The Political History of England - Vol XI
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Title: The Political History of England - Vol XI
Author: George C. Brodrick
John Knight Fotheringham
Release date: September 30, 2008 [eBook #26727]
Most recently updated: March 6, 2009
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND - VOL XI ***
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_THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND_
_Seventy-five years have passed since Lingard completed his_ HISTORY OF
ENGLAND, _which ends with the Revolution of 1688. During that period
historical study has made a great advance. Year after year the mass of
materials for a new History of England has increased; new lights have
been thrown on events and characters, and old errors have been
corrected. Many notable works have been written on various periods of
our history; some of them at such length as to appeal almost exclusively
to professed historical students. It is believed that the time has come
when the advance which has been made in the knowledge of English history
as a whole should be laid before the public in a single work of fairly
adequate size. Such a book should be founded on independent thought and
research, but should at the same time be written with a full knowledge
of the works of the best modern historians and with a desire to take
advantage of their teaching wherever it appears sound._
_The vast number of authorities, printed and in manuscript, on which a
History of England should be based, if it is to represent the existing
state of knowledge, renders co-operation almost necessary and certainly
advisable. The History, of which this volume is an instalment, is an
attempt to set forth in a readable form the results at present attained
by research. It will consist of twelve volumes by twelve different
writers, each of them chosen as being specially capable of dealing with
the period which he undertakes, and the editors, while leaving to each
author as free a hand as possible, hope to insure a general similarity
in method of treatment, so that the twelve volumes may in their
contents, as well as in their outward appearance, form one History._
_As its title imports, this History will primarily deal with politics,
with the History of England and, after the date of the union with
Scotland, Great Britain, as a state or body politic; but as the life of
a nation is complex, and its condition at any given time cannot be
understood without taking into account the various forces acting upon
it, notices of religious matters and of intellectual, social, and
economic progress will also find place in these volumes. The footnotes
will, so far as is possible, be confined to references to authorities,
and references will not be appended to statements which appear to be
matters of common knowledge and do not call for support. Each volume
will have an Appendix giving some account of the chief authorities,
original and secondary, which the author has used. This account will be
compiled with a view of helping students rather than of making long
lists of books without any notes as to their contents or value. That the
History will have faults both of its own and such as will always in some
measure attend co-operative work, must be expected, but no pains have
been spared to make it, so far as may be, not wholly unworthy of the
greatness of its subject._
_Each volume, while forming part of a complete History, will also in
itself be a separate and complete book, will be sold separately, and
will have its own index, and two or more maps._
The History is divided as follows:--
Vol. I. FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST (to 1066). By
Thomas Hodgkin, D.C.L., Litt.D., Fellow of University College,
London; Fellow of the British Academy. With 2 Maps.
Vol. II. FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE DEATH OF JOHN (1066-1216). By
George Burton Adams, D.D., Litt.D., Professor of History in Yale
University. With 2 Maps.
Vol. III. FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY III. TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD III.
(1216-1377). By T. F. Tout, M.A., Bishop Fraser Professor of
Mediæval and Ecclesiastical History in the University of Manchester;
formerly Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. With 3 Maps.
Vol. IV. FROM THE ACCESSION OF RICHARD II. TO THE DEATH OF RICHARD III.
(1377-1485). By C. W. C. Oman, M.A., LL.D., M.P., Chichele Professor
of Modern History in the University of Oxford; Fellow of the British
Academy. With 3 Maps.
Vol. V. FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VII. TO THE DEATH OF HENRY VIII.
(1485-1547). By the Right Hon. H. A. L. Fisher, M.A., M.P.,
President of the Board of Education; Fellow of the British Academy.
With 2 Maps.
Vol. VI. FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH
(1547-1603). By A. F. Pollard, M.A., Litt.D., Fellow of All Souls'
College, Oxford, and Professor of English History in the University
of London. With 2 Maps.
Vol. VII. FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION (1603-1660).
By F. C. Montague, M.A., Astor Professor of History in University
College, London; formerly Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. With 3
Maps.
Vol. VIII. FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE DEATH OF WILLIAM III.
(1660-1702). By Sir Richard Lodge, M.A., LL.D., Litt.D., Professor
of History in the University of Edinburgh; formerly Fellow of
Brasenose College, Oxford. With 2 Maps.
Vol. IX. FROM THE ACCESSION OF ANNE TO THE DEATH OF GEORGE II.
(1702-1760). By I. S. Leadam, M.A., formerly Fellow of Brasenose
College, Oxford. With 8 Maps.
Vol. X. FROM THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III. TO THE CLOSE OF PITT'S FIRST
ADMINISTRATION (1760-1801). By the Rev. William Hunt, M.A., D.Litt.,
Trinity College, Oxford. With 3 Maps.
Vol. XI. FROM ADDINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION TO THE CLOSE OF WILLIAM IV.'S
REIGN (1801-1837). By the Hon. George C. Brodrick, D.C.L., late
Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and J. K. Fotheringham, M.A.,
D.Litt., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford; Lecturer in Ancient
History at King's College, London. With 3 Maps.
Vol. XII. THE REIGN OF QUEEN VICTORIA (1837-1901). By Sir Sidney Low,
M.A., Fellow of King's College, London; formerly Scholar of Balliol
College, Oxford, and Lloyd C. Sanders, B.A. With 3 Maps.
The Political History of England
IN TWELVE VOLUMES
EDITED BY WILLIAM HUNT, D.LITT., AND
REGINALD L. POOLE, M.A.
XI.
THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
FROM ADDINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION TO
THE CLOSE OF WILLIAM IV.'S REIGN
1801-1837
BY THE
HON. GEORGE C. BRODRICK, D.C.L.
LATE WARDEN OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD
COMPLETED AND REVISED BY
J. K. FOTHERINGHAM, M.A., D.LITT.
FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD; LECTURER IN
ANCIENT HISTORY AT KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON
_NEW IMPRESSION_
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS
1919
_NOTE._
_When the late Warden of Merton undertook the preparation of this volume
he invited the assistance of Dr. Fotheringham in the portions dealing
with foreign affairs. At the time of the late Warden's death in 1903
three chapters (x., xii. and xviii.) were unwritten, and one (xx.) was
left incomplete. It was also found that the volume had to be recast in
order to meet the plan of the series. The necessary alterations and
additions have been made by Dr. Fotheringham, who has been scrupulous in
retaining the expression of the late Warden's views, and, where
possible, his words._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
ADDINGTON.
PAGE
Mar., 1801. The new ministry 1
Condition of Ireland 2
Expedition to Copenhagen 3
Sept. Egypt evacuated by the French 6
French diplomatic successes 6
Bonaparte's concordat with the pope 7
Peace negotiations with France 8
Cornwallis at Amiens 10
25 Mar., 1802. The treaty of Amiens 12
Parliamentary criticism of the treaty 14
July. General election 15
Nov. Colonel Despard's conspiracy 16
Further aggressions of Napoleon 17
His colonial policy 18
Negotiations between Whitworth and the French government 19
18 May, 1803. Renewal of the war with France 22
CHAPTER II.
THE RETURN OF PITT.
23 July, 1803. Emmet's rebellion 23
Pitt's discontent with the ministry 24
Ministerial changes 27
Jan., 1804. The king's illness 29
April. Addington's resignation 31
The exclusion of Fox 32
18 May. Napoleon declared emperor 33
Pitt's ministry 34
The impeachment of Melville 36
July. The third coalition 37
Nelson's pursuit of Villeneuve 39
21 Oct., 1805. The battle of Trafalgar 40
Napoleon marches into Germany 41
Dec. Austerlitz: the peace of Pressburg 42
Collapse of the coalition 43
23 Jan., 1806. Death of Pitt 43
CHAPTER III.
GRENVILLE AND PORTLAND.
Feb., 1806. Formation of the Grenville ministry 45
13 Sept. Death of Fox 46
14 Oct. Jena and Auerstädt 47
General election 48
25 Mar., 1807. Abolition of the slave trade 48
Fall of the whig government 49
The Portland administration 50
General election 50
7 July. The treaty of Tilsit 52
Seizure of the Danish fleet 54
The "continental system" and orders in council 55
Fruitless expeditions 56
12 Oct. Conference of Erfurt 59
Army scandals 60
The Wagram campaign 63
July, 1809. The Walcheren expedition 64
21 Sept. Duel between Canning and Castlereagh 67
Oct. Perceval's administration 68
Capture of the Ionian Isles and Bourbon 69
25. Jubilee of George III. 69
CHAPTER IV.
PERCEVAL AND LIVERPOOL.
Jan., 1810. Debates on the Walcheren expedition 71
April. The arrest of Burdett 72
Appointment of the "Bullion committee" 73
The king's insanity: regency bill 74
11 May, 1812. Assassination of Perceval 76
1809-11. Social reforms in his ministry 77
July, 1810. Deposition of Louis Bonaparte 78
Opposition in Europe to the continental system 78
Alliances formed by Russia and France 81
Conquest of Java and Sumatra 81
June, 1812. The formation of Liverpool's cabinet 81
1811-12. Distress in town and country 83
Oct., 1812. General election 85
1813. Confirmation of the East India Company's charter 86
CHAPTER V.
THE PENINSULAR WAR.
1807, 1808. The origin of the war 87
Charles IV. and Ferdinand VII. seek the
protection of Napoleon 87
1808. Napoleon's plans for the conquest of Spain 88
24 July. Joseph Bonaparte proclaimed King of Spain 89
13 Aug. Landing of Wellesley 90
21. Battle of Vimeiro 91
Oct., 1808.- Expedition of Sir John Moore 92
Jan., 1809.
16 Jan. Battle of Coruña 95
Wellesley returns to Portugal 97
27 July. Battle of Talavera 98
Sept., 1810. Bussaco: the lines of Torres Vedras 101
Struggle for the frontier fortresses 103
16 May, 1811. Battle of Albuera 103
Jan.-April, Sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz 105
1812.
22 July. Battle of Salamanca 107
1812, 1813. Wellington reorganises the Spanish and Portuguese armies 109
21 June, 1813. Battle of Vitoria 110
Battle of the Pyrenees 113
Siege of St. Sebastian 113
8 Oct. Wellington crosses the Bidassoa 115
Battles round Bayonne 115
Feb., 1814. The investment of Bayonne 117
10 April. Battle of Toulouse 119
CHAPTER VI.
THE DOWNFALL OF NAPOLEON.
