This horrible secret article has finished me. It stood with its mouth open, and from mere cowardice I have run into it, and it will devour me. I am persuaded, however, that it would equally have caught me if I had run away. There is something, however, in every view of it which agonises me. I am anxious beyond imagination to know what passes in England upon it and conclude I shall by the next newspaper. Would it be impossible to prevail upon the King to listen to the idea of a sort of Barrier-treaty for Hanover, which would give Prussia a military frontier but not the territorial possession?[752]
This horrible secret article has finished me. It stood with its mouth open, and from mere cowardice I have run into it, and it will devour me. I am persuaded, however, that it would equally have caught me if I had run away. There is something, however, in every view of it which agonises me. I am anxious beyond imagination to know what passes in England upon it and conclude I shall by the next newspaper. Would it be impossible to prevail upon the King to listen to the idea of a sort of Barrier-treaty for Hanover, which would give Prussia a military frontier but not the territorial possession?[752]
On 8th December, after hearing the first news of Austerlitz, he writes in equally dolorous strains, concluding with a request that Pitt would send a frigate to the mouth of the Elbe to bring away his coffin. Again he writes in these pathetic terms:
Most secret.Berlin,12 Dec. 1805.[753]Dear Pitt,The current of events has been so rapid, and the embarrassments they produce from every quarter is [sic] so intolerable, that, weakened as my brain has been by nervous spasms of giddiness, I hardly keep my senses. Cool judgment is required; and I can only take steps in a state of agitation—repent; and there is something more to berepented of. I shall not long stand it; but, in the meantime, what mischief may not have happened! The sacrifice of myself is nothing. All is over with me even if I survive. I am tolerably at intervals, but every fresh occurrence brings with it distraction. I tremble at the consequences. You can conceive no state of mind, or rather of mind and body operating upon each other; you cannot even pity it; you can only despise it. Good God. If it be possible, do not betray me. I may recover. I try to disguise my feelings. I write to my wife with affected cheerfulness. She would not survive. For heaven's sake, keep this to yourself.Yours ever,Harrowby.
Most secret.
Berlin,12 Dec. 1805.[753]
Dear Pitt,
The current of events has been so rapid, and the embarrassments they produce from every quarter is [sic] so intolerable, that, weakened as my brain has been by nervous spasms of giddiness, I hardly keep my senses. Cool judgment is required; and I can only take steps in a state of agitation—repent; and there is something more to berepented of. I shall not long stand it; but, in the meantime, what mischief may not have happened! The sacrifice of myself is nothing. All is over with me even if I survive. I am tolerably at intervals, but every fresh occurrence brings with it distraction. I tremble at the consequences. You can conceive no state of mind, or rather of mind and body operating upon each other; you cannot even pity it; you can only despise it. Good God. If it be possible, do not betray me. I may recover. I try to disguise my feelings. I write to my wife with affected cheerfulness. She would not survive. For heaven's sake, keep this to yourself.
Yours ever,
Harrowby.
To what mistake Harrowby here alludes is a mystery. But George Jackson states that he had three fits at Berlin, besides spasms every day. Indeed his state was so pitiable that his selection for this difficult post was matter of general comment. The physicians strongly urged him to return to England at once.[754]Pitt cannot have received Harrowby's pathetic confession when he replied as follows, probably to the letter of the 8th:
Bath,Dec. 21st, 1805.[755]Dear Harrowby,I was prevented from writing a few lines as I intended by the messenger we sent from hence yesterday. We are sending orders for another today to pass through Berlin on his way to the Emperor's head-quarters, to remind them of sending the ratification which we have never yet received. We have nothing very authentic from the armies later than your despatch of the 9th by estafette, but there are accounts thro' Hamburg from Berlin of the 10th, corroborated by reports from various quarters, which lead us to hope that the sequel of the battle at length terminated in great success on the part of Russia. If this proves true, I flatter myself your subsidiary treaty will have been soon brought to a prosperous issue, and you will be delivered from all your fatigue and anxiety. I am quite grieved to think how much you have suffered, tho' I trust your complaint is only temporary, and that a good battle and a good treaty will send you back to us in better health than you went. I see no danger of your exceeding our limit in the amount of subsidy, as we looked if necessary to an actual annual payment of £3,000,000, and the number proposed in the treaty, of 180,000Prussians and 40,000 Allies, will not require more than £2,750,000, which still leaves room for 25,000 men more if they are wanted and can be had. I have been here for ten days and have already felt the effect of the waters in a pretty smart fit of the gout from which I am just recovering, and of which I expect soon to perceive the benefit.Ever yours,W. Pitt.I need hardly tell you that every step you have taken has been exactly what we should have desired.
Bath,Dec. 21st, 1805.[755]
Dear Harrowby,
I was prevented from writing a few lines as I intended by the messenger we sent from hence yesterday. We are sending orders for another today to pass through Berlin on his way to the Emperor's head-quarters, to remind them of sending the ratification which we have never yet received. We have nothing very authentic from the armies later than your despatch of the 9th by estafette, but there are accounts thro' Hamburg from Berlin of the 10th, corroborated by reports from various quarters, which lead us to hope that the sequel of the battle at length terminated in great success on the part of Russia. If this proves true, I flatter myself your subsidiary treaty will have been soon brought to a prosperous issue, and you will be delivered from all your fatigue and anxiety. I am quite grieved to think how much you have suffered, tho' I trust your complaint is only temporary, and that a good battle and a good treaty will send you back to us in better health than you went. I see no danger of your exceeding our limit in the amount of subsidy, as we looked if necessary to an actual annual payment of £3,000,000, and the number proposed in the treaty, of 180,000Prussians and 40,000 Allies, will not require more than £2,750,000, which still leaves room for 25,000 men more if they are wanted and can be had. I have been here for ten days and have already felt the effect of the waters in a pretty smart fit of the gout from which I am just recovering, and of which I expect soon to perceive the benefit.
Ever yours,
W. Pitt.
I need hardly tell you that every step you have taken has been exactly what we should have desired.
He who wrote these cheering words was in worse health than Harrowby. The latter lived on till the year 1847; Pitt had now taken his last journey but one. Sharp attacks of gout had reduced him to so weak and tremulous a state that he could scarcely lift a glass to his lips. So wrote Mrs. Jackson on 9th December, long before the news of Austerlitz reached these shores.[756]So far back as 27th November, Canning, in prophetic strains, begged him not to defer a projected visit to Bath until it was too late for the waters to do him good. But "the pilot that weathered the storm" refused to leave the tiller in case decisive news came from Harrowby. He also prepared to strengthen his Cabinet against the attacks certain to be made in the ensuing session, by including in it two excellent speakers, Canning and Charles Yorke, the latter taking the Board of Control. Why he did not complete these changes, as Canning begged him to do, is far from clear. Possibly the sharp though friendly criticism which Canning levelled against the Anglo-Russian expedition to Hanover made him apprehensive of divisions in the Cabinet on a question which was very near his heart. Certainly much could be said in favour of an expedition to Walcheren, which Canning urged should be entrusted to General M[oore?]. Pitt preferred the Hanoverian enterprise, doubtless because it would lay Russia and Prussia under a debt of honour to co-operate to the utmost of their power.
At last the strain became too great, and on 7th December Pitt set out for Bath, arriving there on the 11th. He resided at Harrowby's house, 11, Laura Place. His stay in Bath aroused interest so intense that he found it necessary to vary the time of his visits to the Pump Room in order to escape the crowdwhich would otherwise have incommoded him.[757]As has just appeared, he expected a speedy recovery; for, as was the case with his father, if the attack of gout ran a normal course, the system felt relief. Freedom from worry was the first condition of amendment. After his retirement from office in 1768 Chatham recovered so quickly that his opponents gibed at the illness as a political device.[758]Ten years later he succumbed to excitement and strain.
During the first part of his stay at Bath, Pitt was in good spirits and wrote cheerfully about his health. The following letter to his London physician, Sir Walter Farquhar, is not that of a man who feels death approaching:
Bath,Dec. 15. 1805.[759]The gout continues pretty smartly in my foot; and I find from Mr. Crooks that it is attended with a feverish pulse and some other symptoms of the same nature. I have communicated to Mr. Crooks your directions, and he is to send me the saline draughts with some little addition, which he will explain to you. I thought he would detail symptoms more precisely than I could, and have therefore desired him to write to you. On the whole, I have no doubt the plan you have laid down will answer, and I do not at present see the smallest occasion to accept your kind and friendly offer of coming here.P.S. 4.30P.M.I enclose Mr. Crooks' letter to you. His account to me of the pulse was that it was not strong, but quick and beating near an hundred. One of the saline draughts which I have taken since I wrote the foregoing letter, seems, as far as I can judge from feeling, already to have had a very good effect.
Bath,Dec. 15. 1805.[759]
The gout continues pretty smartly in my foot; and I find from Mr. Crooks that it is attended with a feverish pulse and some other symptoms of the same nature. I have communicated to Mr. Crooks your directions, and he is to send me the saline draughts with some little addition, which he will explain to you. I thought he would detail symptoms more precisely than I could, and have therefore desired him to write to you. On the whole, I have no doubt the plan you have laid down will answer, and I do not at present see the smallest occasion to accept your kind and friendly offer of coming here.
P.S. 4.30P.M.I enclose Mr. Crooks' letter to you. His account to me of the pulse was that it was not strong, but quick and beating near an hundred. One of the saline draughts which I have taken since I wrote the foregoing letter, seems, as far as I can judge from feeling, already to have had a very good effect.
Not until ten days later do we find signs of alarm in the letters of his friends; for it is characteristic of his buoyant nature that he never wrote despondingly about himself. There is a well-known story to the effect that, on hearing the news of Austerlitz, he called for a map of Europe, to see where the place was, and then said with a sigh: "Roll up that map: it will not bewanted these ten years." One version assigns the incident to Shockerwick House, near Bath. Pitt is looking over the picture gallery, and is gazing at Gainsborough's portrait of the actor Quin. His retentive memory calls up the lines in Churchill's "Characters":
Nature, in spite of all his skill, crept in—Horatio, Dorax, Falstaff—still 'twas Quin.
At that moment he hears the beat of a horse's hoofs. A courier dashes up. He comes in, splashed with mud, hands the despatches. Pitt tears them open and hurriedly reads them. His countenance changes, he calls for brandy, then for a map, and is finally helped to his carriage, uttering the historic phrase.[760]In another version he mournfully rolls out the words to Lady Hester Stanhope, as she welcomes him in the hall of Bowling Green House, after his last journey to his home on Putney Heath.[761]The words probably fell from him on some occasion. But at the risk of incurring the charge of pedantry, I must point out that the news of Austerlitz did not come on him as one overwhelming shock: it filtered through by degrees. As we have seen, he wrote to Harrowby on 21st December, stating that reports from Berlin and other quarters represented the sequel to the battle as a great success for the Russians. It appears that Thornton, our envoy at Hamburg, wrote as follows on 13th December to Mulgrave: "From everything I can learn (for the details are even yet far from being circumstantial and decisive) the tide of success had completely turned in favour of the Russian and Austrian armies, tho', as the conflict still continued to the 4th and perhaps to the 5th, it could not be positively said on which side the victory had been declared. The certain intelligence cannot now be long delayed."[762]
Castlereagh also, writing to Pitt on 19th December, assured him that he had heard similar news through various channels, and therefore cherished high hopes that something good had happened.[763]Mulgrave, who was then also at Bath along with Bathurst, Hawkesbury, and Canning, shared these hopes. Despite the first reports of Austerlitz, which were promptly contradicted,the Ministerial circle at Bath had no want of diversion. On 12th December Mulgrave sent to Pitt a short poem on Trafalgar for his correction, and Pitt touched up a few lines. On 21st December Mulgrave wrote to him: "I send you Woronzow [Vorontzoff] and Ward,faute de mieux. I was rejoiced to find you were gone out in your carriage when I called at your home after church. As Bathurst, Canning, and the gout have left you, I hope you will be able to return to the mess to-morrow." This does not imply that Pitt was living the life of an invalid, or was kept to so strict a diet as during his sojourn at Bath three years before.
