William Pitt and the Great War Part 17

Far different was the comment of the London Corresponding Society. On 20th January 1794 that body convened a great meeting which pa.s.sed protests against the war, the expulsion of the British Convention, and the arrest of delegates. It also resolved that the general committee should sit permanently throughout the ensuing session. Further, that if the Government attacked the liberties of the people in the ways described above, the committee should call "a General Convention of the People for taking such measures under their consideration."[312] Equally threatening were the resolutions of the Const.i.tutional Society of London.[313] Pitt resolved to take up the gauntlet flung down by these two powerful Societies. On 24th February 1794 Eaton, a publisher of Newgate Street, was tried for publishing in his periodical pamphlet, "Politics for the People: or Hogs-wash," a little parable with which that witty lecturer, Thelwall, had delighted a debating society. He told how a gamec.o.c.k, resplendent with ermine-spotted breast, and crown or c.o.c.ks...o...b.. lorded it greedily over all the fowls of the farmyard.[314]

The parallel to George III was sufficiently close to agitate the official mind; but the jury gave an open verdict, which implied that the King was not hinted at.

The next prosecution, that of Thomas Walker, of Manchester, and six others broke down in a way highly discreditable to the authorities.

Walker's services to the cause of Reform had, as we have seen, been conspicuous alike in energy and moderation, and his enemies in the Church and King Club made great exertions in order to procure a conviction. The archives of the Home Office throw a sinister light on their methods. A magistrate of Manchester, the Rev. John Griffith, informed the Home Secretary that Booth, a man who was imprisoned in June 1793 for seditious practices, made a declaration against Thomas Walker and McCullum, members of the local Const.i.tutional Society. According to Booth, McCullum had said: "Pet.i.tioning Parliament be d----d. You may as well pet.i.tion the devil to reform himself. The only way is for each Society to send a number of delegates to a certain place, and there declare themselves the Representatives of the People and support themselves as such." Thomas Walker had also said that each member must have a musket, for they would soon want them.[315] But it transpired in the trial of Walker, McCullum, and others that Griffith had let Booth see that he wanted to incriminate Walker. He not only offered Booth his pardon for such evidence, but left him alone with Dunn, a malicious perjurer, the falsity of whose charges against Walker was convincingly demonstrated.[316] The case proves how far an unscrupulous magistrate could succeed in getting charges trumped up against an innocent man who opposed him in politics. Doubtless in other cases personal spite, or the desire of a reward, led to the offer of false charges; and the student who peruses the Home Office archives needs to remember the Greek caution, +memnesth' apistein+, as much as if he were perusing French Memoirs.

It is therefore with much doubt that one reads the declaration of a Sheffield magistrate, in May 1794, that there was in that town "a most horrid conspiracy against State and Church under the pretence of Reform." A vast number of pikes and spears had been made and "cats" to throw in the road to lame the horses. 2nd July was fixed for the storming of the barracks and town. "It is a mercy the plot is discovered. I am to be all night in the search." More detailed is the deposition of a magistrate of Sheffield, James Wilkinson, that a democrat named Widdison had made several pikes and sold twelve to Gales, a well-known Jacobinical printer. Further, that a witness, William Green, swore that a man named Jackson had employed him and others to make spear-heads; they made twelve dozen or more in two days, and the heads were sent to the lodgings of Hill and Jackson. Wilkinson wrote for instructions how to deal with these men; also for a warrant to arrest Gales. On 20th May Dundas sent down warrants for the arrest of Gales, W.

Carnage, H. Yorke (_alias_ Redhead), W. Broomhead, R. Moody, and T.

Humphreys; he also issued a warrant against Williams, a gun-engraver, of the Tower, in London.[317]

In Birmingham, as we have seen, the two magistrates, Carles and Spencer, were out and out loyalists; and, as they wrote to Dundas on 23rd May 1794 that there was not enough evidence to warrant a search for arms, we may infer that the Midland capital caused the authorities less concern than rebellious Sheffield. But even at Birmingham, with its traditions of exuberant loyalty, there were grounds for concern. John Brook, the mayor, informed Dundas that there were many malcontents in the neighbourhood, especially at Dudley.

Turning to the East, we find signs that Norwich seethed with discontent.

From that city had come the first suggestion of a General Convention of the People. On 5th March 1793 one of the thirty Societies of Norwich wrote up to the London Corresponding Society advocating that step, which Hardy and his colleagues approved "so soon as the great body of the people shall be courageous and virtuous enough to join us in the attempt." I have found no proof that either at Norwich or in London these Societies used illegal methods. The seditious placards posted up at Norwich may have been the work of some fanatic or of an _agent provocateur_. But it is very doubtful whether the holding of a People's Convention in the manner proposed was not an act of defiance to Parliament, and therefore seditious. Individual members certainly came within the ban of the law. Thus, Dundas received tidings that two members of Hardy's Society, named Stone and Meakins, were circulating seditious writings in Ess.e.x. When arrested they had with them one or two military books, copies of the revolutionary song, _ca ira_, and similar papers;[318] but this fact does not incriminate the Society at large. In fact, the reports as to the purchase of arms and secret drillings are not very convincing. To take a few instances: information was sent to the Home Office that a man named Kitchen had sixty pikes in his house in George Street, near York Buildings; also that men were drilled secretly at the house of Spence, a seller of seditious pamphlets in the Little Turnstile, Holborn, and at that of Shelmerdine, a small tradesman of Southwark; the arms in the last case were bought from Williams, of the Tower, with a sum of 10 contributed by "a desperate tailor of China Walk, Lambeth."[319] Did patriotism or private spite or greed of money incite these reports? Drawings of pikes and spear-heads also diversified the report of the Secret Committee of the Lords appointed to investigate seditious proceedings, and probably convinced lovers of realism that plots actually existed.

More alarming in reality were the preparations for a General Convention of the People. The authorities knew that plans were actually on foot for sending delegates to form such a body. On 27th March 1794 the London Corresponding Society consulted the sister club on this question; and in due course delegates from the two Societies pa.s.sed resolutions in favour of the scheme. Hardy thereupon sent a printed letter round to similar bodies, probably early in the month of April 1794. It ran thus:

Notwithstanding the unparalleled audacity of a corrupt and overbearing faction which at present tramples on the rights and liberties of our people, our meetings cannot, in England, be interrupted without the previous adoption of a Convention Bill[320]--a measure it is our duty to antic.i.p.ate.... Let us then form another British Convention. We have a central situation in our view, which we believe would be most convenient for the whole island, but which we forbear to mention ... till we have the answers of the Societies with which we are in correspondence. Let us have your answer, then, by the 20th at farthest, earlier if possible, whether you approve of the measure and how many delegates you can send, with the number also, if possible, of your Societies.

PS. We have appointed a Secret Committee on this. Will you do the same?[321]

In order to further the scheme, the London Corresponding Society held a meeting on 14th April at Chalk Farm, when an ardent appeal was read from Hardy to resist the encroachments on liberty recently made by "apostate reformers"--a fling at Pitt. "Are they alone," he asked, "to judge of the fit time for Reform?" The meeting then thanked Earl Stanhope for his manly and successful opposition to the attempt to bring Hanoverian and Hessian troops into England; it also condemned the late rapid advances of despotism and the arming one part of the people against the other.

Finally it declared that in cases of necessity the safety of the people was the only law. We may here note that a few Hanoverian and Hessian battalions had been landed in Hampshire, as a temporary measure, previous to their transference to other ships. This occasioned some clamour at Westminster, Grey, Fox, Sheridan and others claiming that the liberties of England were in the direst danger. Pitt refused to accept a Bill of Indemnity for his action, and the House supported him by a great majority.[322]

The other reference at the Chalk Farm meeting was to the proposal to sanction the subscriptions to the Volunteer forces now being raised in various counties.[323] At the outset this n.o.ble movement had in view the defence of the const.i.tution no less than of the land; and this doubtless accounts for the fact that c.o.ke, Mingay, and other Norfolk Whigs struggled desperately and successfully to break up a county meeting held at Norwich for this purpose on 12th April, shouting down even so able a speaker as Windham. In general, however, these meetings were an immense success. That at Aylesbury realized 5,851 for a county corps; and one at Epsom, for Surrey, brought in nearly double as much.[324] Most noteworthy of all these meetings was one of 19th April 1794 at Birmingham, where loyal sentiments crystalized in a rhetorical jewel of rare l.u.s.tre. The "Loyal True Blues" of Birmingham, in view of the threats of the French "to insult the chalky cliffs of Albion and to plant in this island their accursed tree of liberty, more baneful in its effects than the poisonous tree of Java which desolates the country and corrupts the winds of heaven," resolved to quit the field of argument and to take arms as a Military a.s.sociation. For nothing could be so effective as "the decided and awful plan of the whole Nation rising in a ma.s.s of Volunteers, determined to dispute every inch of ground with their daring aggressors and to spill the last drop of their blood in defence of their religion and their laws." They beg Edward Carver to command them; they will choose their uniform, will arrange themselves as grenadiers and light infantry; and, "to preserve the _coup d'oeil_, the whole corps will be arranged with the strictest attention to the height of the members."[325] Possibly the Royalists of Birmingham may have known of the hint conveyed in Hardy's letter, that the National Convention should a.s.semble in some convenient centre, a phrase which seemed to point to their town, which, indeed, the Chartists chose for that purpose in 1839.

In view of the fervent loyalty manifested on all sides, Ministers might surely have trusted to the majority to control the restless minority.

Auckland expressed the general opinion when he said that the country in the proportion of ten to one was sound and loyal.[326] As the majority was armed, while the malcontents had but small stores of pikes, there was little cause for fear, though in the minority were some desperate men. In particular, Richard Davison, a prominent member of the Sheffield Const.i.tutional Society, recommended the clubs of London and Norwich to buy consignments of pikes in order to resist the "newly-armed minions of the bare-faced aristocracy of the present Administration"; and it afterwards appeared that he could sell them at twenty pence each.[327]

This letter was sent off on 24th April, 1794, seventeen days after the holding of a ma.s.s meeting on Castle Hill, Sheffield, at which the chairman, Henry Yorke (_alias_ Redhead), declared that, when the sun of Reason shone in its fullest meridian, the people would turn out the 558 gentlemen from Westminster. The meeting resolved that, as the people ought to demand universal suffrage as a right, and not pet.i.tion for it as a favour, they would never again pet.i.tion the House of Commons on this subject.[328] Contemptuous epithets were now constantly hurled at Parliament. On 2nd May, that genial toper, Horne Tooke, of Wimbledon, declared at a dinner of the Const.i.tutional Society in London that Parliament was a scoundrel sink of corruption, and that the scoundrel Opposition joined the scoundrel Government in order to destroy the rights of Englishmen. In order to add weight to his epithets he called the company to witness to his complete sobriety.[329]

Pitt and his colleagues now decided to strike at the leaders who were planning a British Convention. Of these the most formidable was the Secretary of the London Corresponding Society. Accordingly, early on 12th May, some Bow Street officers made their way into Hardy's shop, No.

9, Piccadilly, arrested him, seized his papers, ransacking the room where Mrs. Hardy was in bed. The shock to her nerves was such as to bring on premature child-birth with fatal results. On the same day a royal message came to Parliament announcing that the efforts of certain Societies to summon a Convention in defiance of Parliament had led him to order the seizure of their books and papers. Those of the Corresponding and Const.i.tutional Societies were brought, sealed up, to the House of Commons on the morrow, whereupon Pitt moved for the appointment of a secret committee to examine them. He himself, Dundas, and nineteen other members soon drew up the Report. When presented on 16th May, it contained a statement of all the threatening symptoms of the time, and so far ignored the legal efforts of those Societies as to form a very alarming diagnosis.[330]

The fears of Ministers were further aroused by the contents of a letter from the Rev. Jeremiah Joyce (tutor of Earl Stanhope's son) to Horne Tooke, which the Post Office had seized. It announced the arrest of citizen Hardy, and ended thus: "Query: is it possible to get ready by Thursday?"[331] Some effort of the imagination was needed to figure the Silenus of the literary world as a plotter against the lives of Ministers. But they now decided to arrest him and the Reverend Jeremiah, as well as Bonney, Richter, and Kyd, also members of the Const.i.tutional Society, besides Camage and one or two other democrats of Sheffield.

Davison, the would-be seller of pikes, had fled betimes.

These were the circ.u.mstances which induced Pitt to propose the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act (16th May). The Report of the Secret Committee having been read, he proceeded to exaggerate the import of the more threatening parts of the evidence, and to convince the House that these Societies, which had congratulated the French Convention, and still aped its methods, were plotting to set up an authority openly hostile to Parliament. With all the force of his oratory he pictured the state of things that must ensue--"an enormous torrent of insurrection, which would sweep away all the barriers of government, law and religion, and leave our country a naked waste for usurped authority to range in, uncontrolled and unresisted." Despite the warning of Fox that the remedy now proposed was worse than the evil which it sought to avert; despite the pleas of Grey and Sheridan against indecent haste in hurrying on this arbitrary measure, it was forced through every stage in the Commons at that single sitting; finally, at half-past three in the morning, the numbers of the Whig protestors sank to 13, while the Ministerialists still mustered 108 strong.[332]

This collapse of the Opposition was due to a sharp cleavage in its ranks on the vital issues now at stake. As has already appeared, Pitt had consulted the Duke of Portland and his immediate followers on subjects affecting public order. Some of the Old Whigs, notably Windham, served on the Committee of Secrecy; and the evidence there forthcoming led them to propose a general support of Government both in its war policy and the maintenance of order. Those eager Royalists, Burke and Windham, took the lead in proposing an alliance with the Ministry. The question arose whether the Old Whigs should support from outside or actually coalesce with the Ministry, taking their fair share of power. Burke strongly advised the latter course as the only means of a.s.suring continued and strenuous support. This opened a sluice gate of correspondence, resulting in important changes in the Cabinet. I shall refer to this matter later, merely noting here that the Duke of Portland took over from Dundas the Home Office, which was thenceforth limited to British and Irish affairs, Dundas becoming Secretary of State for War, and Windham Secretary at War. The changes were most opportune; for they strengthened the administrative machine and served to build up a national party strong enough to cope with the growing difficulties of the time. Thenceforth there was no danger of the overthrow of the Ministry. Further, the panic pervading all parts of England in May 1794 was soon allayed by the news of Howe's victory, termed "the glorious First of June"; while in July the fall of Robespierre caused a general sense of relief. In view of these events, Pitt would have done well to relax his efforts against the British Jacobins. He held on his way and encountered sharp rebuffs. The trial of Hardy and others in October dragged on to a great length; and, after hearing an enormous ma.s.s of evidence (some of which proved the possession of arms by democrats) the jury returned a verdict of Not Guilty. This result, due to the masterly defence by Erskine and Gibbs, aroused a tumult of joy in the vast crowd outside such as London had rarely seen. Hardy afterwards a.s.serted that, in case of a conviction, Government had decided to arrest about 800 more persons.[333] This is mere hearsay; but it has been fastened upon by those who seek to father upon Pitt the design of reviving the days of Strafford and "Thorough." A fortnight previously Watt, once a government informer, was convicted at Edinburgh of a treasonable plot to set the city on fire, sack the banks, and attack the castle. Before he went to execution he confessed his guilt.[334]

This was the only conviction obtained by Government. The trial of Horne Tooke ran a course unfavourable to Ministers, the evidence for the prosecution being flimsy in the extreme. Pitt himself was called to the witness-box, and when closely cross-questioned by Erskine as to his former connection with the Reform cause, admitted that he was present at a meeting at the Duke of Richmond's residence, at which delegates from county Reform a.s.sociations were present. The admission exposed him to the charge of inconsistency in the eyes of those who looked only at the surface of things. In reality, those who met at the Duke of Richmond's house had nothing in common with the democratic clubs which proposed to override the will of Parliament by a National Convention. Yet, as the superficial view gains a ready a.s.sent, the fame of Pitt now underwent an eclipse. Never again did he hear the whole-hearted acclaim which greeted him in the years 1784-90. The roar of delight which went up at the news of the acquittal of Horne Tooke was a sign of the advent of a new era, in whose aspirations Pitt had no part.

The prosecutions against Bonney, Joyce, Kyd, and Holcroft were now dropped. The charge against Thelwall was pressed home, but resulted in another defeat for Government. Thus, except in the case of Watt, no proof was forthcoming of treasonable designs, though the apprehension of Davison of Sheffield might perhaps have led to discoveries of that nature. In the main, then, Pitt and his colleagues failed to justify the harsh measure of suspending the Habeas Corpus Act; and the failure of the State prosecutions led to a marked increase of the membership and activity of the London Corresponding Society, with results which will appear later.