1812. French treaties with Prussia and Austria 122
Alliances made by Russia 123
June. Napoleon's advance into Russia 124
His retreat 125
War between England and the United States 126
Attacks on Canada 129
American successes at sea 131
Feb., 1813. Treaty of Kalisch 134
Austrian diplomacy 135
2, 21 May. Lützen and Bautzen 135
Aug., Oct. Dresden and Leipzig 137
France loses Saxony, Holland, and Switzerland 138
American war continued 138
1 June. Duel of the _Shannon_ and _Chesapeake_ 142
Jan.-Mar., Campaign in France 143
1814.
April. Napoleon deposed: Louis XVIII. recalled 145
24 Dec. Treaty of Ghent 147
July. Visit of Alexander and Frederick William to England 148
CHAPTER VII.
VIENNA AND WATERLOO.
30 May, 1814. The first treaty of Paris 149
English blockade of Norwegian ports 150
Union of Sweden and Norway 150
Restoration of Ferdinand VII. and Pius VII. 150
Attempts to abolish the slave trade 151
Sept., 1814- Congress of Vienna 152
June, 1815.
3 Jan., 1815. Secret treaty between England, France, and Austria 153
1 March. Napoleon's return from Elba 153
Flight of Louis XVIII.: the _Acte Additionnel_ 155
Plans of the allies 156
Defeat and death of Murat 157
June. Wellington at Brussels: his army 158
16. Ligny and Quatre Bras 159
18. Waterloo 160
July. Paris occupied by the allies 163
22 June. Second abdication of Napoleon 165
His surrender to England 165
Restoration of Louis XVIII.: treaty of Vienna 166
Resettlement of Europe 166
20 Nov. Second treaty of Paris: English gains 167
26 Sept. The Holy Alliance 168
Napoleon at St. Helena 169
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIRST YEARS OF PEACE.
1816. Depression and discontent 171
Vansittart's financial policy 173
Union of British and Irish exchequers 174
2 Dec., 1816. Spa Fields riot 175
Prosecution of Hone 177
1818. General election 178
16 Aug., 1819. The "Manchester massacre" 178
Dec. The six acts 180
1817, 1819. Institution of savings banks: currency reform 182
6 Nov., 1817. Death of Princess Charlotte 184
1818. Royal marriages 184
29 Jan., 1820. Death of George III. 185
Royalist reaction in Europe 187
1816. Expedition against the Barbary states 187
1819. Murder of Kotzebue 189
30 Sept., Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle 189
1818.
Spain asks for assistance from the allies 190
The European alliance 190
CHAPTER IX.
THE LAST YEARS OF LORD LIVERPOOL.
1820. The Cato Street conspiracy 192
Dissolution of parliament 193
The "queen's trial" 194
7 Aug., 1821. Her death 196
1822. Changes in the cabinet 199
12 Aug. Death of Castlereagh 199
Sept. Canning foreign secretary 200
Jan. Peel home secretary 201
1823. Reform of the navigation laws 202
Agricultural discontent 203
1825. Speculative frenzy and financial panic 205
1823-26. Robinson's finance 206
General election of 1826 207
Close of Liverpool's ministry 208
CHAPTER X.
PROBLEMS IN SOUTHERN EUROPE.
1820. Revolution in Spain: policy of non-intervention 210
July, Aug. Revolutions in the Two Sicilies and Portugal 211
20 Oct. Congress of Troppau 211
Jan., 1821. Congress of Laibach 212
Mar., April. Revolution in Piedmont: Austrian intervention 213
Insurrections in the Morea and Central Greece 214
Aug. "Sanitary cordon" 215
Ultra-royalist parties in France and Spain 215
Loss of Spanish colonies in America 215
1822. Conference at Vienna 216
20 Oct. Congress of Verona 217
Offer of mediation declined 218
7 April, 1823. War between France and Spain 220
12 Oct., 1822. Independence of Brazil 221
July, 1825. Conference at London 222
2 Dec., 1823. The Monroe doctrine 223
1824-25. Conference at St. Petersburg 224
1 Dec., 1825. Death of the Tsar Alexander I. 225
CHAPTER XI.
TORY DISSENSION AND CATHOLIC RELIEF.
April, 1827. Formation of Canning's ministry 227
Additions to the ministry 228
8 Aug. Death of Canning 228
Sept. Goderich's cabinet 229
Dissensions: resignation of Goderich 230
9 Jan., 1828. Wellington accepts office 230
The Eastern question 232
20 Oct., 1827. Navarino 233
1828. Repeal of the test and corporation acts 235
May, June. Changes in the ministry 236
June, July. The Clare election 237
1821. Measures for catholic relief 239
1825. Further measures 241
George IV.'s opposition to catholic relief 244
1829. Wellington and Peel adopt catholic relief 245
Mar., April. Debates on the bill 246
13 April. The royal assent 249
21 Mar. Duel between Wellington and Winchilsea 250
Exclusion of O'Connell from Parliament 251
CHAPTER XII.
PORTUGAL AND GREECE.
10 Mar., 1826. Death of John VI. of Portugal 253
2 May. Peter abdicates in favour of his daughter Maria 254
31 July. Miguel proclaimed king by the absolutists 254
Dec. England sends troops to help the Portuguese government 255
3 Mar., 1828. Peter appoints Miguel regent for Maria 258
Dec., 1827. The sultan defies Russia 260
26 April, Russia makes war on the Turks 263
1828.
Negotiations for settlement of Greek question 264
Oct., Nov. French troops expel the Turks from the Morea 265
Terms of settlement agreed on at Poros and London 266
14 Sept., Peace of Adrianople 267
1829.
3 Feb., 1830. Greece independent: throne offered to Prince Leopold 268
France conquers Algiers 269
CHAPTER XIII.
PRELUDE OF REFORM.
1830. Amalgamation of English and Welsh benches 271
Motions for reform 271
26 June. Death of George IV. 272
General election 274
15 Sept. Death of Huskisson 275
Wellington's opposition to reform 277
Fall of his ministry 278
Nov. Grey accepts office 278
His cabinet 279
The regency bill 281
Feb., 1831. Althorp's first budget 283
Public demand for reform 285
Draft of the first reform bill 287
System of representation in the unreformed house 288
Popular excitement: second reading of the bill 291
Dissolution of parliament 292
CHAPTER XIV.
THE REFORM.
1831. General election 293
24 June. Second reform bill introduced 294
8 Oct. Rejection by the lords 296
Reform bill riots 296
Attempts at compromise in the lords 299
12 Dec. Final reform bill introduced 300
Gradual loss of the king's confidence in the ministry 302
9 May, 1832. Grey resigns 302
Wellington unable to form a ministry 303
The king recalls Grey 304
4 June. Third reading of the bill 304
Scotch and Irish reform bills carried 306
26 Oct. The cholera epidemic 309
1831. The census 311
State of Ireland 312
O'Connell's agitation 312
The "tithe-war" in Ireland 314
Legislation for Ireland 316
The Kildare Place Society 317
CHAPTER XV.
FRUITS OF THE REFORM.
1832. General election 318
1833. Irish coercion bill 320
Irish Church temporalities bill 322
Ministerial changes 325
Abolition of colonial slavery 326
Factory acts 327
The East India Company act 328
Bank charter act 330
Formation of judicial committee of the privy council 332
Act for the abolition of fines and recoveries 333
1831, 1832, Althorp's budgets 334
1833.
CHAPTER XVI.
RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND POOR LAW REFORM.
1833. The Tractarian movement 336
1832. First meeting of the British Association 338
Foundation of the Catholic Apostolic Church 339
1834. The "new poor law" 340
Creation of a central poor law board 343
Ministerial discord 344
9 July. Grey's resignation 346
Formation of Melbourne's ministry 347
16 Oct. Destruction of the houses of parliament 349
14 Nov. Melbourne's resignation 350
Wellington's provisional government 351
Dec. Peel's cabinet 352
The Tamworth manifesto 353
CHAPTER XVII.
PEEL AND MELBOURNE.
Jan., 1835. General election 354
Feb. Abercromby elected speaker 354
The "Lichfield House compact" 356
April. Peel's resignation 356
Melbourne's second ministry 357
Exclusion of Brougham 357
Municipal corporations act 360
Jan., 1836. Cottenham lord chancellor 363
Conflict with the lords on Irish bills 365
Tithe commutation act (English) 365
Reformed marriage law 366
Registration system 366
1835, 1836. Crusade against Orange lodges 367
1836. The paper duties lowered 369
Committee on agricultural distress 370
1836, 1837. Agitation in Ireland 371
1837. Irish municipal bill 372
Church rates 373
Burdett secedes from the whig party 374
20 June. Death of William IV. 375
CHAPTER XVIII.
FOREIGN RELATIONS UNDER WILLIAM IV.
July, 1830. The revolution of July 376
Recognition of Louis Philippe by the Powers 377
Sept. Belgian provinces in revolt 379
20 Dec. Protocol of London 381
June, 1831. Election of Leopold as King of the Belgians 383
Aug. War between Belgium and Holland 384
French troops enter Belgium 384
Nov. British and French fleets blockade the Scheldt 386
Nov., 1833. Convention between Holland and Belgium 387
1830. Insurrections in Switzerland, Poland, Italy, etc. 387
1831, 1832. Capture of Warsaw; Polish constitution abolished 388
7 April, 1831. Peter leaves Brazil for Portugal 388
Carlist rebellion in Spain 389
22 April, The quadruple alliance 389
1834.
26 May. Miguel renounces his claims 390
9 Oct., 1831. Capodistrias (Greek president) assassinated 392
1832. Otto of Bavaria becomes King of Greece 392
1831. War between Ibrahim and the Sultan 393
1833. Treaties of Kiutayeh and Unkiar Skelessi 394
8 Sept. Secret convention at Münchengrätz 395
CHAPTER XIX.
BRITISH INDIA.
1801. Annexation of the Karnátik 397
1803. Assaye and Argáum 399
1805. Resignation of Lord Wellesley 399
10 July, 1806. Mutiny at Vellore 400
Lord Minto's pacific policy 401
1801-10. Treaties with Persia 402
Elphinstone in Afghánistán 403
1813. Lord Moira appointed governor-general 404
The Pindárí war 405
1818. Subjugation of the Pindárís 407
First Burmese war 408
Abolition of satí 410
Extirpation of thagí 411
Defence of Herat 412
Communication with India 413
Burnes's mission to Kábul 413
CHAPTER XX.
LITERATURE AND SOCIAL PROGRESS.
The "Lake school" 416
Scott's novels 418
Minor poets: philosophical works 420
Newspapers and reviews 422
Essayists and historians 425
The arts: painting, sculpture 427
Scientific discoveries 428
University reform 429
Formation of London University 431
Improvements in agriculture 433
Steam navigation 434
The first railways 435
Geographical discovery 436
Philanthropy 436
Canada 437
South Africa 438
Convict settlements in Australia 438
Development of Australia 439
APPENDIX I. On Authorities 443
II. Administrations, 1801-37 451
MAPS.
