwhile, Anglo-French relations were decidedly cool. The Duke of Dorset, our ambassador at Paris, reported that it was not desirable for English visitors to appear in the streets amid the excitements that followed on the fall of the Bastille; and an agent, named Hippisley, employed by him, reported that “the prejudices against the English were very general--the pretext taken being our refusal to aid the French with grain, and our reception of M. Calonne, which, they contended, was in deference to the Polignacs.”[892] The Duke of Dorset also referred to the prevalence of wild rumours as to our efforts to destroy the French ships and dockyard at Brest, and to foment disorders in France.[893]
Certainly we were not fortunate in our ambassador. In the year 1786 the Duke of Dorset had often shown petty touchiness in his relations with William Eden, besides jealously curbing the superior abilities of his own subordinate, Daniel Hailes. Now that they were gone, his despatches were thin and lacking in balance. After the fall of the Bastille, he wrote to the Duke of Leeds that “the greatest Revolution that we know of has been effected with, comparatively speaking, ... the loss of very few lives. From this moment we may consider France as a free country, the King as a very limited monarch, and the nobility as reduced to a level with the rest of the nation.” He described the tactful visit of Louis XVI to Paris on 17th July as the most humiliating step he could possibly take. “He was actually led in triumph like a tame bear by the deputies and the city militia.” He added, with an unusual flash of insight, that the people had not been led by any man or party, “but merely by the general diffusion of reason and philosophy.”
Nevertheless, though the King’s youngest brother, the Comte d’Artois, and his reactionary followers were scattered to the four winds, Dorset had the imprudence to write to congratulate him on his escape. The letter was intercepted, and the populace at once raised a hue and cry against the British embassy, it being well known that the Duke was on the most familiar terms with the highest aristocracy. Dorset thereupon wrote to the Duke of Leeds urging the need of stating officially the good will of England for France; and that Minister at once expressed “the earnest desire of His Majesty and his Ministers to cultivate and promote that friendship and harmony, which so happily subsists between the two countries.” Dorset communicated this to the National Assembly on 3rd August; but that was his last official act. He forthwith returned to England, presumably because of the indiscretion related above.
During the next months the duties of the embassy devolved upon Lord Robert Stephen Fitzgerald (brother of the more famous Lord Edward), who was charged to do all in his power to cultivate friendly relations with the French Government, and, for the present at least, to discourage the visits of English tourists.[894] The new envoy certainly showed more tact than Dorset; but his despatches give the impression that he longed for the political reaction which he more than once predicted as imminent. We may notice here that the Pitt Cabinet showed no sign of uneasiness as to the safety of its archives at the Paris embassy until 5th March, when orders were issued to send back to London all the ciphers and deciphers. The attitude of Pitt towards French affairs was one of cautious observation.
In the meantime affairs at Paris went rapidly from bad to worse. The scarcity of ready money, the dearness of bread, and the wild stories of the so-called pacte de famine, for starving the populace into obedience, whetted class-hatreds, and rendered possible the extraordinary scenes of 5th and 6th October. As is well known, the tactlessness of the Queen and courtiers on the one side, and on the other the intrigues of the Duke of Orleans and his agents, led up to the weird march of the market-women and rabble of Paris upon Versailles, which brought the Royal Family captive into the capital.
The absence of the Duke of Orleans being highly desirable, he was sent to London, ostensibly on a diplomatic mission, but really in order to get rid of him until affairs should have settled down.[895] The pretext was found in the troubles in the Austrian Netherlands. As we saw in the previous chapters, nothing could be more unlike the growingly democratic movement in France than the revolt of the Flemings and Brabanters against the anti-national reforms of Joseph II of Austria. Men so diverse as Burke and Dumouriez discerned that truth. The great Irishman in a letter to Rivarol termed the Belgian rising a resistance to innovation;[896] while to the French free-thinker it was une révolution théocratique. Nevertheless, as many Frenchmen cherished the hope of giving a prince to the Pays Bas, it was thought well to put forth a feeler London-wards; and Philippe Egalité in fancy saw himself enthroned at Brussels.
Such a solution would have been highly displeasing both at Westminster and at Windsor; and there is no proof that the Duke even mentioned it at Whitehall. In point of fact his mission was never taken seriously. George III, with characteristic acuteness in all matters relating to intrigue, had divined the secret motive of his journey and expressed it in the following hitherto unpublished letter to the Duke of Leeds:
WINDSOR, Oct. 19, 1789. 9.55 a.m.[897]
The language held by the Marquis de Luzerne to the Duke of Leeds on the proposed journey of the Duke of Orleans does not entirely coincide with the intelligence from Lord Robert Fitzgerald of the Duke’s message to the States General [sic] announcing his absence as the consequence of a negotiation with which he is to be employed at this Court. I confess I attribute it to his finding his views not likely to succeed or some personal uneasiness for his own safety....
The King argued correctly; and doubtless his suspicions ensured for the Duke a chilly reception at the Foreign Office. On 22nd or 23rd October Leeds saw him at his residence in London, but could get from him no more than polite professions of regard for England. Leeds thereupon urged Fitzgerald to find out whether the Duke’s “mission” was a plausible pretext for securing his absence from Paris; to which our envoy replied that everyone at Paris spoke of him with indifference or contempt, and that Lafayette had discovered proofs of his complicity in the outrages of 5th to 6th October, and therefore had him sent away. On 6th November Fitzgerald added that Louis XVI had given the Duke no instructions whatever. Leeds had already come to much the same conclusion. On 30th October he saw Orleans, who merely suggested a close understanding between England and France, especially if the Emperor should march an army into his Belgic provinces. Leeds coolly replied that the desire of Joseph II to crush the revolt was most natural, and that France would do well to restore order at home rather than look with apprehension on events beyond her borders. As he accompanied these remarks with expressions of sincere commiseration for Louis XVI, Orleans must have seen that the secret of his involuntary mission was divined. This seems to be the only notice of it in the British archives. His sinister reputation and his association with loose company in London soon deprived him of all consequence.
Pitt’s attitude towards the Belgian Question has been already described. He seems to have given more time and thought to it than to the French Revolution--a fact which is not strange if we remember that the future of the Belgic lands was of untold importance for Great Britain. To secure their independence from France she had many times poured out her blood and treasure; and Pitt was destined to spend his last energies in the greatest of those efforts. Moreover, as we have seen, the European polity was far more seriously menaced by the schemes of Catharine, Joseph, and Hertzberg than by French reformers; and no one expected that in a short time the shifting kaleidoscope of European States would be altogether shivered by blows dealt from Paris. We, who know the outcome of events, are apt to accuse Pitt of shortsightedness for not concentrating his attention on France; but the criticism rests on the cheapest of all kinds of wisdom--wisdom after the event. In Pitt’s mind the advent of militant democracy aroused neither ecstasy nor loathing. His royalism had nothing in common with the crusading zeal of Gustavus III, and therefore did not impel him to rescue the Bourbons from the troubles which resulted so largely from their participation in the American War. Here, as everywhere, Pitt allowed cold reason to rule; and reason suggested that the Bourbons might atone for that stupendous blunder as best they could. Besides, the experience of nations, as of families, forbade the interference of an outsider in domestic quarrels. Apart from its bearing on Belgian affairs, the French Revolution is scarcely named in Pitt’s correspondence of this time.
Still more curious is it that the letters of George III to his Minister contain not a single reference to the Revolution. This silence respecting events of untold import for all crowned heads is explicable if we remember that to most men they seemed but the natural outcome of mismanagement and deficient harvests, which statesmanship and mother Nature would ere long set right. The proneness of George to look at everything from his own limited point of view was also at this time emphasized by ill health and family troubles, which blotted out weightier topics. Thus, on 1st May 1789, he declared his annoyance at the sudden return of Prince William from the West Indies--a proof that his paternal commands would never be obeyed. The Prince, he says, must now have the same allowance as the Duke of York. “I have,” he adds, “but too much reason to expect no great comfort but an additional member to the opposite faction in my own family.” He concludes with the desire that some arrangement may be made for the Queen and the princesses in case of his death; for his whole nervous system has sustained a great shock in the late illness. On 9th June the King again expresses to Pitt his regret that Prince William declines to return to sea. His letters during the rest of that exciting year are devoid of interest if we except the effort to reconcile Pitt and Thurlow referred to in Chapter XX.
The King’s domestic dronings are varied on 14th January 1790 by an excited declaration that a frigate must be provided at once in order to convey Prince Edward, afterwards Duke of Kent, to Gibraltar, as it was of urgent importance that he should at once leave London.[898] On 3rd March he records his heartfelt joy at the failure of Fox’s attempt to procure the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts; and on the 28th of that month occurs the first reference to the French Revolution which I have found in the King’s letters. He then expresses to Pitt regret that the papers forwarded by the Comte d’Artois (younger brother of Louis XVI) and his political agent, Calonne, contain so little real information about the affairs of France. He continues thus: “Mr. Pitt’s answer should be very civil, and may be very explicit as to no money or other means having been used to keep up the confusion in France; and M. de Calonne ought to convey those assurances wherever he thinks they may be of use.”[899] Readers who have an eye for the ironies of history may notice that the first of the myriad stories thrown off by the perfervid Gallic imagination, as to the ubiquitous potency of British money in creating famines, arming assassins, and trumping up Coalitions against France, originated with the royalist exiles, who saw in the French Revolution the first manifestation of the wonder-working power of “Pitt’s gold.”
That statesman’s opinion concerning the Revolution was first made known during the debates on the Army Estimates (5th and 9th February 1790). Having inserted in the King’s Speech a reference to the friendly assurances which he received from all the Powers, and a guarded statement that the internal troubles in certain states engaged the King’s “most serious attention,” he was twitted by champions of economy with a slight increase in the army. True, the total provided for was only 17,448 officers and men; and part of the increase was due to the drafting of 200 men to keep order in the infant colony of New South Wales. But even these figures, which
barely could defy The arithmetic of babes,
aroused the compunctions of Marsham, Fox, and Pulteney. They complained that, though most of our Colonial Empire had been lost, yet our army had been increased by thirteen regiments since the disastrous peace of 1783. Marsham deemed this increase “alarming,” and wholly needless in view of the paralysis of France. Fox did not repeat the stale platitude that a standing army was a danger to liberty; for, as he pointed out, the French soldiers had shown themselves to be good citizens; but he opposed the present vote on the ground of economy, and because it was urgently necessary to strengthen the public credit, which could be done only by reductions of expenditure. He repeated these arguments in the second debate, that of 9th February.
On both occasions Pitt defended the proposed vote for the army, on the ground that “a small saving now might prove the worst economy, by involving us in disputes which might be attended with greater additional burthens to the kingdom.” In the latter debate he skilfully used the admission of Fox, that any one who three years before had foretold the present convulsions in France would have been deemed a lunatic, in order to enforce the need of preparedness, it being no excuse for responsible Ministers to exclaim in the midst of disasters--“Who would have thought of it?” Then, as was his wont, he opened up wider vistas in this noble but, alas, less prophetic strain:
The present convulsions of France must, sooner or later, terminate in general harmony and regular order; and though the fortunate arrangements of such a situation may make her more formidable, it may also render her less obnoxious as a neighbour.... Whenever the situation of France shall become restored, it will prove freedom rightly understood; freedom resulting from good order and good government; and thus circumstanced France will stand forward as one of the most brilliant Powers in Europe; she will enjoy just that kind of liberty which I venerate, and the valuable existence of which it is my duty, as an Englishman, peculiarly to cherish; nor can I, under this predicament, regard with envious eyes, an approximation in neighbouring States to those sentiments which are the characteristic features of every British subject. Easier, I will admit with the right hon. gentleman, is it to destroy than rebuild; and therefore I trust that this universally acknowledged position will convince gentlemen that they ought, on the present question, not to relax their exertions for the strength of the country, but endeavour to regain our former pinnacle of glory, and to improve, for our security, happiness and aggrandisement, those precious moments of peace and leisure which are before us.[900]
This statesmanlike utterance was not prompted by considerations of the mutability of human affairs. The bent of Pitt’s mind was too practical to be influenced by copy-book maxims. Already, on 21st January, the first rumours had reached the Foreign Office, which portended serious friction with Spain. To this question we must devote the following chapter.
It will be well, however, to conclude this chapter by a few remarks on the standpoints from which Pitt and Burke viewed the French Revolution. They were in truth so different as scarcely to admit of comparison. The judgements of Pitt were those of a statesman of an objective order of mind, who weighed events carefully, judged men critically, and was content to change his policy as occasion required. In his view institutions were made for men, not men for institutions. But his zeal for Reform was tempered by respect for the verdicts of the past and by the knowledge that the progress of mankind must be slow if it is to be sure. He had lost much of his earlier zeal for Parliamentary Reform, but only because the people had seemed to care little for it, and were sincerely attached to their time-worn institutions. His attitude towards this great question during the stormy years of the Jacobin ascendancy will concern us later; and we need only notice here that, even at that time of political ferment, he never declared that under no circumstances would he bring in a Reform Bill, but always left open a door of hope in that direction when quieter days should return. For the present he repressed all movements which he considered seditious, dangerous, or likely to cause divisions; and for that alone he may be condemned by friends of progress.
From the other side he is censured for his lack of sympathy with the woes of a distressed King and Queen. Certainly we miss in his utterances any gush of genuine feeling on a subject which touched the inmost springs of emotion in our people. True, he had small ground for liking Louis XVI and his consort. The King of France had dealt the British Empire a deadly blow in America; and Marie Antoinette was an inveterate intriguer against England. Even up to the flight to Varennes at midsummer 1791, she impelled her brother, Leopold II of Austria, in his anti-English courses, which, as we shall see, cost us so dear. What was worse, she even accused England of having instigated all the disorders of which she was the victim. Nevertheless, it would have been generous to attribute this spitefulness to her narrow training and bitter sorrows. Pitt would have been a more engaging figure if he had occasionally shown a spark of that indignation which burnt so fiercely in Burke. If he had any deep feelings on the subject, he chose to conceal them, perhaps from a conviction that the expression of them would do more harm than good.