Equally hopeful was the estimate of Canning. He spent a week with Pitt at Bath, and, after leaving him shortly before Christmas, informed a friend that Pitt was "recovering from a fit of the gout, which has done him abundance of good, and puts off the time of his driving after old Frere—I trust to an incalculable distance.... There wants only an official confirmation of all the good news (that has reached us through every possible channel except those of Office) to complete it."[764]
Canning, we may note here, had discussed with Pitt his projected poem—"Ulm and Trafalgar" (which bore the motto "Look here, upon this picture, and on that"). It began:
While Austria's yielded armies, vainly brave,Moved, in sad pomp, by Danube's blood-stained wave
and ended with a noble acclaim to Nelson:
Thou, bravest, gentlest Spirit, fare thee well.
On the first line Canning plumed himself until he remembered the warning of an old tutor at Magdalen, that when anything in your verses pleased you very much, it was best to strike it out. Canning referred the phrase "yielded armies" to Pitt, who probably found relief from his cares in touching up the poem.[765]That Christmastide, then, was a time of anxiety, but not of settled gloom. There is no sign that Pitt or his colleagues felt the position to be desperate until the end of the year. OnChristmas Day Castlereagh wrote from Downing Street to Pitt: "I am sorry to add to your materials for criticism and speculation. I send you Cooke's 'Courant,' There is intelligence in the City from Amsterdam of the 21st. Nothing official known here of anarmistice. You have received from Lord B[arham?] every information from that quarter."[766]
Indeed, the hopefulness of Ministers now involved them in greater difficulties. Building on Prussia's promises, they decided early in December to order the despatch of strong reinforcements to the British corps then on the point of entering Hanover.[767]In all, as many as 65,000 British and King's Germans were to be sent—the largest force that had ever set sail from these shores, a fact which testifies to the ardour of Pitt's desires for the liberation of Hanover and Holland. Even the immediate results of this decision were disastrous. Sixty-seven transports, forthwith setting sail, encountered a terrible storm, which flung three of them on the enemy's coast, while one sank with all hands on the Goodwins. Such was the purport of the news sent by Castlereagh to Pitt at Bath on 19th December. He added that, in spite of these losses, "the little Cabinet of five" (with Lord Barham in attendance) decided to order all the remaining transports to sail, so that Prussia might be encouraged to "throw her strength to the southward. We have acted for the best, and I hope you and your companions will approve."[768]Pitt, of course, did approve, not knowing that while England was encountering heavy risks in order to effect the liberation of North Germany, her Allies had come to terms with Napoleon.
At last, on 29th December, definite news concerning the armistice of 4th December reached London. It must have chilled the hearts of the boldest. For, trusting in the continued exertions of the Allies, England had sent to North Germany as many as 257 transports, and of these 8 were now known to be lost, involving the death of 664 men, and the capture of about 1,000 on the enemies' coasts. All this effort and loss of life now appeared to be useless, in view of the vacillating conduct of Prussia. Only with her good will could the British troops, with the Russian and Swedish contingents, hope to conquer Holland. If she declared against us, the whole force would be in jeopardy. Such were the tidings which Castlereagh bore withhim to Pitt at the end of the year.[769]Not a line survives respecting that mournful interview; but we can picture the deathly look coming over Pitt's emaciated features as he now for the first time faced the prospect of the dissolution of the mighty league which he had toiled to construct. Probably it was this shock to the system which brought on a second attack of the gout, accompanied with great weakness and distaste for food.[770]
Nevertheless he clung to the hope that Prussia would stand firm. On 3rd January 1806 further news reached him from the Austrian and Prussian Governments. The Austrian despatches represented Austerlitz as a repulse, but not a disaster, and the armistice as a device for enabling Prussia to prepare her blow at Napoleon's flank or rear. On 5th January Mulgrave found in the despatches from Berlin grounds for believing that that Court might under certain conditions assist the two Emperors in Moravia and the British force in Hanover. On the morrow he wrote to Pitt in emphatic terms, urging him to offer to Prussia the Dutch Republic. That little State (he urged) could not again be independent, save in circumstances now scarcely imaginable, much less realizable. Further, the Stadholder having very tamely accepted the domain of Fulda as an indemnity, we need feel no qualms for the House of Nassau; and, as Prussia was influenced solely by territorial greed, and Hanover was out of the question, she might well acquire the Dutch Netherlands, which would link her to British interests.[771]Again we have to admit ignorance of Pitt's opinion on this degrading proposal. Certainly it never took definite shape.[772]Though willing to assign to Prussia the Belgic Netherlands, he laid great stress on the independence of the Dutch Netherlands, which indeed was the corner-stone of his foreign policy. Moreover, to barter away an unoffending little State was to repeat the international crimes of the partitions of Poland and Venetia. We may be sure that that proud and just spirit would rather have perished than stoop to such ignominy.
In effect, he fell a victim to his resolve never to barter away the patrimony of George III. We now know that Prussia's policy at this crisis turned mainly on the acquisition of Hanover. Her envoy, Haugwitz, whom she sent to Napoleon's headquarters charged with the offer of Prussia's armed mediation on behalf of Europe, had on 15th December signed with him the humiliating Convention of Schönbrunn, whereby Prussia agreed to make certain cessions of territory on condition of acquiring Hanover. About Christmastide Frederick William decided to close with this offer, which involved the expulsion of the Anglo-Russian force from the Electorate. Premonitory signs of this change of front were soon visible at Berlin. Indeed, the trend of Prussian policy during the last decade prepared the British Ministry for the ruin of their hopes. Pitt must have been racked with anxiety lest Prussia should doff the lion's skin and don that of the jackal; for he alone knew of the nervous breakdown of Harrowby.
