FOOTNOTES:

FOX ASSERTS THE PRINCE'S RIGHT.

On the 10th Pitt moved for a committee to search for precedents. Fox objected; it was not for parliament, he maintained, to consider who should be regent; the Prince of Wales had a clear right to the regency, and parliament was only qualified to decide when he should exercise his right. When Pitt heard the authority of parliament thus called in question, he is said to have slapped his leg and to have exultantly exclaimed to the minister sitting beside him, "I'll unwhig the gentleman for the rest of his life!" He declared that Fox's doctrine was in the highest degree unconstitutional, and that no part of the royal authority could belong to the prince unless it was conferred on him by parliament; the question, he told the house, concerned its right of deliberation. Fox saw his mistake, and two days later stated that the prince put forward no claim of right; both sides agreed that he must be regent and that before he assumed the office he must be invited to do so by parliament; his right was an abstract question upon which it was no use to argue. Pitt was too good a tactician to allow him to minimise the point at issue; he denied "that the prince had any right whatever". The difference between an irresistible claim, which Pitt acknowledged, and an inherent right was not one merely of words; if the prince could claim the regency as of right, parliament could not restrict his power without his consent. The effect of Fox's false move was heightened by the folly of Sheridan who raised a storm of indignation by a threat of the danger of provoking the prince to assert his claim. Once again Fox made Pitt the champion of the king and the nation against the pretensions of a whig faction. The character of the struggle was understood, and bills were posted with the heading: "Fox for the prince's prerogative," and "Pitt for the privilege of parliament and the liberties of the nation". Yet in both houses several supporters of the government ratted, for the prince seemed the rising sun, and he and the Duke of York openly canvassed on Fox's side.

Nevertheless the commons approved Pitt's resolutions to the effect that, as the personal exercise of the royal authority wasinterrupted, it was the duty of the two houses to supply the defect, and that it was necessary to determine on means by which the royal assent might be given to bills for that purpose. None of the precedents adduced by the committee met the present case. Fox argued that to appoint a regent by a law was to treat the monarchy as elective, and that the two houses had no legislative power independently of the crown; and assuming that he was about to re-enter on office taunted the ministers with a design to weaken their successors by limiting the powers of the regent. The ministerial majority was 268 to 204. Pitt proposed to provide for the royal assent by placing the great seal in a commission with authority to affix it to the bill. This daring fiction, the only means by which a regency could be established by enactment, was approved by 251 to 178. On this question, and throughout the whole course of the struggle, Burke spoke with a violence and impropriety which injured his party and suggested a disordered mind. He called Pitt the prince's competitor, referred to the chancellor as Priapus and as "a man with a large black brow and a big wig," and later disgusted the house by speaking of the king as "hurled from his throne" by the Almighty. In the lords the proceedings followed the same lines as in the commons. Willis's account of the king convinced Thurlow that he was playing a wrong game, and when the question of the prince's right was discussed in the lords' he spoke strongly on the government side. Several members of the lower house were present to hear him. He referred to the favours he had received from the king, "When I forget them," he said, "may God forget me!" "Forget you!" said Wilkes with exquisite wit, "He will see you damned first." "The best thing that can happen to you," said Burke. Pitt left the house exclaiming, "Oh, the rascal!" On the 25th Thurlow formally severed his connexion with Fox. After a warm debate the ministerial resolutions were affirmed by the lords by 99 to 66.

RESTRICTIONS ON THE REGENT'S POWER.

The restrictions which the cabinet proposed to place on the power of the regent were laid before the prince. He was to be debarred from conferring peerages except on the king's issue of full age; from granting reversions or any office or pension except during pleasure, and from disposing of the king's property; and the charge of the king's person and the management of thehousehold were to be in the queen's hands. These restrictions were based on the idea that the king would speedily recover; if his illness was prolonged they were to be open to revision by parliament. The prince promised to accept the regency, and stated his objections to the restrictions. The existence of the government seemed drawing to an end. Pitt was extremely popular, and the London merchants, expecting that he would soon be driven from office, offered him a gift of £100,000, which he declined to accept. Before he could bring the restrictions before the commons, the speaker, Cornwall, died, and on January 5, 1789, William Wyndham Grenville, joint-paymaster of the forces, was elected in his place. A fresh examination of the physicians was urged by the opposition. Willis told the committee that good progress was made; Dr. Warren's account was less favourable. Willis was represented by the prince's party as a charlatan, and Warren was pitted against him as the doctor of the opposition. After this delay Pitt laid the restrictions before the house as resolutions. They certainly impaired the power of the executive, and would have weakened any ministry appointed by the regent. No exact date was fixed for their duration, and it is conceivable that, after the regency had lasted for some years, the upper house would have refused to remove the restriction as to the creation of peers, and would, as in 1719, have attempted to limit their number by withholding from the regent a part of the royal prerogative. And as the management of the household would have placed a patronage of over £80,000 a year[218]at the disposal of the queen, who was hostile to Fox, a court influence might have been established in favour of Pitt and adverse to the new ministry. The queen was accused of intrigue and violently attacked by the opposition press. Fox urged his objections to the resolutions with much force, but they were adopted by both houses, and on the 31st the prince accepted the offer of the regency made by the lords and commons on those terms, on the understanding that the restrictions were temporary.

His party was in high glee; medals were struck to commemorate his regency, whig ladies wore regency caps and ribbons, and a list of new ministers was drawn up. The conductof the prince and the Duke of York caused much scandal. Stories of the ill-treatment of the king while in the prince's charge may be dismissed as unfounded; it is alleged that the prince made sport of his father's ravings, it is certain that his associates did so, and that he and his brother behaved with brutal callousness and openly indulged in riotous merry-making during the king's illness.[219]Before the resolutions could be made law it was thought that a formal opening of parliament was necessary in order to invest it with legislative capacity, and this was effected on February 3 by a commission under the great seal. Pitt then brought in the regency bill, and while it was before the commons, agreed that all restriction should terminate in three years if the king remained ill so long. The bill passed the commons after warm debate, and had reached the committee stage in the lords when, on the 19th, the king was declared to be convalescent. His recovery progressed steadily, and on March 10 he announced to parliament, through commissioners, his complete restoration to health. Both on that night, and on April 23, when he returned thanks in St. Paul's, there were great rejoicings, for his illness enshrined him in the hearts of his people. The skill and temper which Pitt exhibited throughout the long crisis strengthened his position in parliament and his place in the esteem of the public, and from that time more cordial relations were established between him and the king, who warmly acknowledged his obligations to him. Though he was fortunate in the king's timely recovery, he owed much also to Fox's bad management. The hasty assertion of the prince's rights and the delays interposed in the proceedings in the commons put off the settlement of the regency until it was no longer needed, while the attack on the authority of parliament on behalf of the prince's prerogative and the reckless attempt of Fox and his party to displace a ministry which had the confidence of the nation, in order to obtain office for themselves, brought general censure upon them and added to Pitt's popularity.

In Ireland the parliament met in 1789 when the regency question was still before the English parliament. Buckingham,who as Earl Temple was lord-lieutenant in 1782-83, had succeeded Rutland in 1787. He hoped that the Irish would adopt the English plan. He was disappointed by their extreme jealousy of anything which might look like dependence. The functions of the viceroy rendered the question of restrictions of little importance, and, under the guidance of Grattan, an address was voted inviting the prince to assume the regency of the kingdom without limitations. Buckingham refused to forward it on the ground that it purported to invest the prince with a power not conferred on him by law; for the prince could not lawfully take any part of the royal authority without an act of parliament, and no Irish bill could be enacted without the royal assent under the great seal. The cabinet approved of his refusal. The parliament sent commissioners over with the address; but by the time that it was presented the king was virtually recovered, and the matter ended ineffectually. No serious consequences probably would in any case have arisen from the course adopted by the Irish parliament, but the difference between the two countries on so important a question enforced the need of a legislative union. Soon after the conclusion of this business Sydney resigned the home office. He differed from Pitt on the slave trade question, and Pitt was probably glad to get a colleague more thoroughly at one with him. He was succeeded by William Grenville on June 5, and Henry Addington was elected speaker in Grenville's place.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION BEGINS.

In the summer news of a revolution arrived from Paris. The reforming movement, in which all European states had some share, was promoted in France by ideas of constitutional government borrowed from England, by the attacks of Voltaire on medievalism and religious authority, by the advance of science, by the teaching of the encyclopædists, by the exaltation of individual liberty by political economists, by Rousseau's romantic theories on the foundations of society, and by sympathy with the American revolution. It was supplied with practical aims by the misery of the poor, the injustice done to the lower classes, which alone paid the heaviest of the taxes, the privileges of the nobles and clergy, the harshness of the laws, and arbitrary methods of government. England, as we have seen, shared in the reforming movement. Here, however, it had no such violent results as in France. No sharp lines divided classfrom class; the laws were the same for all, there was no difference in taxation, and no privileged caste, for a peer's younger sons were commoners, as was his eldest son so long as his father lived. Parliamentary and other free institutions, imperfect as they were, secured the liberties of the people. The life of the agricultural poor though hard was not intolerable; landowners lived upon their estates and directed local affairs, and the poor were at least kept from starvation. France was almost bankrupt, ruined by the prodigality of her two last kings and their neglect of their duties to their people. Louis XVI. was forced to summon the states-general, which met at Versailles on May 4, 1789. Political discontent was rife and was rendered dangerous by the distress of the poor; the winter had been hard, prices were rising, and Paris was full of destitute persons, of labourers out of work, and along with them a large number of criminals and ruffians.