Well would it have been for the cause of peace if the champion of French royalism in these islands had obeyed the dictates of reason which held Pitt tongue-tied. Unfortunately sentiment and emotion at this time reigned supreme in the great mind of Burke. Every student of history must admire the generous impulses which were incarnate in the great Irishman. They lent colour to the products of his imagination, and they lit up his actions with a glow which makes his blunders more brilliant than the dull successes of mediocre men. Where sentiment was a safe guide, there Burke led on with an energy that was not less conspicuous than his insight. Where critical acumen, mental balance, and self-restraint were needed, the excess of his qualities often led him far astray. The true function of such a man is to interpret the half-felt impulses of the many. If he seek to guide them to definite solutions, his ardent temperament is apt to overshoot the mark. Observers noted how Burke’s vehement conduct of the Warren Hastings affair injured his cause; and many more were soon to discern the same failing when, with Celtic ardour, he rushed into the complex mazes of the French Revolution.
Opinions will always differ as to the merits of his remarkable book on that subject. Its transcendent literary excellences at once ensured it an influence enjoyed by no other political work of that age; but we are here concerned with his “Reflections” not as literature, but as criticism on the French movement. Even in this respect he rightly gauged some of the weaknesses of Gallic democracy. He was the first of Britons to discern the peril to the cause of freedom when the brutal fury of the populace broke forth in the hour of its first triumph, the surrender of the Bastille, and still more in the Jacqueries that followed. He also gave eloquent and imperishable expression to the feeling of respect for all that is venerable, in which the French reformers were sadly deficient; and, while he bade them save all that could be saved of their richly-storied past, he truly foretold their future if they gave rein to their iconoclastic zeal. In my judgement the passage in which Burke foretells the advent of Bonaparte is grander even than that immortal rhapsody on the fate of Marie Antoinette and the passing away of the age of chivalry. The one is the warning of a prophet; the latter is the wail of a genius.
Equally profound are his warnings to the French enthusiasts of the danger of applying theories to the infinite complexities of an old society. To quote some sentences:
The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate.... The science of government being therefore so practical in itself, and intended for such practical purposes, a matter which requires experience, and even more experience than any person can gain in his whole life, however sagacious and observing he may be, it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice, which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or on building it up again, without having models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes.... The nature of man is intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity; and therefore no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to man’s nature, or to the quality of his affairs. When I hear the simplicity of contrivance aimed at and boasted of in any new political constitutions, I am at no loss to decide that the artificers are grossly ignorant of their trade, or totally negligent of their duty.... The rights of men in governments are their advantages, and these are often in balances between differences of good, in compromises sometimes between good and evil, and sometimes between evil and evil.... I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.
We are here reminded of the saying of Dumont, the friend of Mirabeau, that the fear of being thought officious and interfering is as universal among the English as is the desire of the French of taking a prominent part and interfering in everything.[901] This home thrust by the able Swiss thinker goes far to explain the difference between the Revolution of 1688 in England and that of a century later in France. Vanity, love of the sensational, and, a mania for wholesale reconstruction on geometrical designs largely account for the failures of the French revolutionists; and Burke’s warnings on these heads were treated with the petulant disdain characteristic of clever children.
Burke also did good service by pointing out the fundamental differences between the general overturn in France and the “glorious Revolution” of 1688 in England. Slipshod comparisons of the two events were then much in vogue, witness the sermon of Dr. Price in the Old Jewry, on which Burke conferred the fame of a never ending pillory. The Whigs, who formed a rapidly thinning tail behind their impetuous leader, were never tired of discovering historical parallels; and it is possible that Pitt’s sympathy with Whiggism, stunted but not wholly blighted by Parliamentary friction, led him to the hopeful prophecy already quoted. Certainly very many Frenchmen saw themselves in fancy entering on peaceful paths of progress under a more genial William III. At the time when Burke was completing his “Reflections,” Wordsworth and his friend during a Long Vacation tour in France were met with warmest cheer by fédérés who had shared in the ecstatic Festival of the Federation (14th July 1790):
And with their swords flourished as if to fight The saucy air.
At once the Englishmen were greeted as brothers.
We bore a name Honoured in France, the name of Englishmen, And hospitably did they give us hail As their fore-runners in a glorious course.
All this was very pleasing; but it could only end in bitter estrangement when France was found to be concerned, not with “preventing a Revolution” (as Burke finely showed that England did in 1688[902]), but in carrying through with unimaginable zeal a political overturn, along with social, religious, and agrarian changes of the most drastic kind. This was evident enough even by the summer of 1790. Feudalism had been swept away root and branch; copy-holders had become freeholders; the old taxes were no more--and none had definitely taken their place; titles of nobility were abolished; and the Assembly declared war on the discipline and on one of the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. Well might Burke stand aghast and declare that this cataclysm had little or nothing in common with the insular, conservative, and constitutional efforts of Englishmen a century before.
Strange to say, the defects of his book arose largely from his underrating the differences between the two movements. In his eagerness to preserve Englishmen from the risk of hazily sympathizing with French democracy, he inveighed against the new doctrines with a zeal that was not always born of knowledge. Forgetting his earlier adage respecting America--“I will never draw up an indictment against a whole people”--he sought to convict Frenchmen of fickleness and insanity. He calls the Revolution “this strange chaos of levity and ferocity, and of all sorts of crimes jumbled together with all sorts of follies”; and he even ventured to prophesy that in France learning would be “trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.” Coming nearer to facts, he took the French to task for not repairing their old constitution. He likened it to a venerable castle in which some of the walls and all the foundations were still in existence, and added the surprising statement--“you had the elements of a constitution very nearly as good as could be wished.”
Here Burke went wholly astray. A constitution, which gave to the King a power limited only by the occasional protests of the Paris and other “Parlements”; under which the States-General (at best little more than an advisory body) had not been summoned for 175 years; which assigned to the “Tiers Etat” only one third of the legislative power and no control over the executive, though the Commons of France paid nearly all the taxation; and which promised to perpetuate the old division into three classes,--such a constitution was merely an interesting blend of the principles of Feudalism and Absolute Monarchy, but could never satisfy a nation which had listened to Voltaire and given its heart to Rousseau. Sir Philip Francis, with his usual incisiveness, pointed out to Burke that the French could not act as we did in 1688, for they had no constitution to recur to, much less one that was “very nearly as good as could be wished.”
In truth, Burke did not know France. Hence his work is of permanent value only where he praises English methods and launches into wise and noble generalizations. For his own people it will ever be the political Book of Proverbs. His indictments against the French people in the main flew over their heads. On most insufficient knowledge he ventured on sweeping assertions which displayed the subtlety and wide sweep of his thought, but convinced only those who did not know the difficulties besetting the men of 1789. Nevertheless, as readers are influenced far more by emotion than by close and exact reason, the vast majority were carried away by the rush of feeling of that mighty soul; and hence in the view of a philosophic monarchist like Dumont, the publication of the “Reflections” was destined to be “the salvation of Europe.” Certainly it was the first noteworthy effort of a literary man to stem the tide of democracy; and if the writer had advocated a practicable scheme for saving the French monarchy--say, on the lines of that of Mirabeau--he would have rendered an inestimable service. As it was, even the voice of a genius failed to convince the French people that they must build their new fabric on the lines laid down by Philip the Fair and Louis the Fourteenth.
While the “Reflections” caused little but irritation in France, they also worked some harm in England. Readers by the thousand were captivated by the glamour of Burke’s style, and became forthwith the sworn foes of the persecutors of Marie Antoinette. The fall of that erstwhile “morning star, full of life and splendour and joy,” involved in one common gloom the emotions and the reason of Britons. “It is the noblest, deepest, most animated and exalted work that I think I have ever read.” So wrote Fanny Burney. The superlatives are significant. Thenceforth events in France were viewed through the distorting medium of a royalist romance. The change was fatal in every way. England, which heretofore had guardedly sympathized with the French reformers, now swung round to antagonism; and the French princes who at Turin and Coblentz were striving to frame a Coalition against their native land, saw in fancy John Bull as the paymaster of the monarchist league, with Burke as the chief trumpeter.
In truth the great writer ran some risk of sinking to this level. He became the unofficial representative of the French princes in this country, while his son, Richard Burke, proceeded to Coblentz to work on behalf of that clamorous clique. Memoir after memoir appeared from the pen of Burke himself. Now it was a protest, purporting to emanate from George III, against despoiling the French monarchy of all its rights, and asserting that, if this caution were unheeded, our ambassador would leave Paris.[903] Now again it was a memorandum of advice to the Queen of France, urging her to have nothing to do with traitors (i.e., reformers), to maintain an attitude of silent disdain of their offered help, and, above all, to induce her consort to refuse the new democratic constitution.[904] Fortunately neither of these documents went beyond the doors of Burke’s study; but they survive as curious proofs of his now distracted mood.
It was the misfortune of Burke at this time that majesty of diction deserted him at Westminster, where his speeches and demeanour bore the imprint of petulance and sourness. This appeared most painfully in the famous scene which marked his severance from Fox. It occurred during the debates on the Canada Bill in the spring of 1791. The preoccupation of men’s minds with the French constitution, then slowly taking shape, had been apparent in the course of the session. Fox had often dragged in the subject to express his warm sympathy with the democrats of Paris, and now desired to assimilate the Canada Bill somewhat to the French model. To this Burke offered vehement opposition, out-doing Fox in iteration. On 6th May, when the subject at issue was Canada, he defied the rules of the House by speaking solely on France. Six times he was called to order. Still he went on, in more and more heated tones, until he crowned his diatribe with the declaration that the difference between him and his friend involved an end of their connection; for with his latest words he would exclaim: “Fly from the French Constitution.” Fox here whispered to him: “There is no loss of friends.” “Yes,” retorted Burke, “there is a loss of friends; I know the price of my conduct; I have done my duty at the price of my friend; our friendship is at an end.” A little later, when Fox rose to reply, words failed him and tears trickled down his cheeks.[905] No scene in Parliament in that age produced so profound an emotion. It deepened the affection felt for that generous statesman; while the once inspiring figure of Burke now stood forth in the hard and repellent outlines of a fanatic.
Far better would it have been had he confined himself to the higher domains of literature, where he was at home. His “Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs,” which appeared in July 1791, is a great and moving production; and his less known “Thoughts on French Affairs” (December 1791) is remarkable for its keen insight into the causes that made for disruption or revolt in the European lands, not even excluding Great Britain.[906] In this one respect Burke excelled Pitt, just as nervous apprehension will detect dangers ahead that are hidden from the serene gaze of an optimist. Wilberforce judged Pitt to be somewhat deficient in foresight;[907] and we may ascribe this defect to his intense hopefulness and his lack of close acquaintance with men in this country and, still more, on the Continent. Burke found that both the Prime Minister and Grenville had not the slightest fear of the effect of revolutionary ideas in this Kingdom “either at present or at any time to come.”[908] Here Burke was the truer prophet. But how could Pitt sift the wise from the unwise in the copious output of Burke’s mind? They mingle so closely as to bewilder the closest observer even now, when the mists of passion enveloping those controversies have partly cleared away. Sentiment palpitated visibly in all Burke’s utterances; and the teachings of the philosopher were lost amidst the diatribes of the partisan.
In fact, it was difficult for a practical statesman to take the orator seriously. In April 1791 he had furiously attacked Pitt’s Russian policy; and, as we have seen, the differences between them were more than political, they were temperamental. No characteristic of Pitt is more remarkable than the balance of his faculties and the evenness of his disposition. No defect in Burke’s nature is more patent than his lack of self-control, to which, rather than to his poverty, I am inclined to ascribe his exclusion from the Whig Cabinets. Irritability in small things had long been his bane; and now to the solution of the greatest problem in modern history he brought a fund of passion and prejudice equal to that of any of the French émigrés who were pestering the Courts of Europe to crush the new ideas by force.
Yet, however much Pitt mistrusted Burke the politician, he admired him as a writer; so at least we gather from a somewhat enigmatical reference in Wilberforce’s diary. “22nd November (1790): Went to Wimbledon--Dundas, Lord Chatham, Pitt, Grenville, Ryder. Much talk about Burke’s book. Lord Chatham, Pitt and I seemed to agree: contra, Grenville and Ryder.”[909] If this entry be correct, Wilberforce and Grenville were destined soon to change their opinions. It may be that Pitt and Wilberforce agreed with Burke owing to their dislike of the iconoclastic methods of the French democrats, and that Grenville’s cold nature was repelled by the sentimentalism of the book.
In their judgements on the French Revolution Pitt and Burke stood not far apart. Pitt knew France no better than the great Irishman, and he distrusted theorizers and rash innovators fully as much, especially when their symmetrical notions were carried out by mobs. But the two men differed sharply as to the remedy. Burke came to believe more and more in armed intervention; Pitt saw in it ruin for French royalists and turmoil throughout the Continent. Here again the difference was in the main one of temperament. In Burke’s nature the eagerness and impulsiveness of the Celt was degenerating into sheer fussiness, which drew him toward the camp of the émigrés who strutted and plotted at Turin and Coblentz. Pitt’s coolness and reserve bade him distrust those loud-tongued fanatics, whose political rhapsodies awoke a sympathetic chord in no ruler save Gustavus of Sweden. True, Catharine of Russia shrilly bade them Godspeed; but, as we shall see, her distant blessings were the outcome of Muscovite diplomacy rather than of royalist zeal.
Pitt and Grenville, who saw other things in life besides the woes of Marie Antoinette and Jacobin outrages, were resolved not to lead the van of the monarchical crusade. They might approve Burke’s sage production, the “Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs,” which won the warm commendation of the King, as well as of Grenville, Camden, and Dundas, but they were bent on maintaining strict neutrality on the French Question. Pitt and his cousin met Burke more than once in the summer and autumn of 1791; but they kept their thoughts veiled, probably because Burke was working hard for the royalist league which the French Princes hoped to form. The general impression produced on Burke was that the Court of St. James would certainly not act against the champions of monarchy, but would preserve a benevolent neutrality. Other observers took a different view. The Russian ambassador, Vorontzoff, declared that Pitt was a democrat at heart, and kept up the naval armaments in order to intimidate the royalists, while he sent Hugh Elliot to Paris to concert measures along with Barnave.[910] These stories are of value merely because they illustrate Pitt’s power of holding back his trump cards and thereby rehabilitating the national prestige, which had recently suffered at the hands of the Czarina. At such a crisis silence is often a potent weapon. The Arab “Book of Wisdom” asserts that wisdom consists in nine parts of silence; while the tenth part is brevity of utterance. If Burke had realized this truth, his political career would not have ended in comparative failure. By acting on it, Pitt disconcerted his interviewers and exasperated his biographers; but he helped to keep peace on the Continent for nearly a year longer; and he assured that boon to his country for nearly two years. Had Burke been in power, the coalesced monarchs would have attacked France in the late summer of 1791.
XXV. THE DISPUTE WITH SPAIN
It is bad economy to tempt an attack, from a state of weakness, and thus by a miserable saving ultimately incur the hazard of a great expense.--PITT, Speech of 9th February 1790.
On 21st January 1790 there arrived at Whitehall news of an outrage committed by a Spanish officer on the crew of a British vessel trading on the dimly known coast which was destined to be called Vancouver Island. The affair became infinitely more serious on 11th February when the Spanish ambassador in London, the Marquis del Campo, forwarded to our Foreign Minister, the Duke of Leeds, an official demand that the British Government should punish certain interlopers who had ventured to trade and settle at Nootka Sound on that coastline, which Spain then considered as part of her Californian domain and for ever closed to outsiders. This demand produced a state of tension between the two nations, and subsequent incidents threatened to involve us in war, not only with Spain, but with her ally, France. As the outcome of this Nootka Sound dispute was the acquisition by Great Britain of a coastline of infinite value to Canada and the Empire at large, it will be well briefly to describe its origin, its settlement, and its bearing on the French Revolution.
Nootka Sound, a fine natural harbour on the western coast of what is now called Vancouver Island, was explored and named by Captain Cook in the course of his memorable voyage of the year 1778. He stayed there one month, and bought from the Indians a number of furs which proved to be of great value in the eyes of the Chinese. In the following years British and Spanish ships touched at Nootka; but owing to the American War, or to the torpor of mercantile enterprise in those days, nothing definite came of the discovery until the year 1785. Certain merchants of the British East India Company trading to China then resolved to open up trade between that country and the west coast of America. The commodities sought for the Chinese market were furs and ginseng, a plant used as a drug by the celestials. In the following year two small vessels, the “Sea Otter” and the “Nootka,” sailed to the American coast, and though the former was wrecked, the latter carried back to China a valuable cargo. The owners replaced her by the “Felice” and “Iphigenia,” which in 1788 sailed to the same coast. The senior captain, John Meares, a retired lieutenant of the royal navy, bought a piece of land at Nootka from the Indian chief, Maquilla, formed a small settlement, fortified it, and hoisted the British flag. His vessels then traded along the coast as far as 60° and 45° 30´, that is, beyond the Columbia River on the south, and as far as Mount St. Elias, in what is now the United States territory of Alaska, but was then recognized as belonging to Russia’s sphere of influence.[911]
At Nootka the adventurous pioneers built a sloop of 40 tons, the “North-West America,” and bought from Indian chiefs the right of “free and exclusive” trade with their subjects. As autumn drew on Meares sailed away to China in the “Felice,” and there persuaded other merchants to combine in order to form an Associated Company for developing this lucrative commerce. Accordingly, three more ships, the “Prince of Wales,” “Princess Royal,” and “Argonaut,” set sail for Nootka in the spring of 1789 under the command of Captain Colnett, who was to reside at that settlement. It is curious to note thus early the emergence of the yellow question, for he carried with him seventy Chinamen who were to settle there under the protection of the Associated Company--a proof that the occupation of Nootka was to be permanent.
Strange to say, the Spanish Government, acting through its Viceroy of Mexico, was then bent on the acquisition of this very same district. By virtue of the Bull of Pope Alexander VI, and the treaty of Tordesillas (1494), which speedily followed, Spain claimed exclusive right over the Pacific Ocean and all the western coast of America as far north as latitude 60°, beyond which were the Russian settlements in Alaska. In the year 1774, that is, four years before Cook’s enterprise, a Spanish captain, Perez, had sailed to Nootka and as far north as latitude 55°. But no account of his voyage, or of one made in the following year, had been given to the world. Neither had the Spaniards made any attempt to trade at Nootka, nor to form a settlement, until they heard of the efforts of the Russians and English to open up trade with the natives. Then, indeed, they took alarm; and the Viceroy of Mexico despatched two vessels, under the command of Captain Martinez, with orders to warn off intruders, and, in case of armed resistance, to use force in vindicating the claims of Spain. The Viceroy and Martinez knew nothing concerning the new developments at Nootka, and had in view the Russians rather than the British.
Long before the arrival of Colnett, and while the “Iphigenia” alone was at Nootka, there sailed in, on 5th May, a Spanish frigate, the “Princesa.” Shortly after she was joined by a sloop. Meares had previously provided Douglas, the captain of the “Iphigenia,” with papers proving that she was a Portuguese ship, hailing from Macao, the Portuguese settlement near Canton. In reality, however, she was a British ship with a British cargo. Despite the arguments of Douglas, Martinez soon divined the truth, and took possession of her as well as the infant settlement of Nootka.[912] A little later he seized the “North-West America”; and when the “Argonaut” arrived from China, she too fell into his hands by a treacherous ruse, so Colnett averred. The “Princess Royal” was the next victim. Fortune certainly favoured Martinez in having to deal with the British ships as they dropped in singly; and he played his game with skill and success.
The truth respecting the subsequent occurrences cannot be disentangled from the false or exaggerated accounts of the disputants. Meares, Colnett, and Douglas asserted on oath that they had been treacherously seized and barbarously treated. Martinez declared that his behaviour throughout was humane and considerate. His statements were backed by those of certain American traders who were there present; but, as they for a time made common cause with Martinez, their evidence is not convincing. The assertions of Meares and Colnett on this point are antecedently credible, it being the habit of Spain to treat interlopers as little better than privateers. Martinez compelled his prisoners (so they asserted) to assist in building a stockade, and subsequently treated Colnett with so much indignity that he tried to commit suicide, and Hanson, one of his petty officers, actually did so. The Spanish commander then traded with the captured vessels, and finally collected skins estimated by Meares to be worth about 7,500 Spanish dollars. The British ships and crews were afterwards taken to the Spanish port of San Blas, where the governor treated them with more consideration, and, though regarding them virtually as privateers, released them and submitted the fate of their ships to an official inquiry. The whole truth of the Nootka incident will probably never be cleared up. What concerns us here is the impression produced on Pitt by the statements of Meares. They were set forth in a Memorial, dated London, 30th April 1790. Meares laid stress on the perfidy and cruelty of Martinez, and estimated his own losses at 500,000 Spanish dollars, apart from the ruin of the trade along the Nootka coast.[913]
Reports of these events filtered through to London very slowly. Merry, British chargé d’affaires at Madrid, sent the first vague rumours of them in a despatch which, as we have seen, reached Whitehall on 21st January; but the situation became fraught with danger on 11th February, when the Spanish envoy in London handed in a despatch drawn up in terms no less haughty than misleading. After presenting a distorted view of the Nootka incident, del Campo asserted the right of Spain to absolute sovereignty in those districts “which have been occupied and frequented by the Spaniards for so many years.” He further requested the British Government to punish such undertakings as those of Meares and Colnett, but closed with the statement that the British prisoners had been liberated through the consideration which the King of Spain had for His Britannic Majesty.
Compliance with this demand was, of course, out of the question, for it would have implied the closing of the north-west coast of America to every flag but the red and yellow ensign of Spain; and the request for the punishment of British seamen, whose ships had admittedly been seized, added insult to injury. Pitt and his colleagues as yet knew very little of the facts of the case. The dimness of the notions then entertained about that region appears in a phrase used by Robert Liston, our envoy at Stockholm, that the waters behind Nootka Sound may be the opening to the long-sought North-West Passage.[914] In any case the demands of Spain carried with them their own condemnation. Accordingly, on 26th February, the Duke of Leeds replied to del Campo that the act of violence committed by Martinez “makes it necessary henceforth to suspend all discussion of the pretensions set forth in that letter until a just and adequate satisfaction shall have been made for a proceeding so injurious to Great Britain.”[915]
The writing here was that of Leeds, but the resolve was the resolve of Pitt. The original draft of this despatch is in the handwriting of the Prime Minister. As at so many crises, he took the conduct of affairs directly into his own hands; and Leeds, though he doubtless agreed with him, was only his mouthpiece. George III and Pitt were equally desirous of peace; but on this occasion their determination was immutable. Satisfaction must be given for the insult, or else war must ensue. In his despatch of the same date to Merry at Madrid, the Duke stoutly contested the right of Spain to the exclusive sovereignty, commerce, and navigation of the coasts north of California, and asserted the determination of the Court of St. James to protect its subjects trading in that part of the Pacific Ocean.[916]
When the facts stated on oath by Meares were known by Ministers, they realized the extreme gravity of the case. Their demand for satisfaction having been ignored by the Court of Madrid,[917] they determined, at a Cabinet Council held on the evening of 30th April, to demand “immediate and adequate satisfaction for the outrages committed by Mr. de Martinez,” and to back up that demand by the equipment of several ships of the line. George III agreed with his Ministers, though with some reluctance; and the press-gang set to work on 4th May to man the new squadron. The affair came as a bolt from the blue. Most of the sailors in the Thames were seized; and the prospect of war caused Consols to drop three per cent. Ministers, however, were justified in taking this step. After the Spanish note of 20th April they saw that Spain would not renounce her exclusive right to the Pacific Coast of America save under pressure of force.[918] The question of peace or war turned on two things; the relative naval strength of the two Powers, and the ability of the Court of Madrid to gain an ally, presumably France.
Deferring for the present the question of the Franco-Spanish Alliance, we notice that on sea Great Britain had a decided superiority over Spain. Though the Spanish marine was far from weak it could not cope with the imposing force which the care and energy of Pitt had amassed at our dockyards. As has been pointed out in Chapter IX, he frequently inspected the details of construction, and held the Comptroller of the Navy personally responsible to him for the due progress of new ships and the efficiency of the fleet. Thanks to his close supervision, and the large sums voted for the navy, there were at this time no fewer than ninety-three sail of the line fit for active service.[919]
This gratifying result cannot be ascribed to the First Lord of the Admiralty. In July 1788, on the resignation of Lord Howe, Pitt raised his brother, Lord Chatham, to that responsible post, Lord Hood being added to the Admiralty Board. Chatham was personally popular but proved to be indolent as an administrator, his unpunctuality earning him the nickname of “the late Lord Chatham.” That excellent administrator, Sir Charles Middleton (the future Lord Barham), refused to serve under him after the reforms recommended by a Commission of Inquiry were shelved, and in March 1790 resigned office, pointing out, however, that the Navy and dockyards were never better prepared for war.[920]
Despite the formidable strength of the British navy, Spain might have entered on a contest with some chance of success. We are apt to forget that her period of swift decline under Charles IV had only just begun. His predecessor, Charles III, who died in 1788, had raised the credit and power of that land almost to the lofty heights of ancient days. He had helped to humble the might of England in the American war, and his army and navy were kept in a state of efficiency which enabled Spain to rank as one of the Great Powers. On his death there came an insidious change. In place of vigour and even-handed justice there crept in all the evils linked with sloth and favouritism. The statesman Count Floridablanca, who had done much to promote the prosperity of Spain, saw his influence sapped by the intrigues of the minions of the Queen, who was to be the evil genius of the realm. But in the year 1790 the dry-rot had not appreciably affected that imposing fabric. Outwardly Spain appeared to be almost a match for the Island Power. Towards the end of July 1790, she had at sea thirty-four sail of the line and sixteen smaller craft.[921]
The pride of two of the most susceptible nations having been touched to the quick, war seemed inevitable. On 10th May Pitt moved for a vote of credit of a million sterling for the necessary armament; this was at once agreed to.[922] Parliament also supported the Ministry by large majorities whenever the Opposition attempted to censure their action on points of detail. Several pamphlets appeared inveighing against the monstrous claims of Spain to the control of the Pacific. There was a weak point in her armour, and at this Pitt aimed a deadly shaft. Already the Spaniards of South and Central America were restive under the galling yoke of their colonial system, which was so contrived as to enrich officials and privileged merchants in Spain at the expense of the new lands. The result was that at Quito a pound of iron sold for 4_s._ 6_d._, and a pound of steel for 6_s._ 9_d._[923] It is not surprising that the stoutest spirits longed to break loose from a Government by comparison with which that of England in the United States had been mildness and wisdom personified.
The mouthpiece of the discontent of the land now called Venezuela was a man of strongly marked personality, Miranda by name. An exile from his native city of Caracas, he had spent several years wandering about Europe, until the events at Paris drew him to that focus of enthusiasm and effort. There he became acquainted with Brissot and others who were interested in the emancipation of subject peoples. But now the prospect of a war between England and Spain attracted him to London. Pitt invited him to a first interview on the evening of 9th May. The daring adventurer there unfolded his plan of revolutionizing Spanish America; and, in case of war, his commanding personality and intrepid spirit would have stirred up a serious ferment. Here was a formidable weapon against Spain; and Pitt in the course of several interviews with Miranda prepared to use it with effect. Hopes ran high in London that Spain would be crippled by the action of her own sons in the New World, a fitting return to her for assisting the revolt of the English colonists a decade before. Auckland, our envoy at The Hague, wrote on 29th June 1790: “It is believed there are serious troubles in South America; but that circumstance seems to afford the strongest reason for avoiding a quarrel with England. It is wonderful to a cool bystander to see with what infatuated alacrity several sovereigns are running towards the embarrassments which have brought Louis XVI and his dominions to the distracted and desperate state in which we now see them.”[924]
Meanwhile Pitt and Leeds had nailed their colours to the mast in the despatch of 4th May, which dismissed the reply of the Spanish Court, dated 20th April, as wholly inadmissible. By way of retort to its claim of exclusive possession of the seas and coasts north of California up to latitude 60°, the British Government asserted for its subjects in those parts the “unquestioned right to a free and undisturbed enjoyment of the benefits of commerce, navigation, and fishery, and also to the possession of such establishments as they may form, with the consent of the natives, in places unoccupied by other European nations.”[925] In this declaration lies the charter of the future colony of British Columbia. Alleyne Fitzherbert, who had already had a creditable record in diplomacy, now proceeded on a special mission to Madrid to make good these claims, if possible by peaceable means. Among the twenty-two “Instructions” is one bidding him weaken the Family Compact of 1761, which bound together the Kings of France and Spain in close alliance, and point out to the Spanish Ministers the desirability of substituting for it a friendly understanding with Great Britain both in political and commercial affairs.
From the outset Pitt and his colleagues realized that the question of peace or war depended largely on France. Had that Power been in a condition to fight, the Bourbon States would certainly have contested England’s claim, and in that case she might have been for ever excluded from the Pacific Coast of America. Fitzherbert therefore stayed a few days at Paris (an indisposition afforded a pretext for delay) in order to fathom those turbid waters. The foreign policy of France was still nominally in the hands of Montmorin; but that Minister, never strong, had been almost cowed by events. Fitzherbert found him most gracious, but he could not explain away the recent order for equipping fourteen sail of the line at Brest. The most threatening symptom, however, was the warlike attitude of the royalist side of the National Assembly, which on 20th May he thus described to the Duke of Leeds:
... I can plainly perceive that many other members of the aristocratical faction are anxious to avail themselves of the opportunity to bring on a war, in the hope that the general distress and confusion which must almost inevitably follow, might ultimately tend to the re-establishment of the royal authority upon its former footing. Many strong indications of this design have appeared in the insidious language which they have held of late, speaking of Great Britain both in the National Assembly and without doors. However, their opponents begin to be aware of their drift, and it seems to have been principally with a view of guarding against such designs that the latter have chosen the present time for carrying into execution their plan of transferring the power of making War and Peace from the Crown to the National Assembly. It also appears highly probable that, when this question shall be disposed of, it will be followed up by some motion tending to invalidate, if not entirely to annul, the Family Compact.
How curiously the wheels of human action act and interact! The outrage on British sailors on the dimly known coast of Vancouver Island furnished French democrats with a potent motive for driving another nail into the coffin of the old monarchy. In any case the right of Louis XVI to declare war and make peace would have been challenged--for how can Democracy allow a Sovereign wholly to control its policy at the most important of all crises--but now the need was overwhelming. If the old prerogative held good, the rusty link that bound together the fortunes of France and Spain would compel free Frenchmen to fight their English neighbours whenever a Spanish captain thought fit to clap in irons British voyagers to the Pacific.
The question aroused gusts of passion at Paris. Enormous crowds waited outside the Tuileries while the deputies hard by were debating this question (16th and 22nd May). To the surprise of the people the royal prerogative was upheld by Mirabeau. The great orator descanted forcibly on the need of energy and secrecy in the diplomacy of a great nation, and reminded those who ascribed all wars to the intrigues of Courts that popular assemblies had often declared war in a fit of passion. He remarked that members had all applauded a speaker who advocated war against England if she attacked Spain, and the expenditure of their last man and their last crown in reducing London.[926] Few of Mirabeau’s speeches were more convincing. Nevertheless, on coming forth from the Chamber he was threatened with violence; and a pamphlet, “Great Treason of Count Mirabeau” was hawked about the streets. His reasoning, however, ensured the carrying of a compromise on 22nd May. The right of declaring war and making peace was vested in the King: and war was to be decided only by a decree of the Legislature, on “the formal and necessary proposition of the King, and afterwards sanctioned by him.”[927] The position was thus left far from clear; and Camille Desmoulins, referring to the ups and downs of the debate, summarized it thus: “The question was decided, firstly, in favour of the nation, secondly, in favour of the King; thirdly, in favour of both.” The royalists were highly displeased. Their best speaker, Cazalès, declared that nothing was now left to the monarchy--an exclamation which probably revealed his disgust at the passing away of the opportunity of a war with England.
Meanwhile Pitt had worked hard to array his allies, Prussia and Holland, against Spain. In this he succeeded. In particular, he offered to the Dutch a considerable subsidy for arming a squadron as if for war. To this topic he referred in a letter of 18th May 1790, to Auckland. After informing him that the tellership of the Exchequer would be reserved for him, or one of his sons, besides a pension of £2,000 a year on retirement, he continued thus:
I cannot help adding how much satisfaction I have felt in your account of everything at The Hague. You have done us a most essential service in bringing the States into a disposition to act at the present moment with a dispatch so unusual to them. This messenger carries instructions to you to engage for the expenses which you have stated to be likely to be incurred for fitting out ten sail-of-the-line. You will, I am sure, take care that the expense shall not be swelled beyond what is really necessary; but, if even a greater sum should be really wanting, we shall not scruple to give it; and, if you find that they can go on to prepare a still greater number of ships, it will be so much the better. I can hardly form at present a conjecture of the event of our preparations, as I can hardly conceive either that the Spaniards will ultimately persist, or that they can have gone so far without a determination not to recede. I hope we shall be able to send an answer about the commercial treaty very soon.[928]
Pitt’s economy is here seen to be far removed from the pennywise and pound-foolish kind. If necessary, he was prepared to lavish subsidies on the Dutch, and on Prussia as well, in order to overawe Spain. The Duke of Leeds and he were of one mind as to the need of the most energetic measures. On 2nd June the Duke wrote to him that the Spanish proposals were quite inadmissible, and that Great Britain could not possibly accept “any measure short of a direct and unqualified satisfaction for the insult.” Spain of course would refuse, and therefore war must follow: it could not be avoided without disgrace to one side or the other.[929] This rigid attitude prepares us for the part which the Duke played in the dispute with Russia nine months later.
In this case Pitt agreed with him, apparently because the point at issue concerned our interests and our honour far more nearly. Indeed the tone of the Spanish replies left small hope of peace. Count Floridablanca protested against the British demand that full reparation must be made to the victims of Captain Martinez, before the Spanish claims could be considered. “The Spanish Minister,” wrote Merry from Madrid on 24th May, “is persuaded that we have at all events taken the resolution of breaking with this country.... Our tone of language to this Court he represents as insufferable, and while on his part he still wishes to preserve peace, he seems to think that Spain will unavoidably be driven to the necessity of defending herself.” Spain, he adds, was arming twenty-five warships, and had already two squadrons at sea.[930]
Her pretensions appear in the despatch of the Spanish Governor of Mexico, dated Mexico, 11th May 1790. After stating that he had released the “Argonaut” and “Princess Royal” in order to maintain harmony with England, he remarked that Martinez had “acted agreeably to the laws and royal ordinances, which not only absolutely prohibit any kind of navigation, establishment, or commerce of foreigners on our South Sea Coasts of both Americas, but moreover strictly command they be looked upon as declared enemies, without considering such treatment a breach of national faith or contravention of the treaties of peace.” Whence it followed that Martinez might with impunity have hanged Meares, Colnett, and their crews on his yardarms. These claims were thus endorsed in the Spanish circular note of 4th June, which based them on the Treaty of Utrecht (1713):
It also appears that, in spite of the attempts of some adventurers and pirates of various nations on the Spanish coasts of the said South Sea and the adjacent islands, Spain has continued her possession, recovering what has been endeavoured to be usurped from her, and performing for this purpose the necessary reconnoitres and voyages, by the means of which and of repeated acts she has preserved her dominion, of which she has always established and left signs, which reach to places the nearest to the Russian establishments in that part of the world.
The efforts which the Court of Madrid then put forth at St. Petersburg and Vienna showed its resolve to concert a league against England in which Denmark was to be included. This scheme, as visionary as the grandiose dreams of Alberoni, caused our Ministers some concern, until they found that their Allies, Prussia and Holland, were resolved to support them. On 20th May Hertzberg assured Ewart, that Prussia would fulfil her engagements, if Spain pushed matters to extremes.[931]
Nevertheless, for a time everything portended war. Fitzherbert, after reaching Aranjuez on 10th June, became convinced that Floridablanca, for all his peaceful assurances, intended to force a rupture at the first favourable opportunity. The Spanish Court absolutely refused to grant satisfaction for the injury done to Meares and Colnett, because that would imply the right of British subjects to be at Nootka.[932] For the very same reason the Pitt Cabinet pressed its preliminary demand. It also brushed aside the Spanish pretensions of sole sovereignty on the Nootka coasts, because British and other seamen had for some little time traded there--an assertion difficult to maintain.[933]
The deadlock was therefore complete; and, if Spain could have looked forward to help either from France, Russia, or Austria, war would inevitably have ensued. It is of interest to observe that, as the crisis became acute, Pitt adopted his usual habit of writing the drafts of the most important despatches; and they were sent off without alteration. He thus disposed of the suggestion of Floridablanca, that the whole matter in dispute should be settled by arbitration. “Your Excellency will not be surprised that they are such as cannot be adopted. The idea of an arbitration upon a subject of this nature must be entirely out of the question; and a reservation such as that contained in the second proposal would render the satisfaction nugatory, as it would refer to subsequent discussion the very ground on which that satisfaction is demanded.”[934]
The outlook was not brightened by the suggestion of Floridablanca, that Spain should keep the whole of the coast from California up to and including Nootka; that from that inlet northwards to 61°, British and Spaniards should have conjointly the right of trading and forming establishments; and that British sailors should enjoy certain fishery rights in the South Sea on uninhabited islands far removed from Spanish settlements.[935] These proposals seemed, as they doubtless were, a device to gain time until France, Austria, or Russia could step forth and help Spain; and Pitt refused to admit these “chimerical claims of exclusive sovereignty over the American Continent and the seas adjacent,” which were to Spain herself “rather matter of useless pride than of actual advantage.”[936] Towards the end of July more peaceful counsels prevailed at Madrid, probably because the weak and luxurious King, Charles IV, disliked war, and dreaded contact with Revolutionary France. Further it must have transpired that Russia and Austria, owing to their war with Turkey, were not likely to give more than good wishes to Spain. Either for these reasons, or because he hoped that delay would tell in favour of Spain, Floridablanca signed with Fitzherbert on 24th July a Declaration that Spain would give satisfaction for the seizure of British vessels and their cargoes at Nootka. On 5th August Grenville informed the King of this auspicious turn of affairs.[937]
But now, while the Court of Madrid abated its pretensions, French patriots began to rattle the sword in the scabbard. For reasons which are hard to fathom, the Spanish request for armed assistance, which reached Paris on 16th June, was not presented to the National Assembly until 2nd August. On that day Montmorin informed the deputies of the continuance of naval preparations in England, and declared that, unless French aid were accorded to Spain, she would seek an ally elsewhere. The statement was well calculated to awaken jealousy of England; and members came to the conclusion that the islanders were seeking, in the temporary weakness of France, to bully the Court of Madrid out of its just rights. Consequently the whole matter was referred to the newly appointed Diplomatic Committee which supervised the work of the Foreign Office.[938] As this body now practically controlled French diplomacy, everything became uncertain; and it is not surprising that Pitt and Leeds declined to disarm now that the question of peace or war depended on an emotional Assembly and its delegates.
At the head of this new controlling body was Mirabeau. As Reporter of the Committee he held a commanding position, which was enhanced by his splendid eloquence, forceful personality, and knowledge of the shady by-paths of diplomacy. The Report which he presented to the Assembly on 25th August was, in effect, his. While minimizing the importance of the Nootka dispute, scoffing at the old diplomacy, and declaring that Europe would not need any diplomacy when there were neither despots nor slaves, he yet proposed that, pending the advent of that glorious age, France must not abrogate her treaties but continue to respect them until they had been subjected to revision. Further, in place of the Family Compact of the Kings of France and Spain, he proposed to substitute a National Compact, based on the needs of the two nations. On the following day he continued his speech and moved that France and Spain should form a national treaty in the interests of peace and conformable to “the principles of justice which will ever form the policy of the French.” What was far more significant, he himself added a rider for the immediate armament of forty-five sail of the line and a proportionate number of smaller vessels. This was carried immediately.[939]
Seeing that the Assembly passed this vote at the very time when the terrible mutiny at Nancy was at its height, the feelings of the deputies must have been of the bellicose order which Mirabeau had previously deprecated. Despite the pressing need for peace, France seemed to be heading straight for war. On ordinary grounds her conduct is inexplicable. Everywhere her troops were clamouring for arrears of pay; her sailors could scarcely be kept together; and the virtual bankruptcy of the State was a week later to be quaintly revealed by the flight of Necker to Switzerland. The King and his Ministers disapproved the arming of so large a fleet; for Montmorin confessed to Gower his surprise and regret, adding the comforting assurance that it would be done as slowly as possible. The mystery deepens when we know that Floridablanca continued to speak in peaceful tones. On 19th August he admitted to Fitzherbert that he desired help from Russia and Austria, but felt complete indifference as to what France might do. Aid from her, he said, would lead to the introduction of democratic principles, which he was determined to keep out, if need arose, by a cordon along the frontier, as one would exclude the plague.[940]
Here probably we have the key to the enigma. The recent action of Mirabeau (for the arming of the French naval force was his proposal, not Montmorin’s) rested on the assumption that Spain did not mean to draw the sword. His agents at the various Courts kept him well abreast of events, and doubtless he foresaw that Charles IV’s hatred of democracy would bar the way to an alliance of the two peoples such as was now projected. Why, then, should Mirabeau have threatened England with war? His reasons seem to have been partly of a patriotic, partly of a private, nature. He desired to restore the prestige of the French monarchy by throwing its sword into the wavering balances of diplomacy. As to the expense, it was justifiable, if it tended to revive the national spirit and to quell the mutinous feelings of the sailors. Work, especially if directed against “the natural enemy,” would be the best restorative of order at the dockyards, and prevent the deterioration of the navy. But apart from these motives Mirabeau may have been swayed by others of a lower kind. His popularity had swiftly waned during the previous debates. He might revive it by pandering to the dislike of England now widely prevalent. Manufacturers who suffered by English competition and Chauvinists who dreaded her supremacy at sea were joining in a hue and cry against Pitt;[941] and Mirabeau gained credit by posing as the national champion. Further, by holding peace and war, as it were, in the folds of his toga, he enhanced his value in the diplomatic market. His corruptibility was notorious. Even the sums which he drew from the King were far from meeting the yawning gulf of his debts.
In the present case there was much to tempt him to political auctioneering. There were present in Paris two political agents to whom Pitt had confided the task of humouring the French democrats and dissolving the Family Compact. These were William Augustus Miles and Hugh Elliot. The former was a clever but opinionated man, half statesman, half busy-body, capable of doing good work when kept well in hand, but apt to take the bit into his teeth and bolt. He had already looked into the affairs of Brabant, Liége, and Frankfurt for Pitt; and as early as 4th March the Prime Minister summoned him to Downing Street for the purpose of sending him to Paris; but not till the middle of July did he finally entrust to him the task of inducing French deputies to annul the Family Compact. That this was to be done secretly appears from the order that he was to have no dealings whatever with the British Embassy.[942] Unfortunately the letters which passed between Pitt and Miles at this time have all been destroyed.[943] But we know from other sources that Miles was charged to prepare the way for an Anglo-French entente. He certainly made overtures to Talleyrand, Mirabeau, and Lafayette; he was also elected a member of the Jacobins Club, and worked hard to remove the prejudices against England. These he found exceedingly strong, all the troubles in the fleet being ascribed to her. By 11th October he had fulfilled his mission, and informed George Rose that Pitt might, if he chose, form a close working alliance with the French nation. About the same time he conceived for Mirabeau the greatest contempt, and asserted that it was “impossible to know him and not to despise him.”[944]
Elliot was a man of far higher stamp than Miles. As we have seen, he had had a distinguished diplomatic career, and might be termed the saviour of Gustavus III in the acute crisis of 1788. He was brother of Sir Gilbert Elliot (first Earl of Minto), and of Lady Auckland. In the summer of 1790 he was home on furlough. On 7th August he wrote from Beckenham, Auckland’s residence, congratulating Pitt on a favourable turn in the Spanish dispute. When the outlook once more darkened he requested leave to go to Paris in order to use his influence with his friend, Mirabeau, in the interests of peace. Pitt must have referred the proposal to the King, and received a very guarded reply, dated Windsor, 26th October. George enjoined great caution, as we had hitherto held entirely aloof from the French troubles, and must on no account be mixed up in them. Yet, for the sake of peace, he did not object to this attempt, so long as it was entirely unofficial; but he was “not sanguine that Mr. H. Elliot and his French friend” would succeed where so much caution and delicacy were necessary.[945]
As this affair is wrapped in mystery, and concerns not only the peace of the world, but also that most interesting personality, Mirabeau, the draft of an undated letter of Pitt to the King must be quoted in full:
Mr. P. takes the liberty of submitting to your Majesty’s Perusal two private letters which he received to-day from Paris, one from Lord Gower, and the other from Mr. H. Elliot. The latter went thither a short time since, principally from curiosity, but previous to his departure, mentioned to Mr. P. that he had formerly happened to be in habits of much intimacy with M. de Mirabeau, and might probably have an opportunity of learning something from him respecting the views of the prevailing party in France on the subject of the discussions with Spain. Mr. P. recommends to him to be very cautious not to commit anybody by his conversation, but to endeavour to find out whether there was any chance of making them see in a just light the nature of our disputes with Spain, and of thereby preventing or delaying their taking a part in the war, if it should take place.
The suggestions in Mr. Elliot’s letter seem to furnish matter for much consideration; possibly there may be found means of improving this opening to some advantage with a view to preserving or restoring peace, or to retarding the succours which France might furnish to Spain.[946]
This letter is undated. George III’s missive of 26th October seems to be a reply to it or to one very like it. But Pitt’s letter implies the receipt of Gower’s and Elliot’s despatches of 26th October. I have found no other despatch from Gower enclosing one from Elliot except of that date. Four days previously Gower had written to Pitt:
Mr. Elliot’s communication with Mr. de Mirabeau has been more successful than I imagined it was likely to be: it has procured an easy means of maintaining a good understanding between His Majesty’s Ministers and the prevailing party in the National Assembly, if such a correspondence should be found necessary.[947]
In the letter of 26th October Gower informed Pitt:
Mr. Elliot has brought the prevailing party in this country to act according to their true interest; and, if they meet with proper encouragement from you, they seem ready to go any lengths towards enforcing our claims with regard to Spain; and they are, I believe, sincere in their desire to promote a real and effectual good understanding between the two countries. I shall be extremely happy to co-operate with Mr. Elliot in a negotiation which appears to me so desirable.[948]
The words “proper encouragement” donnent furieusement à penser. Elliot in a long letter of 26th October, recounted his interview with a deputation from the Diplomatic Committee, and his success in winning it over to the British side. In the former of two paragraphs, which are omitted by Earl Stanhope,[949] Elliot describes the promise given him by the Committee, that, even if Spain went to war, and formally demanded the aid of France, such aid would not be forthcoming until the British case had been fully investigated. The second of the two passages deserves quotation in full. It occurs near the end of the letter:
What has taken place in my more intimate conversations with individuals cannot be committed to paper. But I have every reason to believe that I am more master of the secret springs of action here than anybody else could have been. Everything I have either said or done has always been previously concerted and has ever answered my most sanguine expectations.... I am inclined to believe that, after the disturbances at Brest are known at Madrid, the Spaniards will make peace rather than expose their fleets to any junction with French ships.[950]
The hints here given imply that Mirabeau, and probably other patriots as well, accepted British money, but both our envoys were discreet enough to give few details in writing. It is quite probable that Mirabeau first accepted Spanish gold for procuring the vote for the arming of forty-five French sail of the line, and then accepted an equivalent sum from Miles or Elliot for the decree which rendered that step innocuous. His control over the Assembly was scarcely less than Montmorin’s;[951] and that nervous Minister would certainly welcome a course of action which enhanced the prestige of France, and yet averted all risk of war. Nevertheless, Pitt did not set much store by the help of Mirabeau. He decided to bring the whole dispute to an immediate issue, without waiting for the issue of the golden proposals of Elliot and Miles. Possibly he heard from other sources that France would do no more than rattle the sword in the scabbard; or else he was emboldened by the marked success and zeal attending the British naval preparations, the mutinies in the French fleet, the readiness of our Allies to play their part, and the unreadiness of Spain. A brief survey of these considerations will reveal the grounds of his confidence.
The chance of hostilities with the two Bourbon Courts was threatening enough to call forth all the energies of the race. Through the months of August, September, and October naval preparations went on with the utmost vigour. Officers and men vied with one another in zeal to equip and man the ships with all possible speed and thoroughness. Sir John Jervis afterwards assured the House of Commons that he had seen captains paying out their own money by hundreds of pounds in order to expedite the equipment; others sailed their ships down Channel with mere skeleton crews in order to hasten the rally at Plymouth; and by dint of drills from sunrise to sunset the crews were hardened to their work.[952] In truth, the dominant fact of the situation was England’s overwhelming supremacy at sea over Spain, and possibly over Spain and France together.
The Triple Alliance also proved to be a reality. The prospect of a war with Spain was, of course, distasteful both at Berlin and The Hague; but our Allies admitted that Spain was the aggressor, and signified their readiness to support us. This should be noted, for it imposed on Pitt a debt of honour to support Prussia when her summons for help against the Czarina arrived at Whitehall in the month of March following.
Further, the ambitions of the Czarina already threatened the equilibrium of Europe; and in this fact we find the last, and perhaps the most cogent, of the reasons why Pitt and his colleague resolved to have done with the Spanish dispute before the Eastern Question came to a crisis. This appears very clearly in Leeds’ despatch of 2nd October to our ambassador at Madrid, which was in effect an ultimatum to that Court. He warned Fitzherbert that the Spanish proposals were quite inadmissible, and that “neither the circumstances of the negotiation, nor the relative situation of the two countries and of other Powers in Europe can allow of any further delay”; he therefore pressed for the immediate acceptance of the British demands. An explanatory note accompanied the ultimatum, stating that Spain ought to desire the preservation of the existing system in Europe, which was threatened solely by the Empress Catharine, who spurned the counsels of moderation offered by the Allies.[953]
It appears, then, that the threatening aspect of affairs in the East in part accounts for Pitt’s sudden and imperious demand. He resolved to finish with Spain so as to have his hands free for the Eastern Question. As appeared in an earlier chapter, the Czarina, Catharine II, had recently concluded peace with Sweden; and, despite the promised negotiations of the Viennese Court for peace with the Turks, she seemed determined to press them hard, and to wring from them a district then deemed necessary to the defence of the Ottoman Power. Her dalliance with Spain was far from serious; but she might, if allowed time, concert a formidable league against England. The voice of prudence, therefore, counselled the immediate coercion of Spain, while Russia was entangled in a still doubtful strife. Machiavelli shrewdly remarked that “the Romans never swallowed an injury to put off a war; for they knew that war was not avoided but only deferred thereby, and commonly with advantage to the enemy.”[954]
But Pitt needed not to go to Machiavelli. Facts spoke more convincingly than words to a nature like his; and the news from Paris and Madrid called aloud for a display of energy. The insubordination at the French dockyards and the news from Paris had told on the nervous and pedantic King of Spain. On 16th September Fitzherbert wrote to the Duke of Leeds that that monarch had very decidedly expressed his resolve never to have an alliance with France on the basis of a National Compact as proposed by Mirabeau. It appears, then, that the great orator had a decisive effect in working on the fears and scruples of His Catholic Majesty, and thus assuring the isolation of Spain. If Mirabeau received British money from Miles and Elliot a month or so later, he might claim it as payment for valuable services already rendered. However that may be, it is certain that Pitt, on receiving the glad news from Fitzherbert on 27th September, decided to take vigorous action. Fitzherbert advised tact and patience in dealing with that proud Court; but Pitt and Leeds waived aside the advice and resolved to thrust their adversary into a corner. In view of the more complaisant attitude of the Spanish Government, their action was unchivalrous; but it was justified by the tidings which had arrived of cruelties perpetrated by a Spanish warship on the captain of a English merchantman in the Gulf of Florida, who was set in the bilboes in the blazing sun.[955] Public opinion would certainly have supported Pitt in case of a rupture with an enemy whose claims and customs were still those of the fifteenth century; and he was resolved to end the dominion of Spain in the North Pacific with as little ceremony as Cromwell had shown in his expedition against Jamaica in 1654.
Now there was little fear of war. The pride of Charles IV centred in trophies of the chase; and his weak and slothful nature revolted at the thought of an alliance with France on Mirabeau’s terms. Moreover, Russia and Austria had paid little heed to the recent appeals of Floridablanca, and there was war with the Moors outside Tangier. Was not this enough? For a few days the Council of Ministers breathed threats of war. Floridablanca struggled hard against the relentless grip which had closed around him. But he was helpless, and he knew it. Therefore on Sunday, 24th October, the Spanish Minister, after much angry remonstrance, gave way, and agreed to the British terms.
Meanwhile, Pitt had allowed Fitzherbert to recede slightly on some of the conditions, and urged that Spain should be invited to frame an alliance with us, both political and commercial. As usual, in affairs of great moment, he himself wrote the draft of this despatch, which was sent off without alteration.[956] This skilful angling was of no avail. Spanish pride was too deeply wounded to admit of any possibility of alliance, whether political or commercial, for many years to come. In other respects Pitt gained his point; and the following letter to Bishop Pretyman (Tomline) shows his relief at the end to the long strain:
Thursday, Nov. 4, 1790.[957]
DEAR BISHOP,
The decisive answer arrived this morning and is perfectly satisfactory. The Spanish Minister at last agreed, on the 24th of October, to a projet of a Convention containing all we wish, and it was settled that it should be actually signed in three days from that time. The terms will be found to secure all that we could demand in justice, or had any reason to desire.
Accordingly, on 28th October 1790 (after four days, not three), the Court of Madrid signed the Convention which opened up a new future for the North Pacific. By it Spain agreed to restore the buildings and lands at Nootka to the British subjects whom Martinez had dispossessed. Reparation was also to be made for any outrages committed by the subjects of either Power against those of the other since April 1789.[958] Britons and Spaniards were to have full liberty to trade in North-West America, that is, to the north of the Spanish settlements; but of course all the coasts to the south of them were to remain closed as heretofore. Spain, however, conceded entire freedom of navigation and fishery in the Pacific Ocean and the South Seas, except that, in order to preclude all intercourse with her colonies, British ships were forbidden to approach within a limit of ten maritime leagues.
The British public greeted this happy issue of events with characteristic reserve. As Spain stood for commercial monopoly and political reaction, the rebuff dealt to her ought to have pleased the Whigs. But party rancour increased in proportion to Pitt’s success. Hope deferred made the hearts of his opponents sick; and to this cause we may attribute curiously acrid verdicts like that of Auckland’s correspondent, Storer, who exclaimed on 22nd October, with the jauntiness of ignorance: “Here we are, going to war, and for what? A place, the name of which I can scarcely pronounce, never heard of till lately, and which did not exist till t’other day. Pitt is tired of peace. He bullied France so effectually three years ago that he is determined to try the same thing with Spain.” Storer also says that our officers were in high spirits at the idea of a voyage to Mexico, and were buying Ulloa’s “Voyage” so as to study the South Sea coasts.[959] Whence it would appear that geography was not a strong point with Storer, and that in his eyes wars were worth waging only on behalf of well-known names. How curiously parochial is this habit of mind. Yet Pitt was destined soon to find out its self-assertiveness and tenacity in the case of another un-euphonious and dimly-known place--Oczakoff.
The insular, matter-of-fact way in which the House of Commons viewed Pitt’s diplomatic triumph received apt illustration in the debate of 14th December, when Duncombe and Alderman Watson moved and seconded a resolution of thanks to His Majesty for the Convention with Spain. They dwelt on the advantages of the peaceful settlement which it secured, and augured well for the increase of British trade to the South Seas. But Pulteney declared that we had won too much from Spain, and should ever feel her ill will. Besides, a Pacific whale was worth only £90, as against £170 for a Greenland whale. Alderman Curtis fell foul of these statements in a maiden speech “which possessed all the blunt characteristics of commercial oratory.” He said that he himself was a fisherman, and gloried in the character. He rejoiced to state that more ships than ever before were now fitting out for whaling in the Pacific; and he himself had sold Pacific whale-oil for £50 a ton, while the Greenland oil fetched only £18 or £19 a ton. Mr. (afterwards Earl) Grey sought to raise the debate from these blubbery platitudes to the levels of diplomacy; and, differing from his friend Pulteney, censured the Convention because it gained us nothing; for it laid down no definite limits in those new lands, and it granted us access to them conjointly with the Spaniards. Consequently, where our traders settled on one hill, the Spaniards might build a fort on another close by. Windham then censured Ministers because they had secured neither adequate reparation to our outraged honour nor definite rights to our traders. Thereupon a General Smith opined that the Convention was of no advantage to us, because the people of Nootka Sound were “a species of cannibals.” In other respects it was “disgraceful to the real interests of the country”--an assertion which Rolle and Ryder proceeded to refute, on the ground that the result had been well worth the three and a half millions spent on naval preparations. (In reality the sum was £2,821,000.)
Fox also wandered deviously until he caught at a possible clue, that offended honour was the only justifiable cause for war. In this case, he declared, Ministers had not gained for us due reparation. It fell infinitely short of what was obtained in the dispute about the Falkland Islands in 1771.[960] Further, we now gained no material advantage from Spain; for British ships had sailed into the South Seas despite the Spanish laws; and the receipts from that trade had grown in five years from £12,000 to £97,000. (He omitted to state that previously that trade had been killed by the war with Spain.) He next asserted that we secured little or nothing in the North Pacific, because the limits of Spanish America were still left vague, and we gave up the right of settlement on the coasts of South America. In fact, the treaty was one of concessions, not of acquisitions. This, he added, was on a par with our foreign policy as a whole; for our new ally, Sweden, had come to terms with Russia behind our backs, thus lowering us in the eyes of the world; and we had failed to coerce Russia. “In our words was confidence: in our acts was fear.”
Pitt in his reply had little difficulty in proving that the present case differed entirely from that of the Falkland Islands, and that the treaty secured for us trading rights which Spain had hitherto always contested. There was therefore every ground for hoping for a great increase of trade to the Pacific. The House agreed with him by 247 votes to 123. But in Pitt’s speech, as in the whole debate, we find no wide outlook on events. The arguments are of the Little Peddlington type; and, after wandering through those teasing mazes, one feels a thrill of surprise that the British people ever came out into a large and wealthy place. The importance of Pitt’s triumph has received scant notice at the hands of historians. Macaulay, in his brilliant sketch of Pitt’s career, dismissed the affair in the clause--“England armed, and Spain receded.” Lord Rosebery remarks that the settlement of the affair was honourable for England, and not dishonourable to Spain. Even Stanhope and Lecky on their far ampler canvases merely described the terms of the settlement without revealing its momentous results.[961]
Far different were the judgements of enlightened Spaniards. They saw in the treaty of 28th October the beginning of the end of their world-empire. The official Junta at Madrid protested vehemently against the surrender on the ground that it “conceded to England what has always been resisted and refused to all Powers since the discovery of the Indies.” Herein lies the significance of the Spanish defeat. Their Empire rested on monopoly. It is little to the point to say that English traders occasionally ventured into the Pacific. They did so at their peril; and the recent revival of Spanish power threatened to rivet once more the chains of privilege on that vast domain. Now that they were shattered, the whole cramped system was doomed to fall. Just as the irruption of Cromwell’s fleet into the Spanish West Indies in 1654 sounded the knell of Spanish domination in those seas, so too the signing of this Convention presaged the end of their Empire in the Pacific. The advent of the Union Jack on equal terms with the red and yellow flag of Spain has always implied the retreat of the latter. In religion, commerce, and political life the two ensigns represent ideals so utterly at variance that they cannot wave in friendly neighbourhood. One or other must go: and the primacy of Pitt and Godoy sufficiently explains the advance of the one and the retreat of the other in the ensuing years. In one other respect the crisis was important. The British archives show that the Courts of Madrid and St. Petersburg were then making overtures which would probably have led to the complete appropriation of that coast-line; and the interlocking of those two rigid systems might have implied the exclusion for ever of the British flag from the Pacific coast. No one, not even Pitt himself, could foresee the rich harvest of results one day to be reaped from his action in that summer and autumn. The winning of a few log huts at Nootka Sound seemed a small thing then. But in this age of the triumphs of steam and electricity we can discern its importance in world politics. The infant settlement on Vancouver Island, and on the mainland opposite, inspired the pioneers of Canada with hope as they threaded their way through the passes of the Rockies and the Selkirks. Possibly one of them
like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific,
caught a glimpse of a strange future, when Canada, the child of Richelieu, would enter into the northern heritage of old Spain, and become a Pacific Power.
All this lay enfolded in the winning of that inlet. Nay, more. We can now see that British Columbia holds in the West a strategic position not unlike that of Egypt in the Orient. Both are vital links in our chain of communication. Pitt, could he have known it, helped to fashion the keystone of the arch of Empire in the Occident. He played his part manfully in preparing for a day when Canada would stretch hands across the seas to India and Australia; when the vivifying forces of science and commerce would endow with a common life the conquests of Wolfe and Clive, and the lands discovered by Captain Cook.
XXVI. PITT AND CATHARINE II
Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet.
Up to the spring of the year 1791 Pitt had achieved a series of remarkable triumphs in his foreign policy. After lifting his country from the depths of penury and isolation, he seized favourable opportunities for checkmating French influence in Holland, and framing the Triple Alliance with that Republic and the Kingdom of Prussia. During the years 1788–90 this alliance gave the law to Europe. It rescued Gustavus III from ruin; it prescribed terms to Austria at the Conference of Reichenbach, and thereby saved the Turks from the gravest danger; it served to restore the ancient liberties of the Brabanters and Flemings; it enabled England to overawe Spain and win the coast of the present colony of British Columbia; last, but not least, Pitt, by singular skill, thwarted the dangerous schemes of the Prussian statesman Hertzberg at the expense of Poland.
Successes like these are apt to beget feelings of jealousy or fear; for gratitude rarely figures among the motives that determine the course of national policy. Certainly this is the case in the story now before us, which tells of a rebuff dealt to Pitt, the unweaving of his plans for the equitable pacification of Europe, and the formation of new groupings which leave Great Britain isolated and her statesmen discredited. The importance of the crisis, and the light which it throws on the peace-loving character of Pitt, warrant a closer examination of details than has yet been given to the subject. We must remember that at every emergency the British Foreign Office was directed by Pitt, not by its chief, the Duke of Leeds. This appears in a sentence of Ewart’s letter of 28th November 1790 to Lord Auckland--“I trust Mr. Pitt will write to your lordship himself in a satisfactory manner; and you know better than I do of what consequence the opinions of others are.” The imperious Minister was now to encounter a will as tough, and a pride as exacting, as his own. Catharine of Russia stood in his path, and defied him to apply to her his scheme of pacification, to which Leopold of Austria had yielded grudging assent.
There were several reasons why Pitt should expect from the Czarina a similar acquiescence. Her finances were utterly exhausted by four years of war. Her favourite, Prince Potemkin, had won victories; but he and his dependents had battened on the Treasury, and her triumph heralded the approach of bankruptcy. The plague was devastating her armies in the south; and even Russia seemed unable to endure the waste of another campaign. The Muscovites placed their hopes in a dash of their fleet on Constantinople; but how could that be effected if England sent a strong squadron into the Black Sea to help the Turks? And while she screened the Moslem capital, the presence of her warships in the Baltic must complete the ruin of the Baltic provinces. Two fifths of their exports by sea went to Great Britain; and they drew thence goods worth 7,308,000 roubles as against 2,278,000 from all other lands.[962] The internal state of Russia also gave cause for concern. The extravagance and licentiousness of the Court, flaunted in face of struggling traders and half-starved peasants, were a perpetual challenge to discontent; and the best informed observers believed that, if Prussia and England held firm, the Empress must humble her pride and accept their terms. They were by no means extravagant. Russia was to give up the conquests of the present war, particularly the lands east of the Pruth, which were virtually in her hands; but she might retain the Crimea--the object for which the Sultan had cast down the gauntlet.
At the very time when the British demands were nearing the banks of the Neva, victory crowned the efforts of the Russians on the Lower Danube. Ismail, the stronghold which commanded the only available entrance into Turkey, now that the Austro-Turkish armistice kept Wallachia neutral, fell before the prowess of the assailants (22nd December 1790). After some successes against the Turkish flotilla and the batteries fringing the river banks, Potemkin began the siege of the city itself; but its deep fosse, fed from the Danube, and its double line of ramparts defied all his efforts. Then he bent his pride and sent for Suvóroff. The advent of “the little father” put new heart into the 31,000 besiegers.--“To-day for prayer: to-morrow for drill: the next day victory or a glorious death.”--By these words, and by the contagion of his enthusiasm, he worked his men up to a pitch of fury. Skill came to reinforce their fanaticism. By night a strong flotilla dropped down stream to assail the town on that side, while on the other six columns advanced stealthily against the walls. A sharp frost favoured the enterprise; and under cover of a misty dawn the assailants rushed forward at all possible points. The defenders met fury with fury. A long day of carnage ensued, the Moslems, men and women alike, fighting desperately for creed, country, life, and honour. At last Suvóroff’s reserves gained a foothold and overwhelmed the exhausted garrison. Then ensued a night of slaughter, plunder, and outrage. Some 30,000 Turks perished. The consequences of this victory were great. The hold of the Sultan on the Danube was loosened, while the Russians prepared to deal a blow at the heart of the Ottoman dominions. Thus, once again, the personality of Suvóroff proved to be worth an army. Indeed, it changed the course of history. For now, when the proud Empress held the keys of the Danube, how could she consent to give back to the infidels Suvóroff’s former conquest, Oczakoff? Diplomacy also furthered the aims of Catharine, and told against those of Pitt. Much depended on the good faith of Leopold II in keeping his promises to the Triple Alliance, pledged at the Conference of Reichenbach in July 1790. He had agreed to accept the status quo ante bellum as a basis of settlement for his disputes with the Belgians and for his war with Turkey. Now, nothing ought to have been simpler than the restoration of his conquests to the Porte, provided that the plenipotentiaries of the Powers, who met at Sistova late in 1790 to reduce them to treaty form, were inspired by good faith and pacific desires.