Perhaps it was the hope of helping on that negotiation from Downing Street, added to the verdict of Sir Walter Farquhar that the Bath waters were now of no avail, which induced him on 9th January to set out on his homeward journey. He was believed to be in better health than at the time of his arrival; such at least was the announcement of the "Bath Herald" on the 11th; and his hopeful outlook appears in a curious detail which afterwards came to light. In order to beguile the tedium of the journey he had taken out from a circulating library in Bath the following works, each in two volumes, "The Secret History of the Court of Petersburg," and Schiller's "History of the Thirty Years' War."[773]A man who believes death to be near does not undertake a study of the manifold intrigues of Catharine II, or of the Thirty Years' War. He also had the prospect of seeing the liveliest and most devoted of friends, Canning, at his country home, South Hill, Bracknell, in Windsor Forest. Canning sent the invitation on the 5th, and it was accepted on the 8th in terms which implied a sojourn of some days. He offered to accompany him from Bath, if he felt strong enough to converse on the way; but Pitt declined this offer, and it is doubtful whether he stayed at South Hill; for Malmesbury declares that he had to remain along time in bed at Reading. On the other hand the Bishop of Lincoln declared that the journey took only two days, and that at its close Pitt showed no very marked signs of fatigue. Lady Hester Stanhope, however, was shocked by his wasted appearance on reaching his home, Bowling Green House, on Putney Heath.
Some eighteen months earlier he had leased that residence. It stands on the (old) Portsmouth Road, and had earlier been an inn frequented by lovers of that game and patrons of cockfighting. After enlargement it had been converted into a gentleman's abode which well suited the modest requirements of Pitt and of his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope.[774]There, not far from the scenes of his youthful frolics with Wilberforce, and only a quarter of a mile from the dell where he fought the duel with Tierney, he found solace from the ever-increasing cares of state. In those last months Hester felt for him feelings akin to adoration.
Bowling Green House, Putney Heath. (From a pencil sketch by Elsie H. Rose)
On the morrow, Sunday, their circle was enlarged by the arrival of his old friend and counsellor, Bishop Tomline, who was shocked at the change which had taken place in him since he left for Bath. The physicians, Farquhar, Reynolds, and Baillie, however, saw no cause for alarm, the only disquieting symptoms being intense weakness and dislike of animal food. There is a forcibly significant phrase in a recent letter of George Rose to Tomline, that he dreaded the effect on the invalid of an excessive use of medicines.[775]Evidently Rose believed the digestive organs to be impaired by this habit. Pitt's daily potations of port wine for many years past must further have told against recovery. Whether Farquhar and his colleagues cut off medicine and sought to build up that emaciated frame is uncertain. All that we know is that they prescribed complete quiet, and therefore requested the bishop to open all Pitt's letters so as to preclude all chance of excitement.
On 12th January, Pitt wrote an affectionate letter to the Marquis Wellesley, welcoming him on his return from his memorable Vice-royalty in India. He begged him to come to BowlingGreen House at the earliest opportunity. The letter closes with these remarkable words: "I am recovering rather slowly from a series of stomach complaints, followed by severe attacks of gout, but I believe I am now in the way of real amendment."[776]The Bishop also describes him as gaining ground until Monday the 13th. On that day he went out in his coach in the morning, but in the evening Lords Castlereagh and Hawkesbury, having obtained permission from the physicians to interview their chief, communicated news which had a most agitating effect. Pitt afterwards assured the Bishop "that he felt during that conversation some sensation in his stomach which he feared it might be difficult to remove."[777]It is surprising that the physicians allowed an interview of an agitating nature; but the ministerial pressure brought to bear on them may have overborne their better judgement. In matters of Cabinet discipline Pitt was an autocrat, insisting that no important action should be taken without his cognizance. Probably, then, it was his own sense of responsibility which exposed him to the death blow.
Certainly the question at issue was of the gravest kind. Should Ministers order the return of the British reinforcements last sent to Hanover? That expedition was the work of Pitt. He it was who had reared the fabric of a European Coalition; and, even after the withdrawal of Austria, he clung to the hope that Prussia would take her place, and, with the help of British, Prussian, Russian, and Swedish troops, drive the French from North Germany and the Dutch Republic. How could his colleagues order back a large part of the British force, thereby justifying the vacillations of Prussia and ensuring a parliamentary triumph to Fox and Grenville? And yet Ministers knew, better than Pitt could know, the danger of relying on the Court of Berlin. Though not yet fully aware of its resolve to take Napoleon's side, they had strong reasons for expecting this course of action; and in that case the British expedition would be in grave danger between the Prussians on the east, the Franco-Dutch forces on the south-west and the ice-floes which were forming on the River Weser. Prudence counselled the timely return of our troops who were yet on board ship at or near Bremen.[778]Patriotic pride prompted a bold offensive. But the King and Pitt alone could utter the decisive words. The King approved the returnof the last reinforcements, and Pitt, it seems, must have conceded the point. But the concession struck him to the heart. It was the last of the deadly stabs which fate dealt him thick and fast in his time of weakness.
Nevertheless, on the morrow he drove out in his carriage, but was visibly weaker than before the interview. For a few minutes he saw his brother and then Lord Wellesley. The latter found his mind as clear as ever; and he uttered these remarkable words about Sir Arthur Wellesley: "He states every difficulty before he undertakes any service, but none after he has undertaken it." What a prophecy of Vittoria and Waterloo there is in these words—the swan-song of Pitt. It was too much for him. He fainted before Wellesley left the room. On the 18th he rallied for a time, and the doctors saw a gleam of hope.[779]
In reality there was only one faint chance of recovery, that good news might arrive. The chief cause of physical collapse was the torture of the brain; and it was possible that the whole system might even now rally under the vitalizing thrills of hope. But as day by day passed by and brought nearer that dreaded occasion, the opening of Parliament on 22nd January, this last chance vanished. The news which reached the Foreign Office became more and more gloomy. On 10th January Mulgrave decided, when recalling Harrowby, to entrust his mission at Berlin to the Earl of Harrington, in the hope that that Court would keep troth.[780]But all negotiation was useless. By the 19th the conduct of Prussia respecting Hanover appeared so threatening that Ministers ordered the immediate recall of the whole British force.[781]Thus, England had sent forth some 60,000 troops in order to bring them back again. She had paid a million sterling to Austria, and the results were Ulm and Austerlitz. Nearly as much had gone to Russia, and the outcome was the armistice. A British subsidy had been claimed by Prussia, and in return she was about to take Hanover as a gift from Napoleon. It is to be hoped that Ministers kept the last bitter truth from Pitt; but from their silence he must have augured the worst. Surely death itself was better than to be driven from power bythe combined attacks of Fox, Grenville, and Windham, the success of which was now assured.
A touching instance of Pitt's thoughtfulness during these days of waning strength is recorded by Robert Plumer Ward. He had accepted office as Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs; but, in the event of the overthrow of the Ministry, he would be in a far worse position than before. Pitt remembered this fact, and whispered to Farquhar the words "Robert Ward." He also made signs for paper and ink and sought to pen a request for a pension; but he succeeded only in tracing strokes which could not be deciphered.[782]His thoughts were also with his nieces, especially Lady Hester Stanhope. Farquhar sought to prevent a parting interview with her; but during his temporary absence she slipped into the bedroom, there to receive the blessing of her uncle and an affectionate farewell. To her brother James, who then came in, he said; "Dear soul, I know she loves me. Where is Hester? Is Hester gone?" Early on the 22nd he dictated these words to the bishop: "I wish £1,000 or £1,500 a year to be given to my nieces if the public should think my long services deserving it; but I do not presume to think I have earned it."[783]He then named those to whom since 1801 he owed sums of money: Long, Steele, Lords Camden and Carrington, the Bishop of Lincoln and Joseph Smith; he also entrusted his papers to the bishop and to Lord Chatham.
Already Bishop Tomline had warned him of his approaching change and besought him to prepare his mind for the Sacrament. This he declined, alleging his unworthiness to receive it. Thereupon the bishop prayed with him. He calmly murmured the responses and humbly confessed that he had too much neglected prayer. Nevertheless, he affirmed the steadiness of his religious faith and principles, and declared that he had ever sought to fulfil his duty to God and to mankind, though with many errors and failures. While the bishop was overcome with emotion, the dying man thanked him earnestly for all his kindness throughout life. Once his thoughts recurred to his own conduct; he expressed heartfelt satisfaction at the innocency of his life, and declared that he died in perfect charity with all mankind.[784]
He lingered on to the early hours of 23rd January, the twenty-fifth anniversary of his entry into Parliament. During that night the cares of state once more pressed upon him. He spoke often about a private letter from Lord Harrowby, probably the pathetic effusion quoted above. At times he asked his nephew the direction of the wind, and on hearing it was in the east he murmured: "East—ah that will do: that will bring him quick."[785]Then he fell into conversation with a messenger, or, again, he murmured "Hear, hear," until sleep enfolded him. The last thoughts of Napoleon are said to have centred in his early love and his army—"Joséphine:—Tête d'armée" he gasped as he neared his end. In Pitt's being there was but one master passion; and to it his wandering fancies returned during a last brief spell of consciousness. As James Stanhope listened to the breathing, there fell on his ears with a strange clearness the words: "My country! How I leave my country!" Then the sufferer fell once more into a deep sleep; and so he lay, until, some three hours before the dawn, his spirit passed away in a long-drawn sigh.
Now is the stately column brokeThe beacon-light is quench'd in smoke,The trumpet's silver sound is stillThe warder silent on the hill.Scott,Marmion.
This noble epitaph to the memory of Pitt conveys an impression alike of heroic endeavour and of irretrievable failure. It is the Funeral March of Chopin, not of Handel, and it echoes the feeling of the time. An impenetrable darkness hung over England. Ulm, Austerlitz, the armistice, and the desertion of the Allies by Prussia were successive waves of calamity, which obliterated all landmarks and all means of safety. The dying words of Pitt found response in every breast, with this difference, that, while he was proudly conscious of the correctness of his aims, the many, who judge solely by tangible results, imputed to him the disasters of the war and the collapse of the Coalition. Even Auckland exclaimed that the continental alliances had been wretchedly mismanaged, a remark which Malmesbury treated with quiet contempt. Grenville, who was about to move a vote of censure on the Ministry, burst into an agony of tears on hearing that Pitt was at death's door. His distress of mind probably arose from a belated perception of the factiousness of his own conduct and from grief at the unrelieved gloom of the end of a career whose meridian splendour had shed lustre upon him.
The House of Commons did not whole-heartedly accord to the deceased statesman a burial in Westminster Abbey in the tomb of Chatham. A motion to that effect, moved by Lascelles and seconded by the Marquis of Titchfield, was strongly opposed by Fox, George Ponsonby, Windham, and three other speakers. It passed by 258 votes to 59. Still more painful was the discussion in the Common Council of the City of London, where aproposal to erect a monument to Pitt was carried only by 77 votes to 71. It is safe to say that, if the fortune of war had gone against France at Ulm and Austerlitz, Pitt would have been ecstatically hailed as the saviour of Europe, as indeed he was at the Guildhall after Trafalgar. How long was it before it dawned on Auckland, Windham, and the seventy-one councillors of the City of London, that the censures cast on the memory of Pitt ought to have been levelled at the defender of Ulm, the Czar Alexander and his equally presumptuous advisers at Austerlitz, and most of all at the cringing politicians of Berlin?
It is now abundantly clear that Pitt fell a victim to his confidence in the rulers of three great monarchies, whose means were vast, whose promises were lofty, and whose surrender after the first reverses baffled all forecasts. The descendants of Maria Theresa and Catharine tamely retired from the fray after a single adverse blow; and the successor of the great Frederick sheathed his sword after the unpardonable insult at Anspach.
In truth, the career of Pitt came to a climax at a time of unexampled decadence of the ancient dynasties. The destinies of the allied Houses of Bourbon rested upon Louis XVI of France and Charles IV of Spain. To the ineptitude of the former the French Revolution was in large measure due. To the weakness and falsity of the latter we may ascribe the desertion of the royalist cause by Spain in 1795–6, with the train of disastrous results in the Mediterranean and the West Indies. In Central Europe Francis of Austria was scarcely more than a tool in the hands of those subtle schemers, Thugut and Cobenzl. The boundless resources of Russia were at the disposal of Paul and Alexander, who, with all their generous impulses, were incapable of steadily applying them to one definite end. Only after weary years of subservience to Napoleon did Alexander develop that firmness of character which finally brought salvation to the Continent. From Frederick William even deeper humiliations failed to evoke any heroic resolve. Among the statesmen of those three monarchies at the time of Pitt there is but one who was a fit compeer to him; and the fates willed that Stein should not control affairs until the year 1807. The age of Pitt was the age of Godoy, Thugut, and Haugwitz—weavers of old-world schemes of partition or barter, and blind to the storm gathering in the West.
The importance of his achievements in curbing their ambitionsand saving the smaller States has not received due recognition. He did much to rescue the Dutch Netherlands from anarchy, and Sweden and Turkey from the clutches of powerful neighbours. He failed, indeed, in his diplomatic contest with Catharine; but the duplicity of the Court of Berlin, and the factious opposition of the Whigs, made success impossible; and he had thereafter to look on helplessly at the final Partitions of Poland. Only those who have probed the policy of Russia, Austria, and Prussia in the years 1787–92 can fully realize the difficulties which attended his efforts to frame a solid league against Revolutionary France. As well might one attempt out of rubble to build a cannon-proof rampart.
At home Pitt had to deal with George III. Now, even under a limited monarchy the fortunes of a statesman depend largely on the character of his Sovereign. While possessing the initiative which proffers timely advice, it should be under the control of unfailing tact. Dowered with insight into character and foresight as to the trend of events, the Monarch must, for the most part, subordinate energy to self-repression and the prophetic instinct to the warnings of courtly sagacity. Yet the ideal British ruler must at times assert his will, albeit indirectly, and with the personal charm which ensures the smooth working of this delicately poised machine. He should therefore be the embodiment of all the political virtues. Will even the admirers of George claim that he realized that ideal? However excellent as Elector of Hanover, he was a doubtful blessing as King of Great Britain and Ireland.
In truth, the Hanoverian strain in his nature had not been toned to the degree of fineness needful for the kingly office in these islands. In a time of peculiar difficulty he sought to govern almost absolutely by means which ensured the temporary subservience of Parliament, and in a spirit which brought disruption upon the Empire. The former half of Pitt's career was largely occupied in repairing the financial waste consequent on the American War, or in making good long arrears of legislation. Here, indeed, is his most abiding contribution to the national welfare. But his indebtedness to the King on questions of foreign and domestic policy is rarely apparent. Reform, whether Economical or Parliamentary, encountered the more or less declared opposition of the Sovereign. On the other hand, George showed marked ability in the support of corporate interestsand the management of men; so that his relations to Pitt were not unlike those of the Duke of Newcastle to Chatham. The Pitts supplied the brain power while the Monarch or the Duke by the award of favours ensured the needful degree of subservience at the polls or in the lobbies of St. Stephens.
After the "surrender" at the close of the American War, the attitude of George towards his British subjects was one of scarcely concealed scorn. Now and again his feelings burst forth uncontrollably. Shortly before his second attack of lunacy, which occurred near the end of the fortieth year of his reign, he astonished the congregation in church by repeating in loud and emphatic tones the response: "Forty years long was I grieved with this generation and said: 'It is a people that do err in their hearts, for they have not known My ways.'" The tones of the voice betokened the approach of lunacy, but the conviction of the mind was always the same. For the most part, however, scorn was tempered by calculation. His letters to Pitt are full of commendation of the House of Commons when it unquestioningly passed Government Bills or the Supplies; whereas he looked on Fox and Burke as baneful and wearisome talkers, consumers of time, and foes to healthful slumber. Similarly, in his political catechism, the whole duty of Parliament was to help Ministers to govern; while their proper function was to raise the maximum of revenue with the minimum of fuss and change. In short, to maintain the existing social order; to allow no change in a constitution which aroused the wonder or envy of other nations; to use peerages and bishoprics, pocket boroughs and sinecures, as a means of buttressing that fabric, such were the aims of the third George.
Failing materially to weaken the force of this mighty engine of patronage, Pitt was fain to make the best of things as they were. The defeat of his Reform Bill in 1785 was the chief crisis in his early career; for it involved the failure of the Abolition Bill, perhaps also of the schemes for the relief of the poor which he outlined in 1797. In fact, after the year 1785, and still more so after 1790, he had to govern mainly as King's Minister, not as the people's Minister. Worst of all, the centre of political gravity remained dangerously high throughout the storms of the Revolutionary Era. How much of the nation's energy then went forth in justifiable discontent and futile efforts at repression has already appeared. Up to the year 1798 the struggle against France waslargely one of the governing class against a nation; and for this the King and the British oligarchy, not Pitt, were responsible. Personal charm and the magnetic gift of evoking enthusiasm have in some monarchs counterbalanced defects of narrowness and intolerance. George was not deficient in courtly grace and tact—witness his remark to Pitt at their first interview after the long separation of the years 1801–1804. When Pitt ventured to compliment the King on his looking better than after the illness of 1801, the latter at once replied: "That is not to be wondered at: I was then on the point of parting with an old friend. Now I am about to regain one." But these gracious remarks came rarely in his closing years, which were marked by increasing harshness to his family, petulance on the most trivial affairs, and an outlook more narrowly personal than ever.
Such a nature chafes its surroundings. It arouses no enthusiasm; it merely begets heat by friction. Pitt has been blamed for spending too much time and energy in speeches about the war. But there was no other way of kindling the nation's zeal. The Princes very rarely spoke in the House of Lords, except under an overmastering fear of the abolition of the Slave Trade. None of the Ministers, except Windham, had the gift of oratory. On Pitt alone devolved the task of arousing a national spirit; and a cruel destiny cut short his life at the very time when his inspiring presence was most needed. How much England then lost can never be known. Vorontzoff, Russian ambassador at London, who had earlier been a bitter enemy of Pitt, now expressed the fervent desire that death had carried off his weary old frame, rather than that of the potential Saviour of Europe. The words are instinct with prescience. The personality and the actions of Pitt were alike a summons to a life of dignity and manly independence. His successors had perforce to take a course not unlike that which they were about to censure in him; and the distrust which the Czar Alexander felt for them in part accounts for the collapse at Tilsit and the ensuing years of bondage to Napoleon.
