XX. RESIGNATION…

XX. RESIGNATION

It is well known that no quiet could subsist in a country where there is not a Church Establishment.--GEORGE III TO ADDINGTON, 29th January 1801.

On 25th September 1800 Pitt wrote to the Lord Chancellor, Loughborough, then in attendance on the King at Weymouth, requesting his presence at a Cabinet meeting in order to discuss the Catholic Question and proposals respecting tithes and a provision for the Catholic and Dissenting clergy. Five days later he explained to his colleagues the main proposal. In place of the Oaths of Supremacy and Abjuration he desired to impose on members of Parliament and officials merely the Oath of Allegiance, which would be no bar to Romanists. The change won the approval of all the Ministers present except Loughborough. He strongly objected to the proposal, upheld the present exclusive system, and demurred to any change affecting Roman Catholics except a commutation of tithes, a measure which he had in preparation. His colleagues, astonished at this firm opposition from the erstwhile Presbyterian of East Lothian, begged him to elaborate his Tithe Bill, and indulged the hope that further inquiry would weaken his resistance to the larger Reform. They did not know Loughborough.

There is a curious reference in one of Pitt's letters, of October 1798, to Loughborough as the Keeper of the King's conscience.[572] The phrase has an ironical ring well suited to the character of him who called it forth. Now, in his sixty-seventh year, he had run through the gamut of political professions. An adept in the art of changing sides, he, as Alexander Wedderburn, had earned the contempt or envy of all rivals. Yet such was the grace of his curves and the skill of his explanations that a new turn caused less surprise than admiration. Unlike his rival, Thurlow, who stormed ahead, Wedderburn trimmed his sails for every breeze and showed up best in light airs. Making few friends, he had few inveterate enemies; but one of them, Churchill, limned him as

Adopting arts by which gay villains rise And reach the heights which honest men despise; Mute at the Bar and in the Senate loud, Dull 'mong the dullest, proudest of the proud, A pert prim prater of the northern race, Guilt in his heart, and famine in his face.

This was before Wedderburn had wormed himself into favour with Lord North and won the office of Solicitor-General (1778). Two years later he became Lord Loughborough, a title which Fox ascribed to his rancorous abuse of the American colonists. Figuring next as a member of the Fox-North Administration, he did not long share the misfortunes of his colleagues, for he alone of his colleagues contrived not to offend either the King or Pitt. This sleekness had its reward. The perversities of Thurlow having led to his fall in 1792, Loughborough became Lord Chancellor. His sage counsels heightened his reputation; and in October 1794 Pitt assigned to him the delicate task of seeing Earl Fitzwilliam and Grattan in order to smooth over the difficulties attending the union with the Old Whigs. At his house in Bedford Square, Bloomsbury, occurred some of the conferences which ensured Fitzwilliam's acceptance of the Irish Viceroyalty. Loughborough urged Pitt to do all in his power to prevent a rupture with the Portland Whigs or the Irish people. Counsels of conciliation then flowed from his lips and were treasured up. In fact, Pitt seems to have felt no suspicion of him despite his courtier-like ways and his constant attendance on the King. For Loughborough, like Dundas, had outlived the evil reputation of an earlier time. The Marquis of Buckingham, writing to Grenville on an awkward episode affecting Lord Berkeley, advised him to consult Loughborough as a man of discretion and undoubted private honour.[573]

Neither Pitt nor Grenville knew that Loughborough had played them false in 1795. The man who urged them to send Fitzwilliam to Dublin with the olive-branch soon tendered to George III official advice of an exactly opposite tenour, namely, that assent to Catholic Emancipation would involve a violation of the Coronation Oath. A day or two later he stated to Rose that he had given to the King wholly different counsels, to the effect that the Coronation Oath did not apply to the question at issue, which referred to a legislative enactment, not to an act of the King in his executive capacity.[574] Two other legal authorities unequivocally declared for this view of the case.

Whether in the autumn and winter of 1800 Loughborough's secret counsels had much effect on the King may be doubted; for George, in his letter of 6th February 1795 to Pitt, declared Catholic Emancipation to be "beyond the decision of any Cabinet of Ministers." As for the Church Establishment, it was essential to every State, and must be maintained intact. When George had once framed a resolve, it was hopeless to try to change it. Moreover, during the debates on the Union, early in 1799, he remarked to Dundas at Court that he hoped the Cabinet was not pledged to anything in favour of the Romanists. "No," was the wary reply, "that will be a matter for future consideration." Thereupon he set forth his scruples respecting the Coronation Oath. Dundas sought to allay them by observing that the Oath referred, not to his executive actions, but only to his assent to an act of the Legislature, a matter even then taken for granted. The remark, far from soothing the King, elicited the shrewd retort, "None of your Scotch metaphysics, Mr. Dundas! None of your Scotch metaphysics!"

The action of Loughborough, then, can only have put an edge on the King's resolve; and all speculation as to the exact nature of his "intrigues" at Weymouth or at Windsor is futile. In truth a collision between the King and Pitt on this topic was inevitable. The marvel is that there had been no serious friction during the past eighteen years. Probably the knowledge that a Fox Cabinet, dominated by the Prince of Wales, was the only alternative to Pitt had exerted a chastening influence on the once headstrong monarch; but now even that spectre faded away before the more potent wraith of mangled Protestantism. The King was a sincerely religious man in his own narrow way; and arguments about the Coronation Oath were as useless with him as discussions on Modernism are with Pius X.

Pitt therefore kept his plans secret. But we must here digress to notice an assertion to the contrary. Malmesbury avers that Loughborough, while at Weymouth in the autumn of 1800, informed his cousin, Auckland, and the Archbishop of Canterbury of the danger to the Established Church; that the latter wrote to the King, who thereupon upbraided Pitt. Now, it is highly probable that Auckland knew nothing of the matter until the end of January 1801,[575] and the secret almost certainly did not come to light until then, when the Archbishop, Auckland's brother-in-law, was a prey to nervous anxieties resulting from recent and agitating news. Further, no such letter from the King to Pitt is extant either at the Public Record Office, Orwell Park, or Chevening; and if the proposals were known to George why did he fume at Pitt and Castlereagh on 28th January for springing the mine upon him? Finally, if the King, while at Weymouth, blamed Pitt for bringing the matter forward, why did Malmesbury censure him for keeping it secret? It is well to probe these absurdities, for they reveal the untrustworthiness of the Earl on this question.

To revert to Pitt's procedure; there were two arguments on which he must have relied for convincing the King of the need of granting Catholic Emancipation. Firstly, the Irish Catholics had, on the whole, behaved with marked loyalty and moderation during the wearisome debates on the Union at Dublin, a course of conduct markedly different from the acrid and factious tactics of the privileged Protestant Episcopalians. Secondly, as the summer of 1800 waned to autumn, the position of Great Britain became almost desperate. Her ally, Austria, had lost Lombardy and was fighting a losing game in Swabia. Russia had not only left the Second Coalition, but was threatening England with a renewal of the Armed Neutrality League. At home a bad harvest was sending up corn to famine prices; and sedition again raised its head. In such a case would not a patriotic ruler waive his objections to a measure essential not only to peace and quiet in Ireland, but to the stability of the United Kingdom? The latter consideration derived added force from the fact that Bonaparte, fresh from his triumphs in Italy, was inaugurating a policy of conciliation which promised to end the long ferment in the west of France and to make of her a really united nation. While he was allaying Jacobinical zeal and royalist bigotry, could Britons afford to keep up internal causes of friction, and, disunited among themselves, face a hostile world in arms? In such an emergency would not the King waive even his conscientious scruples, and at the cost of some qualms pacify and consolidate his nominally united realms?

For it was certain that the Irish Catholics would not rest now that the boon of Emancipation was well within reach. Pitt and Cornwallis had aroused their hopes. While not openly promising that the portals at Westminster should be thrown open to Roman Catholics, Ministers had allowed hints to go forth definite enough to influence opinion, especially in Cork, Tipperary, and Galway. In fact, Castlereagh assured Pitt that the help of Catholics had turned the wavering scales in favour of Union.[576] The claims of honour therefore required that Pitt should do all in his power to requite the services of a great body of men, long depressed and maligned, who, when tempted by the foreigner to revolt, had on the whole shown remarkable patience and fidelity. The pressure of this problem was too much for the scanty strength of Pitt. Worried by private financial needs, and distressed at the bewildering change in European affairs, he broke down in health in September-October; and a period of rest and change at Addington's seat at Woodley, near Reading, was all too short for a complete recovery (18th October to 5th November). Addington, describing this visit, remarked that Pitt had become one of his family. Neither of them knew that a time of feud was at hand.

At the close of the year Castlereagh came from Dublin to London to confer with Ministers on legal and other details connected with the proposal of Catholic Emancipation. By that time Loughborough's sharp opposition to the measure was known at Dublin Castle, where Cornwallis declared all resistance to the measure to be mere madness. The Catholics, he reported, were quiet merely because they were confident of success. Cooke, though once opposed to Catholic Emancipation, now accepted it as a necessity.[577] Nevertheless in the King's view Catholic Emancipation was wholly incompatible with his Coronation Oath and with the Church Establishment in England. In the middle of December the Chancellor drew up an able and very detailed Memorandum on the legal aspects of the case. He even discoursed on the proselytizing zeal of Romanists and the material causes of discontent in Ireland which the Union would probably dispel. As Cooke remarked, the paper seemed designed to close the question for ever.[578]

Pitt was equally determined to set the question at rest. He and Castlereagh had confidence in the issue; and Cornwallis declared that if Pitt were firm he would meet with no difficulty. Accordingly Pitt inserted in the King's Speech for the ensuing session a passage expressing confidence that Parliament would seek to improve the benefits already secured by the Act of Union. The phrase was smooth enough to leave the King's conscience unruffled, and on 23rd January he assented to the Speech, requesting that no change be made.[579] But while Pitt sapped the approaches to the citadel, Loughborough countermined him. On what day and in what manner he informed the King of the proposed measure of Catholic Emancipation is not clear. Possibly George scented mischief in a short conversation with Spencer and Grenville about the middle of January. But his brain was set on fire by something which he heard on 27th or 28th January. On the latter day (Wednesday), during the levée at St. James's Palace, his behaviour betrayed unusual excitement, and he said warmly to Windham, a friend of the measure, that he regarded all supporters of it as "personally indisposed" to him. Waxing hotter in the course of the function, he declared in a loud voice to Dundas: "What is this that the young Lord [Castlereagh] has brought over, which they are going to throw at my head? Lord C. came over with the plan in September.... I shall reckon any man my personal enemy who proposes any such measure. The most Jacobinical thing I ever heard of."

This extraordinary outburst naturally led Ministers to confer together on the morrow; and they requested Grenville to prepare a paper explaining the proposed changes in the form of oath for members of Parliament and officials. Grenville declined this task, which Pitt himself then undertook. This question, I may note, was far more difficult than outsiders could understand. Castlereagh's interviews with Pitt in September, and now again in January, had only recently brought Ministers near to an agreement, a fact which fully accounts for the delay in drafting the proposals in a form suitable for the King's inspection.[580] On that day George took another step betokening irrevocable opposition. He begged Addington to see Pitt and convince him of the danger of the measure. The King confessed that he could scarcely keep his temper in speaking about it; for it portended the destruction of the Established Church and the end of all order in civil life. Addington therefore paid a visit to Pitt, who cannot have been well pleased to see him acting as a tool of the King. The interview, however, seems to have been friendly, and it inspired Addington with the complacent hope that he had dissuaded Pitt. Possibly he or Auckland alarmed Dr. Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury, and set the bishops in motion. Other persons working to this end were the Earl of Clare and the Irish Primate. The latter took a prominent part in arousing the fears of the King. Cooke wrote: "The Primate was a great card, was much consulted by the King, for ever with him, or in correspondence with him.... The Archbishop of Canterbury was at first so nervous that for ten or twelve nights he could not sleep, and our Primate was daily with him, encouraging him."[581]

It is uncertain how far Pitt was aware of the many adverse influences playing upon the King; for his papers on this topic are unusually scanty. On the 30th he sent a draft of his proposals to Loughborough, a sign that he would persevere with them. On the morrow George again summoned Addington to the palace, and adjured him to form a Ministry. This offer preceded the arrival of any intimation from Pitt of his desire to resign if his advice were rejected. Addington for his part begged to be excused; whereupon the King exclaimed: "Lay your hand upon your heart and ask yourself where I am to turn for support if you do not stand by me."[582] Meanwhile Pitt was inditing his famous letter of 31st January, to the King, of which this summary must suffice:

Pitt has heard with deep regret of the opposition displayed by His Majesty to the proposals of Catholic Emancipation, which are approved by the majority of the Cabinet and regarded as a natural sequel to the Act of Union. The admission of Catholics and Dissenters to certain offices, and of Catholics to Parliament, now involves little or no danger to the Established Church or to the Protestant interest, as the Catholics disclaim the obnoxious tenets once held by them. A form of oath can be devised to exclude those Dissenters who may have designs against the constitution either in Church or State. The Irish Catholic clergy may be attached to the Government by making their maintenance partly dependent on the State. These changes would adapt the constitution to present needs. Pitt therefore earnestly commends the measure to the consideration of His Majesty. Meanwhile no steps will be taken in the matter; but, if on examination the measure should not be approved, Pitt will beg to be allowed to resign, though in such a way as to occasion the least possible difficulty. Finally he takes the liberty "of most respectfully, but explicitly, submitting to Your Majesty the indispensable necessity of effectually discountenancing, in the whole of the interval, all attempts to make use of Your Majesty's name, or to influence the opinion of any individual on any part of the subject."

In the last sentence Pitt administered a telling and dignified rebuke for the outrageous behaviour of the King at the levée. A reply came on the morrow, couched in pompously ungrammatical terms, which sufficiently refute the rumour that it was composed by that polished talker, Loughborough. George declared that his Oath bound him to support the Established Church; that State officials must be in active communion with that Church. He therefore refused to discuss the present proposals, which tended to destroy the groundwork of the Constitution. Respecting the suggested truce of silence he wrote as follows: "Mr. Pitt once acquainted with my sentiments, his assuring me that he will stave off the only question whereon I fear from his letter we can never agree--for the advantage and comfort of continuing to have his advice and exertions in public affairs I will certainly abstain from talking on this subject which is the one nearest my heart." The meaning of these words is not easy to fix; but apparently the King meant to say that his silence on the subject was conditional on Pitt promising never to bring it forward again. Now, Pitt had made no such promise. He required that, while the King was examining the proposals of his Cabinet, he would abstain from setting his counsellors against it. George III evaded this request, thereby leaving himself free to talk at large against Catholic Emancipation while he was supposed to be examining its details. We may be sure that this sentence clinched Pitt's resolve to resign at the earliest possible moment.[583]

He said so in his reply of 3rd February to the King. He expressed both regret at the King's resolve on this question, and a desire to consult his convenience, though continuance in office even for a short time became very difficult in view of the King's refusal to undertake to discountenance the use of his name during the interval. In every respect the accession of another Minister was to be desired. Pitt closed this painful correspondence with a letter, also of 3rd February, requesting a pension of £1,500 a year for Long, one of the secretaries of the Treasury, whose private means were so slender as to leave him in discomfort if he should resign. The King briefly assented to Pitt's retirement and to Long's pension. To Long's services the King accorded a few words of thanks: to those of Pitt not a word. This is the more remarkable as Pitt was then suffering from an attack of gout which depressed him greatly; but, as we shall see, the King in private expressed his deep obligations, and requested him to keep in office until all the new appointments were settled.[584] This involved a delay of nearly six weeks, which were among the most trying of his career.

On 5th February the King succeeded in persuading Addington to form a Ministry. Accordingly on the 10th he resigned the office of Speaker, being succeeded by Sir John Mitford, afterwards Lord Redesdale. There is no ground for the insinuation that Addington snatched at office. He took it without eagerness but from conscientious conviction; and Pitt, with the usual generosity of his nature, assured him of his support as a private member. Of Pitt's colleagues Grenville, Dundas, Spencer, and Windham offered their resignations; so also did Cornwallis and Castlereagh at Dublin. Portland retained the Home Secretaryship. Of late he had wavered on the subject of Catholic Emancipation, perhaps owing to the arguments of Loughborough. Westmorland and Chatham also kept their positions of Lord Privy Seal and Lord President. The retention of office by the latter aroused some comment; but as the earnest desire of Pitt was to disarrange the Ministry as little as possible, he probably approved conduct which outsiders condemned as unbrotherly.

The following letter from Chatham, dated Winchester, 6th February, is of interest. After expressing his regret at Pitt's resignation, he continues: "Upon the measure itself of granting further indulgence to the Catholics I have neither time, nor indeed would it be of any use, to say anything at present. I will only observe that if, by being on the spot, I could in any degree have contributed even to put off the extremity to which the agitation of it has led, I should think I had done much, and I should be most unhappy in having been absent; otherwise I consider myself as fortunate in having avoided a discussion which could only have been painful to me in many respects. As things stand, I shall certainly think it my duty to come to town in a few days, and I will defer, till we meet, any further remarks; I will only add that if your part is irrevocably taken, the King could not have acted more wisely than in having recourse to the Speaker.... I see all the difficulty and delicacy of your situation."[585]

Far less charitable were the sentiments of Dundas in the following letter:

Wimbledon, 7 Feb., 1801.[586]

I know not to what stage the Speaker's endeavours to form an Arrangement have proceeded; but it is impossible for me not to whisper into your ear my conviction that no Arrangement can be formed under him as its head that will not crumble to pieces almost as soon as formed. Our friends who, as an act of friendship and attachment to you agree to remain in office, do it with the utmost chagrin and unwillingness; and among the other considerations which operate upon them the feeling that they are embarking in an Administration under a head totally incapable to carry it on and which must of course soon be an object of ridicule is uppermost in their minds. Add to this that, though they will not certainly enter into faction and opposition, all the aristocracy of the country at present cordially connected with Government, and part of it under you, feel a degradation in the first Minister of the Country being selected from [sic] a Person of the description of Mr. Addington without the slightest pretensions to justify it, and destitute of abilities to carry it on. Depend upon it I am not exaggerating the state of the case; and a very short experience will prove that I am right; and the Speaker will ere long feel that he has fallen from a most exalted situation and character into one of a very opposite description. Save him from it if not too late. Yourself excluded from it, I am afraid nothing permanent can be formed; but if the Speaker was to advise the King to call upon the Duke of Portland to form an Administration, I am persuaded His Grace at the head of it, with either Steele, Ryder, Lord Hawkesbury, or even Mr. Abbott as his Chancellor of the Exchequer, would fill the public eye infinitely more than anything that can be found upon the plan now in agitation. By the answer I have received from the King to my resignation I must entreat you without delay to send for my correspondence with Lord Westmorland in order that I may be sure of what my recollection suggests, that I refused to give the promise of the Government at home that what was then proposed was the ultimatum of concession.

