William Pitt and the Great War Part 20

Prussia's bargain with France marks a reversion to her traditional policy, which viewed that Power as the friend and Austria as the enemy.

It undid the life-work of Prince Kaunitz, now nearing his end at Vienna, and left the Hapsburg States enfeebled. True, they had a profitable share in the third and last Part.i.tion of Poland, which soon ensued; but this scarcely made good the loss in prestige due to the undisputed hegemony of Prussia in the greater part of Germany. The House of Hohenzollern, impelled by men like Lucchesini, Haugwitz, and Hardenberg, took the easy and profitable course and plumed itself on over-reaching its secular rival at Vienna. In reality it sealed the doom not only of the truly conservative policy of Pitt, but of the European fabric.

Prussia it was which enabled the Jacobins to triumph and to extend their sway over neighbouring lands. The example of Berlin tempted Spain three months later to sign degrading terms of peace with France, and thus to rob England of her gains in Hayti and Corsica. Thanks to Prussia and Spain, France could enter upon that career of conquest in Italy which a.s.sured the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte and the temporary ruin of Austria. The mistakes of Pitt were great; but, after all, they might have been retrieved were it not for the torpor of the Viennese Court and the treachery of Prussia.

FOOTNOTES:

[335] "Troilus and Cressida," act i, sc. 3.

[336] "Dropmore P.," ii, 452.

[337] Thugut in the autumn of 1793 sketched a scheme for annexing the north of France from the Somme to Sedan.

[338] "Dropmore P.," ii, 628. So, too, Morton Eden wrote to Grenville on 1st January 1793: "The steadfastness of the Emperor does not equal his moral rect.i.tude" ("F. O.," Austria, 32).

[339] "Dropmore P.," ii, 491; "Malmesbury Diaries," iii, 17-19, 69.

[340] "Dropmore P.," ii, 494; "Malmesbury Diaries," iii, 31, _et seq._

[341] "Malmesbury Diaries," iii, 50; Sorel, iv, 17.

[342] Seeley, "Stein," i, 65.

[343] "F. O.," Austria, 36. Eden to Grenville, 15th and 27th February.

[344] "Malmesbury Diaries," iii, 81, 82.

[345] Sorel, iv, 13.

[346] Vivenot, iii, 89-96; "Dropmore P.," ii, 505-7.

[347] "F. O.," Austria, 36, Eden to Grenville, 31st March, 9th April.

See, too, Vivenot, iii, 172, for proofs that Kosciusko sought to delay the rising, and looked to Vienna for help against Russia and Prussia.

[348] "Malmesbury Diaries," iii, 85, 89.

[349] "Dropmore P.," ii, 516.

[350] "F. O.," Prussia, 33. Grenville to Malmesbury, 21st April.

[351] _Ibid._, Same to same, 23rd May.

[352] "Malmesbury Diaries," iii, 96.

[353] "W. O.," I, 169. See an admirable article in the "United Service Mag." (Aug. 1897), by Colonel E. M. Lloyd, founded on the papers of General Sir James Craig, Adjutant-General of the Duke of York.

[354] "Parl. Hist.," x.x.xii, 1132.

[355] "Dropmore P.," ii, 599.

[356] "F. O.," Austria, 38. Despatch of 19th July.

[357] Pitt MSS., 180. See, too, "Dropmore P.," ii, 617-20, 626.

[358] See "Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies" for Grenville's letters. Pitt was the guest of Grenville at Dropmore at the end of November 1794 ("Buckingham P.," ii, 319).

[359] "F. O.," Prussia, 35. Malmesbury to Grenville, 25th November 1794.

[360] See "Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies" for this letter.

[361] "Dropmore P.," iii, 26-30, 50, 57.

[362] Ranke, "Hardenberg," i, 258; "Paget P.," i, 95, _et seq._

CHAPTER IX

THE WEST INDIES

Unfortunately, the war was carried on on the old principle of almost undivided attention to what was termed British interests--that is, looking to and preferring the protection of trade and the capture of the enemy's colonial establishments rather than to the objects which had involved Great Britain in the contest with France.--COLONEL THOMAS GRAHAM'S _Diary_.

If we try to picture the course of the war as mapped out by Pitt, it would probably have appeared somewhat as follows. Great Britain, after lending to the Dutch a few regiments as a protection against the threatened raid of Dumouriez, withdraws them, leaving the Dutch and the subsidized German corps to guard the rear of the legions of Prussia and Austria during their conquering march to Paris. England, in the meantime, hara.s.ses the coasts of France, thereby compelling her to detain considerable forces at the important points, and further cripples her by sweeping her fleets and merchantmen from the sea and seizing her colonies.

In short, Pitt's conception of the true function of Great Britain in a continental war was based on that of his father, who accorded comparatively little military aid to Frederick the Great even in his direst need, but helped him indirectly by subsidies and by naval expeditions that stalemated no small portion of the French army. If Chatham's tactics succeeded when Prussia was striving against France, Austria, and Russia, how much more might Pitt hope to win a speedy triumph over anarchic France during her struggle with Austria, Prussia, Spain, Naples, Sardinia, and Holland? He expected, and he had a right to expect, that these States would need British money, not British troops, while the Sea Power restricted its operations to a "minor offensive"

along the seaboards of France and her colonies. Pitt's efforts in this direction were constantly thwarted by the drain of men to Flanders; but his letters to Murray, Chief of Staff to the Duke of York, evince his anxiety to strike at Toulon and the West Indies, and not merely to lighten the military duties of Austria and Prussia on the French borders.[363] It would be tedious to recount his various attempts to prepare an expedition for the West Indies.[364] Of more interest are the requests for protection which he received from the French colonists of Hayti, the western part of the great island of San Domingo.

As appeared in Chapter XX of the former volume, the decrees of the National a.s.sembly of Paris fired the negroes of the French West Indies with the resolve to claim the liberty and equality now recklessly promised by the mother-land. The white settlers, on the contrary, having recently acquired autonomous rights, disputed the legality of that levelling legislation, and rejected all authority but that of Louis XVI.

Amidst the ensuing strifes, the chief colonies, especially Hayti, were menaced by that most horrible of all commotions, a servile revolt, when, most opportunely, help arrived from Jamaica. The contrast between the timely succour of England and the reckless iconoclasm of Paris struck the imagination of the French settlers, and the a.s.sembly of Hayti forthwith drew up a declaration, setting forth the illegality of the French decrees, the miseries resulting from them, and the resolve of the colonists to sever a connection absolutely fatal to their welfare.

Citing the example of the United States fifteen years before, and recounting the misdeeds of the mother country, they proclaimed to the world the justice of the act of severance.

A copy of this declaration, signed by de Cadusey on 27th September 1791, was sent forthwith to Pitt, with a request for the protection of Great Britain. He received it at Burton Pynsent on 27th October.[365] One of the chief delegates from Hayti was de Charmilly, who on 14th November sought an interview with Pitt, and a fortnight later wrote to him, earnestly begging the help of the only nation which could avert ruin from those islands. France, he declared, had pa.s.sed a decree of blood against her own colonies and was powerless to stop its effects. The National a.s.sembly, having by its annexation of Avignon recognized the right of that papal district to belong to whom it would, Hayti of equal right now voted for union with England. He further advised that its ports should remain open to all nations, a course of action which would herald the dawn of commercial and political freedom among the Spanish colonies of the New World.[366] These alluring prospects failed to entice Pitt from the strict neutrality to which he had pledged himself.

So far was he from desiring to profit by the misfortunes of France, as the French princes first, and after them the Jacobins, maliciously a.s.serted.

Once more the deputies of France flung the torch of discord across the Atlantic. By their decree of 4th April 1792 they declared absolute equality of rights between whites, half-castes, and blacks, and sent out commissioners to enforce this anarchic fiat. They forthwith took the side of the rebels, who in Toussaint l'Ouverture found a leader of terrible force of will. Martinique and Guadeloupe and the smaller islands were also a prey to civil war. In sheer desperation the planters and merchants of Guadeloupe sent over a delegate, Curt, to appeal to the British Government for protection. Lord Hawkesbury accorded to him an informal interview in the closing days of 1792. Curt pressed him for official help, without which his fellow colonists must lose their lives and property, and declared that he and many others abjured the name of Frenchmen.[367] Malouet, once prominent in the National a.s.sembly and destined to become famous under Napoleon, also approached our Ministers, but with more caution. He knew that in some of the islands the Republic had many adherents; but after the outbreak of war in February 1793 he too advocated the sovereignty of Great Britain under certain conditions, and on behalf of the colonists of Hayti signed a compact with Dundas to that effect.