The deputies of the "third estate," who were about equal in number to those of the two privileged orders and were supported by a few nobles and a large minority of the clergy, demanded that the three estates should form a single chamber. The king upheld the privileged orders in their refusal. The third estate voted itself a "national assembly," and, after a struggle of six weeks, gained its point, and the estates were constituted as a single assembly. Paris was in a ferment of excitement. The king dismissed Necker, the minister of finance, who was trusted by the popular party, and refused to withdraw his troops from the city. A riot broke out, and on July 14 the Bastille, an ancient fortress and prison, then little used, which was guarded by a few Swiss and some old soldiers orinvalides, was taken by the mob, and the governor and some others were murdered. The king's brother, the Count of Artois, the Prince of Condé, and several unpopular nobles fled from France. A new municipality was established and Lafayette was chosen to command a new civic militia or national guard. Disorder and rioting prevailed in the provinces, country-houses were burnt and pillaged, and many murders were committed. Louis was forced to assent to all the demands of the people; he recalled Necker, and showed himself at the Hôtel de Ville wearing the national cockade or tricolour. The assembly voted decrees sweeping away thefeudal system, abolishing the privileges of classes and corporations, and ecclesiastical tithes, and promulgated a flatulent declaration of the rights of man. Bread-riots broke out in Paris on October 5; a mob marched on Versailles and invaded the palace, and on the 6th the national guard brought the king and queen to Paris, where they remained in virtual captivity.

ENGLISH OPINIONS ON EVENTS IN FRANCE.

The first tidings of the movement were received in England with satisfaction. It was generally believed that the insurrection would shortly end in the establishment of constitutional government, that while the troubles lasted France would cease to be formidable, and that consequently a continuance of peace and relief from taxation might be expected. Before long, however, the acts of violence and the spoliation effected by the decrees of the assembly roused widespread disgust. As late as February, 1790, Pitt, while stigmatising the liberty proclaimed in France as "absolute slavery," believed that the commotions would end in order and true liberty. Burke from the first held that the outburst of "Parisian ferocity" proved that it was doubtful whether the French were fit for liberty; he maintained that, though the power of France might cease to be formidable, its example was to be dreaded, and expressed his abhorrence of the destruction of the institutions of the kingdom. Fox, on the other hand, as he had delighted in the American revolution, delighted in the revolution in France. Of the fall of the Bastille, which had made hardly any impression on French public opinion, he wrote: "How much the greatest event it is that has happened in the world; and how much the best!" While he regretted the bloodshed which accompanied the revolution, he constantly declared his exultation in its successes. A comparatively small party of democrats, supported by the political dissenters under the leadership of the Unitarian ministers Price and Priestley, noisily expressed their sympathy with the French democrats; and some men of high position, such as Lords Stanhope and Lansdowne, professed more or less republican principles. The revolution society under the presidency of Stanhope sent an address to the French assembly, and clubs were formed in many large towns "avowedly affiliated to the democratic clubs in France".[220]

The difference between Burke and Fox on this matterwas openly declared in the debate on the army estimates in February, 1790. Fox in a mischievous speech referred to the part taken by the French army in forwarding the revolution, and said that it was a time when he should be least jealous of an increase in the army, since the example of France had shown that "a man by becoming a soldier did not cease to be a citizen". Burke declared that France was setting an example of anarchy, fraud, violence, and atheism, and that the worst part of its example was the interference in civil affairs of "base hireling mutineers" who deserted their officers "to join a furious licentious populace". He protested against a comparison between the revolution in France and the revolution of 1688, between the conduct of the soldiery on that occasion and the behaviour of some of the French troops. His speech, which was received with general applause, had a strong effect on opinion, and Pitt and others expressed their agreement with it. Fox answered him in a conciliatory tone. Sheridan fanned the flame; he taunted Burke with inconsistency, and pronounced a panegyric on the revolutionary leaders. Burke replied that thenceforth he and Sheridan were separated in politics. A rift in the opposition was started, and an attempt to close it by a conference two days later was ineffectual. The opinion of parliament on two other questions during the session was, seemingly, influenced by events in France. Fox renewed the attack on the test acts. He was opposed by Pitt; and Burke, whose speech, Fox said, filled him "with grief and shame," animadverted on the overthrow of the Church in France, and maintained that Price, Priestley, and other dissenters hoped to overthrow the Church of England. Fox's motion was defeated by 294 to 105. A motion for parliamentary reform by Flood, who then represented an English constituency, was opposed by Pitt, Windham, and Burke, and was rejected without a division. The session ended on June 10, and parliament was dissolved.

SPANISH CLAIM TO NOOTKA SOUND.