The last sentence of Chatham's letter refers to the difficulties of Pitt's position. These have nearly always been overlooked. Yet his decision turned finally on a question of honour. It is true that neither Pitt nor Cornwallis gave a distinct pledge to the Irish Catholics that the Cabinet would press their claims if they would support the Union. But no such pledge could have been given without exasperating the King and the privileged phalanx at St. Stephen's Green. Therefore, when the critics of Pitt demand to see the proof that he made a promise, they ask for what, in the nature of the case, could not be forthcoming. Cornwallis and Castlereagh were aware of the need of extreme caution in making overtures to the leading Catholics; and they afterwards denied that they gave a distinct pledge. Nevertheless, some of their agents induced the Catholics of the south and west of Ireland, to act in a "highly useful" manner, which averted an otherwise dangerous opposition. Castlereagh explained this to Pitt early in January;[587] and the scrupulous Minister must have considered these promises as a debt of honour. That some of the leading Irish Catholics viewed them in the same light appears in an account of a representative meeting held at Ryan's house in Marlborough Street, Dublin, on 27th October 1804. Ryan then set forth the condition of his co-religionists at the time of the Union, and referred to the stipulations made to them by Government. Others, including Lord Fingall and a barrister, Scully, followed; and after two more meetings, they resolved to petition Pitt, who had by that time returned to office, it being known that he was at heart favourable to their claims.[588] But in his speech of 14th May 1805 on this topic, he said, "I did not make a distinct pledge. On the contrary, I believe the line of argument I took was, that if it should be thought right to give what the Catholics required, it might be given with more safety to the Empire."[589]

What the stipulations were is not clear; for with this exception the Irish Records are disappointingly silent. But it is clear that Canning finally came to consider them binding on an honourable man. In his great speech on Catholic Emancipation in March 1827, while admitting that Pitt in 1800 made no definite promise to the Catholics, he added these notable words: "The Catholics were made to believe, and that belief was a powerful inducement to them to lend their aid towards the accomplishment of the measure [the Union] that in the Imperial Parliament the question which so nearly concerned them would be more favourably entertained.... There is no tribunal, however solemn, before which I am not prepared to depose to my firm belief in the sincerity of Mr. Pitt's wishes and intentions to carry it." This passage once for all refutes the charges of insincerity which certain of Canning's biographers have brought against Pitt.

Light is thrown on this topic by notes of Bishop Tomline. Pitt consulted his former tutor at this crisis; for on 6th February he wrote warning him of his approaching resignation on grounds which he desired to explain. He added: "I am in the firm persuasion that an Arrangement can be formed to which I can give a cordial general support, and which may keep everything safe."[590] The bishop thereupon came to town and saw much of Pitt, whose conduct he thus describes: "I never saw Mr. Pitt in more uniformly cheerful spirits, although everyone about him was dejected and melancholy. He talked of his quitting office with the utmost composure, gave the King the highest credit for the notions on which he acted, and also fully acquitted those who were supposed to have influenced his sentiments and conduct. He felt some dissatisfaction at the conduct of one who was not a Cabinet Minister, and was under great obligations to Mr. Pitt, who had by intrigues and misrepresentations and every unfair means in his power endeavoured to influence people's opinion on the question and to excite alarm and prejudice against him." The reference here is to Lord Auckland, but nothing definite is known as to his conduct. The bishop then states that Pitt's equanimity was surprising, inasmuch as his resignation would reduce his income to less than that of a country gentleman and necessitate the sale of Holwood. Nevertheless, no hasty word fell from him even in the most confidential conversation; but he talked cheerfully of living in privacy for the rest of his life, and expressed satisfaction that men who were attached to the constitution would carry on affairs of State. The safety of the country seemed to be his only concern. Tomline then describes the cause and the circumstances of Pitt's resignation:[591]

While the business of the Union was going on, Lord Cornwallis had informed the Ministers in England that the support of the Catholics to the measure would in a great degree depend upon the intention of Ministers to remove those disabilities under which they at present laboured. This produced in the Cabinet a discussion of the question of Catholic Emancipation, as it is called, and Lord Cornwallis was authorized to declare that it was intended by Government, after the Union should have taken place, to grant to the Catholics some further indulgences; but he was not authorized to pledge the Government to any particular measure, nor was any plan of this kind settled by the Cabinet. When the King's Speech was to be drawn up for the opening of the Imperial Parliament, the Catholic Question naturally occurred and gave rise to a good deal of discussion in the Cabinet. Mr. Pitt, Lord Grenville, Lord Spencer, Mr. Dundas, and Mr. Wyndham declared themselves in favour of Catholic Emancipation; and the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Portland and Lord Westmorland against it. Lord Chatham and Lord Liverpool did not attend the Council, the former being at Winchester as military commander of that district and the latter was confined to his house by illness.

The King was of course informed of this division in the Cabinet and took a decided part by talking against the question freely and openly to everyone he saw. On Wednesday, the 28th of January, the King said to Mr. D[undas] at the levée in such a voice that those who were near might hear him--"So here is an Irish Secretary come over to propose in Parliament the Emancipation of the Irish Catholics, as they call it"--and then he declared himself in the strongest degree hostile to the question. This was of course reported to Mr. Pitt. On the Friday (the 30th) the King sent for the Speaker to the Queen's House and conversed with him a long time. Upon my mentioning this circumstance to Mr. Pitt, he said he knew what happened at that interview and seemed perfectly satisfied with it. He had before told me (namely, the first night he saw me, Saturday, Feb. 7th) that he knew nine days before that he should be under the necessity of resigning. On the 31st Mr. Pitt wrote his first letter to the King. Two letters only passed on each side, which see. Mr. Pitt did not see the King till at the levée on Wednesday the 11th [February]. The King spoke to him in the most gracious manner--"You have behaved like yourself throughout this business. Nothing could possibly be more honourable. I have a great deal more to say to you."--"Your Majesty has already said much more than the occasion calls for."--"Oh no, I have not; and I do not care who hears me: it was impossible for anyone to behave more honourably." After more conversation of the same kind the King desired to see Mr. Pitt in the closet. The levée continued, and, some little time after, Mr. Pitt said to the King: "Your Majesty will pardon me if I take the liberty of saying that I fear I shall not be able to attend Your Majesty in the closet."--"Oh yes: you must; I have just done." The King went to the closet and Mr. Pitt attended him. Nothing could exceed the kindness of the King towards Mr. Pitt: he was affected very much and more than once. The conversation lasted more than half an hour; and in the course of it the King said that, tho' he could no longer retain Mr. Pitt in his service, he hoped to have him as his friend. Mr. Pitt, with strong expressions both of duty and attachment and love to His Majesty, submitted that any intercourse of that kind might be injurious to His Majesty's Government; for that it was very important that his new Ministers should appear to act by themselves and for themselves, and that if he was frequently with His Majesty, unfavourable conclusions might be drawn concerning his interference or influence. This seemed to satisfy the King, and they parted. At the levée the King spoke in the highest terms of Mr. Pitt's conduct throughout the business of his resignation, and said that it was very different from that of his predecessors.

This narrative needs little comment, except on the phrase that the Cabinet had promised to grant the Catholics "some further indulgences." Probably the schism occurred on the extent of those concessions, Pitt and the majority desiring the admission of Catholics to Parliament and to offices of trust, while Loughborough and the minority refused to do more than grant some measure of support to the Irish priests.[592] The King probably opposed both concessions; and Pitt seems to have ascribed his strenuous opposition more to the intrigues of Auckland than to those of Loughborough. In this he was probably mistaken. The best judge on this question, the monarch himself, certainly looked on the Chancellor as a traitor. But in truth the crisis could not be avoided. The King acknowledged as much in his effusive comments on the extremely honourable conduct of Pitt, but he also most firmly declared that he could no longer retain him in his service. This was in effect a dismissal. On 18th February, George wrote a brief letter expressing his sorrow at the close of Pitt's political career and his satisfaction that Parliament had passed the Ways and Means without debate. Thus did he close his correspondence with a Minister who had devotedly served him for more than seventeen years.

* * * * *

There is little need to notice the hasty and spiteful comments of Lord Malmesbury, that Pitt was playing a selfishly criminal game by resigning, with the evident aim of showing his own strength and being called back to office on his own terms.[593] The Malmesbury Diaries at this point consist chiefly of hearsays, which can readily be refuted. But this calumny spread widely, and Fox finally barbed it with the hint that the substitution of Addington for Pitt was "a notorious juggle," the former being obviously a dummy to be knocked down when it suited Pitt to come back fancy-free about the Catholics. Fortunately, the correspondence of statesmen often supplies antidotes to the venomous gibes of bystanders; and a case in point is a phrase in Grenville's letter of 13th February to Minto: "There was no alternative except that of taking this step [resignation] or of agreeing to the disguise or dereliction of one's opinion on one of the most important questions in the whole range of our domestic policy."[594]

Pitt has been sharply censured for his excessive scrupulousness in resigning at so serious a crisis. But the verdict must depend on three main issues, the importance of the question at stake, that of the services rendered by the Irish Catholics, and the nature of the promises made to them. Now, no one will deny that in the days when France was striving to effect the independence of Ireland--for Bonaparte was thought to be pressing on the war with that aim in view[595]--the question of the Union stood paramount. It was the most important problem confronting Parliament since the Union with Scotland in 1707; and the difficulties encountered were greater than those raised by the Scots. The services of the Irish Catholics to the cause of the Union are not easy to assess; but Castlereagh, a cool judge, rated them high. In such a case a man of sensitive conscience will deem himself bound to those who, in reliance on his sense of honour, acted in a way that ensured the success of his measure. Above all, in so tangled a situation the final decision will depend on the character of the statesman. Walpole would have waived aside the debt of honour. Pitt resolved to discharge it.

It is scarcely necessary to notice another slander, that Pitt resigned because, in his inability to procure peace from France, he intended to put Addington in office merely for that purpose, to be ousted when it was fulfilled. No evidence is forthcoming in support of this version, which found no small favour with Continental historians of a former generation; but it is now clear that the split occurred solely on Catholic Emancipation. Those Ministers who approved it resigned; while its opponents remained in office, namely, Portland, Chatham, and Westmorland. The same is true of the subordinate offices. The new Cabinet decided to grant only occasional relief and a "compassionate allowance" to the Irish priests.[596] In several other matters its policy differed from that of Pitt; and Addington soon made it apparent that he was no stop-gap.

But now this clear issue was to be blurred in the blinding glare of the King's lunacy. The causes of the malady of February 1801 were partly physical, partly mental. While still agitated by the dismissal of his trusted Minister, the King, two days later, went to church on the day appointed for the National Fast. That day of supplication for delivery from the perils of the time was shrouded in gloom and snow. He remained a long time in church and took a chill. Nevertheless, with his wonted energy he persisted in transacting business with Addington, until the stress told on the brain. On the 16th slight feverish symptoms began to develop. Yet Addington saw him often about new appointments, until on Sunday the 22nd the symptoms caused some concern. Willis, son of the man who had so much control over him during the illness of 1788-9, now came to the Queen's House, and resumed the old regimen. Dr. Gisborne was also in attendance. From the notes of Tomline we glean curious details about the illness. The bilious symptoms were very pronounced, and after the 23rd the King became worse. His manner became nervous and "hurried." He went up to Willis and shook him eagerly by the hand. When the Queen and princesses rose to leave, he jocosely extended his arms so as to stop them; whereupon Willis stepped forward, and, looking at him earnestly, told him he was very ill. The King at once said with a deep sigh: "I see, I cannot deceive you. I have deceived all the rest. They think me well; but I cannot deceive you." He then burst into an agony of weeping, threw himself into Willis's arms, and said: "You are right. I am ill indeed. But oh! for God's sake, keep your father from me, and keep off a Regency."

After weeping for a quarter of an hour, he walked about the room with Willis for an hour and a half. In the evening he grew worse. At 2.30 a.m. he went to bed, while the Duke of Kent and Willis watched by the door. As in the previous seizure, intervals of calm and reasonableness alternated strangely with fits of delirium or even of violence. Now and again he spoke collectedly, and at such times those about him rejoiced to hear the familiar "What, what," wherewith he prefaced his remarks.[597]

Frequently he declared that he would uphold the Church of England; or again his thoughts started away from the loathed spectre of a Regency. On 2nd March the illness took so violent a turn that his life seemed in danger; but, as was the case twelve years before, long spells of sleep supervened and brought his pulse down from 136 to 84. His powers of recovery surprised every one about him. By 6th March he was so far well as to be allowed to see the Dukes of York, Kent, and Cumberland. Not until 9th March did he undergo the more trying ordeal of seeing the Prince of Wales. On that same day he requested to see Pitt, who very properly declined, suggesting, with all deference, that Addington was the proper person for an interview.[598]

Meanwhile, at or just after the crisis of the illness, Pitt gave a very important pledge. If we may trust the far from convincing statements of Lord Malmesbury, who had the story from Pelham, the King on 7th March charged Willis to inform Pitt of the improvement in his health, and to add the biting words: "But what has not he to answer for who is the cause of my having been ill at all?" Pelham further asserted that Pitt, in a "most dutiful, humble and contrite answer," wrote down his resolve to give up Catholic Emancipation.[599] Now it is almost certain that Pitt sent no such letter, for none exists either at the Public Record Office, Orwell Park, or Chevening. Tomline asserts that Pitt sent by Willis a verbal assurance that he would not agitate Catholic Emancipation again during the King's reign; whereupon George III exclaimed: "Now my mind will be at ease." The bishop, however, believed that Pitt's assurance was reported in a more emphatic form than was warranted; and the statesman does not seem to have considered himself absolutely bound by it. Yet the written assurance sent by Rose to the King on behalf of Pitt seems binding during that reign.[600]

Thus had the King conquered--by madness. No incident in the life of Pitt is more unfortunate than this surrender. The King had made an ungenerous use of the privileges of an invalid, and the pressure which he put on Pitt passes the bounds even of the immorality of a sick-room. The illness began with a chill due to his own imprudence; but he used its later developments to extort a promise which otherwise would never have been forthcoming. Nothing but the crisis in the King's illness led Pitt to waver. For at the end of February he authorized Castlereagh to send to Cornwallis at Dublin a declaration intended to reassure the Irish Catholics. It pointed out that the majority of the Cabinet had resigned owing to the impossibility of carrying Catholic Emancipation at the present juncture. He (Pitt) still resolved to do his utmost for the success of that cause; and therefore begged them to refrain from any conduct which would prejudice it in the future. Cornwallis delivered this and another paper to the titular Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Fingall for circulation among their friends and found that it produced good results.[601] Far different, of course, was the effect produced on those few who knew of Pitt's private promise to the King. They contrasted it with the contrary promise to the Irish Catholics and drew the most unfavourable inferences, forgetting that between 27th February and 2nd March the King's illness had taken so dangerous a turn as perhaps to justify the use of that political sedative.

While blaming Pitt for weakness in giving this pledge to the King, we must remember that the prolongation of the reign of George III was the first desire of all responsible statesmen. The intrigues of the Prince of Wales and Fox for a Regency were again beginning; and thus there loomed ahead an appalling vista of waste and demoralization. In these circumstances Dundas and Cornwallis came to the conclusion that the King's conscience must not again be troubled. Grenville seems to have held firm on the Catholic Question.[602] But his colleagues now took an opportunist view. Pitt had two or three interviews with the Prince of Wales, late in February and early in March, and made it clear that the Prince would be well advised to accept the Regency Bill drafted in 1789. On the Prince asking whether this was the opinion of certain of Pitt's colleagues, who then opposed that Bill as derogatory to his interests, Pitt at once replied in the affirmative; and when the Prince further objected to certain restrictions on the power of the Regent, Pitt declared that no change would be acceptable. They parted courteously but coolly; and we may be sure that the Prince never forgave Pitt for his uncompromising assertion of the rights of Parliament.

So dark was the outlook at home and abroad that Pitt was persuaded, probably by Dundas, Tomline, Rose, and Canning, to re-consider the whole question with a view to continuance in office, provided that some suitable position were found for Addington. The bishop penned some notes of sharp criticism on the conduct of Addington, affirming that, if he had been patriotic and sincere, he would have pressed Pitt to remain in office. The following words are remarkable: "Mr. Pitt, Mr. Dundas and myself had a long conversation upon this point at Wimbledon; and I am satisfied that, if Mr. Addington had entered into the idea cordially, Mr. Pitt's resignation might have been prevented." He adds that they drew up a tentative scheme of a Cabinet, Pitt remaining as chief, while Addington was to be a Secretary of State; but the latter rejected this indignantly.[603] Pitt also finally deemed the plan "utterly improper," and threatened to hold aloof from those who would not support the new Administration or croaked about its instability. The action of Dundas and the bishop was unfortunate; for it gave rise to the report that Pitt was intriguing with them for a shuffling of offices in which he would again come out at the top; and, as usually happens, the meanest version overshadowed the truth.

Fortune willed that the new Ministry, by far the weakest Ministry of recent times, should win two brilliant successes and secure a not inglorious peace. So bewildering a change seemed impossible in the dark days of February-March 1801, when it was the bounden duty of every strong man to remain at his post, and of under-studies to stand aside. The fates and Addington willed otherwise. Pitt resigned on 14th March, nineteen days before Nelson triumphed at Copenhagen.

Meanwhile Pitt had endeavoured to place the nation's finance on a sound footing. His Budget speech of 18th February has a ring of confidence and pride. True, the expenses were unprecedentedly heavy. Great Britain had to provide £12,117,000, and Ireland £3,785,000, for the army alone. The navy cost £15,800,000; the Ordnance £1,938,000. The bad seasons or other causes having lessened the yield of the Income Tax and the Malt Tax, he proposed further imposts upon sugar, raisins, tea, paper, timber, lead, and all exports without exception. He increased the Excise duty on horses, even those used for agriculture, on stamp duties, and on the postage of letters. He also urged that not less than £200,000 (the normal amount) should be set apart for the reduction of the British National Debt. Over against these depressing proposals he set the notable fact that British commerce prospered more than ever, and that the revenue showed remarkable buoyancy. From these extraordinary symptoms he augured that the strength and spirit of the people were equal to all the demands of the crisis; and he declared that the attachment of the nation to its revered monarch and beloved constitution furnished a moving spectacle to Europe. The House accepted these crushing imposts without demur.

He found it more difficult to reconcile his followers to the sway of Addington. As we have seen, Dundas had already expressed to Pitt his scorn of him and his desire for a Portland Ministry. Rose also refused to serve under a man whom he accused (unjustly, as we now know) of worming his way to office; and the high-spirited Canning declined to give to Pitt any pledge except that he would not laugh at the new Prime Minister. It is clear that Canning, like his chief, disliked resignation. As the gifted young Irishman wrote, it was not at all good fun to move out of the best house in London (Downing Street) and hunt about for a little dwelling.[604] Ryder and Steele kept their posts.

Singular to relate, the Mr. Pliable of so many Ministries was soon to be turned out. Loughborough, on whose back Addington climbed to power, forthwith received a direct intimation to withdraw. The Lord Chancellor therefore closed his career, the King bestowing on him for his services to religion the title Earl of Rosslyn. To finish with him, we may note that his settlement near Windsor and his assiduous courting of the royal favour finally secured an epitaph quite as piquant as any which George bestowed. On hearing of Rosslyn's sudden death early in 1805, the King earnestly asked the messenger whether the news was trustworthy; and, on receiving a reassuring reply, he said: "Then, he has not left a greater knave behind him in my dominions." The comment of Thurlow on this gracious remark is equally notable: "Then I presume that His Majesty is quite sane at present."

One of Pitt's friendships was severed by the crisis. As we have seen, he deeply resented the part played by Auckland. To his letter of remonstrance he replied very briefly that, widely as they differed on the topic at issue, they differed quite as much as to the question on which side there had been a failure of friendship, confidence, or attention. The rupture became complete on 20th March, when Auckland declared in the Lords that Pitt's resignation was involved in mystery which the eye could not penetrate. The insinuation wounded Pitt deeply; and his intercourse with Auckland entirely ceased. Pitt was not exacting in his social intercourse; but no man of high feeling can endure secret opposition, followed by a veiled insinuation that what he has done from high principle resulted from motives that cannot bear the light. This is an unpardonable sin that ends friendship.

* * * * *

With all his outward composure, Pitt must have felt deep distress at his failure to complete the Union by the act of grace which he had in contemplation. The time was ripe, indeed overripe, for a generous experiment, whereby seven tenths of the Irish people would have gained religious equality. If the populace of Dublin hailed with joy the St. Patrick's cross on the new Union Jack,[605] we may be sure that Irishmen, irrespective of creed, would have joined heart and soul in the larger national unity which it typified. It is probable that Pitt, when granting the franchise to Irish Catholics in 1793, resolved to make the other concessions at an early date. But the cause of Catholic Emancipation having been prejudiced by the unwise haste of Fitzwilliam in 1795, and by raids and revolts soon after, the time of the Union was the first which he could seize with any chance of success; and he hoped to vitalize that Union by an act which would then have been hailed as a boon. Such acts of grace are all too rare in the frigid annals of British Parliaments. The Anglo-Saxon race builds its political fabric too exclusively on material interests; and the whole structure is the uglier and weaker for this calculating hardness. At the time of the Union with Scotland, the counsellors of Queen Anne utterly failed to touch the hearts of the Scots; and it was left to commerce sluggishly and partially to mingle the two peoples. In contrast with this dullness, how inspiring are the annals of France in the early and best days of the Revolution. Then the separatist Provincial System vanished as a miasma; and amidst the eager hopes and class renunciations of that golden day the French people found a unity such as legislators alone can neither make nor unmake. With the insight of a statesman Pitt now sought to clinch legislation by sentiment. He desired to vivify the Union with Ireland by a concession which would come with all the more graciousness because he had not introduced it into the legal contract of marriage. But the outcome of it all was, for himself resignation, for the two peoples the continuance of their age-long feud.

FOOTNOTES:

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

[573] "Dropmore P.," v, 82; "Malmesbury Diaries," ii, 507. Sir John Macpherson called Loughborough by far the cleverest man in the country ("Glenbervie Journals," 54).

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

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

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

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

[578] Pellew, i, ad fin. The original is in "H. O.," Ireland (Corresp.), 99, together with nine others for or against Catholic Emancipation, some with notes by Castlereagh.

[579] The first Imperial Parliament met on 22nd January; but time was taken up in swearing in members and choosing a Speaker. Addington was chosen. The King's Speech was fixed for 2nd February.

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

[581] Ibid., iv, 81.

[582] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 309; Pellew, i, 287. Addington afterwards destroyed those letters of the King to him which he considered unsuitable for publication.

[583] Grenville agreed with Pitt's letter to the King, but doubted the possibility of precluding discussion on the question, as it was already in the papers. He assured Pitt that he would act closely with him (Grenville to Pitt, 1st February 1801; Pretyman MSS.). Pitt afterwards declared that his resignation was largely due to the manner in which the King opposed him.

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

[585] Pitt MSS., 122.

[586] Pretyman MSS.

[587] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iv, 8-12. Both Grenville and Windham declared in Parliament in May 1805 that hopes were held out to the Irish Catholics, and that their support of the Union was the result (Hansard, iv, 659, 1022).

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

[589] Hansard, iv, 1015.

[590] Pretyman MSS.

[591] Pretyman MSS.

[592] In "H. O.," Ireland (Corresp.), 99, are long reports of the Irish Catholic bishops, dated November 1800, on the state of their dioceses. The bishops' incomes did not average more than £300 a year. The Archbishops of Dublin and Tuam reckoned the total number of parish priests and curates at 1,800, of whom 1,400 were seculars and 400 regulars. The benefices numbered 1,200; each required the services of two priests. The destruction of the seminaries in France and the poverty of the Irish made it impossible to supply or support 2,400 clergy. Other papers follow for and against Catholic Emancipation. See also "Castlereagh Corresp.," iii, ad fin.

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

[594] "Dropmore P.," vi, 445. Mulgrave, who knew Pitt well, was convinced of his sincerity in resigning. His letter of 9th February 1801 (quoted by R. Plumer Ward, "Memoirs," i, 44) refutes the insinuations of Sorel (vi, 101) that Pitt resigned because he could not make peace with France.

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

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

[597] Pretyman MSS.

[598] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 313, 330; "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 244.

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

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

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

[602] Ibid., iii, 346; "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 243. The writer in the "Edinburgh Review" for 1858, who censured Pitt, failed to notice the entire change in the political situation brought about by the King's acute malady.

[603] Pretyman MSS.

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

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

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XXI. PITT AND HIS FRIENDS (1794-1805)

Nothing could be more playful, and at the same time more instructive, than Pitt's conversation on a variety of topics while sitting in the library at Cirencester. You never would have guessed that the man before you was Prime Minister of the country, and one of the greatest that ever filled that situation. His style and manner were quite those of an accomplished idler.--"Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 34.

The conflict of parties and interests is apt to thin the circle of a statesman's friends; and in that age of relentless strife the denuding forces worked havoc. Only he who possesses truly lovable qualities can pass through such a time with comparatively little loss; and such was the lot of Pitt. True, his circle was somewhat diminished. The opposition of Bankes had been at times so sharp as to lessen their intimacy; and the reputation of Steele had suffered seriously from financial irregularities.[606] Pitt's affection for Dundas and Grenville had also cooled; but on the whole his friendships stood the test of time better, perhaps, than those of any statesman of the eighteenth century. Certainly in this respect he compares favourably with his awe-inspiring father. Not that Pitt possessed the charm of affability. On most persons his austere self-concentration produced a repellent effect; and it must be confessed that the Grenville strain in his nature dowered him with a fund of more than ordinary English coldness. Such was the opinion not only of the French émigrés, whom he designedly kept at arm's length, but even of his followers, to whom his aloofness seemed a violation of the rules of the parliamentary game. But it was not in his nature to expand except in the heat of debate or in congenial society. In general his stiffness was insular, his pre-occupation profound. Lady Hester Stanhope, who saw much of him in the closing years, pictures his thin, tall, rather ungainly figure, stalking through Hyde Park, oblivious of all surroundings, with head uptilted, "as if his ideas were en air, so that you would have taken him for a poet."[607]

The comparison is as flighty as Lady Hester's remarks usually were, though the passage may depict with truth the air that Pitt assumed when walking with her. No one else accused him of having affinities to poets. In truth, so angular was his nature, so restricted his sympathies, that he never came in touch with literary men, artists, or original thinkers. His life was the poorer for it. A statesman should know more than a part of human life; and Pitt never realized the full extent of his powers because he spent his time almost entirely amongst politicians of the same school. His mind, though by no means closed against new ideas, lacked the eager inquisitiveness of that of Napoleon, who, before the process of imperial fossilization set in, welcomed discussions with men of all shades of opinion, and encouraged in them that frankness of utterance which at once widens and clarifies the views of the disputants. It is true that Pitt's private conversations are almost unknown. They appear to have ranged within political grooves, with frequent excursions into the loved domains of classical and English literature; but he seems never to have explored the new realms of speculation and poetry then opened up by Bentham and the Lake Poets. A letter of the poet Hayley to him will serve to suggest the extent of his loss in limiting his intercourse to a comparatively small coterie:

Felpham, near Chichester, Sept. 9[?].[608]

DEAR PITT,

Why are you slow in doing the little good in your power? Yes: great as you are, the real good you can do must be little; but that little I once believed you would ever haste to do with a generous eagerness and enthusiasm, and therefore I used to contemplate your character with an enthusiastic affection. That character, high as it was, sunk in my estimation from the calamitous delay concerning the promised pension of Cowper, a delay which allowed that dear and now released sufferer to sink into utter and useless distraction before the neglected promise was fulfilled. Will you make me some amends for the affectionate concern I suffered for the diminution of your glory in that business by expediting now a pension eagerly but ineffectively solicited by many great people, as I am told, for a most deserving woman, the widow of Mr. Green, the consul at Nice?... Deserve and receive a kind and constant remembrance in the benedictions of a recluse who has still the ambition to live in your regard by the good which he would excite you to perform. At all events forgive this very unexpected intrusion and importunity from the old and long sequestered admirer of your youth, W. HAYLEY.

Hayley's letter is a trifle too presumptuous in tone even for an old friend; but it affords one more proof of Pitt's neglect of literary men, though it is but fair to remember that in 1793-4 he was hard pressed by the outbreak of war with France and the struggle to keep the Allies together. Still, the greatest of statesmen is he who, in the midst of world politics, neither neglects old friends, nor forgets the claims of literature and art. In this connection it is painful to add that he allowed the yearly stipend of the King's Painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, to be reduced from £200 to £50. On Reynolds soliciting the secretaryship to the Order of the Bath, he was told that it had been promised to an official of the Treasury. Another request, proffered through his patron, the Duke of Rutland, also proved fruitless, and he had reason to write with some bitterness--"Mr. Pitt, I fear, has not much attention to the arts."[609] His neglect of literature and the arts was the more unfortunate because George III and his sons did not raise the tone of the Court in this respect, witness the remark of the King to Gibbon at a State function. "Well, Mr. Gibbon, it's always scribble, scribble, I suppose."[610]

Apart from these obvious limitations in Pitt's nature, there was a wealth of noble qualities, which ensured life-long devotion from those who penetrated the protective crust and came to know, not the statesman, but the man. In him the qualities that command respect and excite affection were happily balanced. To a manly courage which never quailed in the hour of disaster, and a good sense that provided sage counsels alike in private and public affairs, he added the tenderer gifts. His affection once given was not lightly withdrawn. He looked always on the best side of men, and to that noble failing, if failing it be, most of his blunders may be ascribed. Even when his confidence was abused, he was loth to take revenge, so that Canning expressed regret at his reluctance to punish those who betrayed him.[611] Such a man will often make mistakes, but he will also inspire the devotion that serves to repair them. Moreover, even his opponents were forced to admit the conscientiousness of his conduct. On this topic the testimony of his friend Wilberforce is of value; for they had differed sharply as to the rupture with France in 1793; and, somewhat later, Wilberforce lamented the relaxation of Pitt's efforts against the Slave Trade. Yet their differences did not end their friendship; on 30th November 1797 the philanthropist wrote as follows to Sir Richard Aclom on the subject of the reformation of morals:

... There is one point only on which I will now declare we perfectly coincide, I mean, that of a general moral reform being the only real restorative of the health of our body politic. But I hesitate not to say that, tho' the Government is in its system and principle too much (indeed ever so little is, as I think, too much) tainted with corruption, yet it is more sound than the people at large. You appear to feel the disposition of the public to yield an implicit assent to Ministers without stopping to investigate the causes of that disposition (which are chiefly to be found in the violence of the Opposition and the established predominance of party). I will frankly avow no man has lamented this more than myself; I may indeed say more than this. I have endeavoured both in public and in private to fight against it. But selfishness has diffused itself thro' the whole mass of our people, and hinc illae lacrymae. You mistakenly conceive, as do many others, that I am biassed by personal affection for Mr. Pitt. When we meet, I will rectify your error on that head....[612]

Again, on 20th February 1798, Wilberforce wrote to William Smith, an active Abolitionist and now prominent in the Opposition, deploring the dilatoriness of Pitt, but maintaining that his patriotism was purer and more disinterested than that of anyone not under the direct influence of Christian principles. He adds these words:

I speak not this from the partiality of personal affection. In fact for several years past there has been so little of the eadem velle et eadem nolle that our friendship has starved for want of nutriment. I really love him for his public qualities and his private ones, though there too he is much misunderstood. But how can I expect that he should love me much, who have been so long rendering myself in various ways vexatious to him, and, above all, when, poor fellow, he never schools his mind by a cessation from political ruminations, the most blinding, hardening, and souring of all others?[613]

These passages explain why the personality of Pitt attracted all that was purest and most patriotic in the public life of England. Men might disagree with particular actions, but they saw in him the saving genius of the State; and this was the dominant feeling until the year 1801 when events scattered his following and reduced public life almost to a state of chaos.

His character, then, was strong in the virtues of steadfastness and loyalty, on which the social gifts can root deeply and bear perennial fruit. Of these he had rich store. His conversations possessed singular charm; for his melodious voice, facile fancy, and retentive memory enabled him to adorn all topics. His favourite themes were the Greek and Latin Classics. The rooms at Holwood or Walmer were strewn with volumes of his favourite authors, on whom he delighted to converse at length. Grenville declared to Wellesley that Pitt was the best classical scholar he had ever met. Yet, with the delicate tact which bade him enliven, not dominate, the social circle, he refrained from obtruding those subjects on occasions when they would be neither known nor appreciated. Equally good was his knowledge of English literature; so that in the company of kindred spirits, the flow of wit and learning, imagination and experience, must have rivalled that of the Literary Club over which Dr. Johnson held sway.

Unfortunately, only the merest scraps survive; but the testimony of Pitt's friends suffices to refute the Whig legend as to his cold and calculating selfishness, which filled even the hours of leisure with schemes for making himself necessary to the King and country.[614] On the contrary, he was fond of society, throwing himself so heartily into the conversation that the savant was merged in the wit, the Prime Minister in the genial companion. His jests were of that Attic flavour which seasons without stinging; and this was the outcome, not of calculation, but of a kindly disposition, which delighted to throw off political cares amidst the tide of mirth which he helped to carry to the full. He also felt increasingly the charms of country life, and at Holwood was never more happy than when labouring along with his gardeners in the effort to enhance the beauty of his grounds. This strenuous work, together with horse exercise and occasional bursts with the West Kent or Dover hunt, provided the recreation which enabled his naturally weak and gout-ridden frame to withstand the wear and tear of official life up to his forty-seventh year.

In town he delighted to visit friends in an informal manner, and was never more pleased than when he could have games with children. His romp with young Napier and the two Stanhopes when they succeeded in corking his face, has been already described; but it appears that even in 1805, when beset by manifold cares, he often dropped in at Broom House, Parson's Green, the residence of Sir Evan Nepean, and would "take a chair in a corner, and, laying aside state and gravity, would gambol and play with the boys."[615] At times his repartees were piquant. When his friend and admirer, the Duchess of Gordon, who had not seen him for some time, met him at the levée and asked whether he talked as much nonsense as of yore, he laughingly replied: "I do not know whether I talk so much nonsense: certainly I do not hear so much."[616]

Is it surprising that a character so benevolent, and social gifts of so much charm, should attract men about him? Of those who came forward to fill the gaps of the circle, only two, Wellesley and Canning, were men of powers so exceptional as to claim more than passing notice. Though descended from families domiciled in Ireland, they differed widely, except in versatility and devotion to Pitt. Wellesley's nature was Saxon in its inner hardness. Like his younger brother, the future Duke of Wellington, he rarely displayed signs of emotion; but his temperament, though cold at the heart, thrilled at the approach of great and perilous enterprises, amidst which he rivalled his brother in activity and resourcefulness. Accordingly, his Viceroyalty of India moved Bonaparte to envy, patriotic Britons to rapturous applause, and the parsimonious Directors of the Company to carping criticisms. Those who deny to Pitt the gift of choosing able and inspiring men, forget that he made Wellesley Governor-General of India, and supported him in his quarrels with the India House. As Earl of Mornington, Wellesley had helped the Irish Administration in various ways, and became closely acquainted with the Grenvilles. His first letter to Pitt, dated Dublin, January 1785, expresses thanks for assistance and for the offer of support in case the annoyances of his situation drove him to England. Thus, Mornington was first attracted to Pitt by his loyalty to subordinates; and, later, after his return to England, respect for the Minister ripened into admiration and love of the man.

They had much in common. Manly in bearing, persistent of purpose, and prompt in decision, they were also richly dowered with social gifts. Like Pitt, Mornington had classical attainments and literary gifts of no mean order; and his high spirits and powers of repartee must have brought new energy to the jaded statesman. Entering Parliament as member for Windsor, he found his duties far from congenial. On some occasions nervousness marred the effect of his speeches; and his constituents involved him in so much expense and worry as to prompt a request, in the autumn of 1794, for the intervention of Pitt, seeing that his rival, Isherwood, had "the means of supplying the rapacity even of the electors of Windsor." On 4th October he thanked Pitt for relieving him from further obligations to "the worthy electors of that loyal borough"; but he continued for a time to sit in Parliament. Meanwhile his fine presence and lively converse brought him into favour with the Prince of Wales. On 4th August 1793, writing at Brighthelmstone, he heartily congratulated Pitt on the surrender of Valenciennes, which sanguine persons hoped might hasten the end of the war. But, he added, "I own my most sanguine expectations cannot reach the notion of our being able to bring down the power of France in one campaign to the level to which I think it must be reduced for our safety and for that of the rest of the world. H.R.H. the Prince of Wales has been pleased to be most gracious to me.... I suppose you have heard of his dinner on the capture of Valenciennes. We sat from five till half-past ten, and many were very drunk, particularly H.R.H. He really did the honours most admirably...." In the next letter, of the early part of August 1796, Mornington sends a quatrain of Latin Elegiacs which he had composed at Dundas's house, on the exploits of Wurmser in relieving Mantua, of Davidovitch at Roveredo, and Quosdanovitch at Brescia (not Verona), which seemed to presage the ruin of Bonaparte.

Mantua Vurmisero gaudet, Rovereda Davido, Et Verona tibi, Quosdanovice, patet. Vae mihi (raptor ait Gallus) ne forte per Alpes Heu! Bona pars in rem cogar abire malam.[617]

For some time Mornington had felt the charm of Indian history; and the blend of energy with romance in his being may have prompted Pitt's selection of him as Viceroy in 1797. After a most tedious voyage he reached the Hooghly in time to foil the blow which Tippoo Sahib, Bonaparte's prospective ally, aimed at Madras. In his letter to Pitt, written there on 20th April 1799, he expressed a hope of the capture of Seringapatam, and continues thus: "I assure you that my nerves are much strengthened by all the exertions which I have been obliged to make, and in this land of indolence I pass for rather an active, stout, hardy fellow and can now fast till four o'clock (save only a bit of biscuit and a glass of port). I am happy to hear that you are better than you have ever been in your life. There is no comfort in mine but the distant hope of seeing you all again safe, well, and quizzing in England. I have only one request to make to you if you do not mean to abridge either my doleful days or the period of my Government--do not suffer that cantancerous [sic] fellow, Sir J[ames] Craig, to be made commander-in-chief in Bengal. Send me a sober discreet decent man, but do not allow the etiquette of throwing inkstands to be revived at the Council Board."[618]

On 12th May, after announcing to Pitt the capture of Seringapatam, Mornington adds: "If Buonaparte should now chuse to visit Malabar, I think he will find supper prepared for him before he has reached Calcutta." Reviewing the events of his Viceroyalty he writes on 8th August: "I suppose you will either hang me or magnificently honour me for my deeds (mine they are, be they good or bad). In either case I shall be gratified; for an English gallows is better than an Indian throne; but these words must be buried in your own breast; for here I pretend to be very happy and humble; although I am as proud as the D. and as wretched as his dam. I think you will enjoy 'Le Citoïen Tipou' and 'Citoïen Sultan' in the papers found at Seringapatam. I admire your conduct with respect to the Union [with Ireland]. I hope you will persevere, but I trust you will not trust Ireland to my old friend Hobart. He used to be a good humoured fellow; but from what I have heard of his reign here, he is utterly unfit to govern anywhere."[619]

Pitt did not receive this letter by 6th November, when he informed Wellesley that the King, as a mark of high approbation, conferred on him the title the Marquis Wellesley, suitable arrangements being also in contemplation for his family. An Irish marquisate was far from the magnificent reward which the Viceroy desired; and on 28th April 1800 he expressed his anguish of mind at receiving only an Irish and pinchbeck reward for exploits neither Irish nor pinchbeck. Nevertheless, while requesting a speedy recall so that he might hide his chagrin in retirement, he uttered no vindictive word against Pitt. Despite its morbid expressions, the letter is that of a friend to a friend. On 27th September Pitt wrote in reply one of the longest of his private letters. With equal tact and frankness he reviewed the whole question, proving that Wellesley's services were not undervalued, that the bestowal of an English marquisate would have been an advance of four steps in the peerage for what was after all a short Viceroyalty; and that the present honour equalled that conferred on Cornwallis at the end of his term. The question was whether Wellesley should receive an English earldom or an Irish marquisate; and the latter was deemed preferable. Further, if the notion prevailed at Calcutta that Wellesley had been slighted, it might be due to a suspicion that he himself harboured it. Pitt then begged Wellesley to regard this frankness as the best proof of real friendship.[620]

Wellesley showed his good sense by acquiescing, and their letters though rare, became thoroughly cordial. Writing at Patna on 6th October 1801, he gently reproached Pitt for his long silence, especially for not explaining the reason of his resignation; he also expressed the hope that he approved his remaining at Calcutta until a successor was appointed. He added that his state progress up the Ganges to Patna had been favoured by an easterly gale of unusual strength which the natives ascribed either to his happy star or to an Order in Council. As for his health, it was better than in "the reeking House of Commons." Again at the beginning of 1804 he expressed regret that Pitt had neither written nor vouchsafed any sign of approbation at recent events, including the victory of Assaye, which assured British ascendancy in the East.

At last, on 30th August 1804, three months after resuming office, Pitt apologized for his neglect on the ground of excess of work in preparing to meet a French invasion, in which he had so far succeeded as to hope that the attempt might be made. At that time he expected Wellesley to come home in order to escape the petty cabals of the Company's Directors; but he left the decision entirely to him. Pitt's next letter, at Christmastide, breathes a profound hope for Wellesley's speedy arrival as a means of lightening the then heavy burden of political life. Wellesley, however, on 25th March 1805, announced his chivalrous resolve to remain in India another season owing to financial troubles and disputes with the Company. To Dundas, in May 1805, he wrote: "I imagined myself to be one of the best friends of the Company, but I hear that I am a traitor, and a conspirator, and an interloper. Time discovers truth, and I must leave the Honourable Courts' opinions to that test."[621] In August, after transferring his duties to Cornwallis, he set sail for England, and landed in time to have a few last words with Pitt. The interview must have been deeply affecting. At its conclusion Pitt fainted away. Of all the estimates of Pitt none breathes deeper devotion than that of Wellesley. Was it not because he at last saw the pettiness of his own pride and petulance when contrasted with the self-abnegation of him who was truly the Great Commoner? And did not even his meteoric career in the East pale before the full-orbed splendour of the quarter of a century of achievement which made up the public life of Pitt?

The other enthusiastic friend was typically Irish in temperament. Celtic in vivacity and charm, feminine in sensitiveness, Canning was dowered with virile persistence and pugnacity. In histrionic and versifying power he rivalled his countryman, Sheridan, who never forgave him for deserting the Whigs and going over to Pitt. The loss was indeed serious; for the young orator was far more than a frondeur. As editor of the "Anti-Jacobin," conjointly with Hookham Frere, he covered with ridicule the detractors of their country, and helped on the revival of national spirit which began in 1798. But he also possessed great administrative talents, displaying as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs an insight into character in which his chief, Grenville, was signally lacking. Canning's letters to Pitt on the negotiation at Lille in 1797 show signs of those inductive powers which appear at their zenith in his brilliantly correct inference ten years later that the Danish fleet must be snatched from the clutch of Napoleon.

The statuesque calm of Pitt's personality charmed and overawed this impressionable Irishman from the time of their first interview in the summer of 1792. Always versatile and sometimes shifty, he seems instinctively to have felt in him the needed counterpart. As the Czar Alexander leaned on the rock-like Stein in the crisis of 1812, so Canning gained strength and confidence from reliance on Pitt. He on his side took a keen interest in his disciple, discerning in him the propagator of the Pitt doctrine and tradition. At times the fostering care became fatherly. A case in point was Canning's marriage with a wealthy Scottish heiress (July 1800). Pitt regarded this event as essential to his success as the future leader of the party. Indeed, so absorbed was he in his own thoughts during the ride to the church as not to notice a pert remark of Canning's friend, Hookham Frere. The clergyman, Frere, and he were in a coach driving along Swallow Street towards Brook Street when a carter who saw them called out: "What! Billy Pitt! and with a parson too!" Thereupon Frere burst out with the daring jest, "He thinks you are going to Tyburn to be hanged privately!" But Pitt was too pre-occupied to notice the gibe. Again, after the ceremony, in the vestry Pitt was so nervous as to be unable to sign as a witness, and Canning had to whisper to Frere to sign without waiting for him.[622] They ascribed his strange inaction to extreme regard for Canning. But surely another explanation is more natural. How could a man of keenly affectionate nature share in that ceremony without feeling deeply his own lonely lot? Three and a half years ago poverty and debt had stepped in to part him and Eleanor Eden. Was it not the wraith of his buried love which now hovered before him, blotting out the sight of the carter, deafening his ears to the jest, and palsying his hand?

* * * * *

Pitt's resignation of office sorely tried his friends; for, without informing them of the inmost reasons that prompted that step, he pressed them to remain in office under his successor, Addington. As we have seen, some of them refused. Of those not holding Cabinet appointments, Rose and Long, joint Secretaries of the Treasury, Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, a Lord of the Treasury, and Canning, joint Paymaster of the Forces, decided to resign. Pitt's silence and his urgent requests to his friends to remain in office were of course open to misconstruction; and several of his supporters echoed the malicious assertion of Frere, that his aim was for Addington to take office as a locum tenens, and sign a discreditable peace, whereupon he (Pitt) would come back to power and find his former supporters in their old places. Malmesbury gave colour to the story by stating that Addington described himself as locum tenens, a remark utterly inconsistent with all that is known of his complacent pride. Nevertheless the slander gained general currency, and, even now, despite convincing refutation, dies hard. That Canning and others resented Pitt's silence and his pressure to remain in office is undeniable; but, while saying nothing as to the cause of his own conduct, he explained clearly to Canning that, as a friend, he was gratified by his conduct in resigning, however much he deplored his action on public grounds. Of course the tu quoque retort was inevitable; but Canning's curiosity was not gratified.[623]

For a time he talked of breaking with Pitt, and sent him a copy of a letter to Frere couched in those terms. Pitt replied calmly on 26th April 1801 that on reviewing his conduct he found it neither unkind nor unfair. While lamenting that Canning should thus have misunderstood his conduct, he expressed a resolve to forget the incident and a hope that their friendship might endure. Serenity such as this is the best cure to Celtic susceptibility. But other grievances were discovered, and on 12th July Canning dashed off to Frere a furious missive full of dashes and underlinings, charging Pitt with showing to him "confidence just enough to mislead and not enough to guide"; on which promising theme he fired off clause upon clause of an incoherent sentence which fills thirty-five lines of print and then expires in a dash. What it was all about is far from clear, except that Canning believed Pitt to have done "scrupulously and magnanimously right by everybody but me."[624] Before long the sensitive youth was moving heaven and earth to bring back Pitt to power. But, even in December 1803, when his whole soul was bound up in him, he reproached him with lover-like vehemence for having inspired a derogatory article in the "Accurate Observer." Apparently the wounded friend had no proof whatever that Pitt had sped or barbed the shaft.

Among those who won Pitt's confidence in his closing years was Spencer Perceval, an able young barrister, who entered Parliament in 1796 as member for Northampton, and showed considerable skill in finance and debating powers of no mean order. "He spoke (says Sinclair) without the disagreeable cant of the Bar, was never tedious, was peculiarly distinct in matters of business, and explained his financial measures with clearness and ability. His style was singularly acute, bold, sarcastic, and personal." The same authority avers that Pitt, on being asked--"If we lose you, where could we find a successor?"--answered at once, "Perceval." The reply is remarkable; for Perceval, besides opposing Catholic Emancipation, displayed little tact in dealing with men and a strangely narrow outlook. Probably it was his power of hard work, his grasp of finance, and his resolute disposition which led Pitt to prefer him to Canning, who in other respects was far better qualified to act as leader.

I must here notice charges which have been brought against Pitt, that his creations of peers, or promotions in the peerage, which by the year 1801 exceeded 140, were fraught with evil to the Upper House, lowering the intellectual level of its debates, and impairing the balance of parties, with results damaging to the constitution.[625] It has even been suggested that the friction between the two Houses in the years 1830-1911 resulted in no small degree from the reckless conduct of Pitt in this respect. Vague and sweeping assertions like these can neither be substantiated nor refuted. But the only definite part of them, namely, that Pitt's creations degraded the House of Lords, is obviously overstrained. At no period was the tone of its debates higher than in that of Pitt's supremacy, witness those on Warren Hastings, the disputes with Spain and Russia, and the Great War. They have not the brilliance of those of the Commons in the days of Burke, Fox, Pitt and Sheridan; but they often excel them in statesmanlike qualities; and a perusal of them reveals the fact that the ablest of the Lords were, not those of the old governing families, which at that period showed signs of decadence, but those for whose creation Pitt was mainly responsible. Malmesbury, Buckingham, Grenville, Auckland, Carrington, Minto, and at a later period, Sidmouth and Castlereagh, excelled in ability and weight the representatives of the older nobility. Far from degrading and weakening the peerage, Pitt strengthened it by an infusion of new blood which was sorely needed at that time of strain and stress. Further, it must be remembered that Burke's Economy Bill had abolished many of the sinecures which were considered due for steady support in Parliament; and, while at Bath in the year 1797, he admitted that his reform was accountable for the large increase of peerages, thenceforth the chief hope of the faithful.[626] Pitt's correspondence also shows that he frequently repulsed the insistent claims of his supporters for titles, a theme on which piquant letters might be adduced.

Surely, too, it is unjust to say that Pitt entirely altered the political complexion of the Upper House. During the greater part of his career the so-called political differences were based mainly on personal considerations; and throughout the struggle against France, Whigs and Tories, with the exception of a small coterie, were merged in the national party which recognized in Pitt the saviour of British institutions. The charge that he was largely responsible for the friction between the two Houses after 1830 needs little notice; for that friction was clearly due to the progress of democratic principles and the growth of an enormous industrial community in these islands. Both of those developments told strongly against the parity of political influence of the two Houses of Parliament. Amidst the torpor of the previous age the prerogatives of the Peers had gone unchallenged. After the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution a challenge was certain to come; and in this, as in many other respects, the conduct of Pitt was such as to strengthen our institutions. By adding to the House of Lords a considerable number of commoners he enabled it to withstand the storms of the Revolutionary age and the inevitable conflicts of the future.

* * * * *

To revert to the year 1801, there occurred early in the autumn an event of high import. The struggle of eight years between Great Britain and France ended in stalemate. The collapse of the Armed Neutrality League together with the capture of Malta and the surrender of the French garrisons in Egypt left the Union Jack triumphant at sea and the tricolour on the Continent. Each State had need of rest to restore its finances and consolidate its conquests. Therefore, though Bonaparte had at the end of March 1801 sharply repelled the pacific overtures of the Addington Cabinet, yet negotiations were resumed at the close of summer, a fact which proves that the First Consul was influenced, not by spite to Pitt and goodwill to his successor, but by the constricting grip of the Sea Power. Hawkesbury, Grenville's successor at the Foreign Office, asserted that shortly before the end of the negotiation Pitt sat up with him through part of a night discussing finance, and finally advising the cessation of hostilities.

Not that Pitt directed the negotiations; for both Addington and Hawkesbury were proud and sensitive men, and Pitt at some points criticized the conditions of the Preliminaries of London (1st October 1801). They were as follows: Great Britain agreed to restore to France, Spain, and the Batavian, or Dutch, Republic all their possessions recently conquered by her, with the exception of Trinidad and Ceylon, ceded to her by Spain and the Dutch respectively. She also retired from Elba and restored Malta to the Knights of St. John, under conditions to be further specified. The French restored Egypt to the Sultan, and evacuated Naples and the Papal States. Portugal was also saved from danger of partition. Nothing was said respecting the resumption of trade between England and France; and no assurance was forthcoming as to the independence of the Republics bordering on France. By his recent compact with Austria the First Consul agreed to respect their independence; but England had no definite ground for complaint if it were violated.

