William Pitt and the Great War Part 42

[634] Pretyman MSS. Bullock paid the servants and supervised the accounts at Downing Street. Pitt was then staying with Addington near Reading.

[635] Omitting shillings, the details for Downing Street and Holwood for July-December 1799 are respectively: Table, 344, 231; Cellar, 169, 126; Housekeeping, 531, 156; Private Account, 357, --; Servants'

Wages, 251, 69; Servants' Board Wages, 329, 80; Servants' Bills, 353, 15; Liveries, 41, --; Taxes, etc., 747, 77; Farm, --, 784; Farm Labourers, --, 379; Garden, --, 125; Stable, 155, --; Job Horses, 165, --; Incidentals, 347, 340. (Pitt MSS., 201.)

[636] Joseph Smith (no relative of "Bob Smith," Lord Carrington) became Pitt's private secretary in 1787. His letters, published along with "The Beaufort Papers" in 1897, throw no light on Pitt's debts.

[637] Ashbourne, 162. See, too, ch. xv of this work.

[638] G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 429; ii, 215.

[639] Pitt MSS., 126. Coutts and five other bankers each subscribed 50,000 to the "Loyalty Loan" in 1797 and invested 10,000 on behalf of Pitt.

[640] Stanhope, iv, 233, 252; Ashbourne, 351-4.

[641] Pretyman MSS.

[642] "Private Papers of Wilberforce," 34; G. Rose, "Diaries," i, 508.

[643] "Letters of Wilberforce," i, 256.

[644] Pretyman MSS.

[645] Auckland, while amba.s.sador at The Hague, was suspected of too great inquisitiveness as to the British despatches which pa.s.sed through that place. On 20th July 1790, Aust, of the Foreign Office, wrote to Sir R. M. Keith at Vienna that Keith's new cipher puzzles "our friends at the Hague," and that Auckland's curiosity is "insatiable" (B.M. Add.

MSS., 35543). See, too, a note by Miss Rose in G. Rose "Diaries," ii, 75.

[646] Pretyman MSS.

[647] Pellew, ii, 113. Lord Holland, writing early in 1803 to his uncle, General Fox, then at Malta, says that there are three parties in Parliament, besides many subdivisions, "Grenville and Windham against peace and nearly avowed enemies of the present Government; the old Opposition; and Addington [_sic_]. Pitt, as you know, supports Addington, but the degree of intimacy and the nature of his connection with Ministers are riddles to every one." (From Mr. Broadley's MSS.)

[648] "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 168; G. Rose, "Diaries," ii, 6-9; Pellew, ii, 113.

CHAPTER XXII

ADDINGTON OR PITT?

Once more doth Pitt deem the land crying loud to him-- Frail though and spent, and an hungered for restfulness Once more responds he, dead fervours to energize Aims to concentre, slack efforts to bind.

THOMAS HARDY, _The Dynasts_, Act i, sc. 3.

On 30th January 1803 there appeared in the "Moniteur" the official Report of Colonel Sebastiani, Napoleon's envoy to the Levant. So threatening were its terms respecting the situation in Egypt and Corfu, that the Addington Ministry at once adopted a stiffer tone, and applied to Parliament for 10,000 additional seamen and the embodying of the militia. But the House, while readily acceding on 9th March, evidently wanted not only more men but a man. The return of Pitt to power was anxiously discussed in the lobbies. The Duke of Portland and Lord Pelham strongly expressed their desire for it. Yet Pitt remained at Walmer, feeling that he could not support financial plans fraught with danger to the State. Addington therefore resolved to sound him again with a view to his entering the Cabinet as a coadjutor. The envoy whom he chose for this delicate mission was Henry Dundas, now Lord Melville. He could count on his devotion; for, besides nominating him for the peerage, he is said to have opened to his gaze a life of official activity and patronage as First Lord of the Admiralty in place of the parsimonious and unmannerly St. Vincent.[649] Pitt received his old friend at Walmer with a shade of coolness in view of his declaration, on quitting office, that he could accept no boon whatever from Addington. To come now as his Cabinet-maker argued either overwhelming patriotism or phenomenal restlessness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HENRY DUNDAS, FIRST VISCOUNT MELVILLE. (From a painting by Sir T. Lawrence)]

Nevertheless, the two friends resumed at Walmer the festive intercourse of the Wimbledon days; and in due course, after dinner and wine, Melville broached the subject of his visit. It was that Addington, who was First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, should resign the latter office to Pitt, and take Lord Pelham's place as Secretary of State for Home Affairs. We can picture the astonishment and wrath of Pitt as this singular proposal came to light. At once he cut short the conversation, probably not without expletives. But Melville was pertinacious where patriotism and office were at stake; and their converse spread over the two days, 21st-22nd March, Melville thereupon sending a summary of it to Addington, couched in terms which Pitt deemed too favourable. The upshot was that on personal grounds Pitt desired not to return to office; and, if affairs were efficiently conducted, would prefer to continue his present independent support. If, however, the misleading statements of the Treasury were persisted in, he must criticize them. Above all, if he returned to office it must be as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer.

But Addington, foreseeing that Pitt would claim his two former offices, had concocted a sovereign remedy for all these personal sores. Pitt was to take office as Chancellor of the Exchequer, serving under his brother, the Earl of Chatham, as Prime Minister. Is it surprising that he negatived this singular proposal "without reserve or affectation"? By way of retort to this family prescription he charged Melville to point out the absolute need of the Cabinet being under the control of "the First Minister," who must not only have the confidence of the King and administer the finances, but also in the last resort impose his will on his colleagues. For himself he declared he would never come forward unless bound by public duty and with the enjoyment of the fullest confidence of the King.[650] There is a discrepancy between Melville's letter to Addington and a short account given by Pitt to Wilberforce two years later, to the effect that Melville, on cautiously opening his proposals at Walmer, saw that it would not do and stopped abruptly.

"Really," said Pitt with a sly severity, "I had not the curiosity to ask what I was to be."

Such was the bomb-sh.e.l.l exploded on Addington's bureau on 23rd March.

It must have cost him no less concern than Bonaparte's outrageous behaviour to our amba.s.sador, Lord Whitworth, ten days before. That scene before the diplomatic circle at the Tuileries portended war. How would Addington and his colleagues behave in this crisis? Would they sink all personal feelings, and, admitting that they could not weather the storm, accept the help and guidance of long tried navigators? Or would they stand on their dignity and order the pilot-boat to sheer off? Clearly it was a case where half measures were useless. The old captain and his chosen subalterns must command the ship. Pitt made this clear during conversations with Addington at Long's house at Bromley Hill (10th April). While declaring that he would not urge any point inconsistent with His Majesty's intentions, he demanded that Grenville, Melville, Spencer, and Windham should enter the Cabinet with him on the clearly expressed desire of the King, and at the request of the present Ministry. The last conditions seem severe. But Pitt's pledge to Addington made it essential that the Prime Minister should take the first step. To these terms two days later Addington made demur, but promised to communicate them to his colleagues; whereupon Pitt declared that he had said the last word on the matter; and when Ministers objected to Grenville and Windham, he was inexorable.[651] That their anger waxed hot against him appears from the following letter sent to Pitt by Lord Redesdale, formerly Sir John Mitford, and now Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who had been with Pitt and Addington at their conferences at Bromley:

Albemarle St., _April 16, 1803_.[652]

What pa.s.sed yesterday and the day before at Bromley Hill, has made so strong an impression on my mind that I have been unable to relieve myself from the anxiety which it has occasioned.

However you may flatter yourself to the contrary, it seems to me most clear that your return into office, with the impression under which you have appeared to act, must have the effect of driving from their situations every man now in office, and making a greater change than has ever been made on any similar occasion. I think myself as one of those persons individually int.i.tled to call upon your honour not to pursue the line of conduct which you seem determined to adopt. The present Administration, so far from having been formed in hostility to you, was avowedly formed of your friends. When you quitted office, you repeatedly declared that you should consider yourself as obliged to those friends who would continue in office or would accept office under Mr. Addington. You must recollect that I expressed to you my disapprobation of the change and my wish to retire to my situation at the Bar, quitting the office of Attorney-General; and that you used to me these words--"That you _must_ not do, for my sake." The words were too strongly impressed upon my mind at the moment to have escaped my memory. You encouraged me to take the office of Speaker much against my will. If I had not taken that office, nothing should have induced me to take that in which I am now placed, and by which I have been brought into a position of much anxiety, separated from all my old friends. Many many others are in similar situations, and all are to be sacrificed to those men who were said by yourself at the time to be acting in contradiction to your wishes in quitting their offices or those who dragged you out of office with them. You will probably tell me that you have no such intentions, particularly with respect to myself. But, whatever may be your intentions, such must be the unavoidable consequence of the changes which you have determined upon. I thought, when I took a situation under the Administration at the head of which you placed Mr. Addington, that I was doing you service. It was of no small importance to you, whether you looked to a return to office, or to retirement from public life, that the Government should not fall into the hands of those who had been engaged in violent opposition to you; and you yourself stated to me that you apprehended that must be the consequence if Mr. Addington should not be able to form an Administration.... Some of your last words to me induce me to think that you have not yourself abandoned the plan formed for giving to the Roman Catholic Church full establishment in Ireland--for such I consider the plan suggested by Lord Castlereagh, with any modification of which it is capable.

Indeed, if all those who went out of office because that measure was not approved then (such being the ostensible cause of their quitting their stations) are to come into office again, there can be no doubt in the mind of the public that it is determined to carry that measure....

That at so critical a juncture a supporter of Addington, not of Cabinet rank, should rake up personal reasons why Pitt should let things drift to ruin is inconceivable. And did Redesdale really believe Protestantism to be endangered by Pitt's return to office, after his a.s.surance at Bromley that he would not press any point at variance with the royal resolves? The King, who knew Pitt far better than Redesdale did, had no fear that he would belie his word by bringing forward Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation. But the phrases in the letter quoted above show that some of the Ministers were preparing to beat the drum ecclesiastic, and, in the teeth of the evidence, to charge Pitt with ingrat.i.tude and duplicity if he became Prime Minister. Ignoring the national crisis, they concentrated attention solely on the personal questions at issue; and it is humiliating to have to add that their petty scheming won the day. A compromise between Pitt and Addington was exceedingly difficult, but their reproaches and innuendoes made it impossible.[653]

The outcome was disastrous. The failure to form a strong and truly national Administration ended all hope of peace. Over against Addington set Bonaparte; with Hawkesbury compare Talleyrand; with Hobart, Berthier.[654] The weighing need go no further. The British Ministry kicks the beam; and in that signal inequality is one of the chief causes of the war of 1803. The first Consul, like the Czar Alexander I, despised the Addington Cabinet. He could not believe that men who were laughed at by their own supporters would dare to face him in arms. Twice he made the mistake of judging a nation by its Ministers--England by Addington in 1803, Spain by G.o.doy in 1808. Both blunders were natural, and both were irreparable; but those peoples had to pour forth their life blood to recover the position from which weakness and folly allowed them to slide. Politics, like meteorology, teaches that any sharp difference of pressure, whether mental or atmospheric, draws in a strong current to redress the balance. Never were the conditions more cyclonic than in 1803. A decade of strife scarcely made good the inequality between the organized might of France and the administrative chaos of her neighbours; between the t.i.tanic Corsican and the mediocrities or knaves who held the reins at London, Vienna, Berlin, and Madrid.

War having been declared on 18th May 1803, Pitt sought the first opportunity of inspiriting Parliament and the nation. On the 23rd a great concourse crowded the House in the hope of hearing him speak; and cries of "Pitt, Pitt" arose as he strode to his seat on the third row behind Ministers, beside one of the pillars. The position gave point to a remark of Canning to Lord Malmesbury, that Pitt would fire over the heads of Ministers, neither praising nor blaming them, but merely supporting the policy of the war. Such was the case. Replying to a few criticisms of Erskine, he defended the Cabinet and powerfully described the unbearable aggressions of the First Consul.

The speech aroused a patriotic fervour which cannot be fully realized from the meagre and dreary summary of it which survives. Romilly p.r.o.nounced it among the finest, if not the very finest, which he had ever made;[655] and Sheridan, in a vinous effusion to Lady Bessborough, called it "one of the most magnificent pieces of declamation that ever fell from that rascal Pitt's lips. Detesting the dog, as I do, I cannot withhold this just tribute to the scoundrel's talents." There follows a lament over Pitt's want of honesty, which betokens the maudlin mood preceding complete intoxication.[656] On the morrow Fox vehemently blamed the Cabinet in a speech which, for width of survey, acuteness of dialectic, wealth of ill.u.s.tration and abhorrence of war, stands unrivalled. Addington's reply exhibited his hopeless mediocrity; but, thanks to Pitt, Ministers triumphed by 398 votes to 67. As they resented the absence of definite praise in his speech, he withdrew to Walmer, there to serve his country and embarra.s.s his finances by raising the Cinque Ports Volunteers.

Before recounting Pitt's services in East Kent, I must mention a bereavement which he had sustained. His mother died, after a very short seizure, at Burton Pynsent on 3rd April 1803. Thus was snapped a link connecting England with a mighty past. A quarter of a century had elapsed since her consort was laid to rest in the family vault in Westminster Abbey; she followed him while the storm-fiends were shrouding in strife the two hereditary foes; and the Napoleonic War was destined to bring her gifted son thither in less than three years. The father had linked the name of Pitt with military triumphs; the son, with futile efforts for peace and goodwill; but the lives both of the war-lord and of the would-be peacemaker were to be ended by tidings of national disaster.

No parleying now. In Britain is one breath; We all are with you now from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e; Ye men of Kent, 'tis victory or death!

We all know these lines of Wordsworth. Do we know equally well that on Pitt, as Lord Warden, fell the chief burden of organization on the most easily accessible coast, that which stretches from Ramsgate to Rye?[657]

It was defenceless but for the antiquated works at Sandown, Deal, Walmer, Dover, and a few small redoubts further west. Evidently men must be the ramparts, and Pitt sought to stimulate the Volunteer Movement, which now again made headway. He strove to make it a National Movement.

At the close of July he sent an official offer to raise 3,000 Volunteers in Walmer and its neighbourhood; and he urged Ministers to have recourse to a _levee en ma.s.se_, whereupon Yorke, Under Secretary at War, proposed a scheme somewhat on those lines. Probably the encouragement offered to Volunteers was too great; for, while they were required to do less than was necessary to ensure efficiency, they were freed from all risk of compulsory enrolment in the Militia. This force and the Army consequently suffered, while the Volunteer a.s.sociations grew apace. On 27th October 1803 the King reviewed in Hyde Park as many as 27,000 of the London Volunteers and showed his caustic wit by giving the nickname of "the Devil's Own" to the Inns of Court Volunteers.

Pitt was not present on this occasion, he and his neighbour, Lord Carrington, on whom in 1802 he bestowed the command of Deal Castle, being busy in organizing the local Volunteers. As Constable of Dover Castle, Pitt summoned the delegates of the Cinque Ports to meet him there to discuss the raising of local corps; and he gave the sum of 1,000 towards their expenses. Dover contributed 885; Sandwich, 887; Margate, 538, and so on. As Lord Warden, he also took steps to secure a large number of recruits for the new Army of Reserve, and he further instructed local authorities to send in returns of all men of military age, besides carts, horses, and stock, with a view to the "driving" of the district in case of a landing.[658] At Walmer he kept open house for officers and guests who visited that coast. By the end of the year 1803 more than 10,000 Kentishmen had enrolled as Volunteers, and 1,040 in the Army of Reserve, exclusive of Sea Fencibles serving on gunboats. For the whole of Great Britain the totals were 379,000 and 31,000 respectively.[659] Pitt's joke at the expense of a battalion which laid more stress on privileges than drills, has become historic. Its organizers sent up a plan containing several stipulations as to their duties, with exceptions "in case of actual invasion." Pitt lost patience at this Falstaff-like conduct, and opposite the clause that they were on no account to be sent out of the country he wrote the stinging comment--"except in case of invasion."

The pen of Lady Hester Stanhope gives life-like glimpses of him during the endless drills between Deal and Dover. She had fled from the levelling vagaries of Earl Stanhope at Chevening to Lady Chatham at Burton Pynsent; but that home being now broken up, Pitt offered to install her at Walmer Castle. He did so with some misgiving; for her queenly airs and sprightly sallies, however pleasing as a tonic, promised little for comfort and repose. But the experiment succeeded beyond all hope. She soon learnt to admire his serenity, while his home was the livelier for the coming of this meteoric being. Her complexion was dazzlingly bright. Her eyes, usually blue, would flash black, as did those of Chatham in moments of excitement. Her features, too, had a magical play of expression, lighting up at a pleasing fancy, or again darting forth scorn, with the April-like alternations that irradiated and overclouded the brow of her grandsire. Kinglake, who saw her half a century later in her Syrian fastness, was struck by the likeness to the Chatham of Copley's famous picture.

Certainly she had more in common with him than with the younger Pitt.

During the time when she brought storm and sunshine to Walmer, Park Place, and Bowling Green House, she often rallied her uncle on showing undue complaisance to the King or to stupid colleagues whom the Great Commoner would have overawed. Pitt laughingly took the second place, and at times vowed that when her voice rang with excitement, he caught an echo of the tones of his father.[660] Perhaps it was this which reconciled him to her vagaries. For her whims and moods even then showed the extravagance which made her the dreaded Sultana of that lonely Syrian castle where she ended her days amidst thirty quarrelsome but awe-struck servants, and an equal number of cats, over whom an apprehensive doctor held doubtful sway.

But that bitter, repining, spirit-haunted exile was far different from the joyous creature who shed light on Pitt. Her spasmodic nature needed his strength; her waywardness, his affectionate control. As for her tart retorts, terrifying to bores and toadies, they only amused him. In truth she brought into his life a beam of the sunshine which might have flooded it had he married Eleanor Eden. Hester soon found that, far from being indifferent to the charms of women, he was an exacting judge of beauty, even of dress. In fact, she p.r.o.nounced him to be perfect in household life. His abilities in gardening astonished her; and we may doubt the correctness of the local legend which ascribes to her the landscape-gardening undertaken in the grounds of Walmer Castle in 1803.

The dell at the top of the grounds was Hester's favourite haunt.

The varied excitements of the time are mirrored in her sprightly letters. Thus, on 15th November 1803, she wrote at Walmer:

We took one of their gunboats the other day: and, as soon as she came in, Mr. Pitt, Charles,[661] Lord Camden and myself took a Deal boat and rowed alongside of her. She had two large guns on board, 30 soldiers and 4 sailors. She is about 30 feet long, and only draws about 4 feet of water; an ill-contrived thing, and so little above the water that, had she as many men on board as she could really carry, a moderate storm would wash them overboard.... Mr. Pitt's 1st battalion of his newly-raised regiment was reviewed the other day by General Dundas, who expressed himself equally surprised and pleased by the state of discipline he found them in.... I like all this sort of thing, and I admire my uncle most particularly when surrounded with a tribe of military attendants. But what is all this pageantry compared with the unaffected simplicity of real greatness!

Walmer Castle, _Nov. 19, 1803_.

To F. R. Jackson, Esq.

To express the kindness with which Mr. Pitt welcomed my return and proposed my living with him would be impossible; one would really suppose that all obligation was on his side. Here then am I, happy to a degree; exactly in the sort of society I most like. There are generally three or four men staying in the house, and we dine eight or ten almost every other day. Military and naval characters are constantly welcome here; women are not, I suppose, because they do not form any part of our society. You may guess, then, what a pretty fuss they make with me. Pitt absolutely goes through the fatigue of a drill sergeant. It is parade after parade at 15 or 20 minutes' distance from each other. I often attend him; and it is quite as much as I am equal to, although I am remarkably well just now. The hard riding I do not mind, but to remain almost _still_ so many hours on horseback is an incomprehensible bore, and requires more patience than you can easily imagine. However, I suppose few regiments for the time were ever so forward; therefore the trouble is nothing. If Mr. Pitt does not overdo and injure his health every other consideration becomes trifling. [She then states her anxiety on this score. She rarely speaks to him on it, as he particularly dislikes it. She adds:] I am happy to tell you, sincerely, I see nothing at all alarming about him. He had a cough when I first came to England, but it has nearly or quite left him. He is thin, but certainly strong, and his spirits are excellent.... Mr. Pitt is determined to remain acting colonel when his regiment is called into the field.

On this topic Pitt met with a rebuff from General (afterwards Sir John) Moore, commander of the newly formed camp at Shorncliffe, near Folkestone. Pitt rode over from Walmer to ask his advice, and his question as to the position he and his Volunteers should take brought the following reply: "Do you see that hill? You and yours shall be drawn up on it, where you will make a most formidable appearance to the enemy, while I with the soldiers will be fighting on the beach." Pitt was highly amused at this professional retort; but at the close of 1804 his regiment was p.r.o.nounced by General David Dundas fit to take the field with regulars. Life in the open and regular exercise on horseback served to strengthen Pitt's frame; for Hester, writing in the middle of January 1804, when her uncle was away in London for a few days, says: "His most intimate friends say they do not remember him so well since the year '97.... Oh! such miserable things as these French gunboats. We took a vessel the other day, laden with gin--to keep their spirits up, I suppose." Bonaparte was believed to be at Boulogne; and there was much alarm about a landing; but she was resolved "not to be driven up country like a sheep."