The disintegrating effects of the party system, or rather of its factious use by the Whig leaders, have been explained in these pages. Its first result was seen in the divergence of the careers of Pitt and Fox. The cause of Reform ought to have received their undivided support; but little by little they were edged apart, and their hostility was perhaps the most lasting of themany evils wrought by the unnatural Coalition of Fox and North. For a time Pitt gathered around him a national party, which became avowedly so on the junction of the Old Whigs in 1794. But in the last years of his life the denuding influences of partisan and personal feuds disastrously thinned his following. From the refusal of George to grant Catholic Emancipation, and the consequent resignation of Pitt in the spring of 1801, we may trace three sinister results. The Union with Ireland was bereft of its natural sequel, Catholic Emancipation; the Ministerial ranks were cleft in twain; and the crisis brought to the front Addington, a man utterly incapable of confronting Napoleon. Had Pitt remained in power, the Peace of Amiens would have been less one-sided, its maintenance more dignified; and the First Consul, who respected the strong but bullied the weak, would probably have acquiesced in a settlement consonant with the reviving prestige of England. But though the Union Jack won notable triumphs in the spring of 1801, yet at London everything went awry. Moved by consideration for the King, then recovering from lunacy, Pitt weakly promised not to bring forward Catholic Emancipation during his life, an act which annoyed the Grenville–Windham group. His rash promise to support Addington tied his hands in the following years; and even after the renewal of war he too scrupulously refrained from overthrowing a Ministry whose weakness had invited foreign aggressions and was powerless to avenge them. Finally, the Grenvilles joined Fox; and thus the King's perversity nullified the efforts of Pitt to form an Administration worthy to cope with Napoleon.
Nevertheless, the challenge flung down to England by the French regicides in 1793 was such as to enhance the person of the Monarch in these islands; and the Revolutionary War, which was fatal to several dynasties on the Continent, served to consolidate the power of the House of Brunswick. For, though Pitt sought to keep the war from becoming a royalist crusade, it almost inevitably assumed that character. During hostilities there can be but two sharply defined parties. Accordingly, Pitt, who opened his career with a bold attack upon the prerogatives of George III, ended it as his champion, even consenting to surrender a cherished conviction in order that the Monarch's peace of mind might not be troubled. Was ever a Minister beset by more baffling problems, by more hampering restrictions? Peace might have solved and shattered them.But peace he could not secure in the years 1796, 1797; and when finally it came it proved to be no peace, merely a pause before a still greater cycle of war.
The grandeur of Pitt's efforts for ensuring the independence of Europe has somewhat obscured his services as Empire builder. Yet, with the possible exception of Chatham, no statesman has exercised a greater influence on the destinies of the British race. On two occasions he sternly set his face against the cession of Gibraltar; he took keen interest in the settlement of New South Wales; his arrangements for the government of Canada deserve far higher praise than they have usually secured; and his firmness in repelling the archaic claims of Spain to the shores of the Northern Pacific gained for his people the future colony of British Columbia. Cherishing a belief in the pacific nature of Bonaparte's policy at the time of the Treaty of Amiens, he condoned the retrocession of the Cape of Good Hope and of Malta, on condition of the gain of Ceylon and Trinidad; but after the revival of French schemes of aggression in the East he saw the imperative need of planting or maintaining the Union Jack at those commanding points. He, who has been accused of excessive trust in allies, prepared to forego the alliance of Russia rather than give up Malta; and, even before Nelson gained the mastery at sea, Pitt sent forth an expedition to conquer the Cape. In his magnanimous desire of securing to Europe the blessings of a lasting peace he was ready to surrender maritime conquests of greater pecuniary value so long as England held the keys of the overland and sea routes to India. To that empire his just and statesmanlike policy brought a new sense of confidence and therefore a time of comparative rest, until the threatening orientation of Bonaparte's plans once more placed everything at hazard. Thanks to the exertions of Dundas and the Wellesleys, the crisis was averted; but the policy which assured British supremacy in the East was essentially that of Pitt.
It is far easier to assess the importance of the life work of Pitt than to set forth his character in living traits. Those who knew him well agree as the charm of his personality; but they supply few illuminating details, perhaps out of respect for the reserve which was his usual panoply. Like Chatham he rarely revealed his inmost self. The beauties of his conversation, informed withlearning, sparkling with wit, always vivacious yet never spiteful, never appeared in their full glow except in the circle of his dearest friends; but by singular ill fortune they who could have handed on those treasures, were satisfied with entries such as: "Pitt talked a great deal among his friends"; or, "In society he was remarkably cheerful and pleasant, full of wit and playfulness";[786]or again, "His great delight was society. There he shone with a degree of calm and steady lustre which often astonished me more than his most splendid efforts in Parliament; ... he seemed utterly unconscious of his own superiority and much more disposed to listen than to talk; ... his appearance dispelled all care, his brow was never clouded even in the severest public trials."[787]These are only thehors d'œuvresof what must have been a feast of delight; but even they suffice to refute the Whig slanders as to Pitt's austerity and selfishness. Under happier auspices he would have been known as the most lovable of English statesmen; and his exceptional fondness for children would alone suffice to expose the falsity of his alleged reply to a manufacturer who complained that he could not get enough men—"Then you must take the children."[788]Cynicism at the expense of the weak was a trait utterly alien to him. It is also incorrect to assert, with Macaulay, that "pride pervaded the whole man, was written in the harsh rigid lines of his face, was marked by the way in which he walked, in which he sat, in which he stood, and, above all, in which he bowed." The Whig historian, here following the Whig tradition, formed his estimate of the whole man from what was merely a parliamentary mannerism. Pitt, as we have seen, was a prey to shyness andgaucherie; and the rigid attitude which he adopted for the House was not so much the outcome of a sense of superiority (though he had an able man's consciousness of worth) as a screen to hide those defects. A curiously stilted manner has been the bane of many gifted orators and actors; but the real test is whether they could throw it off in private. That Pitt threw it off in the circle of his friends they all agree. The only defects which Wilberforce saw in him were an inadequate knowledge of human nature, a too sanguine estimate of men and of the course of events, and, in later years, occasional displays of petulance inface of opposition.[789]The first are the defects of a noble nature, the last those of a man whose strength has long been overtaxed.
In fact, Pitt's constitution was unequal to the prolonged strain. In childhood his astonishingly precocious powers needed judicious repression. Instead, they were unduly forced by the paternal pride of Chatham. At Cambridge, at Lincoln's Inn, and in Parliament the intellectual pressure was maintained, with the result that his weakly frame was constantly overwrought and attenuated by a too active mind. Further, the pressure at Westminster was so continuous as to preclude all chance of widening his nature by foreign travel. He caught but a glimpse of the life of France in 1783; and his knowledge of other peoples and politics was therefore perforce derived from books. It is therefore surprising that the young Prime Minister displayed the sagacity and tolerance which marked his career.
But his faculties, though not transcendently great, were singularly well balanced, besides being controlled by an indomitable will and tact that rarely was at fault. In oratory he did not equal Sheridan in wit and brilliance, Burke in richness of thought and majesty of diction, or Fox in massive strength and debating facility; but, while falling little short of Fox in debate, he excelled him in elegance and conciseness, Burke in point and common sense, Sheridan in dignity and argumentative power, and all of them in the felicitous wedding of elevated thought or vigorous argument to noble diction. By the side of his serried yet persuasive periods the efforts of Fox seemed ragged, those of Burke philosophic essays, those of Sheridan rhetorical tinsel. And this harmony was not the effect of long and painful training. His maiden speech of 26th February 1781 displayed the grace and forcefulness which marked his classic utterance at the Lord Mayor's banquet ten weeks before his death.
Precocious maturity also characterized his financial plans, which displayed alike the shrewd common sense of those of Walpole and the wider aims of Adam Smith. Before his twenty-sixth year Pitt laid the basis of a system which, whatever its defects, ensured the speedy recovery of national credit and belied the spiteful croakings of foreign rivals. Four days after his death, Fox freely admitted that the establishment of theSinking Fund had been most beneficial; and this belief, though we now see it to be ill-founded, certainly endowed the nation with courage to continue the struggle against the overgrown power of France. Scarcely less remarkable is his record of legislative achievement. His India Bill of 1784, his attempt to free Anglo-Irish trade from antiquated shackles, his effort to present to Parliament a palatable yet not ineffective scheme of Reform, raise him above the other law-givers of the eighteenth century in the grandeur of his aims if not in his actual achievements. By the India Bill of 1784 he reconciled the almost incompatible claims of eastern autocracy and western democracy. If he failed to carry fiscal and Parliamentary Reform, it was due less to tactical defects on his part than to prejudice and selfishness among those whom he sought to benefit.
On the other hand, his intense hopefulness often led him to overlook obstacles and to credit all men with his own high standard of intelligence and probity, a noble defect which not seldom marred his diplomatic and military arrangements during the Great War. At no point have I slurred over his mistakes, his diffusion of effort over too large an area of conflict, and his perhaps undue trust in doubtful allies. But, even so, as I have shown, a careful examination of all the available evidence generally reveals the reasons for his confidence; and failures due to this cause are far less disastrous, because less dispiriting to the nation, than those which are the outcome of sluggishness or cowardice. Of those unpardonable sins Pitt has never been accused even by his severest critics. After the repulse of his pacific overtures by the French Directory in September 1797 his attitude was one almost of defiance, witness his curt rejection of similar offers by Bonaparte early in 1800, which may be pronounced the gravest defect of his diplomatic career.
In that age the action of statesmen was often dilatory; and we must admit that in regard to the Act of Union with Ireland Pitt's procedure was halting and ineffective, so that finally he was driven to use corrupt means to force through the corrupt Irish Parliament a measure which in the autumn of 1798 would have been accepted thankfully by the dominant caste. His Bill of 1797 for the relief of the poor and his Land Tax Commutation Act of 1798 are examples of improvident legislation. But from a leader overburdened with the details of war and diplomacy we should not expect the keen foresight, the minutecare as to details, which distinguished Gladstone. To compare the achievements of a statesman hard pressed by the problems of the Revolutionary Era with those of a peaceful age when the standard of legislative effort had been greatly raised is unfair; and the criticism of Pitt by a distinguished historian evinces partiality towards the Victorian statesman rather than an adequate appreciation of the difficulties besetting a Minister of George III in those times of turmoil.[790]It is true that Pitt did not inaugurate Factory legislation; that was the work of the Addington Cabinet in 1802; he did not link his name with the efforts of Romilly and others for the reform of the brutal Penal Code; and he did little for art and literature; but neither the personality of George nor the state of the national finances favoured the rise of a Maecenas.
Concentration of effort on political and diplomatic questions was the alpha and omega of Pitt's creed. The terrible pressure of events forbade his looking far ahead or far afield; he marched straight onward, hoping by his untiring efforts first to restore national prosperity and thereafter to secure a peace which would inaugurate a brighter future. His overtaxed strength collapsed when the strain was most tense; and his life therefore figures as a torso, which should not be criticized as if it were the perfect statue. Yet, as moral grandeur is always inspiring, Pitt's efforts were finally to be crowned with success by the statesmen who had found wisdom in his teaching, inspiration in his quenchless hope, enthusiasm in his all-absorbing love of country. An egoist never founds a school of the prophets. But Pitt, who
Spurn'd at the sordid lust of pelfAnd served his Albion for herself,
trained and inspired a band of devoted disciples such as no other leader of the eighteenth century left behind him. Some were unimaginative plodders, as Perceval; others were capable administrators and shrewd diplomatists, as Castlereagh; to one alone was vouchsafed the fire of genius, the sympathetic insight, the soaring ambition held in check by overmastering patriotism, which were commingled in the personality of the master; and Canning afterwards declared that he buried his political allegiance in the grave of Pitt. It was granted to thesemen to labour on in the cause for which he gave his life, and finally, in the years 1814–15, to bring back France to her old frontiers by arrangements which he clearly outlined in the years 1798 and 1805. Of the numerous annexations and changes of boundaries effected by Napoleon, only one, the Valtelline, was destined to survive. But Europe after Waterloo testified alike to the sagacity and the limitations of the mind of William Pitt.
N.B.—The figures under the heading "money borrowed" are taken from the official statistics presented by the Rt. Hon. George Rose, "Brief Examination into the Increase of the Revenue, Commerce and Navigation of Great Britain" (London, 1806), p. 16. The total statistics are given in round numbers.