Nevertheless, Pitt's conduct is far from indefensible with regard to the main point at issue, the meeting of a National Convention. In view of the projects of some of the wilder spirits at London, Sheffield, Norwich, and Edinburgh, it is presumptuous to charge him with causelessly seeking to bring about a "Reign of Terror." He was face to face with developments which might easily have become dangerous; and, with the example of Paris before him, he not unnaturally took what he thought to be the safer course, that of stopping them at the outset.

Indeed, we may question whether Fox, had he been in power, would have allowed the a.s.sembling of a National Convention, pledged to press upon Parliament measures which he reprobated.

It is when we come to details that Pitt is open to the charge of acting with undue severity. Considering the proved loyalty of the great ma.s.s of the people, what need was there to inaugurate a system of arbitrary arrests? After all, England was not France. Here no systematic a.s.sault had been made on the inst.i.tutions in Church and State. The const.i.tution had suffered dilapidation, but it was storm-proof, and the garrison was strongly entrenched. Moreover, the democrats for the most part urged their case without any of the appeals to violence which wrought havoc in France. There the mob delighted to hurry a suspect to _la lanterne_ and to parade heads on pikes. Here the ma.s.s meeting at Chalk Farm, or on Castle Hill, Sheffield, ended with loss neither of life nor of property. So far as I have found, not one life was taken by the people in the course of this agitation--a fact which speaks volumes for their religious sense, their self-restraint even amidst deep poverty, and, in general, their obedience to law even when they deemed it oppressive. The hero of the year 1794 is not William Pitt, but the British nation.

FOOTNOTES:

[274] See "The Complaints of the Poor People of England," by G. Dyer, B.A. (late of Emmanuel College, Camb., 1793).

[275] "H. O.," Geo. III (Domestic), 27, 28.

[276] E. Smith, "The English Jacobins," 111-3; C. Cestre, "John Thelwall," ch. ii.

[277] "Report of the Committee of Secrecy," May 1794. The Duke of Richmond's plan was the Westminster programme of 1780, which became the "six points" of the Charter of 1838.

[278] See Fox's letter of 2nd May 1793 to Hardy in "State Trials," xxiv, 791.

[279] M. Conway, "Life of T. Paine," i, 346.

[280] In the Place MSS. (Brit. Mus.), vol. ent.i.tled "Libel, Sedition, Treason, Persecution"--a valuable collection.

[281] "Parl. Hist.," x.x.xii, 929-44.

[282] "Collection of Addresses ... to the National Convention of France"

(Debrett, 1793), 14.

[283] "Speeches of Lord Erskine," 293.

[284] "State Trials," xxii, 471-522.

[285] Porritt, ii, 128.

[286] "H. O.," Scotland, 7.

[287] _Ibid._

[288] "State Trials," xxiii, 118-26.

[289] I differ here from Lord c.o.c.kburn, "Examination of the Trials for Sedition in Scotland," i, 147.

[290] _Ibid._, i, 162-5; "State Trials," xxiii, 146-8, 160.

[291] P. Mackenzie, "Life of Muir," does not state the reason for Muir's visit to Paris.

[292] "H. O.," Scotland, 8. Dunlop, Lord Provost of Glasgow, sent it to Robert Dundas on 12th March 1793. For this William Christie, who translated the French Const.i.tution of 1791 into English, see Alger, "Englishmen in the French Revolution," 78, 98.

[293] See Campbell, "Lives of the Lord Chancellors," vii, 273, note, and viii, 143-5, for criticisms on the judges: also c.o.c.kburn, _op. cit._, i, 147-80; "Life of Romilly," i, 23.

[294] "H. O.," Scotland, 8. Letter of 2nd August 1793. Dundas further stated that Muir had several Irish handbills on him.

[295] Curiously enough, Lord c.o.c.kburn paid no heed to this in his otherwise able examination of the case.

[296] T. Wolfe Tone, "Autobiography," ii, 285.

[297] "H. O.," Scotland, 7.