William Pitt and the Great War Part 46

The most interesting words in this letter are "your intentions." They seem to imply that the plan of detaching part of Admiral Cornwallis's fleet off Brest to the a.s.sistance of Calder off the North West of Spain was originally Pitt's own, not Lord Barham's, as has been hitherto supposed. They must not be pressed too much; for the advice of Barham, First Lord of the Admiralty, must have been paramount. Nevertheless the proposal was evidently Pitt's as well as Barham's. The fact that Cornwallis antic.i.p.ated it bespeaks the resolve alike of Ministers and the admiral at all costs to stop Villeneuve off Finisterre and prevent the naval concentration in French waters on which Napoleon laid so much stress. The success of the British counter-stroke is well known.

Villeneuve, having been roughly handled by Calder, put into Ferrol, and finally, a prey to discouragement, made off for Cadiz, thus upsetting Napoleon's scheme for the invasion of England. In due course Nelson returned to England for a brief time of rest at "dear, dear Merton," and then set off on his last cruise. Before his departure he had an interview with Pitt at Downing Street--the only occasion, I believe, on which they met--and found in the ante-room Sir Arthur Wellesley, just returned from India. At the end of the interview Pitt flattered the great seaman by an act of attention which he thus described: "Mr. Pitt paid me a compliment, which, I believe, he would not have paid to a Prince of the Blood. When I rose to go, he left the room with me and attended me to the carriage." By attentions such as these Chatham was wont to stimulate the patriotism of our warriors; and on this occasion his son played an equally inspiriting part. Imagination strives to picture the scene, especially when England's greatest statesman and greatest seaman pa.s.sed through the ante-room where stood the future victor of Waterloo.[734]

Never again were those three heroes to meet. Nelson departed for Trafalgar. Pitt resumed the work which was wearing him to death, nerved, however, by the consciousness that the despatch of Nelson to the Mediterranean would foil Napoleon's project of making that sea a French lake, "the princ.i.p.al aim of my policy" as he declared it to be. In that quarter, then, Pitt won a decisive victory which was destined to save not only that sea, but the Continent from the domination of France.

Whether a glimpse of the future course of events opened out to the wearied gaze of the statesman we know not. All we know is that in mid-December, when the "Victory" lay jury-masted and wind-bound for three days off Walmer Castle, the Lord Warden was at Bath, in hope of gaining health and strength for a struggle which concerned him even more nearly than that in the Mediterranean, namely, the liberation of North Germany and the Dutch Netherlands from the Napoleonic yoke.

FOOTNOTES:

[680] Pitt MSS., 102. Pitt to Whitworth, 28th May 1804; G. Rose, "Diaries," ii, 136. See, too, Rose, "Despatches relating to the ...

Third Coalition," 27.

[681] Stanhope, iv, 199-201.

[682] Czartoryski, "Memoirs," ii, 35.

[683] "Creevey Papers," i, 28.

[684] Pretyman MSS.

[685] Rose, "Despatches relating to the ... Third Coalition" (Royal Hist. Soc., 1904), 14-19; also Rose, "Napoleonic Studies," 364-6, for the tentative Russian overture of November 1803.

[686] Rose and Broadley, "Dumouriez and the Defence of England against Napoleon," 260.

[687] Fortescue, v, 204-13. Half of the fine went to the overseers of the parish, who were bound under penalties to provide a parochial subst.i.tute.

[688] Fortescue, v, 239, 240.

[689] "Creevey Papers," i, 29.

[690] Pitt MSS., 157.

[691] Pretyman MSS. See "Ann. Reg." (1805) for the failure at Boulogne on 3rd October 1804.

[692] See Desbriere, "Projets ... de Debarquement, etc.," vol. v; J.

Corbett, "The Campaign of Trafalgar," chs. ii, iii, ix.

[693] "Kentish Gazette," 26th October 1804. Apparently Moore agreed to the scheme, despite his opinion quoted above. For information on this topic I am indebted to Lieutenant-Colonel Fynmore of Sandgate. In the manoeuvres of 1910 regiments were told off to extemporize means of crossing the ca.n.a.l in the quickest and most effective way.

[694] "W. O.," 76; "Diary of Sir J. Moore," ii, 71-4.

[695] Pretyman MSS.

[696] Harrowby MSS.

[697] Mahan, ii, ch. xv, _ad fin._; "Ann. Reg." (1804), 555; "Mems. of R. P. Ward," i, ch. vii. For the subsequent plan of Ministers to attack Ferrol, from which Moore dissuaded them, see "Diary of Sir J. Moore,"

ii, ch. xxi.

[698] Harrowby MSS.

[699] Rose, "Third Coalition," 32, 53, 61, 65, 67, 71, 75.

[700] Harrowby MSS.

[701] Lefebvre, "Cabinets de l'Europe," ii, 33.

[702] Pretyman MSS.

[703] Stanhope, iv, 244-8.

[704] See the letter in "Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies."

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

[706] "Mems. of Fox," iv, 45, 68, 72, 75.

[707] See an interesting account by Dr. Hunt, "Transactions of the Royal Hist. Soc." (1908), pp. 7-16.

[708] Hansard, iv, 1013-22, 1060.

[709] Hansard, iv, 255-325; "Life of Wilberforce," iii, 219-23; "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 338, 347; "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 544-9.

[710] Chevening MSS.

[711] "Trial of Lord Melville" (1806), 256-9, 370, 378.

[712] "Creevey Papers," i, 34.

[713] "Barham Papers" (Navy Records Society), iii; Corbett, "Trafalgar Campaign," 70-2; Stanhope, iv, 287; Pellew, ii 356-64.

[714] Czartoryski, "Mems.," ii, ch. vii.

[715] "F. O.," Prussia, 70; Rose, "Napoleonic Studies," 54-8; Rose, "Napoleon," ii, 54.

[716] Garden, "Traites," viii, 317-23; Alison, App. to ch. x.x.xix.

[717] Toreno ("War of Independence in Spain," vol. i, _ad fin._) had the story from Alava, who connected it with the arrival of the news of Ulm, on 2nd November. Pitt said: "All is not lost if I can succeed in raising up a national war in Europe, and this must have its commencement in Spain." But Malmesbury ("Diaries," iv, 340), who was present, does not name the incident, and states that Pitt disbelieved the news (see ch.

xxiv).

[718] Pretyman MSS.

[719] Rose, "Third Coalition," 25, 32, 44, 61, 66, 73, 76, 87, 97, etc.; Mr. Julian Corbett, "The Trafalgar Campaign," chs. i, ii. For a critique on Pitt's Mediterranean plans, see Bunbury's "Great War with France,"

183-95.

[720] Rose, "Third Coalition," 127-30.

[721] Czartoryski, "Mems.," ii, 74-6.

[722] Czartoryski, "Mems.," ii, 78; Rose, "Third Coalition," 155-64.

[723] _Ibid._, 232; Ulmann, "Russisch-preussische Politik"; Hansing, "Hardenberg und die dritte Coalition."