Fear of a revolt of the slaves had induced Ministers to send out reinforcements, so that, early in 1793, 19 battalions were in the British West Indies. In the month of April a small British force easily captured Tobago and restored that valuable little island to Great Britain. An attack on Martinique at midsummer was, however, a failure.

These attempts, it may be noted, were made with forces already in the West Indies.[368] Pitt and Dundas have been severely blamed for sending further reinforcements to the West Indies.[369] But a letter which Pitt wrote to Grenville some time in June or July 1793 shows that the news of a French expedition having set sail to the West Indies, escorted by six or seven sail-of-the-line from Brest, led him to urge the despatch of a force for the protection of that important group of colonies.[370]

Besides, was a forward policy in the West Indies unwise? In these days it is hard to realize the value of those islands. The mention of Hayti conjures up a vision as of a ship manned by gorillas; for there and in Liberia is seen the p.r.o.neness of the negroes to aimless lounging varied by outbursts of pa.s.sion. But in the year 1789 Hayti far surpa.s.sed Jamaica in wealth and activity. The French possessed only the western third of the island; but the Spanish portion to the east was far less fertile, and far worse cultivated. The French genius for colonization was seen in the excellent system of irrigation carried on in the vast and fertile plain, the _Cul-de-Sac_, east of the capital, Port-au-Prince. But other portions, notably the long peninsula to the south-west, were also highly prosperous. The chief towns equalled in splendour and activity the provincial cities of France. Port-au-Prince and Cap Francais were the pride of the West Indies; and the rocky fortress, Mole St. Nicholas, dominated those waters as Gibraltar dominates the Eastern Mediterranean. The population of Hayti was reckoned at 40,000 whites, 60,000 mulattoes or half-castes, and some 500,000 negro slaves. Its exports (chiefly sugar, coffee, and cotton) were a.s.sessed at upwards of 7,500,000, or more by one third than that of all the British West Indies. To some extent Jamaica flourished on its ruin. For in May 1796 an official report stated that two coffee-planters, refugees from Hayti, who had settled in the mountains behind Port Royal, were introducing so many improvements as to bring the exports of coffee up to 6,000,000 lb.; and they would soon amount to 50,000,000 lb.[371]

The colonists of Hayti, who offered this valuable prize to Great Britain, were far from being unprincipled adventurers. Malouet, on whom fell the chief responsibility, was an upright and able man; and both he and his comrades were deputed by representative a.s.semblies which sought to save society from sinking into a gulf of unutterable horrors. His letters to Pitt[372] are instinct with the conviction that the men of Hayti unanimously desired a British protectorate, and recognized that the colonists must pay for the support accorded to them. As we were framing an alliance with Spain, no difficulties were to be antic.i.p.ated from the Spanish part of that island. When five or six valuable islands were to be had, to all appearance with little risk except from the slaves, Ministers would have been craven in the extreme not to push on an enterprise which promised to benefit British commerce and cripple that of France.

Unfortunately, owing to the drain of the Flemish campaign, their action was tardy. The schisms between Royalists and Republicans at the city of Cap Francais enabled the negroes to burst in at midsummer of 1793 with fire and knife and glut their vengeance on some thousands of persons.

Even after these atrocities the Jacobin commissioners continued to make use of the blacks in order to enforce their levelling decree; and the year ended amid long drawn out scenes of murder, rape, and pillage. By these infamous means did democracy win its triumph in the West Indies.

In their despair the French loyalists applied for further aid to Major-General Williamson, the governor of Jamaica. He sent a force which received a hearty welcome at the little fortress of Jeremie (19th September), and a few days later at that important stronghold, Mole St.

Nicholas, then blockaded on land by the blacks. An attempt by the Republicans at the capital, Port-au-Prince, to send an expedition for the recapture of Mole St. Nicholas was thwarted; and late in the year 1793 five other towns accepted British protection. The rapid recovery of prosperity in the district forming the lower jaw of the griffin-like head of Hayti is seen in the official exports from the port of Grand Anse at its tip. During the quarter 20th September to 31st December 1793 it sent the following quant.i.ties to British ports, chiefly Kingston in Jamaica: Coffee, 644,751 lb.; Sugar, 91,593 lb.; Cotton, 56,339 lb.; Cocoa, 66,944 lb. Even larger quant.i.ties of coffee were exported to foreign ports.[373] In 1796 the produce of Hayti was valued at 1,500,000; the colony employed more than 400 ships.[374] Was not this a land for which some risks might be encountered?