While the London rabble shouted itself hoarse with joy at the advent of peace, Grenville, Windham, and Canning saw disgrace and disaster ahead. Pitt thought otherwise. At the small house in Park Place which he had leased for his visits to London, he wrote to Long on 1st October, describing the terms as not all that could be wished but "highly creditable, and on the whole very advantageous." Finding that Grenville considered them disastrous, he on the 5th expressed concern at their disagreement. Though regretting the surrender of the Cape, and the uncertainty of the fate of Malta, he considered the acquisition of Ceylon and Trinidad most beneficial; and he hailed with satisfaction a peace which saved Turkey and Portugal from spoliation. He therefore suggested an interview for the sake of reconciling their differences. To this Grenville somewhat coolly assented, remarking that the differences were fundamental and could not be concealed, and that his confidence in the Addington Cabinet was irretrievably destroyed by a treaty which ceded to France Martinique, Malta, Minorca, the Cape, Cochin China, and all the Dutch settlements. Clearly, then, Grenville looked on the Dutch Republic and Spain as dominated by Bonaparte, who would seize Minorca, Malta, and the Cape whenever it suited him. He also wrote to the King expressing regret that he could no longer support Addington, whose conduct towards France and Russia was "marked throughout by a tone of unnecessary and degrading concession."[627]

Here, then, the two cousins began sharply to differ. On 3rd November, during the debates on the Peace, Pitt rose to rebut the censures of Thomas Grenville on a policy which implied the surrender of the Mediterranean to France. He deprecated these sweeping criticisms; for he had ever been ready to frame a treaty which, though falling short of our just pretensions, was not inconsistent with honour and security. The present terms did not fulfil all his wishes; but the difference between them and the best possible terms was not worth the continuance of war. If both Trinidad and Malta could not be retained, he commended Ministers for choosing Trinidad; for the sight of the Union Jack at Malta would have hurt the pride of France. With regard to the Cape of Good Hope he deemed it a far more important possession than Hawkesbury had represented, though inferior to Ceylon. He deplored our failure to restore the House of Savoy to its capital, Turin; but the chief object of the war, the security of Great Britain, had been attained. True, the restoration of the French monarchy would have furnished a better safeguard for peace; but we had never insisted on it as essential, though it might have been assured if the Allies had fulfilled their duties. As to the future, if the First Consul aimed at founding a military despotism, he probably would not select England as the first object of his attack; and we had every prospect of enjoying a long peace. Remembering, perhaps, that he made the same prophecy early in 1792, he uttered this warning: "I am inclined to hope everything that is good; but I am bound to act as if I feared otherwise." In none of his speeches did Pitt display less foresight. The preference of Trinidad to Malta and of Ceylon to the Cape is curious enough; but the prophecy as to a long period of peace and the probable immunity of England from Bonaparte's attack argues singular blindness to the colonial trend of French policy since the year 1798. Despite acrid comments by Fox and Windham, the speech carried the day and firmly established Addington in power.

The sequel is well known. In the interval of six months, during which the aged and gouty Cornwallis sought to reduce the Preliminaries of London to the Treaty of Amiens (27th March 1802), Bonaparte remodelled the Batavian, Ligurian, and Cisalpine Republics in a way wholly at variance with the Treaty of Lunéville. Against these breaches of faith the Addington Cabinet made no protest; and the treaty in its final form provided a complex and unsatisfactory compromise on the Maltese question.[628] Canning and Windham strove to elicit from Pitt a public expression of his disapproval of the treaty; but their efforts were in vain. On 20th April 1802 Canning, while at his country seat, South Hill, Bracknell (Berks), wrote thus to Windham:[629]

... Do not suppose that this is because I have the slightest doubt as to the impression which may be made by pointing out the gross faults and omissions, the weakness, and baseness, and shuffling, and stupidity, that mark this Treaty even beyond the Preliminaries that led to it. But I think people do not want to be convinced of this; that they will not take it kindly, but rather otherwise, to have it forced upon their observation; that, if parted to a division, they will vote for the Treaty with all its imperfections upon its head.... Now as to Pitt himself. He cannot and does not think of this as he did of the Preliminary Treaty. But debate it; and he will, he must, debate as warmly for it. He can take no distinction without seeming to abandon Addington; and that he will not do. He cannot object to any part of the Peace in public, without weakening the grounds upon which he contends peace upon the whole to be preferable to war, and that he will not do. ... Leave it possible for Pitt to say six or eight months hence that the Preliminaries promised well, but that the Treaty did not come up to them. I do not promise you that he ever will say this. But I am fairly persuaded that, if you force from him a public approbation of the Treaty, you defer for at least as many months as have passed since the debates of October, the chance of his coming to see things almost as you and I see them....

April 27 1802.

Since I wrote to you, I have seen Lord Grenville, and I think the plan of action, which he tells me had been concerted between you and him, so perfect, that I retract everything in what I wrote to you (if anything there were) which could be construed as making against it. To debate "about it and about it," as much as you will, to move for papers, to move for taking the Treaty into consideration--all this may be done with great and good effect, but a condemnation of the Treaty, such as would force P[itt] into a defence of it, and identify him with the makers of it, is what of all things is to be avoided. I hope you think so.--Whether P[itt] will save us I do not know. But surely he is the only man that can.

All was in vain. Pitt, having promised to support Addington, deemed himself in honour bound to fulfil that pledge. But, as the events of the year 1802 showed more and more the imbecility of the Addington Cabinet, torturing doubts preyed upon his mind. His friends, especially Canning, now began to discern the pathos of his position, but sought to draw him from his seclusion at Walmer. An opportunity occurred in the month of May. Pitt's birthday was on the 28th. Would not all who foresaw ruin for England in the supremacy of "the Doctor" welcome a demonstration on behalf of his predecessor? For more than a year Pitt's friends had been puzzled and abashed by his unexplained retirement, witness the uncharitable surmise of the usually benevolent Dr. Burgh--"Can I see Addington climb upon the stooping neck of Mr. Pitt, and not believe that it is done in hostility or in a masked confederacy? If the former, how am I to estimate the man who comes in? If the latter, what judgement can I form of the man who goes out?"[630] Slander also was busy in the guise of that gadfly, Nicholls, who proposed to thank the King for dismissing him. By way of retort Pitt's friends triumphantly carried a motion of thanks to Pitt for his great services, against a carping minority of fifty-two; but members were heard to mutter their preference for Addington over all "the d--d men of genius."

Was it not time to arouse the country from sloth? The England of 1802 seemed to Wordsworth

a fen of stagnant waters.

While he invoked the memory of Milton, Canning resolved to appeal to Pitt. In a day or two he threw off a poem which, though slighted by him, gained a wider vogue than any of his effusions, "The Pilot that weathered the Storm." The last and best stanza is as follows:

And O! if again the rude whirlwind should rise, The dawning of peace should fresh darkness deform, The regrets of the good and the fears of the wise Shall turn to the pilot that weathered the storm.

The song was enthusiastically received by the company assembled at the Merchant Taylors' Hall; and the reference to the recall of Pitt roused the company to a high pitch of excitement. The song, as a whole, is laboured and strained. The only stanza which happily weds phrase and thought is the last. The others form a lumbering prelude to this almost Sibylline cadence.

Despite these efforts to sow discord between Pitt and Addington, they remained on excellent terms;[631] and the support given by the former to the Peace of Amiens ensured to the Minister an overwhelming victory at the polls in the General Election of the summer of 1802. Pitt was of course returned by the University of Cambridge, "with every mark of zeal and cordiality"--so he wrote to Rose on 10th July. The rest of the summer he passed either near London or at Walmer. It is unfortunate that he did not visit France, as Fox, Romilly, and many others now did. Probably his sharp rebuff to Bonaparte's overture at the end of 1799, and his subsequent diatribes against him precluded such a step. But he also needed rest and quiet. On 8th June he wrote to Windham: "The sea air and the contrast of the scene to that which I left behind me in London have, as usual, done me a great deal of good."[632] He set to work to improve the grounds adjoining the castle, and invited Addington, who was then spending some weeks at Eastbourne, to come over and see the changes. Further, he leased a large farm near Walmer, and expressed a hope that he might spend the rest of the year in farming. The splendour of that summer and the bounteous crops of corn evidently captivated Pitt. The supreme need of England was more corn. A man who could not serve her at Westminster could serve her by high farming. This was Pitt's forecast, unless "the pacificator of Europe takes it into his head to send an army from the opposite coast to revenge himself for some newspaper paragraph."[633]

At this time, too, he finally succeeded in disposing of Holwood. The sale was inevitable; for Pitt's finance had long been a source of deep anxiety. So far back as 18th October 1800 Rose informed the Bishop of Lincoln that bailiffs threatened the seizure of Pitt's furniture in Downing Street for debts of £600 and £400. Then, referring to Pitt's ill health, he wrote: "I conceived till this morning [it] was owing to the state of public matters; but I am now strongly inclined to think he is agitated by the state of his own affairs. Bullock came to me this morning and forced upon me such a history of debts and distresses as actually sickened me.... Something must be done before Pitt returns to town. His expenses in the last years were nearly £26,000. I am quite certain Holwood must be parted with."[634]

Pitt's private finance is involved in mystery. His official stipend was £6,000 a year; and as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports he drew £3,000 more. Yet he was now insolvent. Among his papers systematic accounts are extant only for the latter half of the years 1794 and 1799. Even these are not complete, especially for the household at Walmer Castle. Those for the house in Downing Street are the fullest; but, for the last six months of 1799, they amount to £3,789 at Downing Street, and £2,382 at Holwood, the latter sum including a charge of £1,163 for farm expenses which cannot much have exceeded the income.[635] The Walmer accounts vary according to the duration of Pitt's residence. Those for the summer and autumn of 1794 amount only to £458. Evidently, then, Pitt benefited by the King's gift of the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports. But he gave £1,000 in 1793 to start the Dover Volunteer corps and doubtless other sums towards the Fencibles of the other Cinque Ports.

At all times the servants at Downing Street and the farm at Holwood were a heavy drain. The amount of the servants' private bills charged to Pitt at Downing Street is disgraceful. Pitt kept a good table and a good cellar, as the customs of the age required; but neither these expenses nor his heavy outlay on his tailor would have brought about a crisis, had not his town servants and tradesmen plundered him. Morse, the tailor, charged at the rate of £130 to £140 a quarter for Pitt's clothes. Now Pitt was neat and punctilious in his attire, but he was no dandy. As for the farm at Holwood, accounts for straw and manure were charged twice over, as some friendly accountant pointed out. Probably, too, his experiments in landscape-gardening were as costly as they had been to Chatham; for lavishness was in the nature both of father and son. Pitt once confessed to his niece, Hester Stanhope, that he never saw a house and grounds without at once planning improvements. In this phrase as in the suggestive item on farm expenses we can see why the sale of Holwood was necessary; but for various reasons it did not take place until the autumn of 1802.

Meanwhile his friends bestirred themselves to prevent the scandal of an execution. They succeeded in staving off a crisis until schemes of relief were concerted, but here again there was much difficulty; for, on hearing of the proposed private subscription on his behalf, he declared that he would rather return to practice at the Bar than submit to such a humiliation. Fox might allow friends to pay his gambling debts; but the pride of Pitt scorned to accept help on behalf of liabilities even if due to pre-occupation in public affairs. Rose deemed a sum of £25,000 necessary to his peace and quietness, seeing that the total liabilities were £45,064. The letters which passed between Camden, the Bishop of Lincoln, and Rose, evince deep affection for the shy, proud man. The following is a précis of a letter of Rose to Tomline which is among the Pretyman MSS.:

Christchurch, July 21, 1801.

I am in great perplexity about Pitt's affairs. Joe Smith has been strangely misled respecting them.[636] The unforeseen demands have been very large. If Holwood fetches a good price, the sum of £24,000 will set the matter at rest. Pitt's diamonds have been sold for £680 to pay pressing claims. The unpaid bills now amount to £9,618. Old debts come to £9,600 more. Mr. Soane and Mr. Coutts might be asked to wait, as neither would suffer from it. The debt due to Banker (£5,800) cannot surely be a separate one of Pitt's; for I think he could give no security on it. Probably it is a debt contracted jointly with Lord Chatham, the whole of which Pitt may have to pay. Of the last sum which in his own deep distress he borrowed on the security of Holwood, he gave (I know) £1,000 to Lord Chatham. These are trifling considerations compared with that of getting him to accept the means of relief. They are as follows: (1) a vote from Parliament; (2) a free gift from the King; (3) a private subscription; (4) an additional office for life. The first and second of these Pitt has peremptorily declined. The third he refused in 1787 when the London merchants offered £100,000. The fourth course would not be wholly creditable, but Pitt thinks it the least objectionable. He dislikes the second and third alternatives because the second (as he thinks) would give the King a hold over him and the third would entitle the subscribers to his favour. The notion of an execution by bailiffs in his house is too painful to contemplate. I consider the first or second alternatives the best.

The reference here to a gift, or loan, from Pitt to his brother prompts the inquiry whether similar acts of benevolence may not explain his difficulties. We find the second Earl of Chatham in August 1797 acknowledging a loan of £1,000 from Pitt. The bishop, replying to Rose on 24th July 1801, states that the debt of £5,800 was to the best of his knowledge a sum advanced through Thomas Coutts, the banker, to Lady Chatham upon the Burton Pynsent estate. He adds that she ought to pay interest to Pitt upon it, but did not. It seems that Pitt advanced £11,750 in all on behalf of the Burton Pynsent estate. Here, then, was a grievous family burden. Probably the debt was left by his father, and may have been increased by his mother. So far back as November 1793 he wrote to her stating his desire to help her at any time of need; and in August of the following year, when she believed her end to be near, she begged her sons to pay her "just debts," which were due, not to vain expenses, but to outlays upon the farm which she at the time believed to be for the best.[637] The eldest son could not help her, for he required succour from Pitt. If, then, the farming experiments at Burton Pynsent failed, the loss fell upon Pitt. We may infer, then, that his debts were occasioned partly by rapacious servants and tradesmen in London, partly by farming and gardening at Holwood, but also by the needs of his mother and brother. The fact that Chatham paid not a shilling towards the discharge of Pitt's liabilities proves that he was in low water; and as no one, not even Tomline, knew of the source of Pitt's embarrassments, they must have been of a peculiarly delicate character.

Tomline's decision, that Pitt could never accept a sinecure from Addington, is indisputable. The words in which Pitt declared that he could not accept the sum of £30,000 graciously offered by the King breathe more independence than those in which he first expressed his gratitude for the offer. There remained, then, the plan of a private subscription. The Bishop of Lincoln mentioned it to him with admirable delicacy on 6th August 1801, and gained his consent. The following were the subscribers: Lords Bathurst, Camden, and Carrington, together with Tomline, Rose, and Steele, £1,000 each. From Scotland came £4,000, probably in equal parts from the Dukes of Buccleugh and Gordon, Dundas, and the Chief Baron. Wilberforce, Long, and Joseph Smith each gave £500, and another (Lord Alvanley?) £200. Bishop Tomline and Rose showed equal activity and tact in raising this sum of £11,700, so that the details remained unknown to Pitt.[638] Later on he felt pecuniary embarrassments, partly owing to his share in maintaining the Cinque Ports Volunteers, and at his death his debts amounted to £40,000.

His relations to his bankers, Messrs. Coutts, continued cordial, though on 24th April 1805 Thomas Coutts ventured to state that there was an overdraft against him of £1,511, which, however, was redressed by the arrival of his quarterly official stipends.[639] Pitt's loyalty to his friends appears in his effort during his second Ministry to procure the royal assent to his nomination of Bishop Tomline to the Archbishopric of Canterbury shortly after the death of Dr. Moore early in 1805. The King, however, who did not admire Tomline, and believed the Bishop of Norwich to have prior claims, refused his reiterated requests. Pitt's second letter to the King on this subject is couched in terms almost of remonstrance.[640]

Reverting to Pitt's life at Walmer, we find that in the summer of 1802 he fell a prey to nausea and lassitude; so that Lady Hester Stanhope, who visited him in September, found him very weak. Probably his indisposition was due less to the exceptional heat of that season than to suppressed gout aggravated by anxiety. As we saw, he invited Addington to come over from Eastbourne and discuss public affairs. The conference seems to have caused him much concern; for Tomline in July 1802 jotted down notes of a conversation with Pitt, in which Addington is described as "without exception the vainest man he (Pitt) had ever met with." Pitt's advice had often been asked before the Preliminaries of Peace were signed, but afterwards he was neglected. Cornwallis, too, had evidently believed that by the Treaty of Amiens all former treaties with France were revived without being named; and probably Ministers were under the same delusion. The last King's Speech was also annoying to Pitt, who characterized Addington as "a man of little mind, of consummate vanity and of very slender abilities." As to resumption of office Pitt thought it impossible during the life of the King, except in case of some great emergency.[641]

Equally frank were Pitt's confessions to Canning, who stayed at Walmer in September-October 1802. He admitted that his resignation was due partly to the manner in which the King opposed him on Catholic Emancipation. But he quitted office with a clear conscience, leaving full means for attacking Egypt and the Armed Neutrals, so that the reproaches of desertion of duty were unjust. He pledged himself to support Addington; and from this only Addington could release him. He admitted that this was a mistake, now that current events showed Bonaparte's ambition to be insatiable; but none the less he waved aside Canning's reiterated appeals that he would apply to Addington for release from the pledge, on the ground that such a step would seem an intrigue for a return to power. "My ambition (he proudly said) is character, not office."

Was a statesman ever placed in a more embarrassing situation? Pitt had resigned office on a point of honour, and yet felt constrained to humour the royal invalid by abandoning the very measure which caused his resignation. Incautiously he pledged himself to support Addington, thereby alienating some of his own supporters. He defended his pacific policy until it led to a bad treaty followed by a series of humiliations. By October 1802 Bonaparte was master of four Republics bordering on France, and had annexed Piedmont and Elba, besides securing Parma and Louisiana by profitable exchanges. Such a peace was worse than a disastrous war. Yet Addington made no protest except against the virtual subjugation of Switzerland. True, the Cabinet now clung to the Cape and Malta as for dear life; but elsewhere the eye could see French influence creeping resistlessly over Europe, while the German Powers were intent only on securing the spoils of the Ecclesiastical States. Well might Pitt write to Wilberforce on 31st October: "You know how much under all the circumstances I wished for peace, and my wishes remain the same, if Bonaparte can be made to feel that he is not to trample in succession on every nation in Europe. But of this I fear there is little chance, and without it I see no prospect but war." Worst of all, there were sure signs that France and the other Powers distrusted and despised Addington. Vorontzoff, the Russian ambassador, declared that he would work hard to form an alliance with Pitt, but despaired of effecting anything with his successor.[642] In truth, Pitt's excessive scrupulousness at the time of his resignation had enclosed himself and his country in a vicious circle from which the only means of escape was war.

A prey to these harassing thoughts, Pitt left Walmer near the close of October 1802 to take the waters at Bath. On the way he visited Sir Charles Middleton at Teston in Kent, and sought distraction by inquiries on farming. Middleton wrote to Wilberforce on 26th October: "His inquiries were very minute and judicious; and it is incredible how quickly he comprehended things, and how much further he reasons on them than I can follow him.... I believe Mr. Pitt has it in his power to become the first farmer in England if he thinks the pursuit worth his time and attention."[643] The treatment at Bath suited Pitt so well that he prolonged his stay. Rose, whom he invited to Bath in the second week of November, thus describes to Bishop Tomline his manner of life:

Bath, Nov. 21, 1802.[644]

Mr. Pitt's health mends every day: it is really better than it has been ever since I knew him. I am quite sure this place agrees with him entirely, he eats a small [illegible] and a half for breakfast, and more at dinner than I ever saw him at 1/2 past 4: no luncheon: two very small glasses of Madeira at dinner and less than a pint of port after dinner: at night, nothing but a bason of arrowroot: he is positively in the best possible train of management for his health.... He is positively decided to have no responsibility whatever respecting what has been done or is doing on the subject of foreign politics; he not only adheres to his resolution of not going up for the opening [of Parliament]; but will not attend even on the estimates unless a necessity should arise: he writes to day both to Mr. Addington and Lord Hawkesbury in a style that will not only manifest the above, but will prevent all further attempts to draw him into confidential communication. He has also made up his mind to take office again whenever the occasion shall arise, when he can come in properly, and has now no reluctance on the subject. I dare not say more by the Post. If my letter is opened, the Ministers will know the first part is true, and I don't care about their learning the latter. Lord Grenville will positively not take a line to render it difficult for Mr. Pitt and him to act together; he will move no amendment to the Address....

Rose, as we have seen, disliked Lord Auckland, who was joint Postmaster-General; and if Pitt's letters were opened at the Post Office, we can understand the thinness of his correspondence.[645] Recently he had advised Addington not to retain Alexandria, Malta, Goree, and Cape Town, but to trust rather to defensive preparations, which might include a friendly understanding with other aggrieved Powers. This surely was the dignified course. Even Malta was not worth the risk of immediate war unless we were ready both with armaments and alliances. The foregoing letter, however, shows that Pitt believed his advice to be useless. Possibly he heard that the Cabinet had decided to retain those posts; and finally, as we shall see, Pitt approved their action in the case of Malta. Meanwhile matters went from bad to worse. Ministers complained of Pitt's aloofness; but his friends agreed that he must do nothing to avert from Addington the consequences of his own incompetence. Even the cold Grenville declared Pitt to be the only man who could save England. But could even he, when under an incompetent chief, achieve that feat?

For by this time Addington had hopelessly deranged the nation's finance. While giving up Pitt's drastic Income Tax, which had not brought in the expected £10,000,000 but a net sum of £6,000,000, he raised the Assessed Taxes by one third, increased Import and Export duties with impartial rigour, and yet proposed to raise £5,000,000 by Exchequer Bills, which were to be funded at the end of the Session or paid off by a loan. This signal failure to meet the year's expenses within the year exasperated Pitt. At Christmas, which he spent with Rose at his seat in the New Forest, he often conversed on this topic; and his host thus summed up his own conclusions in a letter to Bishop Tomline:

Cuffnells, December 24, 1802.[646]

... There is hardly a part of the Budget that is not too stupidly wrong even for the doctor's dullness and ignorance. I am sure Mr. Pitt must concur with me; and I have all the materials for him.--Wrong about the increase of the revenue; wrong as to the produce of the Consolidated Fund; scandalously wrong as to what is to be expected from it in future by at least £2,800,000 a year; wrong as to the money he will want this year by millions....

During his stay at Cuffnells Pitt received a letter from Addington urging the need of an interview. Viewing the request as a sign of distress with which he must in honour comply, Pitt agreed to stay a few days early in January 1803 at the White Lodge in Richmond Park, which the King had for the time assigned to his favoured Minister. Addington described him as looking far from well, though his strength had improved and his spirits and appetite were good.[647] Apparently Pitt found the instruction of his host in finance a subject as dreary as the winter landscape. He afterwards told Rose that Addington mooted his entrance to the Cabinet awkwardly during their farewell drive to town. But this does not tally with another account, which is that Pitt, on the plea of winding up the transfer of Holwood, suddenly left the White Lodge on 6th January. On the 11th he wrote from Camden's seat, The Wilderness, in Kent, that his views on foreign affairs were nearly in accord with those of the Cabinet, but that he failed to convince Addington of his financial error.

This, then, was still the rock of offence. Nevertheless, Pitt begged Rose not to attack the Cabinet on that topic, as it would embarrass him. If it were necessary on public grounds to set right the error, he (Pitt) would do so himself on some fit occasion. Malmesbury and Canning did their utmost to spur him on to a more decided opposition; and the latter wrote him a letter of eight pages "too admonitory and too fault-finding for even Pitt's very good humoured mind to bear."[648] Pitt replied by silence. In vain did friends tell him that Ministers had assured the King of his intention to bring forward Catholic Emancipation if he returned to office. In vain did Malmesbury declare that Pitt must take the helm of State, otherwise Fox would do so. In vain did Rose predict the country's ruin from Addington's appalling ignorance of finance. Pitt still considered himself in honour bound to support Addington. At the close of January he held friendly converse with him, before setting out for Walmer for a time of rest and seclusion. Canning's only consolation was that Bonaparte would come to their help, and by some new act of violence end Pitt's scrupulous balancing between the claims of national duty and of private obligations. The First Consul dealt blow upon blow. Yet even so, Canning's hopes were long to remain unfulfilled. As we saw in the former volume, the relations of Pitt to Addington had for many years been of an intimate nature; but occasions arise when a statesman ought promptly to act upon the maxim of Mirabeau--"La petite morale est ennemie de la grande." In subordinating the interests of England to the dictates of a deep-rooted but too exacting friendship, Pitt was guilty of one of the most fatal blunders of that time.

FOOTNOTES:

[606] Wraxall, iii, 458. For Pitt's earlier friendships see my former volume.

[607] "Mems. of Lady Hester Stanhope," iii, 187.

[608] From Mr. Broadley's MSS. Hayley's efforts on behalf of Cowper have been described by Professor E. Dowden, "Essays: Modern and Elizabethan" (1910). Ultimately a pension of £300 a year was assigned to Cowper: the authorization, signed by the King and Pitt, and dated 23rd April 1794, is now in the Cowper Museum, Olney, Bucks, so the secretary, Mr. Thomas Wright (editor of Cowper's Letters), kindly informs me.

[609] "Rutland Papers," iii, 229, 241 (Hist. MSS. Comm.). So, too, Tomline said that Pitt had no ear for music, and little taste for drawing or painting, though he was fond of architecture, and once drew from memory the plan of a mansion in Norfolk, with a view to improving it (Lord Rosebery, "Tomline's Estimate of Pitt," 34).

[610] "Glenbervie Journals," 195.

[611] "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 26; G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 4.

[612] Pitt MSS., 189.

[613] "Life of Wilberforce," ii, 270.

[614] The estimate of Pitt by Wellesley, summarized above, refutes the ungenerous remark of Lecky (v, 72) that he took little delight in books and "was a politician, and nothing more." Lecky was perhaps misled by the ignorant libel on Pitt in Wraxall, iii, 223.

[615] "Diary of D. Scully," quoted by Dr. Hunt, "Transactions of Royal Hist. Soc." (1908), p. 12.

[616] Lord Rosebery, "Tomline's Estimate of Pitt," 33.

[617] I.e., Mantua rejoices in Wurmser, Rovereda in Davidovitch, Verona is open to Quosdanovitch. "Woe is me," says the greedy Gaul, Bonaparte, "I shall have to be off through the Alps and go to the dogs."

[618] Pitt MSS., 188.

[619] Pitt MSS., 188. Hobart married Pitt's early love, Eleanor Eden, and became Minister at War under Addington. For Mornington's comments on his factious conduct at Madras, see "Dropmore P.," iv, 384, 476; v, 268; vi, 338.

[620] Stanhope, iii, 232; Rosebery, "Pitt," 213-7.

[621] Pitt MSS., 188.

[622] Gabrielle Festing, "J. H. Frere and his Friends," 31.

[623] "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 8; Pellew, i, ch. xi; G. Festing, "Hookham Frere," 42-4; R. Bell, "Canning," 176; H. W. V. Temperley, "Canning," 62-3.

[624] Stanhope, iii, 315; Festing, 47-51.

[625] May, "Constit. Hist.," i, 232-8; Lecky, v, 27.

[626] Wraxall, ii, 286.

[627] Stanhope, iii, 352; "Dropmore P.," vii, 49-51. For new letters of Canning and Grenville, see "Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies."

[628] See Rose, "Life of Napoleon," i, ch. xiv, for details.

[629] B.M. Add. MSS., 37844.

[630] "Private Papers of Wilberforce," 110.

[631] For the passing misunderstanding of February 1802, see Pellew, ii, 489-92, with Pitt's letters.

[632] B.M. Add. MSS., 37844.

[633] Pellew, ii, 75, 76.

[634] Pretyman MSS. Bullock paid the servants and supervised the accounts at Downing Street. Pitt was then staying with Addington near Reading.

[635] Omitting shillings, the details for Downing Street and Holwood for July-December 1799 are respectively: Table, £344, £231; Cellar, £169, £126; Housekeeping, £531, £156; Private Account, £357, £--; Servants' Wages, £251, £69; Servants' Board Wages, £329, £80; Servants' Bills, £353, £15; Liveries, £41, £--; Taxes, etc., £747, £77; Farm, £--, £784; Farm Labourers, £--, £379; Garden, £--, £125; Stable, £155, £--; Job Horses, £165, £--; Incidentals, £347, £340. (Pitt MSS., 201.)

[636] Joseph Smith (no relative of "Bob Smith," Lord Carrington) became Pitt's private secretary in 1787. His letters, published along with "The Beaufort Papers" in 1897, throw no light on Pitt's debts.

[637] Ashbourne, 162. See, too, ch. xv of this work.

[638] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 429; ii, 215.

[639] Pitt MSS., 126. Coutts and five other bankers each subscribed £50,000 to the "Loyalty Loan" in 1797 and invested £10,000 on behalf of Pitt.

[640] Stanhope, iv, 233, 252; Ashbourne, 351-4.

[641] Pretyman MSS.

[642] "Private Papers of Wilberforce," 34; G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 508.

[643] "Letters of Wilberforce," i, 256.

[644] Pretyman MSS.

[645] Auckland, while ambassador at The Hague, was suspected of too great inquisitiveness as to the British despatches which passed through that place. On 20th July 1790, Aust, of the Foreign Office, wrote to Sir R. M. Keith at Vienna that Keith's new cipher puzzles "our friends at the Hague," and that Auckland's curiosity is "insatiable" (B.M. Add. MSS., 35543). See, too, a note by Miss Rose in G. Rose "Diaries," ii, 75.

[646] Pretyman MSS.

[647] Pellew, ii, 113. Lord Holland, writing early in 1803 to his uncle, General Fox, then at Malta, says that there are three parties in Parliament, besides many subdivisions, "Grenville and Windham against peace and nearly avowed enemies of the present Government; the old Opposition; and Addington [sic]. Pitt, as you know, supports Addington, but the degree of intimacy and the nature of his connection with Ministers are riddles to every one." (From Mr. Broadley's MSS.)

[648] "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 168; G. Rose, "Diaries," ii, 6-9; Pellew, ii, 113.

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XXII. ADDINGTON OR PITT?

Once more doth Pitt deem the land crying loud to him-- Frail though and spent, and an hungered for restfulness Once more responds he, dead fervours to energize Aims to concentre, slack efforts to bind. THOMAS HARDY, The Dynasts, Act i, sc. 3.

On 30th January 1803 there appeared in the "Moniteur" the official Report of Colonel Sebastiani, Napoleon's envoy to the Levant. So threatening were its terms respecting the situation in Egypt and Corfu, that the Addington Ministry at once adopted a stiffer tone, and applied to Parliament for 10,000 additional seamen and the embodying of the militia. But the House, while readily acceding on 9th March, evidently wanted not only more men but a man. The return of Pitt to power was anxiously discussed in the lobbies. The Duke of Portland and Lord Pelham strongly expressed their desire for it. Yet Pitt remained at Walmer, feeling that he could not support financial plans fraught with danger to the State. Addington therefore resolved to sound him again with a view to his entering the Cabinet as a coadjutor. The envoy whom he chose for this delicate mission was Henry Dundas, now Lord Melville. He could count on his devotion; for, besides nominating him for the peerage, he is said to have opened to his gaze a life of official activity and patronage as First Lord of the Admiralty in place of the parsimonious and unmannerly St. Vincent.[649] Pitt received his old friend at Walmer with a shade of coolness in view of his declaration, on quitting office, that he could accept no boon whatever from Addington. To come now as his Cabinet-maker argued either overwhelming patriotism or phenomenal restlessness.

Nevertheless, the two friends resumed at Walmer the festive intercourse of the Wimbledon days; and in due course, after dinner and wine, Melville broached the subject of his visit. It was that Addington, who was First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, should resign the latter office to Pitt, and take Lord Pelham's place as Secretary of State for Home Affairs. We can picture the astonishment and wrath of Pitt as this singular proposal came to light. At once he cut short the conversation, probably not without expletives. But Melville was pertinacious where patriotism and office were at stake; and their converse spread over the two days, 21st-22nd March, Melville thereupon sending a summary of it to Addington, couched in terms which Pitt deemed too favourable. The upshot was that on personal grounds Pitt desired not to return to office; and, if affairs were efficiently conducted, would prefer to continue his present independent support. If, however, the misleading statements of the Treasury were persisted in, he must criticize them. Above all, if he returned to office it must be as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer.

But Addington, foreseeing that Pitt would claim his two former offices, had concocted a sovereign remedy for all these personal sores. Pitt was to take office as Chancellor of the Exchequer, serving under his brother, the Earl of Chatham, as Prime Minister. Is it surprising that he negatived this singular proposal "without reserve or affectation"? By way of retort to this family prescription he charged Melville to point out the absolute need of the Cabinet being under the control of "the First Minister," who must not only have the confidence of the King and administer the finances, but also in the last resort impose his will on his colleagues. For himself he declared he would never come forward unless bound by public duty and with the enjoyment of the fullest confidence of the King.[650] There is a discrepancy between Melville's letter to Addington and a short account given by Pitt to Wilberforce two years later, to the effect that Melville, on cautiously opening his proposals at Walmer, saw that it would not do and stopped abruptly. "Really," said Pitt with a sly severity, "I had not the curiosity to ask what I was to be."

Such was the bomb-shell exploded on Addington's bureau on 23rd March. It must have cost him no less concern than Bonaparte's outrageous behaviour to our ambassador, Lord Whitworth, ten days before. That scene before the diplomatic circle at the Tuileries portended war. How would Addington and his colleagues behave in this crisis? Would they sink all personal feelings, and, admitting that they could not weather the storm, accept the help and guidance of long tried navigators? Or would they stand on their dignity and order the pilot-boat to sheer off? Clearly it was a case where half measures were useless. The old captain and his chosen subalterns must command the ship. Pitt made this clear during conversations with Addington at Long's house at Bromley Hill (10th April). While declaring that he would not urge any point inconsistent with His Majesty's intentions, he demanded that Grenville, Melville, Spencer, and Windham should enter the Cabinet with him on the clearly expressed desire of the King, and at the request of the present Ministry. The last conditions seem severe. But Pitt's pledge to Addington made it essential that the Prime Minister should take the first step. To these terms two days later Addington made demur, but promised to communicate them to his colleagues; whereupon Pitt declared that he had said the last word on the matter; and when Ministers objected to Grenville and Windham, he was inexorable.[651] That their anger waxed hot against him appears from the following letter sent to Pitt by Lord Redesdale, formerly Sir John Mitford, and now Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who had been with Pitt and Addington at their conferences at Bromley:

Albemarle St., April 16, 1803.[652]

What passed yesterday and the day before at Bromley Hill, has made so strong an impression on my mind that I have been unable to relieve myself from the anxiety which it has occasioned. However you may flatter yourself to the contrary, it seems to me most clear that your return into office, with the impression under which you have appeared to act, must have the effect of driving from their situations every man now in office, and making a greater change than has ever been made on any similar occasion. I think myself as one of those persons individually intitled to call upon your honour not to pursue the line of conduct which you seem determined to adopt. The present Administration, so far from having been formed in hostility to you, was avowedly formed of your friends. When you quitted office, you repeatedly declared that you should consider yourself as obliged to those friends who would continue in office or would accept office under Mr. Addington. You must recollect that I expressed to you my disapprobation of the change and my wish to retire to my situation at the Bar, quitting the office of Attorney-General; and that you used to me these words--"That you must not do, for my sake." The words were too strongly impressed upon my mind at the moment to have escaped my memory. You encouraged me to take the office of Speaker much against my will. If I had not taken that office, nothing should have induced me to take that in which I am now placed, and by which I have been brought into a position of much anxiety, separated from all my old friends. Many many others are in similar situations, and all are to be sacrificed to those men who were said by yourself at the time to be acting in contradiction to your wishes in quitting their offices or those who dragged you out of office with them. You will probably tell me that you have no such intentions, particularly with respect to myself. But, whatever may be your intentions, such must be the unavoidable consequence of the changes which you have determined upon. I thought, when I took a situation under the Administration at the head of which you placed Mr. Addington, that I was doing you service. It was of no small importance to you, whether you looked to a return to office, or to retirement from public life, that the Government should not fall into the hands of those who had been engaged in violent opposition to you; and you yourself stated to me that you apprehended that must be the consequence if Mr. Addington should not be able to form an Administration.... Some of your last words to me induce me to think that you have not yourself abandoned the plan formed for giving to the Roman Catholic Church full establishment in Ireland--for such I consider the plan suggested by Lord Castlereagh, with any modification of which it is capable. Indeed, if all those who went out of office because that measure was not approved then (such being the ostensible cause of their quitting their stations) are to come into office again, there can be no doubt in the mind of the public that it is determined to carry that measure....

That at so critical a juncture a supporter of Addington, not of Cabinet rank, should rake up personal reasons why Pitt should let things drift to ruin is inconceivable. And did Redesdale really believe Protestantism to be endangered by Pitt's return to office, after his assurance at Bromley that he would not press any point at variance with the royal resolves? The King, who knew Pitt far better than Redesdale did, had no fear that he would belie his word by bringing forward Catholic Emancipation. But the phrases in the letter quoted above show that some of the Ministers were preparing to beat the drum ecclesiastic, and, in the teeth of the evidence, to charge Pitt with ingratitude and duplicity if he became Prime Minister. Ignoring the national crisis, they concentrated attention solely on the personal questions at issue; and it is humiliating to have to add that their petty scheming won the day. A compromise between Pitt and Addington was exceedingly difficult, but their reproaches and innuendoes made it impossible.[653]

The outcome was disastrous. The failure to form a strong and truly national Administration ended all hope of peace. Over against Addington set Bonaparte; with Hawkesbury compare Talleyrand; with Hobart, Berthier.[654] The weighing need go no further. The British Ministry kicks the beam; and in that signal inequality is one of the chief causes of the war of 1803. The first Consul, like the Czar Alexander I, despised the Addington Cabinet. He could not believe that men who were laughed at by their own supporters would dare to face him in arms. Twice he made the mistake of judging a nation by its Ministers--England by Addington in 1803, Spain by Godoy in 1808. Both blunders were natural, and both were irreparable; but those peoples had to pour forth their life blood to recover the position from which weakness and folly allowed them to slide. Politics, like meteorology, teaches that any sharp difference of pressure, whether mental or atmospheric, draws in a strong current to redress the balance. Never were the conditions more cyclonic than in 1803. A decade of strife scarcely made good the inequality between the organized might of France and the administrative chaos of her neighbours; between the Titanic Corsican and the mediocrities or knaves who held the reins at London, Vienna, Berlin, and Madrid.

War having been declared on 18th May 1803, Pitt sought the first opportunity of inspiriting Parliament and the nation. On the 23rd a great concourse crowded the House in the hope of hearing him speak; and cries of "Pitt, Pitt" arose as he strode to his seat on the third row behind Ministers, beside one of the pillars. The position gave point to a remark of Canning to Lord Malmesbury, that Pitt would fire over the heads of Ministers, neither praising nor blaming them, but merely supporting the policy of the war. Such was the case. Replying to a few criticisms of Erskine, he defended the Cabinet and powerfully described the unbearable aggressions of the First Consul.

The speech aroused a patriotic fervour which cannot be fully realized from the meagre and dreary summary of it which survives. Romilly pronounced it among the finest, if not the very finest, which he had ever made;[655] and Sheridan, in a vinous effusion to Lady Bessborough, called it "one of the most magnificent pieces of declamation that ever fell from that rascal Pitt's lips. Detesting the dog, as I do, I cannot withhold this just tribute to the scoundrel's talents." There follows a lament over Pitt's want of honesty, which betokens the maudlin mood preceding complete intoxication.[656] On the morrow Fox vehemently blamed the Cabinet in a speech which, for width of survey, acuteness of dialectic, wealth of illustration and abhorrence of war, stands unrivalled. Addington's reply exhibited his hopeless mediocrity; but, thanks to Pitt, Ministers triumphed by 398 votes to 67. As they resented the absence of definite praise in his speech, he withdrew to Walmer, there to serve his country and embarrass his finances by raising the Cinque Ports Volunteers.

Before recounting Pitt's services in East Kent, I must mention a bereavement which he had sustained. His mother died, after a very short seizure, at Burton Pynsent on 3rd April 1803. Thus was snapped a link connecting England with a mighty past. A quarter of a century had elapsed since her consort was laid to rest in the family vault in Westminster Abbey; she followed him while the storm-fiends were shrouding in strife the two hereditary foes; and the Napoleonic War was destined to bring her gifted son thither in less than three years. The father had linked the name of Pitt with military triumphs; the son, with futile efforts for peace and goodwill; but the lives both of the war-lord and of the would-be peacemaker were to be ended by tidings of national disaster.

No parleying now. In Britain is one breath; We all are with you now from shore to shore; Ye men of Kent, 'tis victory or death!

We all know these lines of Wordsworth. Do we know equally well that on Pitt, as Lord Warden, fell the chief burden of organization on the most easily accessible coast, that which stretches from Ramsgate to Rye?[657] It was defenceless but for the antiquated works at Sandown, Deal, Walmer, Dover, and a few small redoubts further west. Evidently men must be the ramparts, and Pitt sought to stimulate the Volunteer Movement, which now again made headway. He strove to make it a National Movement. At the close of July he sent an official offer to raise 3,000 Volunteers in Walmer and its neighbourhood; and he urged Ministers to have recourse to a levée en masse, whereupon Yorke, Under Secretary at War, proposed a scheme somewhat on those lines. Probably the encouragement offered to Volunteers was too great; for, while they were required to do less than was necessary to ensure efficiency, they were freed from all risk of compulsory enrolment in the Militia. This force and the Army consequently suffered, while the Volunteer Associations grew apace. On 27th October 1803 the King reviewed in Hyde Park as many as 27,000 of the London Volunteers and showed his caustic wit by giving the nickname of "the Devil's Own" to the Inns of Court Volunteers.

Pitt was not present on this occasion, he and his neighbour, Lord Carrington, on whom in 1802 he bestowed the command of Deal Castle, being busy in organizing the local Volunteers. As Constable of Dover Castle, Pitt summoned the delegates of the Cinque Ports to meet him there to discuss the raising of local corps; and he gave the sum of £1,000 towards their expenses. Dover contributed £885; Sandwich, £887; Margate, £538, and so on. As Lord Warden, he also took steps to secure a large number of recruits for the new Army of Reserve, and he further instructed local authorities to send in returns of all men of military age, besides carts, horses, and stock, with a view to the "driving" of the district in case of a landing.[658] At Walmer he kept open house for officers and guests who visited that coast. By the end of the year 1803 more than 10,000 Kentishmen had enrolled as Volunteers, and 1,040 in the Army of Reserve, exclusive of Sea Fencibles serving on gunboats. For the whole of Great Britain the totals were 379,000 and 31,000 respectively.[659] Pitt's joke at the expense of a battalion which laid more stress on privileges than drills, has become historic. Its organizers sent up a plan containing several stipulations as to their duties, with exceptions "in case of actual invasion." Pitt lost patience at this Falstaff-like conduct, and opposite the clause that they were on no account to be sent out of the country he wrote the stinging comment--"except in case of invasion."

The pen of Lady Hester Stanhope gives life-like glimpses of him during the endless drills between Deal and Dover. She had fled from the levelling vagaries of Earl Stanhope at Chevening to Lady Chatham at Burton Pynsent; but that home being now broken up, Pitt offered to install her at Walmer Castle. He did so with some misgiving; for her queenly airs and sprightly sallies, however pleasing as a tonic, promised little for comfort and repose. But the experiment succeeded beyond all hope. She soon learnt to admire his serenity, while his home was the livelier for the coming of this meteoric being. Her complexion was dazzlingly bright. Her eyes, usually blue, would flash black, as did those of Chatham in moments of excitement. Her features, too, had a magical play of expression, lighting up at a pleasing fancy, or again darting forth scorn, with the April-like alternations that irradiated and overclouded the brow of her grandsire. Kinglake, who saw her half a century later in her Syrian fastness, was struck by the likeness to the Chatham of Copley's famous picture.

Certainly she had more in common with him than with the younger Pitt. During the time when she brought storm and sunshine to Walmer, Park Place, and Bowling Green House, she often rallied her uncle on showing undue complaisance to the King or to stupid colleagues whom the Great Commoner would have overawed. Pitt laughingly took the second place, and at times vowed that when her voice rang with excitement, he caught an echo of the tones of his father.[660] Perhaps it was this which reconciled him to her vagaries. For her whims and moods even then showed the extravagance which made her the dreaded Sultana of that lonely Syrian castle where she ended her days amidst thirty quarrelsome but awe-struck servants, and an equal number of cats, over whom an apprehensive doctor held doubtful sway.

But that bitter, repining, spirit-haunted exile was far different from the joyous creature who shed light on Pitt. Her spasmodic nature needed his strength; her waywardness, his affectionate control. As for her tart retorts, terrifying to bores and toadies, they only amused him. In truth she brought into his life a beam of the sunshine which might have flooded it had he married Eleanor Eden. Hester soon found that, far from being indifferent to the charms of women, he was an exacting judge of beauty, even of dress. In fact, she pronounced him to be perfect in household life. His abilities in gardening astonished her; and we may doubt the correctness of the local legend which ascribes to her the landscape-gardening undertaken in the grounds of Walmer Castle in 1803. The dell at the top of the grounds was Hester's favourite haunt.

The varied excitements of the time are mirrored in her sprightly letters. Thus, on 15th November 1803, she wrote at Walmer:

We took one of their gunboats the other day: and, as soon as she came in, Mr. Pitt, Charles,[661] Lord Camden and myself took a Deal boat and rowed alongside of her. She had two large guns on board, 30 soldiers and 4 sailors. She is about 30 feet long, and only draws about 4 feet of water; an ill-contrived thing, and so little above the water that, had she as many men on board as she could really carry, a moderate storm would wash them overboard.... Mr. Pitt's 1st battalion of his newly-raised regiment was reviewed the other day by General Dundas, who expressed himself equally surprised and pleased by the state of discipline he found them in.... I like all this sort of thing, and I admire my uncle most particularly when surrounded with a tribe of military attendants. But what is all this pageantry compared with the unaffected simplicity of real greatness!

Walmer Castle, Nov. 19, 1803.

To F. R. Jackson, Esq.

To express the kindness with which Mr. Pitt welcomed my return and proposed my living with him would be impossible; one would really suppose that all obligation was on his side. Here then am I, happy to a degree; exactly in the sort of society I most like. There are generally three or four men staying in the house, and we dine eight or ten almost every other day. Military and naval characters are constantly welcome here; women are not, I suppose, because they do not form any part of our society. You may guess, then, what a pretty fuss they make with me. Pitt absolutely goes through the fatigue of a drill sergeant. It is parade after parade at 15 or 20 minutes' distance from each other. I often attend him; and it is quite as much as I am equal to, although I am remarkably well just now. The hard riding I do not mind, but to remain almost still so many hours on horseback is an incomprehensible bore, and requires more patience than you can easily imagine. However, I suppose few regiments for the time were ever so forward; therefore the trouble is nothing. If Mr. Pitt does not overdo and injure his health every other consideration becomes trifling. [She then states her anxiety on this score. She rarely speaks to him on it, as he particularly dislikes it. She adds:] I am happy to tell you, sincerely, I see nothing at all alarming about him. He had a cough when I first came to England, but it has nearly or quite left him. He is thin, but certainly strong, and his spirits are excellent.... Mr. Pitt is determined to remain acting colonel when his regiment is called into the field.

On this topic Pitt met with a rebuff from General (afterwards Sir John) Moore, commander of the newly formed camp at Shorncliffe, near Folkestone. Pitt rode over from Walmer to ask his advice, and his question as to the position he and his Volunteers should take brought the following reply: "Do you see that hill? You and yours shall be drawn up on it, where you will make a most formidable appearance to the enemy, while I with the soldiers will be fighting on the beach." Pitt was highly amused at this professional retort; but at the close of 1804 his regiment was pronounced by General David Dundas fit to take the field with regulars. Life in the open and regular exercise on horseback served to strengthen Pitt's frame; for Hester, writing in the middle of January 1804, when her uncle was away in London for a few days, says: "His most intimate friends say they do not remember him so well since the year '97.... Oh! such miserable things as these French gunboats. We took a vessel the other day, laden with gin--to keep their spirits up, I suppose." Bonaparte was believed to be at Boulogne; and there was much alarm about a landing; but she was resolved "not to be driven up country like a sheep."

This phrase refers to the arrangements for "driving" the country, that is, sweeping it bare of everything in front of the invaders. The plans for "driving" were thorough, but were finally pronounced unworkable. His efforts to meet the Boulogne flotilla were also most vigorous. On 18th October 1803 he informs Rose that he had 170 gunboats ready between Hastings and Margate to give the enemy a good reception whenever they appeared. He adds: "Our Volunteers are, I think, likely to be called upon to undertake permanent duty, which, I hope, they will readily consent to. I suppose the same measure will be recommended in your part of the coast [West Hants]. I wish the arrangements for defence were as forward everywhere else as they are in Hythe Bay under General Moore. We begin now to have no other fear in that quarter than that the enemy will not give us an opportunity of putting our preparations to the proof, and will select some other point which we should not be in reach of in the first instance." On 10th November he expresses a hope of repelling any force that attempted to land in East Kent, but fears that elsewhere the French cannot be stopped until they arrive disagreeably near to London.[662]

It is clear, then, that Pitt was not dismayed by the startling disparity of forces. On the coast of Flanders and Picardy were ranged regular troops amounting to 114,554 men seemingly ready for embarkation on an immense flotilla of small craft, part of which was heavily armed. It is now known that these imposing forces were rarely, if ever, up to their nominal strength; that part of the flotilla was unseaworthy; that the difficulties of getting under way were never overcome; and that the unwieldy mass would probably have been routed, if not destroyed, by the cruisers and gunboats stationed on the Kentish coast. Still, even if part of it made land, the crisis would be serious in view of the paucity and want of organization of the British forces. As bearing on this subject, a letter of Lord Melville to a relative deserves quotation:

"Dunira, 16 Dec., 1803.[663]

"DEAR ALEXANDER,

"I received your letter from Walmer and was extreamly happy to learn from it that Mr. Pitt was in such excellent health. Long, I pray, may it continue. He has been very usefully and creditably employed, but not exactly in the way his country could have wished; but that is a subject on which I never now allow myself to think.... If Mr. Pitt, from what he feels within himself or from the enthusiasm he may have inspired in those he commands, conceives that the defence of the country could at any time be safely entrusted with the Volunteers alone, as the newspapers seem to convey as his sentiments, he is by much too sanguine. On the other hand it is talking wildly, or like old women, to contend, as Mr. Windham and Mr. Fox do, that great bodies of Britains [sic], with arms in their hands and trained to the use of them, are not a most important bulwark of security to the Empire. My opinion, however, lays perhaps in the middle, and I would have greatly preferred a much smaller number to have secured more effectually their uniform efficiency. I would much rather have had 200,000 on the footing of Lord Hobart's first letter in June than double that number selected and formed in the loose and desultory manner they have more recently been under the variety of contradictory orders they have since received and by which Government have annoyed every corner of the country." Melville adds that they would be useful if thoroughly trained and not allowed to leave their corps; but exemptions from the Militia and Army of Reserve ballots granted to the recent Volunteer Corps are mischievous, and interfere with the recruiting. The Militia is unnecessarily large and interferes with recruiting for the regular army. He would have enough trained troops at home to be able to send abroad "50,000 infantry for offensive operations either by ourselves or in co-operation with such European Powers as may recover their senses, as sooner or later they must and will do."

Pitt did not leave his post for long, except when high winds made an invasion impossible. At such times he would make a trip to London. A short sojourn in town in the early spring elicits from Lady Hester the words: "I cannot but be happy anywhere in Mr. Pitt's society"; and she hoped that she helped to amuse and entertain him. Certainly Pitt did his utmost to enliven her stay at the little residence at Park Place. In the Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne, who claims to have known her well, we catch a glimpse of Pitt acting as chaperon at balls which obviously bored him. Yet he would patiently wait there until, perhaps, four a.m., when Lady Hester returned to end his ennui. Is it surprising that after his death she called him that adored angel?

* * * * *

Early in the year 1804 a ministerial crisis seemed at hand. The personal insignificance of Ministers, the hatred felt for St. Vincent at the Admiralty, the distrust of Hobart at the War Office, and the deep depression caused by the laboured infelicities of Addington's speeches presaged a breakdown. So threatening was the outlook that Grenville urged Pitt to combine with him for the overthrow of an Administration which palsied national energy. For reasons which are far from clear, Pitt refused to take decisive action. During his stay in London in mid-January he saw Grenville, but declined to pledge himself to a definite opposition. Grenville and his coadjutors, among them Lord Carysfort, were puzzled by this wavering conduct, which they ascribed to finesse, pettiness, or even to insincerity.[664] But it is clear that Pitt objected only to their proposed methods, which he termed a teasing, harassing opposition. In vain did the Bishop of Lincoln, who came to town at Pitt's request, seek to reconcile their differences. The most to be hoped for was that Pitt would be compelled by force of circumstances to concert a plan with the Grenvilles for Addington's overthrow. The following letter of Carysfort to the bishop is of interest:

Jany. 18, 1804.[665]

Lord Grenville and Mr. Pitt being agreed upon so material a point as the necessity of removing Mr. A[ddington] from his present situation, it must be a matter not only of regret but of surprise, that they should not be able to reconcile any difference of opinion between them as to the sort of opposition to be carried on in Parliament; and I cannot help thinking that Mr. Pitt's avowal that he intends opposition would in itself be sufficient to incline (not merely Lord Grenville and his friends, who have made it a principal object to be united with Mr. Pitt and place him again at the head of affairs) but all the parties who may mean to oppose, to leave the mode pretty much at his option!... [Your letter] leads me to think that Mr. Pitt and he may not have understood each other. Lord Grenville's attachment to Mr. Pitt has been so conspicuous, and I am persuaded his communications have been so frank and so explicit, that I cannot account for Mr. Pitt using any reserve with him, and must be of opinion that greater openness, where there is such solid ground of confidence, would lead to more satisfactory results. [Lord Carysfort then says that Pitt should not keep public opinion so long in suspense; for] the public danger from a Ministry confessedly incapable is already great and urgent and will be continually increasing.

Failing to get help from Pitt, Grenville, at the end of January, sought the help of Fox! Through his brother, Thomas Grenville, as go-between he offered the Whig leader his alliance for the overthrow of Addington and the formation of a Ministry of the talented men of all parties. Here, then, is the origin of the broad-bottomed or All the Talents Administrations which produced so singular a muddle after the death of Pitt. The Fox-Grenville bargain cannot be styled immoral like that of Fox and North in 1782; for it expressly excluded all compromise on matters of conviction. Nevertheless it was a tactical mistake, for which Pitt's exasperating aloofness was largely responsible. Few occurrences in this time of folly and blundering were more untoward. Pitt's letter of 4th February to Grenville shows that he discerned the magnitude of the error, little though he saw his own share in it. The result of the union of Fox and Grenville was likely to be the fall of Addington, an appeal of the King to him (Pitt) to form a Cabinet, which would be narrowed and weakened by the present effort of Grenville to form a strong and comprehensive Administration.[666]

Presumably the national crisis was not yet acute enough to satisfy Pitt that he might conscientiously oppose Addington. But that he was drifting to this conviction appears in the following letter from Rose to the Bishop of Lincoln.

Feb. 11, 1804.[667]

I showed Mr. Pitt your letter because it expressed so entirely my own view of the interesting subject: he appeared at first against anything like hostility, but I think is now disposed to point out pretty strongly the neglect of proper measures of defence in the naval and military departments and to suggest the necessary ones; so [as] to throw on the Government the just responsibility and odium of rejecting them if they shall determine to do so.

Rose then states that the Bishop of St. Asaph calls the new Volunteer Bill "the most wishy-washy thing that ever was produced." He also adds that the King is ill, probably of dropsy. The fact was even worse. A chill caught in drenching rain developed into the former mental malady. Thus the nation was for a time kingless, leaderless, and open to a deadly thrust from Boulogne. For a short time his life was in danger, and all the troubles of a Regency loomed ahead. The Prince of Wales having ventured on the compromising prophecy that the illness "must last several months," Pitt quoted to his informant, Malmesbury, the damning line

Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.

In truth, there now began a series of intrigues, in which the Prince, Fox, and the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire played the leading parts, for assuring a Regency and the formation of a Fox Administration. While England needed to keep her gaze on Boulogne, the intriguers thought only of the death or lunacy of the King, the accession of the Prince and the apportionment of the spoils of office. Sheridan on this occasion played his own game and for this was heartily cursed by the expectant Creevey.[668]

In view of these last complications and the prospect of an invasion, Pitt revised his former judgement, and informed Malmesbury that, while declining the offers of the Grenvilles to help to overthrow Addington, he would not refuse to take office if for any reason Ministers resigned. On that day (19th February) Melville wrote to him from Melville Castle that the outlook was full of horror, and everything depended on the formation of a steady and permanent Government with which foreign nations could treat. For this reason he (Melville) urged that the King should be relieved of his executive duties, which it was sheer cruelty to exact from him.[669] Pitt's answer to this daring proposal is not known; but later, on 29th March, in answer to further overtures from Melville, he stated that the King's illness was less serious than was reported by the Earl of Moira, the confidante of the Prince of Wales; and that while it lasted he doubted the propriety of taking any steps to overturn the Ministry.[670] To this scrupulousness Melville was a stranger, and on 4th April again urged him to form a compact opposition for the overthrow of Addington, and promised him the votes of at least twenty-six Scottish members (out of forty-five) for any such effort.[671]

Meanwhile the King recovered but slowly. The nervous, excited, irritable symptoms showed little abatement; and in the third week in March he fell into a fit of anger of such violence that he had to be strapped to his bed. Even more threatening was the military situation. Yorke, early in March, proposed a Volunteer Consolidation Bill, which met with general derision. As the state of the Navy was also unsatisfactory, Pitt freely criticized Ministers, especially St. Vincent; and, on one occasion, when Addington showed boyish petulance, he met with a serene and courteous answer. Tierney, Treasurer of the Navy, attacked Pitt coarsely; Sheridan, with his usual wit and brilliance; but neither coarseness nor eloquence could rehabilitate that Ministry. The urgency of the crisis appears in the following letter written by Pitt at Walmer Castle to some person unknown:

April 11, 1804.

... The experience of the last summer and the discussions of this session confirm me in the opinion that while the Government remains in its present shape and under its present leader, nothing efficient can be expected either to originate with them or to be fairly adopted and effectually executed. With this persuasion, and thinking that a system of more energy and decision is indispensable with a view to the immediate crisis and the many difficulties he may have to encounter in the course of the present contest, I mean to take an early opportunity of avowing and acting on these sentiments more explicitly and decidedly than I have hitherto done; and I shall endeavour to give effect to my opinion by the support of all the friends whom I can collect. My object will be to press to the utmost those points which I think essential to the public defence, and at the same time in doing so to make it, if I can, impossible for the present Government to maintain itself. In this object I have every reason to believe that I shall have the fullest concurrence of all those with whom I have the most differed on former occasions and with whom possibly I may as little agree in future. With their number added to my own more immediate friends, and to the few who have acted with Ld Grenville and Windham, I am persuaded that our division on any favourable question will probably be such as would be sufficient to shake a much stronger Government than the present....[672]

On the same day he promised Melville to return to town in the middle of April, and to make the "principal push" against Addington on 23rd April, on the subject of Yorke's Bill for suspending the completion of the Army Reserve. If they failed, he would return to Walmer for another kind of contest. The joint assault by Fox and Pitt against the Ministry on 23rd April produced a great sensation, the speech of Pitt being remarkable for its suppressed sarcasm and thinly veiled charges of inefficiency. As a call to arms, it stands without a rival. Ministers were utterly beaten in argument, and escaped defeat only by thirty-seven votes. Addington became alarmed, and advised the King, who was now convalescent, to instruct the Lord Chancellor, Eldon, to confer with Pitt, a fact which refutes the charges of Brougham and Dean Pellew against Eldon.

Finally the King allowed Pitt to make proposals concerning a new Ministry. Pitt did so fully and courteously in a paper which George III forthwith described to Eldon as containing "many empty words and little information." To Pitt himself the King, on 5th May, expressed his deep regret that he had taken such a dislike to Mr. Addington, after the praiseworthy services of the latter to our glorious Constitution in Church and State. He could never forget the wound which Pitt proposed to deal it, and "the indelicacy (not to call it worse) of wanting His Majesty to forego his solemn Coronation Oath." He therefore required Pitt to give a solemn pledge not to propose the least alteration in the Test Act. As to a proposal to admit Fox to the Cabinet, the King expressed "his astonishment that Mr. Pitt should one moment harbour the thought of bringing such a man before his Royal notice." References to the "wild ideas" of Burke, and to Grenville being guided by obstinacy, "his usual director," filled up the interstices of this strange composition.[673] Evidently the enfeebled brain of George could form no notion of the national danger. While Pitt thought only of the safety of England, the King's thoughts continued to gyrate angrily around the Test Act, the Coronation Oath, and the iniquities of Fox.

It was therefore with grave apprehension that on 7th May Pitt went to Buckingham House for attendance upon the King, the first for nearly three and a quarter years. He expected an outburst of rage when he mentioned the chief subject at issue, namely the inclusion of Fox and the Grenvilles in the future Administration. The King, however, kept surprising control over his feelings, behaved graciously to Pitt, tactfully waived aside smaller questions that he disliked, even consented to admit the Grenvilles, but for ever barred the way to the return of Fox. The utmost that he would hear was the employment of Fox as an ambassador. Once again, then, the royal convalescent outwitted Pitt. "Never," said Pitt to Eldon, "in any conversation I have had with him in my life has he so baffled me." Fox being excluded by the King, there was scant hope of bringing in his new allies, the Grenvilles and Windham. Pitt broached the matter to Lord Grenville on 7th May, and received on the morrow a friendly but firm refusal. The following sentences are noteworthy: "We rest our determination solely on our strong sense of the impropriety of our becoming parties to a system of Government which is to be formed at such a moment as the present on a principle of exclusion.... We see no hope of any effectual remedy for those mischiefs but by uniting in the public service as large a proportion as possible of the weight, talents, and character to be found in public men of all descriptions and without any exception."

The refusal of Grenville to join Pitt has often been ascribed to jealousy of Pitt, and the latter is reported to have said that he would teach that proud man that he could do without him. The sentiment is alien to the tolerant nature of Pitt,[674] who must have respected his cousin's decision, based as it was on a determination to break down the bigoted resolve of the King. But Grenville's conduct punished Pitt far more severely than the King. For while George in his feeble, irritable condition thought only about the Test Act and Fox, Pitt was intent on forming a truly national Administration, including Fox, Fitzwilliam, and Melville as Secretaries of State, with Spencer at the Admiralty, Grenville as Lord President, and Windham as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.[675]

The actual result was far inferior. Fox, Fitzwilliam, Spencer, Grenville, and Windham being ruled out by the King's action and Grenville's resolve, the Cabinet was formed as follows: Pitt, First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer; Harrowby, Foreign Secretary; Hawkesbury, Home Secretary; Camden, Secretary at War and for the Colonies; Portland, Lord President; Eldon, Lord Chancellor; Westmorland, Privy Seal; Melville, Admiralty; Chatham, Master of Ordnance; Mulgrave, Duchy of Lancaster; Castlereagh, President of the India Board; the Duke of Montrose, President of the Board of Trade. Of these twelve Ministers, six had been with Addington, namely, Hawkesbury (though at the Foreign Office, which he unwillingly vacated), Portland, Eldon, Westmorland, Chatham, and Castlereagh.[676] Pitt dispensed with the services of Addington, St. Vincent, and Pelham. Of non-Cabinet appointments, the chief were those of the Earl of Hardwicke as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Sir Evan Nepean, Irish Secretary; William Dundas, War Office; Canning, Treasury of the Navy, in place of Tierney, who declined to serve with Pitt; Lord Charles Somerset and George Rose, Joint Paymasters of the Forces; and Perceval, Attorney-General. Canning and Rose were dissatisfied with their appointments, the latter writing to Bishop Tomline in deep chagrin at Pitt's neglect of his faithful services.

The new Cabinet, besides being too large, was half Addingtonian and half Pittite, a source of weakness which soon led to further changes. It was also weighted with inefficient members--Chatham, Hawkesbury, and Portland. The King disliked Hawkesbury, and said he had no head for business, no method, and no punctuality. Harrowby, though a man of brilliant parts in private life, and an excellent speaker, was oppressed by a delicate frame, precarious health, and a peevish temper. During no small part of his tenure of office he had to take the waters at Bath, and was therefore a poor substitute for the experienced and hard-working Grenville. Pitt, for some unexplained reason, disliked placing Melville at the Admiralty, a strangely prophetic instinct. Camden and Mulgrave were also misfits. Hawkesbury did better work at the Home Office than the Foreign Office; but on the whole, the new arrangement aroused widespread grumbling and distrust. The result of it all was the dissolution of the great national party formed in the year 1794 and the formation of three groups, following Pitt, Addington, and Grenville, the Addingtonians showing much bitterness at the treatment of their chief, while the Grenvilles and Windham inveighed against the new Ministry, as formed on the principle of excluding Fox.[677] The charge was unfair; for at that crisis Pitt could not stand by and see the national resources frittered away by Addington. The King's Government had to be carried on; and, like Wellington a generation later, Pitt consented to do so in the only way which was practicable.

The limitations of his power were soon obvious. The two unfriendly groups eagerly criticized him at all times and accorded grudging and doubtful support even on measures which they approved. This was especially the case with regard to the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Thanks to the untiring exertions of Wilberforce, Clarkson, and others, that movement had made considerable progress during the interval of peace. The outbreak of war in May 1803 darkened the outlook; for once again the cry was raised that England must not cut off a trade which was essential to the welfare of the West Indies, highly lucrative to British shipowners, and a necessary adjunct to the mercantile marine. Nevertheless, the accession of Pitt to power and the goodwill of the majority of the Irish members inspired Wilberforce with hope. True, Addington always strenuously opposed him; and among the younger members of the Cabinet Castlereagh had declared his hostility; but at first all went well. At the close of May 1804 Pitt and Fox united in expressing approval of Wilberforce's proposals. Addington, in remarks which lasted exactly forty seconds, scouted the measure, but carried with him only 49 members as against 124. The majorities were nearly as great at the second and third readings.

In the Lords the omens were inauspicious. Some bishops were away in their dioceses: the supporters of the West India and shipping interests were at hand, using their utmost endeavours to delay, if not to defeat, the measure. Pitt despaired of thwarting these dilatory tactics, backed by wealth and influence from all quarters. Wilberforce wrote indignantly to Lord Muncaster: "It was truly humiliating to see four of the Royal Family come down to vote against the poor, helpless, friendless slaves." A wild speech by Stanhope told against the cause which he meant to further, and the motion was adjourned to avoid defeat.

Pitt's subsequent conduct in 1805 disappointed Wilberforce. Certainly it was half-hearted and procrastinating. But, seeing that he had to rely more on Addington and finally to bring him into the Cabinet, his difficulties were great. The Irish members also showed signs of defection; and it was certain that the Bill would fail in the Lords. Accordingly, Pitt begged Wilberforce to wait for a more propitious time. A sense of religious duty impelled him to persevere, with the inevitable result, a crushing defeat (19th February 1805).[678] On a smaller question, connected with the prohibition of the supply of slaves to Guiana, then recently conquered from the Dutch, he finally brought Pitt to acquiesce. But here again the conduct of the Minister was tardy. Wilberforce urged Pitt to abolish the Guiana Slave Trade by an Order in Council, and early in May wrote: "One very powerful and important reason for your abolishing the Guiana Slave Trade by an act of Government, not by, or in consequence of a vote of Parliament, is that it would tend to confirm the disposition so strongly manifested by the Dutch to abolish the Slave Trade, and give them the sort of compensation they demand." The British Order in Council did not appear until 13th September 1805.[679]

Nevertheless, their friendship remained firm to the end. "Had much talk with him [Pitt] on political topics, finding him very open and kind." Such is Wilberforce's account of his last interviews with Pitt; and he certainly could not have remained on friendly terms with one who was deliberately untrue to the cause. He knew better than recent critics the difficulties resulting from the compromise with Addington and from the ceaseless friction with the followers of Fox and Grenville.

The case of the Slave Trade serves to illustrate the peculiar difficulties of Pitt's position, which were to appear on even more important questions. The King, Addington, Grenville, and Pitt had all contributed to the tangle. Limiting our survey to the conduct of Addington and Pitt, we must pronounce both of them culpable. Addington should have seen that Pitt's promise of support, given at the time of the King's lunacy in February-March 1801, was not morally binding three years later when the existence of the nation was at stake in the Napoleonic War. At such a time an enlightened patriot does not stand upon punctilio, but gladly takes a second place if he can thereby place in authority an abler man. Addington alone could release Pitt from the debt of honour incurred in February 1801, and faithfully discharged for three weary years, at the cost of the alienation of friends and the derision of opponents. He never spoke or wrote that word of release, but held Pitt to the bargain with an insistence which would be contemptible were it not in large measure the outcome of a narrow complacent nature blind to its own shortcomings.

Pitt, also, behaved weakly. The original promise, to support an untried man, was a piece of astounding trustfulness; and when the weakness of Addington's Administration involved the nation in war and brought it to the brink of disaster, he should openly have claimed release from a pledge too hastily given, leaving the world to judge between them. As it was, for nearly a year he wavered to and fro between the claims of national duty and private honour, thereby exasperating his friends and finally driving the Grenvilles, Windham, and Spencer to a union with Fox which in its turn blighted the hope of forming a national Administration. Finally, he made only one effort to induce the King to accept Fox. True, the situation was a delicate one; for pressure brought to bear on George on that topic would have brought back the mental malady. But the Grenvilles, viewing the situation with pedantic narrowness, considered the attempt so half-hearted as to warrant their opposition to the new Cabinet. On the whole, then, Pitt's punctiliousness must be pronounced a secondary but vital cause of the lamentable dénouement, which left him exposed at forty five years of age, enfeebled by worry and gout, to a contest with Napoleon at the climax of his powers.

FOOTNOTES:

[649] Addington desired the retirement of St. Vincent. See "Dropmore P.," vii, 121; Stanhope, iv, 21.

[650] Pellew, ii, 114-6.

[651] "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 415; Pellew, ii, 121-4.

[652] Pretyman MSS.

[653] G. Rose, "Diaries," ii, 156; "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 416, 417; Pellew, ii, 119-28.

[654] Hawkesbury's remissness (so Vorontzoff told Rose) then lost an opportunity of gaining the friendly mediation of the Czar (G. Rose, "Diaries," ii, 43, 157). Romilly ("Mems.," i, 427) calls the Ministry a thing of no account in comparison with Pitt, and says it was universally despised.

[655] Romilly Memoirs, i, 427.

[656] Sichel, "Sheridan," i, 440. Spencer Stanhope declared Pitt's speech the finest he ever heard. His wife wrote to their son: "He (Pitt) spoke for two hours, but unless he can be prevailed upon to give it himself, as the shorthand-writers were excluded, the speech will be lost for ever. Your father thinks it will be made out by some of his friends and submitted to his inspection; therefore, tho' we may lose much, we shall not lose the whole" (A. M. W. Stirling, "Annals of a Yorkshire House," ii, 282).

[657] "Dumouriez and the Defence of England against Napoleon," by J. H. Rose and A. M. Broadley.

[658] Lyon, "Hist. of Dover," p. xxxiii.

[659] Hansard, i, 1899-1902.

[660] "Mems. of Lady Hester Stanhope," i, 174.

[661] Lady Hester's second brother.

[662] G. Rose, "Diaries," ii, 70-2; Desbrière, "Projets de Débarquement," iii, 98-105; Wheeler and Broadley, "Napoleon and the Invasion of England," ii, ch. 14; Cornwallis ("Corresp.," iii, 500) thought ill of our chances if the French landed, but he doubted if they could. (Ibid., iii, 503.)

[663] Pitt MSS., 157.

[664] "Dropmore P.," vii, 193, 196.

[665] Pretyman MSS. It is in answer to the one referred to in "Dropmore P.," vii, 209.

[666] "Dropmore P.," vii, 211-14.

[667] Pretyman MSS.

[668] "Creevey Papers," i, 25-7.

[669] Pretyman MSS.

[670] Stanhope, iv, 139-44.

[671] Pretyman MSS.

[672] From Mr. A. M. Broadley's MSS.

[673] Stanhope, iv, App. viii-ix.

[674] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 4.

[675] Stanhope, iv, 177.

[676] Pitt thoroughly approved of Castlereagh taking the India Board under Addington in July 1802; in October he entered the Cabinet ("Private Papers of Wilberforce," 131).

[677] Wraxall (iii, 281) with his usual bias says that Pitt "affected" to desire the inclusion of Fox.

[678] "Life of Wilberforce," iii, 168, 182, 184, 211, 212.

[679] Ibid., iii, 230-4; Pitt MSS., 189.

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