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.
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 maynot 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 equalactivity 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 atthe 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 himentirely, 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 andlessthan 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....
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 himentirely, 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 andlessthan 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 thePost 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 theConsolidated 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....
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 theConsolidated 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 doso. 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.
ADDINGTON OR PITT?
Once more doth Pitt deem the land crying loud to him—Frail though and spent, and an hungered for restfulnessOnce more responds he, dead fervours to energizeAims 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.
Henry Dundas, First Viscount Melville. (From a painting by Sir T. Lawrence)
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 on23rd 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, sofar 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 youmustnot 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....
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, sofar 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 youmustnot 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? TheKing, 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. Onthe 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 twohereditary 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 alevée 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 tothe 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 atribe of military attendants. But what is all this pageantry compared with the unaffected simplicity of real greatness!
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 atribe 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 almoststillso 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.
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 almoststillso 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 intimatefriends 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 thepaucity 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."
"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 toenliven 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 aschaperonat balls which obviously bored him. Yet he would patiently wait there until, perhaps, four a.m., when Lady Hester returned to end hisennui. 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 tofinesse, 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: