William Pitt and the Great War Part 2

[5] _Ibid._ Grenville to Ewart, 26th July. Calonne for some little time resided at Wimbledon House. His letters to Pitt show that he met with frequent rebuffs; but he had one interview with him early in June 1790.

I have found no details of it.

[6] "Diary and Corresp. of Fersen," 121.

[7] Arneth, "Marie Antoinette, Joseph II, und Leopold II," 148, 152.

[8] Mr. Nisbet Bain (_op. cit._, ii, 129) accuses Pitt and his colleagues of waiving aside a proposed visit of Gustavus III to London, because "they had no desire to meet face to face a monarch they had already twice deceived." Mr. Bain must refer to the charges (invented at St Petersburg) that Pitt had egged Gustavus on to war against Russia, and then deserted him. In the former volume (chapters xxi-iii) I proved the falsity of those charges. It would be more correct to say that Gustavus deserted England.

[9] B.M. Add. MSS., 34438.

[10] Martens, v, 236-9; "F.O.," Prussia, 22. Ewart to Grenville, 4th August.

[11] On 15th August Prussia renounced her alliance with Turkey (Vivenot, i, 225).

[12] Sybel, bk. ii, ch. vi; Vivenot, i, 235, 243.

[13] "Dropmore P.," ii, 192.

[14] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 111.

[15] Arneth, 206, 210; Vivenot, i, 270.

[16] Burke ("Corresp.," iii, 308, 342, 346) shows that Mercy d'Argenteau, after his brief mission to London, spread the slander. Pitt and Grenville said nothing decisive to him on this or any other topic.

Kaunitz partly adopted the charge. (See Vivenot, i, 272.)

[17] "F.O.," Russia, 22. Grenville to Whitworth, 27th October, and W. to G., 14th October 1791.

[18] Lariviere, "Cath. II et la Rev. franc.," 88-90, 110-17.

[19] Burke's "Works," iii, 8, 369 (Bohn edit.).

[20] "Parl. Hist.," xxviii, 1-41.

[21] T. Walker, "Review of ... political events in Manchester (1789-1794)."

[22] T. Walker, "Review of ... political events in Manchester (1789-1794)," 452-79. I cannot agree with Mr. J. R. le B. Hammond ("Fox," 76) that Pitt now spoke as the avowed enemy of parliamentary reform. Indeed, he never spoke in that sense, but opposed it as inopportune.

[23] Rutt, "Mems. of Priestly," ii, 25. As is well known, Burke's "Reflections on the Fr. Rev.," was in part an answer to Dr. Price's sermon of 4th November 1789 in the Old Jewry chapel, to the Society for celebrating the Revolution of 1688.

[24] It was more of a club than the branches of the "Society for Const.i.tutional Information," which did good work in 1780-4, but expired in 1784 owing to the disgust of reformers at the Fox-North Coalition--so Place a.s.serts (B.M. Add. MSS., 27808).

[25] T. Walker, _op. cit._, 18, 19.

[26] "Parl. Hist.," xxix, 488-510.

[27] _Ibid._, 113-9.

[28] M. D. Conway, "Life of T. Paine," i, 284.

[29] Burke's Works, iii, 76 (Bohn edit.).

[30] _Ibid._, iii, 12. So, too, on 30th August 1791 Priestley wrote that Pitt had shown himself unfavourable to their cause (Rutt, "Life of Priestley," ii, 145).

[31] Prior, "Life of Burke," 322, who states very incorrectly that not one of them has survived.

[32] "H. O.," Geo. III (Domestic), 19.

[33] _Ibid._ As late as 9th August a proclamation was posted about Birmingham: "The friends of the good cause are requested to meet us at Revolution Place to-morrow night at 11 o'clock in order to fix upon those persons who are to be the future objects of our malice." Of course this was but an incitation to plunder. See Ma.s.sey, iii, 462-6, on the Birmingham riots.

[34] "Dropmore P.," ii, 133, 136; "Parl. Hist.," xxix, 1464.

[35] Burke "Reflections on the Fr. Rev.," 39 (Mr. Payne's edit.).

[36] Conway, _op. cit._, ii, 330. The printer and publisher were prosecuted later on, as well as Paine, who fled to France.

[37] "Mem. of T. Hardy," by himself (Lond., 1832).

[38] Leslie Stephen, "The Eng. Utilitarians," i, 121. I fully admit that the Chartist leaders in 1838 went back to the Westminster programme of 1780. See "The Life and Struggles of William Lovett"; but the spirit and methods of the new agitation were wholly different. On this topic I feel compelled to differ from Mr. J. L. le B. Hammond ("Fox," ch. v, _ad init._). Mr. C. B. R. Kent ("The English Radicals," 156) states the case correctly.

[39] "Parl. Hist.," xxix, 1303-9.

[40] "Application of Barruel's 'Memoirs of Jacobinism' to the Secret Societies of Ireland and Great Britain," 32-3.

[41] "Application of Barruel's 'Memoirs of Jacobinism' to the Secret Societies of Ireland and Great Britain," Introduction, p. x.

[42] "H. O.," Geo. III (Domestic), 20.

CHAPTER II

BEFORE THE STORM

I find it to be a very general notion, at least in the a.s.sembly, that if France can preserve a neutrality with England, she will be able to cope with all the rest of Europe united.--GOWER TO GRENVILLE, _22nd April 1792_.

Indirect evidence as to the intentions of a statesman is often more convincing than his official a.s.sertions. The world always suspects the latter; and many politicians have found it expedient to adopt the ironical device practised frequently with success by Bismarck on his Austrian colleagues at Frankfurt, that of telling the truth. Fortunately the English party game has nearly always been kept up with sportsmanlike fair play; and Pitt himself was so scrupulously truthful that we are rarely in doubt as to his opinions, save when he veiled them by ministerial reserve. Nevertheless, on the all-important subject of his att.i.tude towards Revolutionary France, it is satisfactory to have indirect proofs of his desire to maintain a strict, if not friendly, neutrality. This proof lies in his handling of the nation's armaments and finances.

The debate on the Army Estimates on 15th February 1792 is of interest in more respects than one. The news of the definitive signature of peace between Russia and Turkey by the Treaty of Ja.s.sy, put an end to the last fears of a resumption of war in the East; and, as the prospects were equally pacific in the West, the Ministry carried out slight reductions in the land forces. These were fixed in the year 1785 at seventy-three regiments of 410 men each, divided into eight companies, with two companies _en second_. In 1789 the number of companies per regiment was fixed at ten, without any companies _en second_. Now the Secretary at War, Sir Charles Yonge, proposed further reductions, which, with those of 1789, would lessen each regiment by seventy privates, and save the country the sum of 51,000. No diminution was proposed in the number of officers; and this gave Fox a handle for an attack. He said that the natural plan would be to reduce the number of regiments to sixty-four.

Instead of that, the number of seventy regiments was retained, and new corps were now proposed for the East Indies, one for the West Indies, and one for Canada, chiefly to be used for pioneer work and clearance of woods. General Burgoyne and Fox protested against the keeping up of skeleton regiments, the latter adding the caustic comment that the plan was "the least in point of saving and the greatest in point of patronage."[43]

The practices prevalent in that age give colour to the charge. On the other hand, professional men have defended a system which kept up the _cadres_ of regiments in time of peace, as providing a body of trained officers and privates, which in time of war could be filled out by recruits. Of course it is far inferior to the plan of a reserve of trained men; but that plan had not yet been hammered out by Scharnhorst, under the stress of the Napoleonic domination in Prussia. As to the reduction of seven men per company, now proposed, it may have been due partly to political reasons. Several reports in the Home Office and War Office archives prove that discontent was rife among the troops, especially in the northern districts, on account of insufficient pay and the progress of Radical propaganda among them. The reduction may have afforded the means of sifting out the ringleaders.

Retrenchment, if not Reform, was the order of the day. Pitt discerned the important fact that a recovery in the finance and trade of the country must be encouraged through a series of years to produce a marked effect. For then the application of capital to industry, and the increase in production and revenue can proceed at the rate of compound interest. Already his hopes, for which he was indebted to the "Wealth of Nations,"[44] had been largely realized. The Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons presented in May 1791 showed the following growth in the ordinary revenue (exclusive of the Land and Malt Taxes):

1786 11,867,055 1787 12,923,134 1788 13,007,642 1789 13,433,068 1790 14,072,978

During those five years the sum of 4,750,000 had been allotted to the Sinking Fund for the payment of the National Debt; and a further sum of 674,592, accruing from the interest of stock and expired annuities, had gone towards the same object--a crushing retort to the taunts of Fox and Sheridan, that the Sinking Fund was a mere pretence. On the whole the sum of 5,424,592 had been paid off from the National Debt in five years. It is therefore not surprising that three per cent. Consols, which were down at fifty-four when Pitt took office at the end of 1783, touched ninety in the year 1791. The hopes and fears of the year 1792 find expression in the fact that in March they stood at ninety-seven, and in December dropped to seventy-four.