(AT THE END OF THE VOLUME.)
1. Great Britain, showing the parliamentary representation after the
reform.
2. Spain and Portugal, illustrating the Peninsular war.
3. India.
CHAPTER I.
ADDINGTON.
When, early in March, 1801, Pitt resigned office, he was succeeded by
Henry Addington, who had been speaker of the house of commons for over
eleven years, and who now received the seals of office as first lord of
the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer on March 14, 1801. He was
able to retain the services of the Duke of Portland as home secretary,
of Lord Chatham as president of the council, and of Lord Westmorland as
lord privy seal. For the rest, his colleagues were, like himself, new to
cabinet rank. Lord Hawkesbury (afterwards the second Earl of Liverpool)
became foreign secretary, and Lord Hobart, son of the Earl of
Buckinghamshire, secretary for war. Loughborough reaped the due reward
of his treachery by being excluded from the ministry altogether; with a
curious obstinacy he persisted in attending cabinet councils, until a
letter from Addington informed him that his presence was not desired. He
received some small consolation, however, in his elevation to the
Earldom of Rosslyn. Lord Eldon was the new chancellor and was destined
to hold the office uninterruptedly, except for the brief ministry of Fox
and Grenville, till 1827. Lord St. Vincent became first lord of the
admiralty, and Lord Lewisham president of the board of control.
Cornwallis had resigned with Pitt, but it was not till June 16 that a
successor was found for him as master general of the ordnance. It was
then arranged that Chatham should take this office. Portland succeeded
Chatham as lord president, and Lord Pelham, whose father had just been
created Earl of Chichester, became home secretary instead of Portland.
An important change was introduced into the distribution of work between
the different secretaries of state, the administration of colonial
affairs being transferred from the home to the war office, so that
Hobart and his successors down to 1854 were known as secretaries of
state for war and the colonies. Soon afterwards Lewisham succeeded his
father as Earl of Dartmouth.
Though the Addington ministry has, not without justice, been derided for
its weakness as compared with its immediate predecessor, it is
interesting to observe that in it one of the greatest of English judges
as well as a future premier, destined to display an unique power of
holding his party together, first attained to cabinet rank; and in the
following year it was reinforced by Castlereagh, who disputes with
Canning the honour of being regarded as the ablest statesman of what was
then the younger generation. The weakness of the ministry must therefore
be attributed to a lack of experience rather than a lack of talent. It
was unfortunate in succeeding a particularly strong administration, but
is well able to bear comparison with most of the later ministries of
George III. Addington himself was in more thorough sympathy with the
king than any premier before or after. Conversation with Addington was,
according to the king, like "thinking aloud"; and with a king who, like
George III., still regarded himself as responsible for the national
policy, hearty co-operation between king and premier was a matter of no
slight importance.
In the early days of the new administration Pitt loyally kept his
promise of friendly support, and it is to be deplored that Grenville and
Canning did not adopt the same course. While the issue of peace and war
was pending, domestic legislation inevitably remained in abeyance. In
Ireland serious disappointment had been caused by the abandonment of
catholic emancipation; but the disappointment was borne quietly, and the
Irish Roman catholics doubtless did not foresee to what a distance of
time the removal of their disabilities had been postponed. The just and
mild rule of the new lord lieutenant, Lord Hardwicke, contributed to the
pacification of the country. But in reality the conduct of the movement
for emancipation was only passing into new hands; when it reappeared it
was no longer led by catholic lords and bishops, but was a peasant
movement, headed by the unscrupulous demagogue O'Connell. In these
circumstances it is to be regretted that the new administration
neglected to carry that one of the half-promised concessions to the
catholics which could not offend the king's conscience, namely, the
commutation of tithe. Nothing in the protestant ascendency was so
irritating to the catholic peasantry as the necessity of paying tithe to
a protestant clergy, and its commutation, while benefiting the clergy
themselves, would have removed the occasion of subsequent agitation. The
spirit of disloyalty, however, was believed to be by no means extinct
either in Ireland or in Great Britain, and two stringent acts were
passed to repress it. The first, for the continuance of martial law in
Ireland, was supported by almost all the Irish speakers in the house of
commons, where it was carried without a division, and was adopted in the
house of lords by an overwhelming majority, after an impressive speech
from Lord Clare. The second, for the suspension of the _habeas corpus_
act in the whole United Kingdom was framed to remain in force "during
the continuance of the war, and for one month after the signing of a
definitive treaty of peace".
[Pageheading: _THE HORNE TOOKE ACT._]
The only other measure of permanent interest which became law in this
session was the so-called "Horne Tooke act," occasioned by the return of
Horne Tooke, who was in holy orders, for Old Sarum. Such a return was
contrary to custom, but the precedents collected by a committee of the
house of commons were inconclusive. It was accordingly enacted that in
future clergymen of the established churches should be ineligible for
seats in parliament, while Horne Tooke was deemed to have been validly
elected, and retained his seat. The house of commons found time,
however, for an important and well-sustained debate on India, in which
among others Dundas, now no longer in office, showed a thorough
knowledge of questions affecting Indian finance and trade.
The naval expedition which had been prepared in the last days of Pitt's
administration sailed for Copenhagen on March 12, 1801, under Sir Hyde
Parker, with Nelson as second in command. The admiral in chief was of a
cautious temper, but was wise enough to allow himself to be guided by
Nelson's judgment when planning an engagement, though not as to the
general course of the expedition. The fleet consisted of sixteen ships
of the line and thirty-four smaller vessels; all these with the
exception of one ship of the line reached the Skaw on the 18th. A
frigate was sent in advance with instructions to Vansittart, the
British envoy at Copenhagen, to present an ultimatum to the Danish
government,[1] demanding a favourable answer to the British demands
within forty-eight hours. For three days Parker waited at anchor
eighteen miles from Elsinore, and it was only when Vansittart brought an
unfavourable reply on the 23rd that he took Nelson into his counsels. He
readily adopted Nelson's plan of ignoring the Danish batteries at
Kronborg and making a circuit so as to attack Copenhagen at the weak
southern end of its defences, but set aside his project of masking
Copenhagen and making straight for a Russian squadron of twelve ships of
the line which was lying icebound at Revel. The fair weather of the 26th
was wasted in irresolution, and it was not till the 30th that the fleet
was able to weigh anchor. It passed Kronborg in safety and anchored five
miles north of Copenhagen.
Parker placed under Nelson's immediate command twelve ships of the line
and twenty-one smaller vessels, by far the greater part of the British
fleet. With these he was to pass to the east of a shoal called the
Middle Ground and attack the defences of Copenhagen from the south,
while Parker with the remainder of the fleet was to make a demonstration
against the more formidable northern defences. The wind could not of
course favour both attacks simultaneously, and it was agreed that the
attack should be made when the wind favoured Nelson. The nights of the
30th and 31st were spent in reconnoitring and laying buoys. On April 1 a
north wind brought Nelson's squadron past the Middle Ground, and on the
next day a south wind enabled him to attack the Danish fleet, if fleet
it may be called. At the north end of the Danish position stood the only
permanent battery, the Trekroner, with two hulks or blockships; the rest
consisted of seven blockships and eleven floating batteries, drawn up
along the shore. An attack on the south end of the line was also exposed
to batteries on the island of Amager. Nelson's intention was to close
with the whole Danish fleet, but three of his ships of the line were
stranded and he was obliged to leave the assault on the northern end
entirely to lighter vessels.
[Pageheading: _BATTLE OF THE BALTIC._]
The Danish batteries proved more powerful than had been anticipated, and
as time went on and the Danish resistance did not appear to lose in
strength, Parker grew doubtful of the result of the battle and gave the
order to cease action. The order was apparently not intended to be
imperative, but it had the effect of inducing Riou, who commanded the
frigate squadron, to sail away to the north. For the rest of the fleet
obedience was out of the question. Nelson acknowledged, but refused to
repeat the order, and, jocularly placing his glass to his blind eye,
declared that he could not see the signal. At length the British
cannonade told. Fischer, the Danish commander, had had to shift his flag
twice, at the second time to the Trekroner, and all the ships south of
that battery had either ceased fire or were practically helpless. The
Trekroner, however, was still unsubdued and rendered it impossible for
Nelson's squadron to retire, in the only direction which the wind would
allow, without severe loss. He accordingly sent a message to the Danish
Prince Regent, declaring that he would be compelled to burn the
batteries he had taken, without saving their crews, unless firing
ceased. If a truce were arranged until he could take his prisoners out
of the prizes, he was prepared to land the wounded Danes, and burn or
remove the prizes. A truce for twenty-four hours was accordingly
arranged, which Nelson employed to remove his own fleet unmolested.
The destruction of the southern batteries left Copenhagen exposed to
bombardment, and the Danes, unable to resist, yet afraid to offend the
tsar by submission, prolonged the time from day to day till news arrived
which removed all occasion for hostility. Unknown to either of the
combatants, the Tsar Paul, the life and soul of the northern
confederacy, had been murdered on the night of March 23, ten days before
the battle, and with his death the league was practically dissolved.
When Nelson advanced further into the Baltic, he found no hostile fleet
awaiting him, and the new tsar, Alexander, adopting an opposite policy,
entered into a compromise on the subject of maritime rights. The battle
of the Baltic is considered by some to have been Nelson's masterpiece.
It won for him the title of viscount and for his second in command,
Rear-Admiral Graves, the gift of the ribbon of the Bath, but the
admiralty, for official reasons, declined to confer any public reward
or honour on the officers concerned in it.
At the same time, the French occupation of Egypt was drawing towards its
inevitable close. Kléber, who was left in command by Bonaparte, perished
by the hand of an assassin, and Menou, who succeeded to the command, was
not only a weak general, but was prevented from receiving any
reinforcements by the naval supremacy of Great Britain in the
Mediterranean. On March 21, 1801, the French army was defeated at the
battle of Alexandria by the British force sent out under Sir Ralph
Abercromby, who was himself mortally wounded on the field. His
successor, General Hutchinson, completed his work by taking Cairo,
before the arrival of General Baird, who had led a mixed body of British
soldiers and sepoys from the Red Sea across the desert to the Nile. The
capitulation of Alexandria soon followed. In September the French
evacuated Egypt, the remains of their army were conveyed to France in
English ships, and Bonaparte's long-cherished dreams of eastern conquest
faded away for ever--not from his own imagination, but from the
calculations of practical statesmanship.
French arms, and French diplomacy supported by armed force, were more
successful elsewhere. The treaty of Lunéville was only the first of a
series of treaties, by which France secured to herself a political
position commensurate with her military glory. By the treaty of Aranjuez
between France and Spain, signed on March 21, Spain ceded Louisiana to
France, reserving the right of pre-emption, and undertook to wage war on
Portugal in order to detach it from the British alliance. Spain and
Portugal were both lukewarm in this war, and on June 6 signed the treaty
of Badajoz, by which Portugal agreed to close her ports to England, to
pay an indemnity to Spain, and to cede the small district of Olivenza,
south of Badajoz. Bonaparte was intensely irritated by this treaty,
which deprived him of the hope of exchanging conquests in Portugal for
British colonial conquests in any future negotiations; he declared that
Spain would have to pay by the sacrifice of her colonies for the
conquered French colonies which he still hoped to recover. A French army
was despatched to Portugal and enabled Bonaparte to dictate the treaty
of Madrid, signed on September 29, whereby Portugal ceded half Guiana to
France and undertook, as at Badajoz, to close her ports against
England.
[Pageheading: _INFLUENCES MAKING FOR PEACE._]
This last condition was equally imposed on the King of the Two Sicilies
by the treaty of Florence, concluded on March 28, and before the end of
the year France had established friendly relations with the Sultan of
Turkey and the new Tsar of Russia. More important still, as
consolidating Bonaparte's power at home, was the concordat signed by him
and the pope on July 15 recognising Roman Catholicism as the religion of
the majority of Frenchmen, and of the consuls, guaranteeing stipends,
though on an abjectly mean scale, to the clergy, and placing the entire
patronage of the French Church in the hands of the first consul. Never
since the French revolution had the Church been thus acknowledged as the
auxiliary, or rather as the handmaid, of the state, and probably no one
but the first consul could have brought about the reconciliation. After
such exertions, even he may have sincerely desired an honourable peace,
as the crown of his victories, or at least as a breathing time, to
enable him to mature his vast designs for reorganising France. Perhaps
he did not yet fully recognise that war was a necessity of his political
ascendency, no less than of his own personal character. The French
people still clung to republican institutions; and the consulate was a
nominal republic, with all effective power vested in the first consul.
Time was to show how largely this unique position depended on his unique
capacity of conducting wars glorious to French arms; for the present,
France was satisfied, and longed for peace.
The English ministry, too, was impelled by strong motives to enter upon
the negotiations which resulted in the peace of Amiens. Not only was
Great Britain crippled by the loss of nearly all her allies, but the
high price of bread had roused grave disaffection,[2] and intensified
among British merchants a desire for an unmolested extension of
commerce; above all, English statesmen now recognised the consulate,
under Bonaparte, as the first stable and non-revolutionary government
since the fall of the French monarchy. Both countries, therefore, were
predisposed to entertain pacific overtures, but the very fact that these
were in contemplation stirred both sides to further endeavours in order
to secure better terms of peace. A French squadron, commanded by Admiral
Linois and containing three ships of the line besides smaller boats, was
making a movement for the Straits of Gibraltar in order to strengthen
the force at Cadiz. Sir James Saumarez with five ships of the line and
two smaller vessels engaged Linois off Algeciras on July 5, but the
French ships were supported by the land batteries, and one of the
British ships, the _Hannibal_ (74), ran aground, and Saumarez was
eventually compelled to leave her in the hands of the enemy. This
victory was hailed with delight throughout France, but it was fully
retrieved a week later. The French squadron had in the meantime been
reinforced by one French and five Spanish ships of the line, and on the
12th it made a fresh attempt to reach Cadiz; it was, however, engaged in
the Straits by Saumarez with five ships of the line. In the ensuing
battle two Spanish ships blew up, and the French _Saint Antoine_ was
captured. The remainder succeeded in reaching Cadiz, but Saumarez was
able to resume the blockade a few weeks later.
Meanwhile there was no relaxation of French preparations for an invasion
of England, or of naval activity on the part of Great Britain. No sooner
had Nelson returned from the Baltic than he was, on July 24, placed in
command of a "squadron on a particular service," charged with the
defence of the coast from Beachy Head to Orfordness. With this he not
only blockaded the northern French ports, but assumed the aggressive,
and bombarded the vessels therein collected. A more daring attempt to
cut out the flotilla moored at Boulogne by a boat attack was repelled
with some loss on the night of August 15. But couriers under flags of
truce were already passing between London and Paris, and hostilities
ceased in the autumn of the year 1801.
[Pageheading: _THE QUESTION OF MALTA._]
The history of the negotiations which ended in the peace of Amiens
derives a special interest from the events which followed it. The
earliest overtures for peace were made by Hawkesbury on March 21, 1801.
At first Bonaparte refused to listen to them, but the destruction of the
northern confederacy inclined him to more pacific counsels. On April 14
the British government stated its demands. They mark a distinct advance
on those which had been made in vain at Lille in 1797. France was to
evacuate Egypt, and Great Britain Minorca, but Great Britain claimed to
retain Malta, Tobago, Martinique, Trinidad, Essequibo, Demerara,
Berbice, and Ceylon. She was willing to surrender the Cape of Good Hope
on condition that it became a free port, and stipulated that an
indemnity should be provided for the Prince of Orange. At the outset,
Bonaparte opposed all cessions by France and her allies, but the steady
improvement in the fortunes of England in the north and in Egypt at last
determined him to grant some of the British demands, and as the
evacuation of Egypt became inevitable, he was resolved to gain something
in exchange for it before it was too late. The preliminary treaty was
accordingly signed by Bonaparte's agent Otto on behalf of France and
Hawkesbury on behalf of Great Britain on October 1, the day before the
news of the French capitulation in Egypt reached England. Great Britain
had already consented to relinquish Malta, provided that it became
independent. She now consented to relinquish all her conquests from
France, and with the exception of Ceylon and Trinidad all her conquests
from the French allies, requiring, however, that the Cape should be
recognised as a free port. The French were to evacuate not only Egypt,
but the Neapolitan and Roman States. Malta was to be restored to the
knights of St. John under the guarantee of a third power. Prisoners of
war were to be released on payment of their debts, and the question of
the charge for their maintenance was to be settled by the definitive
treaty in accordance with the law of nations and established usage.
No mention was made of the Prince of Orange, but Otto gave a verbal
assurance that provision would be made to satisfy his claims. He also
gave the British government to understand that France would be willing
to cede Tobago in consideration of the expenses incurred in the
maintenance of French and Dutch prisoners. The omission of all reference
to the continental relations of France is conspicuous. In France it was
interpreted as indicating that Great Britain renounced her interest in
continental politics. The Batavian, Helvetian, Cisalpine, and Ligurian
republics, the kingdom of Etruria, and the whole east bank of the Rhine
were, however, supposed to be already protected against French
encroachment by the treaty of Lunéville, and Great Britain had no wish
to impose terms involving a recognition of these new creations. Again,
no mention was made of commercial relations apart from the Newfoundland
and St. Lawrence fisheries, for Great Britain was too ready to believe
that a separate commercial treaty would be practicable, and was
naturally loth to delay the conclusion of peace by a difficult
negotiation.
Cornwallis was appointed to negotiate the definitive treaty, and had
some hope that he might arrive at an informal understanding with
Bonaparte at Paris before he proceeded to Amiens. But he was offended by
Bonaparte's manner, and, dreading to be pitted against so subtle a
diplomatist as Talleyrand, he left Paris before anything was
accomplished, and arrived at Amiens on November 30. There France was
represented by Joseph Bonaparte, the first consul's elder brother, and
the negotiator of Lunéville. At Amiens, the position of the British
government was compromised from the first by its renewed insistence on a
point which had been omitted from the preliminary treaty, namely, the
compensation of the Prince of Orange. This demand was accompanied by an
endeavour to obtain compensation for the King of Sardinia. Joseph
Bonaparte, on the other hand, entrenched himself behind the letter of
the treaty, and acknowledged no further obligation. Any additional
concession to Great Britain could only be purchased by British
concessions to France. Other difficulties arose over the question of
Malta, the payment for the maintenance of prisoners, and the inclusion
of allies as parties to the treaty.
[Pageheading: _CORNWALLIS AT AMIENS._]
On the first of these questions the French would appear to have aimed
throughout at reducing the knights to as impotent a position as
possible. The British, on the other hand, ostensibly desiring to see the
strength of the order maintained, were chiefly interested in securing
its neutrality. At the time of the signature of the preliminary treaty,
Russia was the power that seemed to Great Britain the fittest guarantor
of the independence of the knights. On the refusal of Russia to accept
this position, Naples appeared to be the next best alternative, but it
was eventually agreed to substitute for the guarantee of a third power
the obviously futile guarantee of all the powers. Neither party foresaw
that the impossibility of obtaining such a guarantee was destined to
leave the whole clause about Malta inoperative. After much dispute over
the future constitution of the order, France proposed to obviate the
chief source of difficulty by the demolition of the forts. This plan
commended itself to Cornwallis, but was rejected by the British
government. By the end of December it was agreed that a Neapolitan
garrison was to occupy the islands provisionally, until the new
organisation should be established. Great Britain proposed that this
garrison should be maintained at the joint expense of Great Britain and
France. It did not occur to the British government to propose any
guarantee for the preservation of the property of the order, and this
omission ultimately proved material. The question of including allies in
the treaty was less complicated. France preferred a number of separate
treaties so as to keep the British interest in Europe at a minimum.
Great Britain, on the other hand, wished to make France a party to the
cessions made by her allies, and successfully insisted on the
negotiation of a single comprehensive treaty. Joseph Bonaparte granted
this point on December 11, but, as he had not full powers to negotiate
with any power except Great Britain, he continued to interpose delays
till the end of the year.
In the meantime France had failed in her attempts to meet the British
claims on behalf of the Prince of Orange by demands for further
privileges and territory in the oceans and colonies. On the whole, the
first month's negotiations had contributed much to a settlement, without
giving a decided advantage to either side. The lapse of time, however,
turned the balance in favour of the negotiator who was the more
independent of his country's desire for peace. On January 1, 1802,
Hawkesbury wrote to Cornwallis, treating the acquisition of Tobago as
unimportant; on the 2nd Addington expressed his readiness to accept a
separate arrangement with the Batavian republic for the Prince of
Orange. By the 16th Hawkesbury had yielded the claim of Portugal to be a
party to the treaty. The refusal of the French to cede Tobago in lieu of
payment for the French prisoners, and the difficulty of assessing the
payment, opened a way to the evasion of compensation altogether.
Cornwallis, preferring to sacrifice this claim rather than re-open the
war, suggested to Joseph Bonaparte on the 22nd that the treaty should
provide for commissioners to assess the payment, while it should be
secretly provided that they should not be appointed. On the same day,
Joseph Bonaparte communicated his brother's consent to a clause engaging
France to find a suitable territorial possession in Germany for the
Prince of Orange.
If Hawkesbury and Cornwallis imagined that they had made sure of an
early peace by these extensive concessions, they were greatly mistaken.
Napoleon, flushed with this unexpected success, was encouraged to make
further trial of the pliability of the British diplomatists. Two events
occurred at this stage of the negotiations which tried the temper of
both sides to the uttermost. On January 26, Bonaparte was elected
president of the Cisalpine republic, to be styled henceforth the Italian
republic. This event seems to have taken the British government by
surprise; they thought it a distinct indication that he still
contemplated further aggressions in spite of the series of treaties by
which he appeared to be securing peace, and were therefore much less
inclined than formerly to make concessions. About the same time
Bonaparte was not unreasonably enraged at the outrageous attacks made on
him in the press conducted in London by French exiles, especially by
Jean Peltier, the editor of a paper called _L'Ambigu_, and he blamed the
British government for permitting their publication. He therefore
instructed his brother Joseph to raise further difficulties over the
garrison and permanent organisation of Malta, as well as over the
proposed accession of the sultan to the treaty. Vain attempts were also
made by Joseph to retain Otranto for France till the British should have
evacuated Malta, and to secure the inclusion of the Ligurian republic in
the treaty.
[Pageheading: _THE TREATY OF AMIENS._]
At last on March 8 Napoleon agreed that no important difference
remained, and urged his brother to conclude the treaty. A little more
time was wasted in providing for a temporary occupation of Malta by
Neapolitan troops, and a more marked division of opinion arose as to the
compensation for the Prince of Orange. In spite of instructions to the
contrary from Hawkesbury, Cornwallis accepted an engagement on the part
of France to find a compensation, not defined, for the house of Nassau,
instead of charging it on the Dutch government; and the treaty was
finally concluded on March 25. It was signed by Great Britain, France,
Spain, and the Batavian republic, while the Porte was admitted as an
accessory power. It differed from the preliminary convention in no
important respect, except in the illusory safeguards for the claims of
the Prince of Orange, the secret arrangement for evading the cost of the
French prisoners, and the provisions concerning Malta, pregnant with the
seeds of future enmity. These provisions were as follows: Malta was to
be restored to the knights of St. John, from whose order both French and
British were hereafter to be excluded. The evacuation was to take place
within three months of the ratification of the treaty, or sooner if
possible. At that date Malta was to be given up, provided the grand
master or commissaries of the order were present, and provided the
Neapolitan garrison had arrived. Its independence was to be under the
guarantee of France, Great Britain, Austria, Spain, Russia, and Prussia.
Two thousand Neapolitan troops were to occupy it for one year, and until
the order should have raised a force sufficient, in the judgment of the
guaranteeing powers, for the defence of the islands.[3]
On October 29, 1801, parliament was opened with a speech from the throne
briefly announcing the conclusion of a convention with the northern
powers, and of preliminaries of peace with the French republic. General
Lauriston, bearing the ratification of the preliminaries by the first
consul, had reached London on the 10th, when he was received by the
populace with tumultuous demonstrations of joy. Soon afterwards the
"feast of the peace" was celebrated in Paris with equal enthusiasm.
Short-lived as they proved to be, these pacific sentiments were
doubtless genuine on both sides of the channel. The industrial, though
not the military, resources of France were exhausted by her prodigious
efforts during the last eight years; while England, suffering grievously
from distress among the working-classes and financial difficulties,
welcomed the prospect of cheaper provisions and easier times, as well as
of emerging from the political difficulties originating in the French
revolution.
The preliminary treaty, however, did not escape hostile criticism in
either house of parliament. It was the subject of discussion in the
lords on November 3, and in the commons on the 3rd and 4th. Its most
strenuous assailants were Lord Grenville, who had been foreign secretary
under Pitt, and the whigs who had joined Pitt's ministry in 1794, among
whom Lords Spencer and Fitzwilliam and above all Windham call for
special notice. Windham's powerful and comprehensive speech contained
more than one shrewd forecast of the future. For once, Pitt and Fox
supported the same measure, and Pitt, dwelling on _security_ as our
grand object in the war, specially deprecated any attempt on the part of
Great Britain "to settle the affairs of the continent". Fox, in
advocating peace, fiercely denounced the war against the French
republic, and gloated over the discomfiture of the Bourbons.[4] It was
admitted on all sides that France was stronger than ever in a military
and political sense. She had already made treaties with Austria, Naples,
Spain, and Portugal; other treaties with Russia and Turkey were on the
point of being signed; while the still more important concordat with the
pope was already ratified. On the other hand, Great Britain had largely
increased her colonial possessions, and the chief question now discussed
was whether she would be the weaker for abandoning some of these recent
conquests. The general feeling of the nation was fitly expressed by
Sheridan in the phrase: "This is a peace which all men are glad of, but
no man can be proud of". Malmesbury, the negotiator of Lille, was absent
from the debates; but he has recorded in his diary his disapproval both
of the peace and of the violent opposition to it The king told
Malmesbury on November 26 that he considered it an experimental peace,
but unavoidable.[5]
[Pageheading: _DEBATES ON TREATY OF AMIENS._]
The debates on the definitive treaty of Amiens took place on May 13 and
14, 1802, and though vigorously sustained, were to some extent a
repetition of those on the preliminaries of peace. The opposition to it
was headed by Grenville in the lords and in the commons by Windham, who
compared it unfavourably with the preliminaries; and the stipulations
with respect to Malta were justly criticised as one of its weakest
points. Strange to say, Pitt took no effective part in the discussion,
which ended in overwhelming majorities for the government. As in the
previous session, domestic affairs, except in their bearing on foreign
policy, received comparatively little attention from parliament. The
income tax was repealed, almost in silence, as the first fruits of
peace, and Addington, as chancellor of the exchequer, delivered an
emphatic eulogy on the sinking fund by means of which he calculated that
in forty-five years the national debt, then amounting to £500,000,000,
might be entirely paid off. The house of commons showed no want of
economical zeal in scrutinising the claims of the king on the civil
list, and those of the Prince of Wales on the revenues of the duchy of
Cornwall. Nor did it neglect such abuses as the non-residence of the
parochial clergy, and the cruel practice of bull-baiting, though it
rejected a bill for the suppression of this practice, after a
characteristic apology for it from Windham, in which he dwelt upon its
superiority to horse-racing. In this session, too, a grant of £10,000
was voted to Jenner for his recent invention of vaccination. In
supporting it, Wilberforce stated that the victims of small-pox, in
London alone, numbered 4,000 annually.
The parliament, which had now lasted six years, was dissolved by the
king in person on June 28, and a general election was held during the
month of July. The new house of commons did not differ materially from
the old, and even in Ireland the recent national opposition to the union
did not lead to the unseating of a single member who had voted for
it.[6] Meanwhile the ministry was strengthened by the admission to
office of Lord Castlereagh, already distinguished for his share in the
negotiations precedent to the union with Ireland. On July 6 he was
appointed president of the board of control in succession to Dartmouth,
and was admitted to a seat in the cabinet in October. The new parliament
did not meet till November 16. During the interval members of both
houses, with vast numbers of their countrymen, flocked to Paris, which
had been almost closed to English travellers since the early days of the
revolution. Fox was presented to Napoleon, as Bonaparte, since the
decree which made him consul for life, preferred to be styled. Napoleon
conceived a great admiration for him, and afterwards persuaded himself
that, had Fox survived, the friendly relations of England and France
would not have been permanently interrupted. On the very day on which
parliament assembled, a conspiracy was discovered, which, however insane
it may now appear, attracted much attention at the time. A certain
Colonel Despard with thirty-six followers, mainly labourers, had plotted
to kill the king and seize all the government-buildings, with a view to
the establishment of what he called the "constitutional independence of
Ireland and Great Britain" and the "equalisation of all civic rights".
The conspiracy had no wide ramifications, and the arrest of its leader
and his companions brought it to an immediate end. Despard was found
guilty of high treason and was executed on February 21, 1803.
When parliament met, the king's speech referred ominously to fresh
disturbances in the balance of power on the continent; and votes were
passed for large additions to the army and navy, in spite of Fox's
declaration that he saw no reason why Napoleon, satisfied with military
glory, should not henceforth devote himself to internal improvements in
France. Nelson, on the contrary, speaking in the house of lords, while
he professed himself a man of peace, insisted on the danger arising from
"a restless and unjust ambition on the part of our neighbours," and
Sheridan delivered a vigorous speech in a like spirit. On the whole, in
January, 1803, the prospects of assured peace and prosperity were much
gloomier than they had been in January, 1802, before the treaty of
Amiens. The funds were going down, the bank restriction act was renewed,
and Despard's conspiracy still agitated the public mind. In the month of
February a strong anti-Gallican sentiment was roused by Mackintosh's
powerful defence of the royalist Jean Peltier, accused and ultimately
convicted of a gross libel on the first consul. On March 8 came the
royal message calling out the militia, which heralded the rupture of the
peace.
The renewal of the war, fraught with so much glory and misery to both
nations, can have taken neither by surprise. The ink was scarcely dry on
the treaty of Amiens when fresh causes of discord sprung up between
France and Great Britain. More than one of these, indeed, had arisen
between the signature of the preliminary convention and the actual
conclusion of peace. During the negotiations, the first consul had, as
we have seen, never ceased to protest against the violent attacks upon
himself in the English press, while Cornwallis persistently warned his
own government against the menacing attitude of France in Italy and
elsewhere. The proclamation of the concordat in April, 1802, and the
recognition of Napoleon as first consul for life in August, however they
may have strengthened his position in France, were no legitimate
subjects for resentment in England; but his acceptance of the presidency
of the "Italian" republic in January, followed by his annexation of
Piedmont in September, revived in all its intensity the British mistrust
of his aggressive policy.
[Pageheading: _FRENCH AGGRESSIONS._]
The month of October witnessed a renewed aggression on Switzerland. A
French army, commanded by Ney, advanced into the interior of the
country, and forced the Swiss, who were in the midst of a civil war, to
accept the mediation of Napoleon. The new constitution which he framed
attempted, by weakening the federal government, to place the direction
of Helvetian external relations in the hands of the French first consul.
Our government vainly endeavoured to resist this interference by sending
agents with money and promises. In Germany the redistribution of
territory necessitated by the peace of Lunéville was carried out
professedly under the joint mediation of France and Russia, but really
at the dictation of Napoleon. The final project, which destroyed all
except three of the spiritual principalities and all except six of the
free cities, was proposed by France on February 23, 1803, and accepted
by the Emperor Francis on April 27.
Against these rearrangements, Great Britain could have nothing to say;
their importance is that while the negotiations were pending, Austria,
Prussia, and Russia all had a strong motive for standing well with
France. Bonaparte's attitude towards Switzerland was, in so far as it
was backed by force, an infringement of the treaty of Lunéville, to
which, however, Great Britain was not a party. The neutrality of
Piedmont had not been safeguarded either at Lunéville or at Amiens; it
had already been occupied by France before the treaty was signed, and
Napoleon claimed to have as much right to annex territory in Europe
without the consent of Great Britain as Great Britain had to annex
territory in India without the consent of France.
Napoleon's schemes of colonial expansion, though equally within the
letter of the treaty, were not less disconcerting. The reconquest of San
Domingo appeared necessary in order to obtain a base for the effective
occupation of the new French possession, Louisiana. The despatch of an
expedition for this purpose in December, 1801, had excited grave
suspicion, and when two-thirds of the army had died of yellow fever and
the remainder had returned home, fresh troops were sent out to take
their place. A new naval expedition was prepared in the Dutch port of
Helvoetsluis, but it was impossible to persuade British public opinion
that its real destination was San Domingo. Finally, on the eve of
hostilities, in the spring of 1803 Napoleon, despairing of advance in
this direction and disregarding the Spanish right of pre-emption, sold
Louisiana to the United States for 80,000,000 francs. Still more
embarrassing was Bonaparte's eastern policy. In September, 1802, Colonel
Sébastiani was sent as "commercial agent" to the Levant. He was
instructed to inspect the condition of ports and arsenals, to assure the
sheykhs of French favour, and to report on the military resources of
Syria, Egypt, and the north African coast. His report, which was
published in the _Moniteur_ of January 30, 1803, set forth the
opportunities that France would possess in the event of an immediate
return to hostilities, and was naturally interpreted as disclosing an
intention to renew the war on the first opportunity. Six thousand French
would, he said, be enough to reconquer Egypt; the country was in favour
of France. In March, 1803, Decaen left France with open instructions to
receive the surrender of the five towns in India restored to France, but
with secret orders to invite the alliance of Indian sovereigns opposed
to Great Britain. On his appearance at Pondicherri, the British
commander prepared to seize him, but he escaped to the Mauritius, which
he put in a state of defence, and made a basis for attacks on British
commerce which lasted from 1803 to 1811.
[Pageheading: _CAUSES OF MISTRUST AFTER AMIENS._]
Ireland also was visited by political spies, passing as commercial
agents. It may not be easy to say how far Emmet's rebellion, to be
recorded hereafter, was the result of these visits. At all events a
letter fell into the hands of the British government, addressed by
Talleyrand to a French agent at Dublin, called Fauvelet, directing him
to obtain answers to a series of questions about the military and naval
circumstances of the district, and "to procure a plan of the ports, with
the soundings and moorings, and to state the draught of water, and the
wind best suited for ingress and egress". The British government
naturally complained of these instructions, but Talleyrand persistently
maintained that they were of a purely commercial character.[7] It is, of
course, true that these preparations in view of a possible recurrence of
hostilities, however obvious their intention, were not in themselves
hostile acts. Still, they were just grounds for suspicion, and, with our
retrospective knowledge of Napoleon's later career, we may seek in vain
for the grounds of confidence which had made the conclusion of a treaty
possible. Great Britain was guilty of more direct breaches of the peace
of Amiens. Russia refused her guarantee for the independence of Malta,
and the British government was therefore technically justified in
retaining it. No similar justification could, however, be alleged for
the retention of Alexandria and the French towns in India. These
measures were, as will be seen, defended on broader grounds of public
policy. Not the least of the causes of discontent with the new situation
was the refusal of Napoleon to follow up the treaty of peace with a
commercial treaty. He had even retained French troops in Holland, and
thus shown that he meant to close its ports against British commerce.
The hope of a renewal of trade with France had been a main cause of the
popular desire for peace, and had reconciled the British public to the
sacrifices with which the treaty of Amiens had been purchased. It soon
became clear that further concessions would be made the price of a
commercial treaty, and it was felt in consequence that the sacrifices
already made were made in vain.
In September, 1802, Lord Whitworth was sent as ambassador extraordinary
to the French Republic. The instructions which he carried with him from
Hawkesbury fully reflect the prevailing spirit of mistrust. He was to
watch for any new leagues which might prejudice England or disturb
Europe; he was to discover any secret designs that might be formed
against the East or West Indies; he was to maintain the closest
surveillance over the internal politics of France, but especially over
the dispositions of influential personages in the confidence of the
first consul, as well as over the financial resources and armaments of
the republic.[8] Two months later, he was expressly warned in a secret
despatch not in any way to commit His Majesty to a restoration of Malta,
even if the provisions made at Amiens for this purpose could be
completely executed; and the principle was laid down, from which the
British government never swerved, that Great Britain was entitled to
compensation for any acquisitions made by France since the treaty was
signed. Accordingly, the retention of Malta was justified as a
counterpoise to French extensions of territory in Italy, the invasion of
Switzerland, and the continued occupation of the Batavian republic.[9]
This resolution was naturally confirmed by the publication of
Sébastiani's report.
[Pageheading: _NAPOLEON AND WHITWORTH._]
The long negotiations between Whitworth and the French government,
during the winter of 1802 and the spring of 1803, only bring into
stronger relief the importance of the issues thus raised, and the
hopelessness of a pacific solution. Napoleon firmly took his stand
throughout on the simple letter of the treaty, which pledged Great
Britain, upon certain conditions, to place the knights of St. John in
possession of Malta, but did not contemplate the case of further
accessions of French territory on the continent. Although the conditions
specified were never fully satisfied, it is abundantly clear that the
British ministers, having at last grasped the value of Malta, created
all the difficulties in their power, and determined to cancel this
article of the treaty. They alleged, in self-defence, that the spirit of
the treaty had been constantly violated by Napoleon, in repeated acts of
hostility to British subjects, in the refusal of all redress for such
grievances, and, above all, in that series of aggressions on the
continent which he declared to be outside the treaty and beyond the
province of Great Britain.[10] None of the compromises laboriously
discussed in the winter of 1802 betoken any desire on the part of
either government to retreat from its main position, though it does not
follow that either sought to bring about a renewal of the war. Whitworth
constantly reported that no formidable armaments were being prepared,
and clung for months to a belief that Napoleon, knowing the instability
of his own power and the ruinous state of his finances, would ultimately
give way. On the other hand, Talleyrand and Joseph Bonaparte never
ceased to hope that Great Britain would make concessions which might be
accepted.
Such hopes were rudely dispelled by the king's message to parliament on
March 8, 1803, complaining of aggressive preparations in the ports of
France and Holland, and recommending immediate measures for the security
of his dominions. This message, with the consequent embodiment of the
militia, startled the whole continent, and was followed five days later
by the famous scene in which the first consul addressed Whitworth in
phrases little short of insult. During a public audience at the
Tuileries on the 13th, Napoleon, after inquiring whether the British
ambassador had received any news from home, broke out with the words:
"And so you are determined to go to war". The altercation which ensued
is best told in Whitworth's own words[11]:--
"'No, first consul,' I replied, 'we are too sensible of the advantages
of peace.' 'We have,' said he, 'been fighting these fifteen years.' As
he seemed to wait for an answer, I observed only, 'That is already too
long'. 'But,' said he, 'you desire to fight for fifteen years more, and
you are forcing me to it,' I told him that was very far from his
majesty's intentions. He then proceeded to Count Marcoff and the
Chevalier Azzara, who were standing together at a little distance from
me, and said to them, 'The English are bent on war, but if they are the
first to draw the sword, I shall be the last to put it back into the
scabbard. They do not respect treaties. They must be covered with black
crape.' I suppose he meant the treaties. He then went his round, and was
thought by all those to whom he addressed himself to betray great signs
of irritation. In a few minutes he came back to me, to my great
annoyance, and resumed the conversation, if such it can be called, by
something personally civil to me. He then began again, 'Why these
armaments? Against whom these measures of precaution? I have not a
single ship of the line in the French ports; but if you wish to arm, I
will arm also; if you wish to fight, I will fight also. You may perhaps
kill France, but will never intimidate her.' 'We wish,' said I, 'neither
the one nor the other. We wish to live on good terms with her.' 'You
must respect treaties then,' replied he; 'woe to those who do not
respect treaties; they shall answer for it to all Europe.'"
Too much stress has been laid upon this incident, so characteristic of
Napoleon's studied impetuosity. Little more than a fortnight later he
received the British ambassador with courtesy. Overtures now succeeded
overtures, and much was expected on both sides from the influence of the
Tsar Alexander, to whom France suggested that Malta might be ceded.[12]
At the last moment, a somewhat more conciliatory disposition was shown
by the French diplomatists; and the British government was blamed by its
opponents, alike for having failed to break off the negotiations earlier
on the broadest grounds, and for breaking them off too abruptly on
grounds of doubtful validity. But we now see that national enmity,
fostered by the press on both sides, rendered friendly relations
impossible, and that, even had Napoleon been willing to refrain from
aggressions, peace was impossible. On May 12, two months after the
king's message, Whitworth, having presented an ultimatum, finally
quitted Paris. A few days later an order was issued for the detention of
all British subjects then resident in France, and justified on the
ground that French seamen (but not passengers) were liable to capture at
sea. On June 10 Talleyrand announced the occupation of Hanover and the
treatment as enemies of Hanoverian soldiers serving under the King of
Great Britain. Meanwhile, on May 16, the rupture of peaceful relations
was announced to both houses of parliament; on May 18 war was declared,
and in June volunteers were already mustering to resist invasion.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] So Vansittart himself, in Pellew, _Life of Sidmouth_, i., 371.
Southey and Captain Mahan have erroneously supposed that Vansittart
accompanied the naval expedition and was sent by Parker in the frigate
from the Skaw.
[2] _Annual Register_, xliii. (1801), chapter i. The average price of
wheat in 1800 was 112s. 8d. the quarter, whereas the highest annual
average in the half century before the war had been 64s. 6d. On March 5,
1801, the price of the quartern loaf stood as high as 1s. 10½d. On
July 23 it was still 1s. 8d. The harvest of this year was, however, an
excellent one. The price fell rapidly during August, and by November 12
was as low as 10½d.
[3] Cornwallis, _Correspondence_, iii., 382-487.
[4] In a letter to Charles Carey, dated October 22, Fox went the length
of expressing extreme pleasure in the triumph of the French government
over the English (_Memorials of C. J. Fox_, iii., 349).
[5] Malmesbury, _Diaries_, iv., 60, 62.
[6] Lecky, _History Of Ireland_, v., 465.
[7] Lanfrey, _Napoleon I._ (English edition), ii., 202; Pellew, _Life of
Sidmouth_, ii., 164.
[8] Browning, _England and Napoleon in 1803_, pp. 1-6.
[9] Browning, _ibid._, pp. 6-10.
[10] See especially Hawkesbury's despatch in Browning, _ibid._, pp.
65-68, and Whitworth's despatches, _ibid._, pp. 73-75, 78-85.
[11] Whitworth's despatch of March 14, in Browning, _England and
Napoleon_, p. 116.
[12] Browning, _England and Napoleon_, p. 218.
CHAPTER II.
THE RETURN OF PITT.
The period following the rupture of the peace of Amiens, though crowded
with military events of the highest importance, was inevitably barren in
social and political interest. Disappointed in its hopes of returning
prosperity, the nation girded itself up with rare unanimity for a
renewed contest. In July the income-tax was reinstituted and a bill was
actually carried authorising a levy _en masse_ in case of invasion.
Pending its enforcement, the navy was vigorously recruited by means of
the press-gang; the yeomanry were called out, and a force of infantry
volunteers was enrolled, which reached a total of 300,000 in August, and
of nearly 400,000 at the beginning of the next session. Pitt himself, as
warden of the Cinque Ports, took command of 3,000 volunteers in Kent,
and contrasted in parliament the warlike enthusiasm of the country with
the alleged apathy of the ministry. On July 23 a rebellion broke out in
Ireland, instigated by French agents and headed by a young man named
Robert Emmet. The conspiracy was ill planned and in itself
insignificant, but the recklessness of the conspirators was equalled by
the weakness of the civil and military authorities, who neglected to
take any precautions in spite of the plainest warnings. The rebels had
intended to attack Dublin Castle and seize the person of the lord
lieutenant, who was to be held as a hostage; but they dared not make the
attempt, and after parading the streets for a few hours were dispersed
by the spontaneous action of a few determined officers with a handful of
troops, but not before Lord Kilwarden, the chief justice, and several
other persons, had been cruelly murdered by Emmet's followers. Futile as
the rising was, it sufficed to show that union was not a sovereign
remedy for Irish disaffection.
Meanwhile the relations between the prime minister and his predecessor
had been growing less and less cordial. Throughout the year 1801 Pitt
was still the friend and informal adviser of the ministry, and it is
difficult to overrate the value of his support as a ground of confidence
in an administration, personally popular, but known to be deficient in
intellectual brilliance. In 1802 he generally stood aloof, and though in
June of that year he corrected the draft of the king's speech, he
absented himself from parliament, for he was dissatisfied with the
measures adopted by government. His dissatisfaction was known to his
friends, and in November a movement was set on foot by Canning to induce
Addington to withdraw in Pitt's favour; but Pitt, though willing to
resume office, refused to allow the ministry to be approached on the
subject. He preferred to wait till a general wish for his return to
power should be manifested. In December he visited Grenville at
Dropmore, and expressed a certain discontent with the government.[13] It
was his intention still to treat the ministers with tenderness, but to
return to parliament and criticise their policy. It is easy to see that
his object at this date was not to drive the government from office, but
to give rise to a desire to re-enlist his own talents in the service of
the country, and thus prepare the way for a peaceable resumption of the
position he had abandoned in the preceding year.
[Pageheading: _NEGOTIATIONS FOR PITT'S RETURN._]
No sooner had rumours of Pitt's willingness to resume office reached
Addington in the last days of December, than he opened negotiations with
Pitt with a view to effecting this object. Pitt did not receive his
overtures very warmly. He doubtless wished to be brought back because he
was felt to be indispensable, without any appearance of intrigue. Time
was in his favour, and he allowed the negotiations to proceed slowly. As
the proposals took shape, it became clear that Addington did not wish to
be openly superseded by Pitt, but preferred that they should serve
together as secretaries of state under a third person; and Addington
even suggested Pitt's brother, the Earl of Chatham, then master-general
of the ordnance, as a suitable prime minister. Pitt's reply,
communicated to Addington by Dundas, now Viscount Melville, in a letter
dated March 22, 1803, was to the effect that Pitt would not accept any
position in the government except that of prime minister, with which was
to be coupled the office of chancellor of the exchequer. Addington
readily acceded to Pitt's claim to this position, but Grenville refused
to serve in a ministry where Addington and Hawkesbury held "any
efficient offices of real business," and Addington declined to abandon
ministerial office for a speakership of the house of lords, which Pitt
proposed to create for him. Finally, on April 10, Pitt at a private
conference with Addington proposed as an indispensable condition of his
own return to office that Melville, Spencer, Grenville, and Windham
should become members of his cabinet. This meant a reconstruction of the
whole ministry, and Pitt stipulated that the changes should be made by
the king's desire and on the recommendation of the existing ministry.
The situation had become an impossible one. Nothing was more reasonable
than that Pitt, the friend and protector of the existing ministry,
should assume the direction of affairs now that the nation appeared to
be on the brink of war. But Pitt could not honourably desert those
former colleagues, who had resigned with him on the catholic question.
Two of these, however, Grenville and Windham, though doubtless men of
the highest capacity, had bitterly attacked the existing ministry; and
it was not to be expected that that ministry, supported as it still was
by overwhelming majorities in both houses of parliament, supported as it
had hitherto been by Pitt himself, should consent to admit its opponents
to a share of office. It is highly improbable that Grenville and Windham
would then have co-operated with Addington and Hawkesbury, and their
admission to office would have ruined the cohesion of the cabinet,
unless it had been accompanied by the retirement of the leading members
of the existing ministry which Pitt's previous attitude, together with
the actual balance of parties in parliament, rendered it impossible to
demand. How difficult it was to induce Grenville and Windham to enter
into any combination future years were to prove. For the present the
ministry took not merely the wisest, but the only course open to it.
Addington, after vainly endeavouring to induce Pitt to modify his terms,
laid them before a cabinet council on April 13; they were immediately
rejected, though the cabinet declared itself ready to admit to office
Pitt himself and those of his colleagues who had hitherto acted with the
Addington ministry. Pitt could hardly have expected any other reply. No
ministry could have granted such terms except on the supposition that
Pitt was indispensable, and Pitt for the present hardly claimed such a
position.[14]
But if Pitt did not consider himself indispensable, his friends did, and
both he and others came gradually to adopt their view. The rejection of
his terms left him free to adopt the line of policy that he had sketched
to Grenville in the previous December. He had not to wait long for an
opportunity, but in the opinion of Pitt's friends at least the first
provocation came from Addington. Unable to strengthen his ministry by
any accession from Pitt and his followers, he had turned to the "old
opposition," the whigs who, under the leadership of Fox, had
consistently advocated a pacific policy. These had recently supported
the ministry against the "new opposition," as the followers of Grenville
and Windham were called. But since 1797 Fox and the majority of the "old
opposition" had generally absented themselves from parliament, and
George Tierney, member for Southwark, had led what was left of their
party.[15] He now received and accepted the offer of the treasurership
of the navy, one of the most important of the offices below cabinet
rank. As a speaker Tierney was a valuable addition to the government
which was sadly deficient in debating power; he had, however, been
particularly bitter in his attacks on Pitt, with whom he had fought a
duel in 1798, and had provoked the sarcastic wit of Canning, in whose
well-known parody, "The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-grinder"
(1798), the original illustration by Gillray depicted the friend of
humanity with the features of Tierney and laid the scene in the borough
of Southwark.
[Pageheading: _CHANGES IN ADDINGTON'S MINISTRY._]
The appointment, which Pitt himself does not appear to have resented,
was announced on June 1, and Tierney took his place on the treasury
bench on the 3rd. On the same evening Colonel Patten moved a series of
resolutions condemning, in extravagant terms, the conduct of the
ministry in the negotiation with France. Pitt seized the opportunity to
move the orders of the day. In other words, he proposed that the
question should be left undecided. He expressed the opinion that the
ministry was not free from blame, but declared himself unable to concur
in all the charges against it. He considered further that to drive the
existing ministers out of office would only throw the country into
confusion, and that it was therefore inadvisable to pursue the question.
To this the ministerial speakers replied by demanding a direct censure
or a total acquittal, and the consequent division served only to display
the weakness of the opposition. The Addington, Fox, and Grenville
parties combined to oppose Pitt's motion, which was rejected by 333
votes against 56. Pitt and Fox, and their respective followers then left
the house, leaving the ministerial party and the Grenville party to
decide the fate of Patten's resolutions, which were negatived by 275
votes against 34. A comparison of the figures of the two divisions,
allowing for tellers, gives as the voting strength of Pitt's party 58,
of Grenville's 36, of Fox's 22, and of Addington's 277. Of these the
Grenville party alone desired to eject the ministers from office, while
Fox's party openly professed a preference for Addington over Pitt.
During the remainder of the session Pitt seldom took any part in
parliamentary business, and never opposed the ministry on any question
of importance. On August 12 parliament was prorogued after a session
lasting nearly nine months, and the prime minister embraced the
opportunity of making some slight reconstructions in the ministry.
Pelham, who was removed from the home office, resigned his place in the
cabinet, and was shortly afterwards consoled with the chancellorship of
the duchy of Lancaster, an office which was not yet definitely
recognised as political. Charles Philip Yorke, son of the chancellor who
died in 1770 and half-brother of the third Earl of Hardwicke, resigned
the office of secretary at war and succeeded to the home office on the
17th. It was also considered advisable to strengthen the ministry in the
upper house, where Grenville's oratory gave the opposition a decided
advantage in debating power, and Hawkesbury was accordingly summoned to
the lords on November 16 in his father's barony of Hawkesbury. After
this rearrangement the cabinet contained eight peers and three
commoners, no illiberal allowance of commoners according to the ideas of
the age. The recess was further marked by a violent war of pamphlets
between the followers of Addington and Pitt, which began early in
September, and which, although no politician of the first order took any
direct part in it, did much to embitter the relations of their
respective parties.[16] Not less irritating were the _jeux d'esprit_
with which Canning continued to assail the ministry in the newspaper
press.[17] The most famous of these is the couplet:--
Pitt is to Addington
As London is to Paddington.
A more openly abusive poem, entitled "Good Intentions," described the
prime minister as "Happy Britain's guardian gander". The following
verses refer to the appointment of Addington's brother, John Hiley
Addington, to be paymaster-general of the forces, and of his
brother-in-law, Charles Bragge, afterwards succeeded by Tierney, to be
treasurer of the navy:--
How blest, how firm the statesman stands
(Him no low intrigue can move)
Circled by faithful kindred bands
And propped by fond fraternal love.