England reaped material benefit from the temporary extinction of France as a factor in the affairs of Europe, consequent on the proceedings of the assembly. Some difficulties with Spain had been removed by a convention arranged in 1786, by which Great Britain agreed to withdraw the settlers from the Mosquito coast, and the Spanish king allowed them tooccupy a district in Honduras. As this compliance on the part of England checked the smuggling of goods into the Spanish colonies, it was well received by Spain. Hostile feelings towards England soon revived. Florida Blanca, the Spanish minister, was anxious to increase trade with the colonies, and was determined to keep it exclusively for the mother-country. It was impossible to prevent English ships from interfering with it. The colonies of Spanish America were discontented; some insurrections had been made with the object of gaining direct trade with other nations, and the malcontents hoped for help from England.[221]Florida Blanca believed that England sought first to establish direct commercial communication with her Spanish American colonies, and, finally, to separate them from the mother-country.[222]He was determined to prevent these designs, which had no existence in England, and was upheld in his purpose by the extravagant opinion held by himself and his nation as to the strength of their country. He found his opportunity in 1789. Some English merchants had established a settlement at Nootka Sound, off Vancouver's island, for trade in furs and ginseng with China. In April one of their ships with its cargo was seized in the Sound by a Spanish frigate, the officers and crew were maltreated, and two more ships were seized shortly afterwards. Satisfaction was demanded by the English government, and was refused by Spain on the grounds that all lands on the west coast of America as far as 60° north latitude were under the dominion of Spain, and further that Nootka belonged to Spain, because it had been discovered and occupied by a Spanish captain four years before Cook visited those coasts.

CONVENTION WITH SPAIN.

The English government held that these pretensions were inadmissible, for there was no effective occupation by Spain; it refused to discuss them, and claimed that the king's subjects had a right to navigate and fish in those waters and settle on unoccupied lands.[223]Spain prepared for war, and Florida Blanca seems to have made overtures to Austria and Russia in the vain hope that they would enter into an active alliance withhis court.[224]The affair was kept secret in England until May 3, when the preparations of Spain demanded immediate action. On that day an order in council was passed for pressing seamen in every port in the kingdom, and the commons unanimously agreed to a vote of credit of £1,000,000 for expenses. The matter was laid before the two other members of the triple alliance; the Dutch at once fitted out a squadron to act with the British fleet, and a favourable answer was received from the Prussian king. The French ministers, moved by the news of the naval preparations of Great Britain, and expecting to be called on to fulfil the obligation expressed in the family compact, ordered the armament of fourteen ships of the line. On this the national assembly voted that it had the right to decide on questions of war, and on May 22 declared that the French nation renounced wars of conquest. This grandiloquent decree destroyed the effect of the armament. Nevertheless, Spain was set on war; fleets were gathered at Ferrol and Cadiz, and a loan of £4,000,000 was arranged. Florida Blanca seems to have relied on help from the United States, and made some efforts to gain their good-will, but they did not respond to them.[225]From France he peremptorily demanded the assistance to which Louis was pledged by the family compact. His demand was laid before the national assembly, and on August 25 it was decided to substitute a newpacte nationalfor thepacte de famille, and to invite the king to arm forty-five ships for defence, and to revise the treaty; and a suggestion was made to Spain that she might confirm the new compact by the cession of Louisiana. This was mere folly. The English ministers notified the French government that any help given to Spain would be promptly resented,[226]and Florida Blanca seeing that no reliance was to be placed on France entered into negotiations with England. During their progress a fresh cause of offence was given to England; for in September McDonald, captain of a British West Indiaman, reported that his ship had been stopped by a Spanish frigate in the Gulf ofFlorida, that he had been forced to go aboard the Spaniard, and had there been cruelly tortured, being set in the bilboes in the blazing sun.[227]For this outrage satisfaction was promptly made, and on October 28 a treaty was signed between Great Britain and Spain by which Spain yielded to the demands of the British court with reference to the Nootka Sound affair and restored the disputed territory. The submission of Spain marks a complete change in her policy; she sought by compliance towards England to gain the security no longer to be looked for from alliance with France. It was a signal triumph for Pitt, who as usual had directed the proceedings of the foreign office, for Carmarthen, who succeeded his father as Duke of Leeds in 1789, was a feeble person. Pitt had broken up the family compact and could reckon on the compliance of Spain. France was isolated and had exhibited her weakness before the eyes of Europe. The despicable proceedings of the national assembly saved England from a war, and dissolved the alliance which had so long threatened her.[228]

