William Pitt and the Great War Part 39

[572] "Dropmore P.," iv, 337.

[573] "Dropmore P.," v, 82; "Malmesbury Diaries," ii, 507. Sir John Macpherson called Loughborough by far the cleverest man in the country ("Glenbervie Journals," 54).

[574] Campbell, viii, 172; G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 300.

[575] "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 21; "Auckland Journals," iv, 114-25.

[576] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iv 8-12.

[577] _Ibid._, iii, 418; iv, 13, 17-20.

[578] Pellew, i, _ad fin._ The original is in "H. O.," Ireland (Corresp.), 99, together with nine others for or against Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation, some with notes by Castlereagh.

[579] The first Imperial Parliament met on 22nd January; but time was taken up in swearing in members and choosing a Speaker. Addington was chosen. The King's Speech was fixed for 2nd February.

[580] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iv, 17-20; G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 303.

[581] _Ibid._, iv, 81.

[582] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 309; Pellew, i, 287. Addington afterwards destroyed those letters of the King to him which he considered unsuitable for publication.

[583] Grenville agreed with Pitt's letter to the King, but doubted the possibility of precluding discussion on the question, as it was already in the papers. He a.s.sured Pitt that he would act closely with him (Grenville to Pitt, 1st February 1801; Pretyman MSS.). Pitt afterwards declared that his resignation was largely due to the manner in which the King opposed him.

[584] "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 224.

[585] Pitt MSS., 122.

[586] Pretyman MSS.

[587] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iv, 8-12. Both Grenville and Windham declared in Parliament in May 1805 that hopes were held out to the Irish Catholics, and that their support of the Union was the result (Hansard, iv, 659, 1022).

[588] "H. O.," Ireland (Corresp.), 99.

[589] Hansard, iv, 1015.

[590] Pretyman MSS.

[591] Pretyman MSS.

[592] In "H. O.," Ireland (Corresp.), 99, are long reports of the Irish Catholic bishops, dated November 1800, on the state of their dioceses.

The bishops' incomes did not average more than 300 a year. The Archbishops of Dublin and Tuam reckoned the total number of parish priests and curates at 1,800, of whom 1,400 were seculars and 400 regulars. The benefices numbered 1,200; each required the services of two priests. The destruction of the seminaries in France and the poverty of the Irish made it impossible to supply or support 2,400 clergy. Other papers follow for and against Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation. See also "Castlereagh Corresp.," iii, _ad fin._

[593] "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 3, 8, 9, 14.

[594] "Dropmore P.," vi, 445. Mulgrave, who knew Pitt well, was convinced of his sincerity in resigning. His letter of 9th February 1801 (quoted by R. Plumer Ward, "Memoirs," i, 44) refutes the insinuations of Sorel (vi, 101) that Pitt resigned because he could not make peace with France.

[595] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iii, 285.

[596] "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 286.

[597] Pretyman MSS.

[598] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 313, 330; "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 244.

[599] "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 31, 32.

[600] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 360; Stanhope, iii, 304, 305.

[601] "Cornwallis Corresp.," iii, 343-9.

[602] _Ibid._, iii, 346; "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 243. The writer in the "Edinburgh Review" for 1858, who censured Pitt, failed to notice the entire change in the political situation brought about by the King's acute malady.

[603] Pretyman MSS.

[604] Bagot, "Canning and his Friends," i, 180.

[605] "Castlereagh Corresp.," iv, 14.

CHAPTER XXI

PITT AND HIS FRIENDS (1794-1805)

Nothing could be more playful, and at the same time more instructive, than Pitt's conversation on a variety of topics while sitting in the library at Cirencester. You never would have guessed that the man before you was Prime Minister of the country, and one of the greatest that ever filled that situation. His style and manner were quite those of an accomplished idler.--"Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 34.

The conflict of parties and interests is apt to thin the circle of a statesman's friends; and in that age of relentless strife the denuding forces worked havoc. Only he who possesses truly lovable qualities can pa.s.s through such a time with comparatively little loss; and such was the lot of Pitt. True, his circle was somewhat diminished. The opposition of Bankes had been at times so sharp as to lessen their intimacy; and the reputation of Steele had suffered seriously from financial irregularities.[606] Pitt's affection for Dundas and Grenville had also cooled; but on the whole his friendships stood the test of time better, perhaps, than those of any statesman of the eighteenth century.

Certainly in this respect he compares favourably with his awe-inspiring father. Not that Pitt possessed the charm of affability. On most persons his austere self-concentration produced a repellent effect; and it must be confessed that the Grenville strain in his nature dowered him with a fund of more than ordinary English coldness. Such was the opinion not only of the French _emigres_, whom he designedly kept at arm's length, but even of his followers, to whom his aloofness seemed a violation of the rules of the parliamentary game. But it was not in his nature to expand except in the heat of debate or in congenial society. In general his stiffness was insular, his pre-occupation profound. Lady Hester Stanhope, who saw much of him in the closing years, pictures his thin, tall, rather ungainly figure, stalking through Hyde Park, oblivious of all surroundings, with head uptilted, "as if his ideas were _en air_, so that you would have taken him for a poet."[607]

The comparison is as flighty as Lady Hester's remarks usually were, though the pa.s.sage may depict with truth the air that Pitt a.s.sumed when walking with her. No one else accused him of having affinities to poets.

In truth, so angular was his nature, so restricted his sympathies, that he never came in touch with literary men, artists, or original thinkers.

His life was the poorer for it. A statesman should know more than a part of human life; and Pitt never realized the full extent of his powers because he spent his time almost entirely amongst politicians of the same school. His mind, though by no means closed against new ideas, lacked the eager inquisitiveness of that of Napoleon, who, before the process of imperial fossilization set in, welcomed discussions with men of all shades of opinion, and encouraged in them that frankness of utterance which at once widens and clarifies the views of the disputants. It is true that Pitt's private conversations are almost unknown. They appear to have ranged within political grooves, with frequent excursions into the loved domains of cla.s.sical and English literature; but he seems never to have explored the new realms of speculation and poetry then opened up by Bentham and the Lake Poets. A letter of the poet Hayley to him will serve to suggest the extent of his loss in limiting his intercourse to a comparatively small coterie:

Felpham, near Chichester, _Sept. 9_[?].[608]

DEAR PITT,

Why are you slow in doing the little good in your power? Yes: great as you are, the real good you can do must be little; but that little I once believed you would ever haste to do with a generous eagerness and enthusiasm, and therefore I used to contemplate your character with an enthusiastic affection. That character, high as it was, sunk in my estimation from the calamitous delay concerning the promised pension of Cowper, a delay which allowed that dear and now released sufferer to sink into utter and useless distraction before the neglected promise was fulfilled. Will you make me some amends for the affectionate concern I suffered for the diminution of your glory in that business by expediting now a pension eagerly but ineffectively solicited by many _great people_, as I am told, for a most deserving woman, the widow of Mr. Green, the consul at Nice?...

Deserve and receive a kind and constant remembrance in the benedictions of a recluse who has still the ambition to live in your regard by the good which he would excite you to perform. At all events forgive this very unexpected intrusion and importunity from the old and long sequestered admirer of your youth, W. HAYLEY.

Hayley's letter is a trifle too presumptuous in tone even for an old friend; but it affords one more proof of Pitt's neglect of literary men, though it is but fair to remember that in 1793-4 he was hard pressed by the outbreak of war with France and the struggle to keep the Allies together. Still, the greatest of statesmen is he who, in the midst of world politics, neither neglects old friends, nor forgets the claims of literature and art. In this connection it is painful to add that he allowed the yearly stipend of the King's Painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, to be reduced from 200 to 50. On Reynolds soliciting the secretaryship to the Order of the Bath, he was told that it had been promised to an official of the Treasury. Another request, proffered through his patron, the Duke of Rutland, also proved fruitless, and he had reason to write with some bitterness--"Mr. Pitt, I fear, has not much attention to the arts."[609] His neglect of literature and the arts was the more unfortunate because George III and his sons did not raise the tone of the Court in this respect, witness the remark of the King to Gibbon at a State function. "Well, Mr. Gibbon, it's always scribble, scribble, I suppose."[610]

Apart from these obvious limitations in Pitt's nature, there was a wealth of n.o.ble qualities, which ensured life-long devotion from those who penetrated the protective crust and came to know, not the statesman, but the man. In him the qualities that command respect and excite affection were happily balanced. To a manly courage which never quailed in the hour of disaster, and a good sense that provided sage counsels alike in private and public affairs, he added the tenderer gifts. His affection once given was not lightly withdrawn. He looked always on the best side of men, and to that n.o.ble failing, if failing it be, most of his blunders may be ascribed. Even when his confidence was abused, he was loth to take revenge, so that Canning expressed regret at his reluctance to punish those who betrayed him.[611] Such a man will often make mistakes, but he will also inspire the devotion that serves to repair them. Moreover, even his opponents were forced to admit the conscientiousness of his conduct. On this topic the testimony of his friend Wilberforce is of value; for they had differed sharply as to the rupture with France in 1793; and, somewhat later, Wilberforce lamented the relaxation of Pitt's efforts against the Slave Trade. Yet their differences did not end their friendship; on 30th November 1797 the philanthropist wrote as follows to Sir Richard Aclom on the subject of the reformation of morals:

... There is one point only on which I will now declare we perfectly coincide, I mean, that of a general moral reform being the only real restorative of the health of our body politic. But I hesitate not to say that, tho' the Government is in its system and principle too much (indeed ever so little is, as I think, too much) tainted with corruption, yet it is more sound than the people at large. You appear to feel the disposition of the public to yield an implicit a.s.sent to Ministers without stopping to investigate the causes of that disposition (which are chiefly to be found in the violence of the Opposition and the established predominance of party). I will frankly avow no man has lamented this more than myself; I may indeed say more than this. I have endeavoured both in public and in private to fight against it. But selfishness has diffused itself thro' the whole ma.s.s of our people, and _hinc illae lacrymae_. You mistakenly conceive, as do many others, that I am bia.s.sed by personal affection for Mr. Pitt. When we meet, I will rectify your error on that head....[612]

Again, on 20th February 1798, Wilberforce wrote to William Smith, an active Abolitionist and now prominent in the Opposition, deploring the dilatoriness of Pitt, but maintaining that his patriotism was purer and more disinterested than that of anyone not under the direct influence of Christian principles. He adds these words: