William Pitt and the Great War Part 37

The triumph of Government at Dublin had its effects at Westminster. On 21st April 1800 Pitt explained the Resolutions as recently accepted by the Irish Parliament. He spoke very briefly, probably owing to ill health, which beset him through many weeks of that year.[570] He soon met a challenger. Thomas Jones dared him to combat by accusing Ministers of seeking to disfranchise Ireland by corrupt means. Foiled in argument, they now acted on the principle

Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

After a further display of cla.s.sical knowledge, Jones declared that the introduction of 100 Irish members into that House must destroy the British const.i.tution, which, like Damocles, would for ever be threatened with the sword of Dionysius suspended over it by a single hair.

Disregarding rhetoric and cla.s.sical allusions, Pitt plunged into business. In none of his speeches is there a simpler statement of a case. He declared the Union to be absolutely necessary as a means of thwarting the machinations of an enemy ever intent on separating the two kingdoms. It would further allay the religious animosities rife in Ireland, and would conduce to her freedom and happiness. He then uttered these words: "It may be proper to leave to Parliament an opportunity of considering what may be fit to be done for His Majesty's Catholic subjects, without seeking at present any rule to govern the Protestant Establishment or to make any provision upon that subject." This statement is not wholly clear; but it and its context undoubtedly opened up a prospect of Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation such as Cornwallis had far more clearly outlined. The significance of Pitt's declaration will appear in the sequel.

On the subject of commerce Pitt laid down the guiding principle that after the Union all Customs barriers between the two islands ought to be swept away as completely as between England and Scotland. If at present they swerved from this grand object, it was for the sake of reaching it the more surely. In compliance with the demand of Ireland, they would allow her to maintain a protective duty of 10 per cent. on cottons and woollens, in the latter case for not more than twenty years. He then added these words: "The manufacturers of this country do not, I believe, wish for any protecting duties; all they desire is a free intercourse with all the world; and, though the want of protecting duties may occasion partial loss, they think that amply compensated by general advantage." No more statesmanlike utterance had been heard in the House of Commons. Only by degrees had Pitt worked his way to this conviction.

In his early Budgets, as we saw, he clung to the system of numerous duties; but, despite the cramping influence of war, he now relied on the effects of a two-shilling Income Tax and aimed at the abolition of protective Customs dues. He was fated never to reach this ideal; but there can be no doubt that he cherished it as one of the hopes of his life.

Turning next to the question of Ireland's contribution to the Imperial Exchequer, Pitt set forth his reasons for fixing it at two fifteenths of the revenue of Great Britain; but, as this decision might in the future unduly burden the smaller island, it would not be final; and he suggested that at the end of twenty years the resources of each would so far have developed as to admit of a more authoritative a.s.sessment. If, however, in the meantime the amount paid by Ireland should be in excess of what ought to be paid, the surplus should be applied either to the extinction of her Debt or to local improvements. He further expressed the hope that in course of time the Debts and the produce of taxation would be so far a.s.similated in the two kingdoms as to admit of the formation of one National Debt and one system of taxation. Despite the favourable nature of these proposals, Pitt encountered a spirited opposition. Grey declared the measure to be a gross violation of the rights of the Irish people. Sheridan, Dr. Laurence (the friend of Burke), and Tierney continued in the same strain; and Grey finally dared the Minister to dissolve the Irish Parliament and appeal to the people.

Throwing off all signs of bodily weakness, Pitt took up the challenge.

Last year, he said, when the Commons of Ireland rejected the Union, certain members applauded them. Now, when they pa.s.sed it, the same members said "appeal to the people." He refused to do so, knowing well the scenes of violence and intimidation that would result from consulting primary a.s.semblies of Irishmen. The reference to those bodies, so notorious during the French Revolution, clinched his reply; and the House expressed approval of the Union by 236 votes to 30 (21st April 1800).

The further debates on the Bill are of little interest. In the absence of Fox, Grey was the protagonist of Opposition. Bankes, once a firm supporter of Pitt, opposed the measure. Wilberforce confessed to tremulous uncertainty about it, ostensibly because the addition of 100 Irish members to the House would add to the influence of the Crown, but more probably because he foresaw Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation. Peel, already known as one of the most successful and patriotic of Lancashire manufacturers, spoke up manfully for the Union, though he deeply regretted that Ireland would retain certain protective duties against Great Britain. Very noteworthy, in view of the son's championship of Free Trade in 1845, was the contention of the father that a weak country (Ireland) had no need of "protection" against a stronger one. In reality it would be as if a poor family shut its doors against a.s.sistance from a wealthy one. On the trading proposals Pitt's following was thinned down to 133; but the main question went through in May by overwhelming majorities in both Houses. In the following month it pa.s.sed through the Irish Parliament.

Castlereagh thereupon introduced a Bill to indemnify the holders of pocket boroughs who would lose patronage by the proposed changes. The Government, having now revised its previous resolve, proposed to disfranchise as many as 84 small Irish boroughs, and allotted 15,000 for each, or 1,260,000 in all. In explanation of this payment it must be remembered that the owning of such boroughs was a recognized form of property, as appeared in Pitt's proposal of 1785 to compensate British owners whom he sought to dispossess. Nothing but the near approach of revolution in 1832 availed to shatter the system of pocket boroughs in Great Britain; and then their owners were sent empty away. The difference in treatment marks the infiltration of new ideas. In England and Ireland a vote and a seat had been a form of property. According to the Rights of Man the franchise was an inalienable right of citizenship.

The list of Union honours and preferments having been published, we need not dwell on that unsavoury topic, except to remark that the promotions in the peerage conferred for services in connection with the Union numbered forty-six; that the opposition of the Protestant Archbishop of Cashel was bought off by the promise of the Archbishopric of Dublin; and that the number of ecclesiastical jobs consequent on the Union was nearly twenty. The promotions in the legal profession numbered twelve.

Twelve pensions and four t.i.tular honours were also granted. Five aspirants refused the posts offered to them because they expected "snug sinecures" which "require no attendance at all." In March 1805 Lord Hardwicke, successor to Cornwallis, complained that his funds were so embarra.s.sed by the various claims that the Irish Civil List had only 150 in hand.[571] These sordid bargainings cannot be said to amount to wholesale corruption, and did not much exceed those which usually were needed to carry an important Bill through that Parliament. On the whole Pitt and his colleagues might reflect with satisfaction that the use of bribes served to cleanse the political life of Ireland in the future.

The Union of the British and Irish Parliaments is generally considered from the insular point of view. This is quite natural; for primarily it concerned the British Isles. Nevertheless the influences which brought it about were more than insular. The formation of the United Kingdom, by the Act which came into effect on 1st January 1801, was but one among many processes of consolidation then proceeding. France was the first State which succeeded in concentrating political power at the capital; and the new polity endued her with a strength sufficient to break in pieces the chaotic systems of her neighbours. The mania of the French for centralization was seen in their dealings with the Batavian Republic, and with the Swiss Confederation, which they crushed into the mould of an indivisible Republic. Everywhere the new unifying impulse undermined or swept away local Parliaments or provincial Estates.

Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity in practice meant a single, democratic, and centralized Government. In self defence the Powers threatened by France borrowed her political weapons. In succession Great Britain, Prussia, and for a time even Austria, pulled themselves together for the struggle. As the binding powers of commerce also tended towards union, the Nineteenth Century witnessed the absorption of little States, except where they represented a distinct nationality.

Confronted by the new and threatening forces in France, Pitt was virtually compelled to abrogate a system under which the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, and Ministers who had no definite responsibility, could meddle in military affairs. Under the sway of Mars dualism cannot exist. In the crises of a great war Cabals and Juntos go by the board. The Irish Ministry was little more than a Junto; and Ireland need not mourn its loss.

The loss of her Parliament was far more serious; and if that body had represented the Irish people, Pitt's action would be indefensible. But Grattan's Parliament represented only a small minority of the Irish people; and that minority was resolved not to admit Catholics to full civic rights. It would have fought to maintain Protestant Episcopalian ascendancy; and under the conditions then existing England must have drawn the sword on behalf of her exacting "garrison."

Even in ordinary times such a state of things was unbearable; and the French saw it. Their aim was to strike at England through Ireland; and, but for Bonaparte's dreams of conquest in the East, this blow would have been dealt. Fortunately for Great Britain, his oriental ambitions served to divert to the sands of Egypt a thunderbolt which would have been fatal at Dublin. Even as it was, the mere presence of Bruix' great fleet at Brest prolonged the ferment in Ireland, thus emphasizing the force of the arguments in favour of Union. As we have seen, Pitt placed them in the forefront of his speeches; and those who charge him with hypocrisy, because France did not strike vigorously at Ireland during or after the Rebellion of 1798, only expose their ignorance of the facts and sentiments of that time. Throughout the years 1799 and 1800 the thought of invasion filled the minds of loyalists with dread, of malcontents with eager hope.

Nevertheless Pitt saw in the Union, not merely an expedient necessitated by war, but a permanent uplift for the whole nation. From the not dissimilar case of the Union with Scotland he augured hopefully for Ireland, believing that her commerce would thrive not less than that of North Britain. Still more did he found his hopes upon the religious settlement whereby he sought to crown his work. Ever since the days of Queen Elizabeth the strife between the Protestants and Catholics had marred the fortunes of that land. Pitt believed that it could be stilled in the larger political unity for which he now prepared.

FOOTNOTES:

[555] Pretyman MSS.

[556] "Mems. of Fox," iii, 150; "Grattan Mems.," iv, 435.

[557] Virgil, "Aen.," xii, 189-91. "As for me, I will neither bid the Italians obey the Trojans, nor do I seek a new sovereignty. Let both peoples, unsubdued, submit to an eternal compact with equal laws." The correct reading is "Nec mihi regna peto," which Pitt altered to "nova."

[558] Pitt MSS., 196, 320.

[559] Pretyman MSS. See "Cornwallis Corresp.," iii, 125, 210, for Unionist sentiment in Cork.

[560] Pitt MSS., 189.

[561] "Cornwallis Corresp.," iii, 52, 54; Hunt, "Pol. Hist. of England,"

x, 447.

[562] B.M. Add. MSS., 35455.

[563] B.M. Add. MSS., 35455.

[564] "Life of Wilberforce," ii, 227.

[565] These were boroughs in which all holders of tenements where a pot could be boiled had votes. See Porritt, ii, 186, 350.

[566] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iv, 8-10.

[567] "Cornwallis Corresp.," iii, 101, 102, 226; "Castlereagh Corresp.,"

iii, 260; Plowden (ii, 550), without proof, denies the existence of Downshire's fund.

[568] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iii, 135, 226. On the proposed changes in the Catechism there is a long _precis_ in the Pretyman MSS., being a summary of the correspondence of Lords Castlereagh and Hobart with Archbishop Troy and Bishop Moylan.

[569] B.M. Add. MSS., 35455; "Dropmore P.," vi, 121.

[570] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iii, 263, 278.

[571] M. Mac Donagh, "The Viceroy's Post-Bag," 43-53; "Cornwallis Corresp.," iii, 245, 251-6, 267, 318-21.

CHAPTER XX

RESIGNATION

It is well known that no quiet could subsist in a country where there is not a Church Establishment.--GEORGE III TO ADDINGTON, _29th January 1801_.

On 25th September 1800 Pitt wrote to the Lord Chancellor, Loughborough, then in attendance on the King at Weymouth, requesting his presence at a Cabinet meeting in order to discuss the Catholic Question and proposals respecting t.i.thes and a provision for the Catholic and Dissenting clergy. Five days later he explained to his colleagues the main proposal. In place of the Oaths of Supremacy and Abjuration he desired to impose on members of Parliament and officials merely the Oath of Allegiance, which would be no bar to Romanists. The change won the approval of all the Ministers present except Loughborough. He strongly objected to the proposal, upheld the present exclusive system, and demurred to any change affecting Roman Catholics except a commutation of t.i.thes, a measure which he had in preparation. His colleagues, astonished at this firm opposition from the erstwhile Presbyterian of East Lothian, begged him to elaborate his t.i.the Bill, and indulged the hope that further inquiry would weaken his resistance to the larger Reform. They did not know Loughborough.

There is a curious reference in one of Pitt's letters, of October 1798, to Loughborough as the Keeper of the King's conscience.[572] The phrase has an ironical ring well suited to the character of him who called it forth. Now, in his sixty-seventh year, he had run through the gamut of political professions. An adept in the art of changing sides, he, as Alexander Wedderburn, had earned the contempt or envy of all rivals. Yet such was the grace of his curves and the skill of his explanations that a new turn caused less surprise than admiration. Unlike his rival, Thurlow, who stormed ahead, Wedderburn trimmed his sails for every breeze and showed up best in light airs. Making few friends, he had few inveterate enemies; but one of them, Churchill, limned him as

Adopting arts by which gay villains rise And reach the heights which honest men despise; Mute at the Bar and in the Senate loud, Dull 'mong the dullest, proudest of the proud, A pert prim prater of the northern race, Guilt in his heart, and famine in his face.

This was before Wedderburn had wormed himself into favour with Lord North and won the office of Solicitor-General (1778). Two years later he became Lord Loughborough, a t.i.tle which Fox ascribed to his rancorous abuse of the American colonists. Figuring next as a member of the Fox-North Administration, he did not long share the misfortunes of his colleagues, for he alone of his colleagues contrived not to offend either the King or Pitt. This sleekness had its reward. The perversities of Thurlow having led to his fall in 1792, Loughborough became Lord Chancellor. His sage counsels heightened his reputation; and in October 1794 Pitt a.s.signed to him the delicate task of seeing Earl Fitzwilliam and Grattan in order to smooth over the difficulties attending the union with the Old Whigs. At his house in Bedford Square, Bloomsbury, occurred some of the conferences which ensured Fitzwilliam's acceptance of the Irish Viceroyalty. Loughborough urged Pitt to do all in his power to prevent a rupture with the Portland Whigs or the Irish people. Counsels of conciliation then flowed from his lips and were treasured up. In fact, Pitt seems to have felt no suspicion of him despite his courtier-like ways and his constant attendance on the King. For Loughborough, like Dundas, had outlived the evil reputation of an earlier time. The Marquis of Buckingham, writing to Grenville on an awkward episode affecting Lord Berkeley, advised him to consult Loughborough as a man of discretion and undoubted private honour.[573]

Neither Pitt nor Grenville knew that Loughborough had played them false in 1795. The man who urged them to send Fitzwilliam to Dublin with the olive-branch soon tendered to George III official advice of an exactly opposite tenour, namely, that a.s.sent to Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation would involve a violation of the Coronation Oath. A day or two later he stated to Rose that he had given to the King wholly different counsels, to the effect that the Coronation Oath did not apply to the question at issue, which referred to a legislative enactment, not to an act of the King in his executive capacity.[574] Two other legal authorities unequivocally declared for this view of the case.

Whether in the autumn and winter of 1800 Loughborough's secret counsels had much effect on the King may be doubted; for George, in his letter of 6th February 1795 to Pitt, declared Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation to be "beyond the decision of any Cabinet of Ministers." As for the Church Establishment, it was essential to every State, and must be maintained intact. When George had once framed a resolve, it was hopeless to try to change it. Moreover, during the debates on the Union, early in 1799, he remarked to Dundas at Court that he hoped the Cabinet was not pledged to anything in favour of the Romanists. "No," was the wary reply, "that will be a matter for future consideration." Thereupon he set forth his scruples respecting the Coronation Oath. Dundas sought to allay them by observing that the Oath referred, not to his executive actions, but only to his a.s.sent to an act of the Legislature, a matter even then taken for granted. The remark, far from soothing the King, elicited the shrewd retort, "None of your Scotch metaphysics, Mr. Dundas! None of your Scotch metaphysics!"

The action of Loughborough, then, can only have put an edge on the King's resolve; and all speculation as to the exact nature of his "intrigues" at Weymouth or at Windsor is futile. In truth a collision between the King and Pitt on this topic was inevitable. The marvel is that there had been no serious friction during the past eighteen years.

Probably the knowledge that a Fox Cabinet, dominated by the Prince of Wales, was the only alternative to Pitt had exerted a chastening influence on the once headstrong monarch; but now even that spectre faded away before the more potent wraith of mangled Protestantism. The King was a sincerely religious man in his own narrow way; and arguments about the Coronation Oath were as useless with him as discussions on Modernism are with Pius X.

Pitt therefore kept his plans secret. But we must here digress to notice an a.s.sertion to the contrary. Malmesbury avers that Loughborough, while at Weymouth in the autumn of 1800, informed his cousin, Auckland, and the Archbishop of Canterbury of the danger to the Established Church; that the latter wrote to the King, who thereupon upbraided Pitt. Now, it is highly probable that Auckland knew nothing of the matter until the end of January 1801,[575] and the secret almost certainly did not come to light until then, when the Archbishop, Auckland's brother-in-law, was a prey to nervous anxieties resulting from recent and agitating news.

Further, no such letter from the King to Pitt is extant either at the Public Record Office, Orwell Park, or Chevening; and if the proposals were known to George why did he fume at Pitt and Castlereagh on 28th January for springing the mine upon him? Finally, if the King, while at Weymouth, blamed Pitt for bringing the matter forward, why did Malmesbury censure him for keeping it secret? It is well to probe these absurdities, for they reveal the untrustworthiness of the Earl on this question.