FOOTNOTES:[208]Parl. Hist., xxv., 1094.[209]George III. to Pitt, June 14, 1786, MS. Pitt Papers, 103, quoted in Stanhope'sLife of Pitt, i., App. xix.[210]Parl. Hist., xxvi., 287.[211]Bulkeley to Buckingham, March 10, 1788,Court and Cabinets of George III., i., 360-61;Parl. Hist., xxvii., 115-27.[212]Copies of correspondence relating to the Prince of Wales given by the king to Pitt in Jan., 1787, MS. Pitt Papers, 105; Malmesbury,Diaries, ii., 126-31.[213]Holland,Memoirs of the Whig Party, ii., 123-42; Langdale,Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzherbert, pp. 28-30;Parl. Hist., xxvi., 1019, 1048-56, 1070, 1080.[214]Court and Cabinets, i., 363-64;Auckland Corr., i., 456.[215]Grenville to Buckingham, Nov. 13, 1788,Court and Cabinets, i., 448-49.[216]Same to same, Nov. 30,ibid., ii., 23;Administrations of Great Britain, p. 122 n.[217]Grenville to Buckingham, Dec. 9, 1788,Court and Cabinets, ii., 41.[218]Parl. Hist., xxvii., 1010.[219]Compare Massey,Hist., iii., 383-84, 388, with Jesse,Memoirs of George III., iii., 85sqq., and Lecky,Hist., v., 147sqq.; see alsoCourt and Cabinets, ii., 12, 25, 122;Auckland Corr., ii., 306.[220]Annual Register, xxxii. (1790), 65.[221]Despatches and Papers, MS. Pitt Papers, 345.[222]Fitzherbert to Leeds, June 16, 1790, MS. Spain, R.O.[223]Del Campo to Leeds, Feb. 10, 1790; Memorial, Spain, 18; Leeds to Fitzherbert, Aug. 17, 1790, all MSS. Spain, R.O.[224]Merry to Leeds, Feb. 8, 1790; Fitzherbert to Leeds, Nov. 8, 1790, MSS. Spain, R.O.[225]Fitzherbert to Leeds, June 16, 1790, MS. Spain, R.O.; Bond to Leeds, Jan. 3, 1791,Letters of P. Bond.[226]Leeds to Lord Gower, Sept. 1, 1790, MS. France, R.O.[227]McDonald's Affidavit, Sept. 25, 1790, MS. For. var., 816, R.O.[228]A. Sorel,L'Europe et la Révolution Française, ii., 84-95.

[208]Parl. Hist., xxv., 1094.

[209]George III. to Pitt, June 14, 1786, MS. Pitt Papers, 103, quoted in Stanhope'sLife of Pitt, i., App. xix.

[210]Parl. Hist., xxvi., 287.

[211]Bulkeley to Buckingham, March 10, 1788,Court and Cabinets of George III., i., 360-61;Parl. Hist., xxvii., 115-27.

[212]Copies of correspondence relating to the Prince of Wales given by the king to Pitt in Jan., 1787, MS. Pitt Papers, 105; Malmesbury,Diaries, ii., 126-31.

[213]Holland,Memoirs of the Whig Party, ii., 123-42; Langdale,Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzherbert, pp. 28-30;Parl. Hist., xxvi., 1019, 1048-56, 1070, 1080.

[214]Court and Cabinets, i., 363-64;Auckland Corr., i., 456.

[215]Grenville to Buckingham, Nov. 13, 1788,Court and Cabinets, i., 448-49.

[216]Same to same, Nov. 30,ibid., ii., 23;Administrations of Great Britain, p. 122 n.

[217]Grenville to Buckingham, Dec. 9, 1788,Court and Cabinets, ii., 41.

[218]Parl. Hist., xxvii., 1010.

[219]Compare Massey,Hist., iii., 383-84, 388, with Jesse,Memoirs of George III., iii., 85sqq., and Lecky,Hist., v., 147sqq.; see alsoCourt and Cabinets, ii., 12, 25, 122;Auckland Corr., ii., 306.

[220]Annual Register, xxxii. (1790), 65.

[221]Despatches and Papers, MS. Pitt Papers, 345.

[222]Fitzherbert to Leeds, June 16, 1790, MS. Spain, R.O.

[223]Del Campo to Leeds, Feb. 10, 1790; Memorial, Spain, 18; Leeds to Fitzherbert, Aug. 17, 1790, all MSS. Spain, R.O.

[224]Merry to Leeds, Feb. 8, 1790; Fitzherbert to Leeds, Nov. 8, 1790, MSS. Spain, R.O.

[225]Fitzherbert to Leeds, June 16, 1790, MS. Spain, R.O.; Bond to Leeds, Jan. 3, 1791,Letters of P. Bond.

[226]Leeds to Lord Gower, Sept. 1, 1790, MS. France, R.O.

[227]McDonald's Affidavit, Sept. 25, 1790, MS. For. var., 816, R.O.

[228]A. Sorel,L'Europe et la Révolution Française, ii., 84-95.

DECLARATION OF WAR BY FRANCE.

For the sake of clearness it will be convenient in this chapter to notice first some matters of domestic interest debated in parliament from 1790 to 1792, next to take a general view of English foreign policy, and, lastly, to trace the effects of the French revolution on English politics down to the outbreak of the war with France. The general election of 1790 proved that Pitt had thoroughly gained the confidence of the nation, for it increased his already large majority. The election presented one noteworthy incident; Horne Tooke, though in holy orders, and consequently supposed to be disqualified, presented himself for election at Westminster; he retired before the close of the poll, and the question of the qualification of clergymen to sit in parliament was not decided until 1801. In consequence of the hostility of the chancellor, Pitt needed some one to lead his party in the lords, and chose William Grenville, the secretary of state for home affairs, who was created Baron Grenville. The expenses of the armament against Spain amounted to nearly £3,000,000; the prosperity of the country warranted Pitt's decision not to allow any interruption in the progress of the reduction of debt; he obtained £500,000 from the Bank of England without interest, on the strength of unclaimed dividends, and proposed to obtain the remainder by taxation.The question was raised whether the dissolution put an end to the prosecution of Hastings. That an impeachment was not "abated" by a dissolution had been affirmed by the lords in the case of Lord Danby in 1679, but this decision was reversed in 1685. Precedents were obscure, and the great lawyers differed. Pitt, who on this question sided with Fox and Burke, argued on broad constitutional grounds that an act of the crownshould not hinder the commons in the exercise of a right, and it was agreed by both houses that an impeachment should remainin statu quofrom one parliament to another. The trial was resumed in 1791. After lasting for seven years it ended in 1795 in the acquittal of the accused on every count. The decision was generally approved. If in the midst of extraordinary difficulties Hastings did some things hard to justify, he was at the least a great ruler, firm, self-reliant, patient, and enlightened, who served his country well. He lived until 1818, honoured in his old age.

PITT ON THE SLAVE TRADE.

The relief granted to English Roman catholics in 1778 was extended in 1791. Though they were still precluded from sitting in parliament and holding public offices, a bill introduced by John Mitford, afterwards Lord Redesdale, gave complete freedom of worship and education, admission to the legal profession, and exemption from vexatious liabilities to all catholics who took an oath of an unobjectionable character. Pitt approved of the bill, and Fox supported it, though he wished that it had gone further, and declared his dislike of all tests. A bill placing Scottish catholics in virtually the same position as their co-religionists in England was passed in 1793. The confiscation of Church property in France strengthened the unwillingness of the commons to weaken the position of the Church at home. A motion to relieve the Scottish presbyterians from the obligation of the test act was lost by a large majority, and a motion for the relief of unitarians, which must be noticed later, also failed. Since 1789 Wilberforce had been working on a committee for collecting evidence with respect to the slave trade. In 1791 he made a motion for its abolition which was supported both by Pitt and Fox, but was defeated by 163 to 88. He repeated his motion in 1792. The king had at first favoured the cause, but a shocking massacre of the white population in the French portion of St. Domingo by the negroes, who were excited by the preaching of the "rights of man," turned him against it, and he thenceforward regarded abolition as jacobinical. Thurlow, Hawkesbury, and Dundas were strongly opposed to it. Pitt could not, therefore, make it a government measure without almost certainly wrecking his administration. He supported the motion with a speech of surpassing eloquence. Public opinion made a direct negative nolonger possible; but the West India merchants and planters and the shipping interest were powerful, and the anti-abolitionists were strengthened by the king's known dislike to the cause. The motion was met by arguments for delay, and an amendment proposed by Dundas for gradual abolition was carried. A resolution was finally adopted that the trade should cease in 1796. The lords postponed the question. Year after year Wilberforce, supported by James Stephen, Zachary Macaulay, and others, carried on the struggle for the abolition of the trade with noble persistency. The victory was not attained until 1807.

Another measure on which Pitt and Fox were also in full accord was more successful. Lord Mansfield's pronouncement in the action against Almon, the bookseller, in 1770, which reserved the question of the criminality of a libel for the decision of the court, was, it will be remembered, widely condemned as an invasion of the rights of jurors. Of late years these rights had successfully been maintained by the famous advocate Erskine. When, for example, in 1789, in consequence of a motion by Fox, a publisher, Stockdale, was prosecuted by the crown for a libel on the promoters of the trial of Hastings, Erskine contended that the whole pamphlet in question should be considered by the jury, and procured an acquittal. Fox, who in his early days had jeered at the rights of jurors, introduced a bill in 1791 declaring their right to give a general verdict in a case of libel. His speech was one of his finest; he was ably seconded by Erskine; Pitt gave him his aid, and the bill was passed unanimously by the commons. Thurlow, who disliked the bill, prevailed on the lords to postpone it until the next session. When it was again sent up by the commons in 1792, he obtained a delay until the judges should have been consulted. Their opinion, though hesitating, was unfavourable to the bill. The aged Camden, however, spoke strongly in its favour, and it was carried in spite of the chancellor's opposition. This statute, of which Fox, Erskine, and Pitt share the credit, placed the liberty of the press in the hands of jurors.

EUROPEAN POLITICS.

From 1788 Pitt's foreign policy was directed towards the pacification of Europe and the maintenance of the balance of power by means of the triple alliance between Great Britain, Prussia, and Holland. Catherine of Russia, who was bent on the overthrow of the Turkish empire, and on strengthening herhold on Poland, pressed the Turks until they declared war in 1787. The next year the emperor Joseph declared war against them. Gustavus III. of Sweden allied himself with the Turks and invaded Finland. His expedition failed, and Denmark, the ally of Russia, invaded his kingdom. Sweden was in imminent danger; its overthrow would have given Russia absolute sway in the Baltic; the commerce of England and Holland would have been seriously affected, and the coast of Prussia endangered. The allied powers interfered, and a threat that Prussia would invade Holstein, and a British fleet sail for the Sound, compelled Denmark to cease hostilities, and saved the independence of Sweden. Catherine was deeply offended, and when the allies offered to mediate a peace between her and the Turks, returned a decided refusal. She pressed on the war with success, and the capture of Ochakov extended her dominions to the Dniester.

The emperor's war was unsuccessful. He was in great difficulties; for Hungary was restless and his Netherland provinces in revolt. The allies might have mediated a peace between him and the Turks on the basis of thestatus quobefore the war, had it not been for the desire of Frederick William to use the difficulties of Austria for his own advantage. He designed to compel Austria to a peace by which she should restore Galicia to Poland, in order that in return Poland should cede to him Dantzig and Thorn; and he would have compensated Austria by allowing the emperor to conquer and retain Moldavia and Walachia. He hoped to accomplish this through his alliance with England and Holland, and in order further to weaken Austria proposed that the revolted Netherlands should be united to Holland as one republic, urging that they might otherwise fall into the hands of France. Pitt desired to arrange a peace on thestatus quobasis, and to extend the triple alliance by the inclusion of other powers; and, highly as he valued the Prussian alliance, he would not consent that, merely to aggrandise Prussia, England should lend herself to a policy which would almost certainly have led to a new war. Accordingly, the Duke of Leeds warned Frederick William that his plans went beyond the treaty of alliance, which was purely defensive. The death of the emperor Joseph, on February 20, 1790, changed the situation, for his successor, Leopold II., was a practical andwary statesman. Frederick William was bent on war against Russia and Austria, his minister signed a treaty with the Turks, and he pressed England to acknowledge the independence of the Austrian Netherlands. The English government took a decided line, made him clearly understand that in the event of a war he would be isolated, and proposed an immediate armistice.

Frederick William at last yielded to the representations of England and Holland. Through the mediation of the allies an armistice between Austria and the Turks was arranged on the basis of thestatus quoat a congress at Reichenbach in July, 1790, and a formal peace was concluded the next year at Sistova. The English government, anxious to prevent an alliance between the revolted Netherlands and France, desired the restoration of the Austrian power in the provinces, under conditions which would shut out French influence by satisfying the people; and accordingly the allies guaranteed the liberties of the provinces, and they were regained by the emperor. The ministry agreed with Prussia that support must be given to Sweden, which was exhausted by its war with Russia; a subsidy was promised and a squadron lay in the Downs ready to sail for the Baltic. As soon as Catherine heard of the issue of the conference at Reichenbach, she made a peace with Gustavus without the mediation of the allies, which was concluded at Werela in August. So far, then, in spite of serious difficulties arising from the ambition of the Prussian king, the triple alliance had enabled the government to carry out its policy with success. Its formation secured the Dutch from the ascendency of France; it strengthened the position of England in its quarrel with Spain, saved the independence of Sweden, mediated peace on the basis of thestatus quobetween Austria and the Porte, hindered the spread of French influence in the Netherlands, and indirectly restored peace in the Baltic.

THE RUSSIAN ARMAMENT.

Pitt's policy, however, received one decided check. Catherine rejected the proposal of England that she should make peace with the Turks on the basis of thestatus quobefore the war, and declared that she would keep Ochakov and the line of the Dniester. Pitt differed from the views held by his father, the whigs generally, and the coalition, with reference to Russia. They looked on Russia as the natural ally of England, both for commercial reasons and as a counterpoise to the Bourbonalliance, and Catherine owed much to England's good-will in her war with the Turks in 1770 and during her conquest of Crimea in 1783. Times had changed; and Pitt regarded with displeasure the establishment of Russia on the Black Sea and the prospect of the conquest of Constantinople, and held that the Turks were useful as a check on Russian aggrandisement. The possession of Ochakov was believed to be of the first importance in the struggle between the two powers. Frederick William urged that Catherine should be forced to resign it. In 1790 Pitt was opposing his wishes elsewhere; he was unwilling to alienate him altogether, and agreed to put pressure on Russia. The Turks were repeatedly defeated, and in December Suvorov (Suwarrow) took Ismail; 12,000 Russians and 28,000 Turks perishing in the storming and sack of the city, which are described in Byron's splendid verse. In the following March, in spite of some opposition, Pitt persuaded the cabinet to agree to send a fleet to the Baltic, and a squadron to the Black Sea to assist the Turks, while Frederick William invaded Livonia, and on the 27th an ultimatum was despatched to St. Petersburg.[229]

The next day a royal message to parliament announced the augmentation of the navy. Pitt sought to obtain a pledge that parliament would support the government in its proposed action. He met with strong opposition. Fox and others in both houses maintained that our true policy was to be on good terms with Russia, and that Russia had an undoubted right to retain Ochakov. "The balance of Europe," it was urged, could not be overset by its retention; it was a matter which did not concern England; a war with Russia would be disastrous to English trade and manufactures; if Russia became a power in the Mediterranean so much the better, as its fleet would be a check on the fleets of France and Spain. Burke vehemently protested against England embarking on an "anti-crusade" by assisting "destructive savages," as he called the Turks, against a Christian power. Four times, in one form or another, the question was debated in the commons. The government majorities were large, though less than normal. In the cabinet Grenville opposed the armament, and Pitt found that the feeling of the country generally, and specially of the city of London and themercantile class, was strong on the same side. He yielded on April 16; a messenger was sent in hot haste to St. Petersburg to prevent the presentation of the ultimatum, and the Prussian king was informed that the fleet would not sail to the Baltic. Catherine was triumphant; she kept Ochakov and the line of the Dniester, made terms with the Turks without the intervention of other powers on August 11, 1791, and concluded a definite peace at Jassy in the following January. Freed from her wars with Sweden and the Porte, and from the danger of foreign intervention in both cases, she was again able to pursue her designs on Poland. She complimented Fox on the part he had played, and placed his bust in her palace between those of Demosthenes and Cicero. Pitt, who had lately refused the king's offer of the garter, sarcastically referred in parliament to the compliments his opponent received from a foreign sovereign.

Pitt's prestige was for a time seriously injured by this failure and people talked of a possible change of government. Leeds considered that as foreign secretary he was specially compromised, and resigned the seals. As it was more difficult to find a foreign than a home secretary, Pitt recommended that Grenville should be transferred to the foreign department, that Cornwallis should take Grenville's place, and that, until Cornwallis returned from India, Dundas should have the seals, and further suggested that Lord Hawkesbury (Jenkinson), then president of the board of trade, should be called to the cabinet. George agreed, but as Cornwallis declined the offer Dundas remained home secretary. Pitt learnt that Ochakov was not so important as he at first imagined; indeed the possession of it by the Turks would not have rendered Constantinople safe from attack nor protected Poland from further partition. His failure, however, to carry out his scheme of coercing Russia was a serious matter; it destroyed his hopes of an extension of the defensive alliance, and the triple alliance itself, on which his foreign policy had been built, virtually came to an end. Frederick William was deeply annoyed and, in order to strengthen his position with regard to Russia, made advances to Austria, which led to an alliance between the two powers and to their joint invasion of France.

The opinion of the great majority of the nation with regard to the revolution in France was decided by the publication ofBurke'sReflections on the French Revolutionin November, 1790. This famous work was primarily intended to rebut the assertions of Price and others that the revolution in France was a more perfect development of the ideas of the English revolution of 1688, that Englishmen had a right to choose their own governors, cashier them for misconduct, and frame a government for themselves. It describes the constitution as an inheritance to be handed down to posterity uninjured and, if needs be, improved, and exhibits and condemns the measures of the French assembly as precipitate, unjust, and doomed to failure. Splendid alike as a literary achievement and as a store-house of political wisdom, it is also remarkable as a proof of Burke's prescience, for though he wrote at an early stage of the revolution, before those savage excesses which have made it a by-word, he foretold its future course, not indeed without errors, but with wonderful sagacity. Superbly national in sentiment, the book met the propaganda of French ideas by appealing to the pride with which Englishmen regarded their own institutions. Its success was immense. Paine answered it in hisRights of Man, expressing revolutionary ideas with a crude force which influenced thousands too ignorant to detect its fallacies; and Mackintosh in hisVindiciæ Gallicæexpounded in polished sentences the position of the whig sympathisers with the revolution. Neither undid the effect of Burke's work. Of the well-to-do of all classes there was scarcely one man in twenty who did not become an ardent anti-jacobin.

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