But distrust and intrigue soon enveloped in mystery phrases that were clear as day. The Turks opposed to the superior force of Austria all the chicanery of oriental delays. Their astrologers discovered that very many days were unsuitable for the conduct of business; and their envoys often fell ill. Hopes ran high at the Porte that England and Prussia would draw the sword against the Czarina. The Emperor Leopold and his equally wily Chancellor, Prince Kaunitz, also saw in delay an opportunity of wriggling out from the engagements so reluctantly made at Reichenbach.[963] Scarcely was the ink of that compact dry before Kaunitz bemoaned to his envoy in London the lack of any conquests at the end of “a ruinously expensive war.” This magnanimity he ascribed to his desire to be again on good terms with England, despite her unjust treatment of a once valued ally. After these crocodile tears there came the significant suggestion--Would not England instruct her envoy to deal leniently with Austria in the ensuing negotiations with the Turks, and allow her to gain a few little advantages?[964] Leopold also wrote to his offended ally, Catharine, assuring her that he would never really make peace with the Turks until she had secured from them conquests proportionate to the successes of her troops. Let Austria and Russia keep in close touch and form an eternal compact.[965] Here, then, we probe one of the causes of the defiant rejection by Catharine of Pitt’s demand for the status quo. He believed, and very naturally, that the Austro-Russian alliance was wholly severed; while, in point of fact, Austria was secretly, but effectively, playing the game of her late ally.[966]
But there was another cause of his failure. The Semiramis of the North could at need abase her pride and clasp the hand of a hated foe. As we have seen, she had grasped that of Gustavus III; but only for the most potent of reasons. She saw in that vain and impulsive sovereign a convenient tool, who might serve her well in case of a British naval demonstration against Cronstadt. For some time the Swedish monarch held back his hand. Auckland wrote early in November 1790 that Gustavus either from vanity or from penury, might once more attack her; but the price which he asked from the Allies was enormous:--“I am assured on good authority that he talks of 10,000,000 rix dollars for the first campaign, and 7,000,000 for every succeeding one.”[967] Rumour, then, saw in Gustavus not merely a knight errant, but a shrewd bargainer; and we now know that he had come to some secret understanding with Catharine. By methods not very unusual in that age, the British Embassy at Stockholm managed to procure and decipher a letter of the Swedish monarch to his envoy at London, Baron Nolcken, dated 7th December 1790. In it he expressed regret and annoyance that England still kept a large fleet ready for service in the Baltic, and urged Nolcken to point out that the British ships would find great difficulty in procuring provisions in that sea, as Sweden must refuse them.[968] The experience of our sailors, especially in the years 1810–11, has since corroborated that statement.
This was not all. Gustavus was then revolving a grandiose project for the invasion of Normandy by Swedish and Russian troops, in order to crush the French Revolution. Catharine humoured the notion, more, it would seem, with the aim of protecting herself from British warships than of re-establishing Louis XVI;[969] for, as was often to appear, her royalist heroics never led to definite action. To the Tancred of the North, however, her friendship seemed all important; and it was therefore possible that, in the interests of monarchy, he might add his fleet to hers. Pitt had cause to fear such a hostile combination; for on 11th February 1791 Ewart assured him that the Empress of Russia was convinced, “since her peace with Sweden, that no British fleet could operate in the Baltic with any success, and that the [British] Minister would risk the loss of his popularity by such an expedition.”[970] Her surmise was to be justified by events. Nevertheless, Pitt cherished the hope of browbeating Russia; and, as the sequel will show, this would have given to the hard-pressed Poles a precious time of reprieve. For it was not so much Turkey as Poland whose fortunes were at stake. The events of the years 1791, 1792, virtually decided the doom of that interesting people, and opened to the Muscovites the way into the heart of Europe.
As we saw in Chapter XXIII, the Prusso-Polish treaty of 29th March 1790 spread dismay at Petersburg. But the lavish use of Russian gold among the ruck of the Polish nobles in the Diet at Warsaw soon strengthened the anti-Prussian prejudices of that impulsive and passionate body; and the insatiable land-hunger of Hertzberg ere long begot a feeling that the ally was the worst enemy. The feeling was not of recent growth. In the year 1775, that is, three years after the first partition of Poland, Prussia sought to strangle the export trade of that land by imposing heavy customs dues on all Polish products sent down the Vistula, a policy which caused an indignant patriot to declare their removal to be almost as vital as the recovery of Galicia to his country’s welfare.[971] All the more did the Prussians persevere in their policy, which clearly involved the ruin of the trade of the free city of Danzig (a close ally of the Polish State) as a prelude to its annexation.[972] Along with it they hoped to secure the cession of the Polish fortress and district of Thorn.
The Diet at Warsaw hotly resented this conduct, declaring that the loss of those much prized districts could be compensated by nothing less than the whole of Galicia. Accordingly, when Prussia began to bargain with Austria for the cession to Poland of only part of Galicia, the rage of the Poles knew no bounds; and, as we saw, the Court of Berlin finally fell back on Pitt’s policy of the status quo. Nevertheless, even after the settlement at Reichenbach, Frederick William and Hertzberg harked back to the former scheme, so that, at the end of the year 1790, the Poles decided to ask the British Government for advice and help. For this purpose they sent to London as special envoy Count Oginski, their Minister at The Hague. He had two interviews with Pitt, whom he describes as “very polite, speaking French with an English accent, but fluently enough and with marked precision.” At first Pitt let his visitor discourse at length, refrained from committing himself, and then suggested a second meeting. By that time he had before him several maps and a memorial from London merchants against throwing open the navigation of the Vistula, as it would end their special privileges. On this he remarked that merchants thought about nothing but trade, and launched into an argument on behalf of the advantages of the Prussian scheme, as providing Poland with what she most needed, a good commercial treaty with Prussia. He also showed to Oginski a letter of the King of Prussia in favour of that proposal. Turning to wider topics, he urged the Count to press on his people the need of better agriculture, an extended system of canals, and other means of transport and export. England, he said, needed Polish corn, timber, flax, and hemp, as a counterpoise to the Russian trade in those articles; and, as the fortunes of Poland, both political and commercial, touched us closely, the Prusso-Polish settlement must not be such as to harm our interests. He then charged Oginski to declare this to his Government, and expressed his intention of giving similar instructions to Hailes at Warsaw.[973] That active and intelligent envoy had long been working, in consort with Ewart at Berlin, for the inclusion of Poland in the Anglo-Prussian compact, as a means of deadening the poison of Russian influence in the Republic; and in a pamphlet which he either wrote or inspired, he depicted in glowing colours the results attainable by “a grand federative chain (England, Holland, Prussia, Poland, and, perhaps, Sweden and Turkey) which would assure a long time of peace to our hemisphere.”[974]
Similar thoughts, though of a more practical trend, were shaping themselves in the mind of Pitt. The interview with Oginski and the reports from Berlin and Warsaw convinced him of the need of a compact with Poland and the Scandinavian States as a safeguard against Russia. Consequently the Foreign Office on 8th January 1791 despatched to Francis Jackson at Berlin (then acting as locum tenens for Ewart) instructions of far-reaching import. They set forth the reasons why England and Prussia should prepare the way for joint alliances, not only with Poland, but also with Denmark and Sweden, if that were possible. The Court of Berlin, it was hoped, might rise to the height of the situation and render possible so desirable a consummation.
At that time the fortunes of Poland appeared radiant with promise. Late in the year 1790 the Court of Warsaw sought to free itself from Prussian dictation and Muscovite intrigue by a compact with the Sultan which would assure a free exit for Polish products down the River Dniester (then in Turkish territory) to the Black Sea. Selim III welcomed an offer which promised to strengthen both lands against their common enemy, Russia; and it seemed likely that Poland would gain the right of navigation in the Black Sea for fifty of her ships. Had this come about, she would have lessened her dependence on Prussia in the Vistula valley, besides securing valuable markets in the Levant. But it was not to be. The Sultan, then in sore straits for the next campaign against Catharine, insisted that the Poles should declare war upon the Czarina whatever Frederick William might do, and thus ensured the failure of a compact which promised to range the two threatened States along with England and Prussia.[975] If the Poles had had timely support from Berlin and London, there is little doubt that they would have clogged the efforts of Catharine, besides escaping from the tutelage of St. Petersburg. In that case the league outlined by Hailes and, in part at least, approved by Pitt would have come within the bounds of possibility. Other requisites were the abatement of Prusso-Polish jealousies, and the adoption of a sound and steady policy by Gustavus III. Such were the difficulties in the way of Pitt. It will ever redound to his honour that at this time of intrigue and rapine he sought to assure the union and the preservation of the lesser States.
Among the warping influences of the time not the least was the policy of Hertzberg. After the success of the Triple Alliance in compelling Austria to come to terms with Turkey, he pressed England to help in compelling the Czarina to adopt the same course; and, as he had recently supported Pitt in coercing Spain, the latter felt in honour bound to respond. But Hertzberg had long been shifting his ground. He valued the alliance with England and Holland chiefly because it secured Prussia’s western frontier and coast-line, thereby enabling her to play a bold game in the East, and to prepare to round off her then almost scattered domains in the valley of the Vistula. There the Polish districts around Danzig and Thorn ate into her lands and might even become a source of danger if that singular Republic once more passed under Muscovite control. We may freely admit that to a military State like Prussia the situation was annoying, and that Pitt himself, had he been in office in Berlin, would have sought to assure her eastern frontier by some plan of exchange. In truth, his despatches and his converse with Oginski show that he appreciated the difficulties of the Court of Berlin and tried to induce the Poles to cede Danzig (not Thorn) to Prussia in exchange for a good commercial treaty. It is therefore false to assert, as German writers have done, that he showed no regard for Prussian interests. Unfortunately his solution of the difficulty proved to be impracticable. Polish national sentiment was very susceptible on this point; and a special decree of the Warsaw Diet finally forbade any cession of the national territory, though (strictly speaking) Danzig was only allied to the Republic.
But long before the failure of Pitt’s well-meant attempt at compromise Hertzberg had been seeking to compass his aims by secret help from the Power which ostensibly he was about to coerce. Seeing that Pitt had thwarted his earlier schemes by the pacification of Reichenbach, he made covert advances to Russia, and that, too, at the time when Frederick William had expressly charged him to drop the Danzig-Thorn proposals. Opening his heart to the Russian envoy, Alopeus, he said that, if the Empress limited her claims to such a trifle (peu de chose) as Oczakoff and the land up to the Dniester, the two Powers could easily come to a friendly understanding, provided that Russia did not thwart the scheme just named. He then suggested that, as he was forbidden by the King to make that proposal, it would be well that it should come from St. Petersburg; in which case he would give it his hearty support. Indeed, he would find no difficulty in proving that the support of Russia and the gains aforesaid were far more desirable than the friendship of England, from whom Prussia had received nothing in return for all the services she had rendered.[976] This is in germ the Second Partition of Poland. Betraying his own Sovereign and his allies, England and Poland, Hertzberg invited the Power which he was ostensibly threatening, to work her will on Turkey provided that she helped Prussia to secure the two coveted Polish districts. Even in that age of duplicity and violence conduct such as this bore the mark of infamy. It led to the fall of the schemer, but not until his treachery had sapped Pitt’s policy at the base.
As chance would have it, this insidious offer was made known at St. Petersburg on the very day when the British and Prussian envoys presented their demand for the restitution by Russia of all her recent conquests. The result can readily be imagined. Catharine, knowing the Prussian threats to be mere stage thunder, resolved to defy both Powers.[977] To Whitworth the Russian Vice-Chancellor, Ostermann, behaved as much in sorrow as in anger. He complained of the unprecedentedly menacing tone adopted by the Allies. He declared that the Empress would never accept their terms, and would limit herself strictly to an acceptance of the good offices of England, “inasmuch as they may tend to procure for her the indemnity she requires--Oczakoff and its district.” Rather than forego this, she would commit her fortunes into the hand of Providence, braving all perils rather than tarnish the glory of a long and splendid reign by a craven surrender. Whitworth saw in this declaration a threat of war, but he little knew who was the special Providence of the situation. In fact he flattered himself that, despite the news of the capture of Ismail by the Russians, the Empress must give way under the pressure of the Triple Alliance. His verdict was as follows:
Abandoned by her Allies [Austria and Denmark], destitute of internal as well as external resources, without confidence in the persons she is obliged to employ at the head of her fleet and army, both of which are incapable of acting against a formidable enemy; and, added to this, a strong spirit of discontent against the Government and its measures prevalent throughout the country--how can we suppose it possible that, under such circumstances, pride and obstinacy can maintain their ground? These, however, are the only motives which influence the Court of Petersburg.[978]
Whitworth’s forecast deserves to be borne in mind; for he, together with Ewart or Jackson at Berlin, and Hailes at Warsaw, was best qualified to judge of Russia’s power of resisting the British demands. Ewart, our able ambassador at Berlin, spent the winter of 1790–1 in England for the benefit of his health; and there are signs in his correspondence with Pitt that he fully explained to him and to other Ministers the importance of the issues at stake. He showed that, unless Turkey retained the Oczakoff district, both she and Poland would be liable to further encroachments from Russia. He declared that the British demand of a restitution of that district by Russia, sent off on 14th November, would be firmly supported at Berlin; and, he continued, “though the Empress of Russia may, and probably will, make some difficulties at first, there can be little doubt of her accepting the terms offered before the spring, since she never can venture to risk the consequences of a refusal.” Ewart, then, was more positive than Whitworth that Catharine would not risk a war with the Allies; and Pitt, with his sanguine spirit, doubtless had the same expectation. Ewart also opened up wide vistas in the diplomatic sphere. He advised Pitt to bring not only Turkey but also Poland into the Triple Alliance; for this step would at once overthrow the influence of the Bourbon Courts at Constantinople and that of Russia at Warsaw.[979]
Despite Grenville’s disapproval of the latter proposal, Pitt and Leeds decided to act on it; and, as we have seen, sent an offer of alliance to the Polish Court.[980] The matter was of urgent importance; for rumours of Hertzberg’s underhand clutches at Danzig and Thorn had reached Warsaw and gave new strength to Muscovite intrigues. The prospect of an alliance with England was warmly welcomed by Polish patriots; and there is little doubt that, had Hertzberg loyally supported Pitt’s resolve to check the advance of Russia, a completely different turn would have been given to national developments in the East of Europe.
At the outset, the British Cabinet had reasons for trusting Hertzberg. Through the year 1790 he insisted on the need of strenuous action against Russia. It was his policy rather than that of Pitt, who at first took it up somewhat doubtfully. There is not a sentence in the British despatches which has a warlike ring. In the month of December the fleet was placed on a peace footing once more--a grave tactical error, for it lessened the effect of the British “Declaration” at St. Petersburg; and in the missive of 8th January to Jackson, the hope is distinctly expressed that war may be avoided. There were good grounds for such an expectation. Spain appeared to favour the cause of the Allies; and Leopold, at the end of a fruitless strife, might be expected to oppose the aggrandisement of Russia. Pitt therefore refused to prepare for war until the intentions of the doubtful States--Austria, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden--were better known.[981]
The horizon cleared but slowly. The Danish Court declared its intention of not breaking with the Empress, who had guaranteed to it the Duchy of Holstein. Austria, while assuring the Allies that she would not take up arms for Catharine, favoured her claims at the Conference of Sistova. As for Gustavus III, he seemed to be holding out for the highest bid for his alliance. In the middle of February he assured Liston (it was between the acts of the Opera) that he was not pledged to Russia, and might join the Allies on consideration of a subsidy of £1,500,000 for each campaign. Spain also balanced at times, as if her sole object were to restore her waning prestige; but on the whole she opposed the threatened entrance of Russia into Mediterranean politics, as France would probably have done had she been less torn by internal strifes.[982]
On the whole, then, the general situation favoured the Allies, provided that they were true to one another. But here lay the chief difficulty. The divergence of interests between the Maritime States and Prussia could be reconciled only by generous forbearance and whole-hearted good faith. Britons and Dutchmen wanted peace, provided that their navies and their commerce would not suffer from the stride of Russia southwards. The Court of Berlin cared less for commerce (except as a means of coercing Poland), but longed for a better frontier on the East. Unfortunately good faith was not then characteristic of Prussian policy. Jackson suspected Hertzberg of duplicity, but believed his power to be on the wane. Moreover, other counsellors, especially the latest favourite, Bischoffswerder, seemed true to the British alliance. The King probably intended to keep troth; but he either could not or did not prevent the secret intrigues of Hertzberg from undermining the efforts of the Allies both at Warsaw and St. Petersburg. One of the great mistakes of his reign was in not dismissing that statesman outright; but instead of that he merely ordered him once more to desist from his pet scheme, the acquisition of Danzig and Thorn.
The policy of the Court of Berlin now took one more turn underground. The King, weary of the haughty airs and restless ways of Hertzberg, and desirous of putting forth a feeler towards Vienna, sent Bischoffswerder on a secret mission to the Court of Vienna (February 1791). Hertzberg knew no more of its aims than did Frederick William of the intrigue of his Foreign Minister with the Russian Chancery. Thus Prussian policy was two-headed. The official head, while echoing the menacing tones of Pitt to Russia, secretly encouraged that Power to retain all its conquests, provided that Prussia acquired the two coveted towns on the Vistula; and Bischoffswerder sought to allure the Emperor. The King’s favourite (a poor Saxon nobleman who had won his way at Court by chameleonic subservience to all the royal moods) was charged to confer direct with Leopold, and to propose that the two States should mutually guarantee their present possessions and aim at excluding Russian influence from Poland. He was also to suggest the peaceable acquisition by Prussia of Danzig and Thorn in exchange for commercial privileges granted to the Poles.[983] Leopold II smiled so graciously on these proposals as to elicit from the envoy the ecstatic description: “Quelle bonté; quelle clarté: et quelle sérénité!” This benignity enticed Bischoffswerder on to make the singular offer that, if the Emperor granted Prussia her heart’s desire, she on her side would not persist in applying the strict status quo against Austria at Sistova.
Even this enticing proposal did not dissolve either the hatred of Kaunitz for Prussia or the determination of Leopold to favour Catharine. Both the Emperor and his Chancellor saw that Prussia was seeking to set them against Russia; and policy prompted them to work for a war between those two Powers.[984] No suspicion of these hidden motives ruffled the equanimity of the amateur diplomatist, who flattered himself that he had won over Leopold and assured the isolation of Russia. Full blown with pride he returned to Berlin, and advocated energetic measures against Russia, the result of which will appear in due course.[985]
We must now return to London in order to sift somewhat closely the evidence which came in from various quarters. In a question of so much importance and complexity, which influenced the fate of the East as well as the career of Pitt, we cannot proceed too cautiously; and the inductive method here attempted seems to be the only means of avoiding hasty decisions, and of re-constructing the history of the crisis.
The Dutch, as might be expected, were far less eager than Prussia for the humbling of Catharine’s pride, especially as they had recently lent her a considerable sum of money. Lord Auckland, our envoy at The Hague, entered into their views and set them forth with his usual ability. From the beginning of this question he opposed the energetic measures recommended by Ewart; and certain expressions in his letters smack of personal dislike to that ambassador.[986] His position at The Hague kept him in touch with the British couriers passing through to the northern and eastern capitals; and his very voluminous papers (a small part only of which has seen the light) yield proofs of his activity in urging Pitt and the Duke of Leeds to patch matters up with Russia. In a letter of 2nd February 1791, to Huber, he deprecates any attempt to coerce Russia, even though it may be crowned by success:
The state of our debt, of our revenue, of our trade, and the unsettled disposition of mankind in general, forms altogether a great object of importance in my ideas, far beyond that of taking a feather out of the cap of an old vixen or of preserving a desert tract of ground between two rivers to the Turks, whose political existence and safety will probably not be diminished if they are obliged to have their barrier upon the Dniester, or even on the Danube. Besides I see many symptoms ... which irrefragably prove to me that our friends at Berlin are in general at least as much afraid of a Russian war as I am....[987]
In the following letter, dated The Hague, 7th March, he sought to win over Lord Grenville to his views:
It appears from these despatches that we have nothing to expect from the Danish Ministry, which is immoveably devoted to Russia; and that Sweden, unless previously purchased by the Empress, would possibly undertake one campaign against her upon payment of £1,500,000. [He names other expenses amounting to another £1,500,000.].... In plain truth, this phantom of Oczakow has appeared to me for some time to beckon us towards an abyss of new debts and endless difficulties at a moment of general fermentation in the world when it may be essential perhaps to the very existence of our Government and of many other civilized States that we should maintain our own internal peace and the uninterrupted course of our prosperity.[988]
Auckland’s chief opponent, Ewart, now had the ear of the Cabinet. On 8th March he frankly informed Auckland that his health had so far recovered as to permit him to return to Berlin; but he believed his duty to lie in London where he frequently saw the chief Ministers. He added that the meeting of the Cabinet, which was to decide as to the means of coercing Russia, would take place very shortly; further, that Ministers “have admitted my statement of facts to be just; so that the whole can be reduced to a simple calculation. I can venture to assure your Lordship in the most positive manner that nothing is to be apprehended from the present state of the Prussian Cabinet; and I will answer for its being much better than ever it was, provided we go on.”[989] Clearly, then, Ewart had some difficulty in convincing Pitt and his colleagues that Russia would give way if the Allies showed a determined front.
Pitt himself was now beset by doubts whether the Oczakoff district was worth the risk of a war. As will shortly appear, Catharine had left the extent of her territorial demands discreetly vague, so that the Whigs were able to assert that Russia wanted merely the barren strip of land around Oczakoff. The town itself was held to be a valuable possession because it commanded the entrance to the large estuary called the Liman, which is formed by the Rivers Dnieper and Bug. Auckland, however, brought to judgement an able witness, a Dutch admiral, Kingsbergen, who, after serving in the Russian navy several years in those waters, declared that Oczakoff was of little importance either to the Turks or the Russians. Pitt took up this question with alacrity, and on 7th March wrote to Auckland for definite answers to these inquiries. Whether the Turks, if they resumed possession of Oczakoff, could hinder the junction of Russian squadrons sailing from Kherson and Sevastopol, and thereby hamper the preparations for an attack on Constantinople? Whether the retention of Oczakoff by Russia would not enable her to command the southern exit of Polish commerce, namely, down the River Dniester to the Black Sea? Also, whether Oczakoff could not be so strengthened (rumour described it as in part demolished) as once again to defy a Russian attack?[990]
To these searching questions Admiral Kingsbergen made the following replies. Oczakoff did not command the entrance to the Liman, as that was four cannon-shot wide, and the navigable channel was nearer to the Kinburn, or Russian, side than to Oczakoff. Neither of these places was a port; and the value of Kherson (the naval station on the Dnieper) was much overrated. Russia would do well to spend all her energies on Sevastopol or Balaclava, to which places she could easily bring all the naval stores from the Don or Dnieper district. Those ports would be the best starting points for an attack on Constantinople, which the Turks, even if masters of Oczakoff, could in no wise prevent. When he (Kingsbergen) in 1773 prepared a plan for attacking Constantinople he took little thought of the Turkish garrison at Oczakoff. Indeed that town must always be isolated and a source of expense, even of danger, to the Porte. The admiral felt unable to say whether the cession of Oczakoff and its district to Russia would adversely affect the trade of Poland to the Black Sea, and he opined that it would not much extend the power and population of Russia in the south.[991]
In this last conjecture the admiral was wholly wrong. We can now see that the acquisition by Russia of the valuable territory in question, on which now stands the port of Odessa, opened up to her almost boundless possibilities of controlling the Balkan Peninsula and of strangling Poland. On the naval matters referred to by Pitt, Kingsbergen’s answer bore the stamp of experience and authority. It proved that Oczakoff in itself was of little worth; but it did not prove that the whole district up to the Dniester was equally valueless.
We have proof of Pitt’s anxiety to probe this question thoroughly. In the Pitt MSS. is a long memorandum which aims at showing that the growth of Russia’s power and trade in the Baltic was to our advantage, as she supplied us with much needed naval stores, through a sea over which we could exercise some measure of control. But her progress to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean was greatly to be deprecated; for she would then furnish those stores to our rivals, France and Spain, through ports which were never blocked by ice. Further, if she gained the Oczakoff district, she could shut out the trade of the Poles from the Black Sea, while extending her own markets through the Levant and the Mediterranean, to our detriment. The prospects of her gaining Constantinople are also dwelt upon; and the conclusion of the anonymous writer is that we ought at all costs to hinder her southward march, even while we hailed her as a friend in the Baltic.[992] Doubts of various kinds also beset the mind of the Duke of Leeds. On 11th March he wrote thus to Auckland:
... The present situation of affairs is, I confess, by no means pleasant, and perhaps, all things considered, the most perplexing point is to extricate ourselves from the risk of a war, salvo honore. We are in my opinion so far committed as to render this, however desirable, extremely difficult, if not impracticable. [He then states that the successes of the Russians make it difficult now to insist on the absolute status quo, of which he had never wholly approved.] Yet in my mind [he continues] it behoves us (considering the part we have so decidedly, tho’ perhaps not very wisely, taken,) more than ever to abide by our former determination, or the Empress’s ambition will be gratified, not only at the expense of the Turkish territory, but of the reputation of this Government. So much for the engagements (thanks to Prussia) we have entered into. I will now beg to call your Lordship’s attention to the extent of the Russian conquests, which I think deserving the most serious attention on our part. Oczakow and its district, it seems is (or at least was) all the Empress in her moderation will insist on keeping. This district by the bye (according to Woronzow’s language, as well as my own suspicion) includes the whole tract of country from the Bog [sic] to the Dniester. However barren the soil may be, the command of the latter river, its embouchure being at the mercy of Russia, will operate a considerable change in the influence of that Power in the Black Sea, whether with a view to hostile operations or to commercial engagements, and completely shut out Poland from her southern débouché.[993]...
Nothing is more singular in this letter than the confession of the Foreign Minister that he does not know exactly what extent of land the Empress demands--a matter infinitely favourable to the Opposition in Parliament. Certainly the Duke of Leeds and Whitworth had not manœuvred skilfully in leaving this all-important question in doubt.
To resume, then, we find that neither Pitt nor his colleague knew the extent of the Czarina’s demands, which, at the request of Prussia, they were about to oppose; that Leeds secretly doubted the wisdom of this policy; that Pitt found out by 19th March the comparative unimportance of Oczakoff itself, however valuable the whole territory might be to Polish merchants; that the Dutch were most reluctant to take any part in the dispute; that Austria was playing a dilatory and threatening game at Sistova; and last, but not least, that Prussian policy began to show signs of weakness and wavering.[994]
Now, the crux of the whole question was at Berlin. Jackson had not fathomed the depths of Hertzberg’s duplicity. He did not know of his having prompted Russia to suggest to Frederick William a secret bargain at the expense of Poland; but on 6th March he stated that Danzig and Thorn still held the first place in that statesman’s thoughts, despite the express veto of his master. The Prussian Minister sought to justify his behaviour by assuring Jackson that, in case of a war with Russia, Leopold would step in and dictate his terms to Prussia as a revenge for her treatment of him at Reichenbach. Accordingly, Hertzberg refused to take comfort from Jackson’s remark that the splendid army of Prussia (numbering 208,000 effectives) would be a match for the exhausted and badly led forces of the two Empires, distracted as they would be by the efforts of the Ottomans in the south. He also affected great concern lest England should play him false by sending only a small fleet into the Baltic. But Jackson saw, rightly enough, that the two phantoms, a triumphant Austria and a skeleton British fleet, were conjured up merely as an excuse for doubling back to the forbidden fruit--Danzig and Thorn. Hertzberg finally suggested the advisability of toning down the allied demands in order to mollify the Czarina.[995] Thus the first suggestion to this effect came, not from Pitt or Auckland, but from the man who had first advised the use of coercive measures against Russia. Is it surprising, then, that up to 20th March 1791 Pitt declined to take any vigorous steps against Catharine? The whole trend of events prescribed caution and delay until the policy of Prussia showed signs of consistency and firmness. But now the whole situation was suddenly to change owing to causes which must be set forth in the following chapter.