When his speeches hobble vilely,
What "Hear him's" burst from Brother Hiley;
When his faltering periods lag,
Hark to the cheers of Brother Bragge.
Each a gentleman at large,
Lodged and fed at public charge,
Paying (with a grace to charm ye)
This the Fleet, and that the Army.[18]
[Pageheading: _THE KING'S ILLNESS._]
When parliament reassembled on November 22 the opposition was still
disunited, and, though Windham severely condemned the inadequacy of the
provision made for national defence, he did not venture to divide
against the government. But during the Christmas recess a distinct step
was made towards the consolidation of the opposition by the reunion of
the two sections of the whig party. Grenville had conceived a chimerical
project of replacing the existing administration by one which should
include all statesmen possessed of real political talent, whatever their
differences in the past might have been. True to this policy, he
persuaded Fox in January, 1804, to join him in attempting to expel the
Addington administration from office as an essential preliminary to any
further action. Sheridan, however, with some of the Prince of Wales's
friends, still refused to enter into any combination which might result
in the return of Pitt to power. The parliamentary session was resumed on
February 1, but the course of events was complicated by a recurrence of
the king's malady. Symptoms of this were observed towards the end of
January; the disease took a turn for the worse about February 12, and on
the 14th it was made known to the public. For a short time the king's
life appeared to be in danger; his reason was affected during a longer
interval, but the attack was in every way milder than in 1789, and on
March 7 Dr. Simmons reported to Addington that "the king was competent
to perform any act of government".[19] It is true that for many months
the king's health did not allow him to give his full attention to public
business, but there was nothing to prevent him from attending to such
routine work as was absolutely necessary. There could, however, be no
question of a change of ministers till there should be a marked
improvement in the king's health.
The king's illness was made the occasion on February 27 of a motion by
Sir Robert Lawley for the adjournment of the house of commons. This was
parried by Addington with the statement that there was no necessary
suspension of such royal functions as it might be necessary for His
Majesty to discharge at the present moment.[20] The emphasis here
obviously lay on the word "necessary". A still bolder course was adopted
shortly afterwards by the lord chancellor. When on March 9 the king's
assent to several bills was given by commission, Fitzwilliam raised not
unreasonable doubts as to whether the king was capable of resuming the
functions of government. Eldon, however, declared that, as the result of
a private interview with the king, he had come to the conclusion that
the royal commissioners were warranted in assenting to the bills in
question. Whether the chancellor was justified in assuming this
responsibility must remain doubtful; at all events Pitt seems to have
determined that the time was now ripe for a ministerial crisis. He had
on February 27 criticised both the military and naval defences of the
country, but he would not directly attack the government till the king's
health was in a better condition. At last, on March 15, the first attack
was made. Pitt selected the weak point in the administration. St.
Vincent's obstinacy in refusing to believe in the possibility of a
renewal of hostility and his excessive economy had brought about a
marked deterioration in the strength and quality of the fleet. Pitt
accordingly moved for an inquiry into the administration of the navy.
Fox dissociated himself from Pitt's attacks on the first lord of the
admiralty, but supported the motion on the ground that an inquiry would
clear St. Vincent's character. On a division the government had a
majority of 201 against 130. On the 19th, however, Pitt refused to join
the Grenvilles in supporting Fox's motion for the re-committal of the
volunteer consolidation bill. On the following day Eldon made overtures
to Pitt, and on the 23rd Pitt dined _tête-à-tête_ with the chancellor,
but no record has been preserved of the nature of their negotiations.
On the 29th Pitt, in a letter to Melville, explained his position at
length. He intended, as soon after the Easter recess as the king's
health should permit, to write to the king explaining the dangers which,
in his opinion, threatened the crown and people from the continuance of
the existing government, and representing the urgent necessity of a
speedy change; he would prefer an administration from which no political
party should be excluded, but was unwilling, especially in view of the
king's state of health, to force any minister upon him; if, therefore,
he should be invited by the king to form a ministry from which the
partisans of Fox and Grenville were to be excluded, he was prepared to
form one from his own followers united with the more capable members of
the existing government, excluding Addington himself and St. Vincent;
should this measure fail of success, he would "have no hesitation in
taking such ground in Parliament as would be most likely to attain the
object".[21] As it happened, the parliamentary assault preceded the
correspondence with the king. Immediately after the recess the ministry
laid before parliament military proposals which Pitt felt bound to
resist. On April 16 Pitt, supported by Windham, opposed the third
reading of a bill for augmenting the Irish militia, and expressed a
preference for the army of reserve. He was defeated by the narrow
majority of 128 against 107. On the 23rd Fox proposed to refer the
question of national defence to a committee of the whole house. He was
supported by Pitt and Windham, and defeated by 256 votes only against
204. The division which sealed the fate of the ministry was taken two
days later on a motion that the house should go into committee on a bill
for the suspension of the army of reserve. This was opposed by Pitt, who
expounded a rival plan for the diminution of the militia and increase of
the army of reserve. Fox and Windham demanded for Pitt's scheme a right
to consideration, and on a division the motion was carried by no more
than 240 against 203. The division of April 16 had convinced Addington
that a reconciliation with Pitt was necessary. On Pitt's refusing to
confer with him, he agreed to recommend the king to charge Eldon with
the task of discovering Pitt's views as to the formation of a new
ministry, in case the king wished to learn them.
[Pageheading: _ADDINGTON'S RESIGNATION._]
The king, however, expressed no such wish, and on April 22 Pitt sent an
unsealed letter to Eldon to be laid before the king; announcing his
dissatisfaction with the ministry and his intention of declaring this
dissatisfaction in parliament.[22] It was not till the 27th that Eldon
found a suitable opportunity of communicating Pitt's letter to the king.
Before that date Addington, who considered that he could no longer
remain in office with dignity after the divisions of the 23rd and 25th,
had on the 26th informed the king of his intention to resign. The king
reluctantly consented to his resignation, which was announced to the
cabinet on the 29th. On the following day Eldon called on Pitt with a
request from the king for a plan of a new administration. Pitt replied
in a letter, setting forth at great length the arguments in favour of a
combined administration, and requesting permission to confer with Fox
and Grenville about the construction of the ministry.[23] The letter
irritated the king, who demanded a renewed pledge against catholic
emancipation, with which Grenville was specially associated in his mind,
and refused to admit Pitt to office if he persevered in his purpose of
consulting Fox and Grenville. Pitt then declared his adherence to the
pledge given in 1801[24] and requested an interview with the king. The
interview, which took place on May 7, lasted three hours, and ended in a
compromise. The king agreed to admit Grenville and his friends to
office, but, while ready to accept the friends of Fox, he refused, as
much on personal as on political grounds, to give Fox a place in the
cabinet. At the same time he declared himself ready to grant him a
diplomatic appointment. At a later date the king went the length of
declaring that, rather than accept Fox, he would have incurred the risk
of civil war.
[Pageheading: _PITT'S RETURN TO OFFICE._]
Fox readily agreed to his own exclusion, which he had fully expected,
and urged his followers to join Pitt, but Grenville and his friends
refused to serve without Fox, while the friends of Fox and the more
immediate followers of Addington refused to serve without their
respective leaders. Addington always considered that Pitt had treated
him ungenerously in driving him from office, when it was open to him to
return to the head of affairs with the full consent of the existing
ministers. More recently it has been the fashion to blame Pitt for
bringing too little pressure to bear upon the king and thus losing the
support of Fox and Grenville. Neither charge appears to be justified.
Through the whole length of the Addington administration Pitt showed
himself fully sensitive of what was due to the king, with whom he had
worked cordially for eighteen years, to Grenville who had resigned in
his cause, and to Addington who had assumed office under his protection.
There was no trace of faction in Pitt's attitude towards the ministry.
He merely opposed what he believed to be dangerous to the country, and
when he was convinced of the necessity of removing Addington from a
share in public business, he endeavoured to effect his purpose in such a
way as to give the minimum of offence.
On the other hand, Pitt's intended combination in a supreme crisis of
his country's destiny with his life-long antagonist, Fox, was a heroic
experiment, perhaps, but still only an experiment. The failure of the
ministry of "All the Talents" renders it exceedingly doubtful whether
such an alliance would have proved successful, and Fox's lukewarm
patriotism would have been dearly purchased at the expense of the
alienation of the king, perhaps even of his relapse into insanity. Nor
is it certain that the strongest pressure would have induced George III.
to accept Fox at this date. Addington was still undefeated and might
have remained in office if Pitt had refused to assume the reins of
government without Fox. Grenville is undoubtedly more responsible than
any one else for the weakness of Pitt's second administration. It was
from a sense of loyalty to Grenville that Pitt had suffered the
negotiations for his return to office in 1803 to fall through, and now
when the two statesmen could return together, and when, if ever, a
strong government was needed, either a quixotic sense of honour or a
wounded pride induced Grenville not only to stand aloof from the new
administration himself, but to do his utmost to prevent others from
giving it their support.[25] The new cabinet was quickly formed. Pitt
received the seals of office on May 10, and took his seat in parliament
after re-election on the 18th, the very day on which Napoleon was
declared emperor by the French senate.
This event, long foreseen, was doubtless hastened by the disclosure of
the plot formed by Moreau, Pichegru, and Georges Cadoudal against the
first consul. There was no proof of Moreau's complicity in designs on
Napoleon's life, and the mysterious death of Pichegru in prison left the
extent of his complicity among the insoluble problems of history, but
there can be no doubt that Cadoudal was justly executed for plotting
assassination. Unfortunately some of the under-secretaries in the
Addington administration had not only shared the plans of the
conspirators so far as they aimed at a rising in France, but had
procured for them material assistance. They appear, however, to have
been innocent of any attempt on Napoleon's life. Drake, the British
envoy at Munich, was, however, deeper in the plot. The evidence of
British complicity naturally received the very worst construction in
Paris.[26] Napoleon himself certainly believed in an Anglo-Bourbon
conspiracy, organised by the Count of Artois and other French royalists,
when he caused the Duke of Enghien to be kidnapped in Baden territory
and hurried off to the castle of Vincennes. He was, however, already
aware of his prisoner's innocence when on March 21 he had him shot there
by torch-light after a mock trial before a military commission. All
Europe was shocked by this atrocious assassination, and though Napoleon
sometimes attempted to shift the guilt of it upon Talleyrand, he
justified it at other times as a measure of self-defence, and left on
record his deliberate approval of it, for the consideration of
posterity. Two months later he became Emperor of the French.
When Pitt resumed office on May 10, 1804, he was no longer the
heaven-born and buoyant young minister of 1783, strong in the confidence
of the king and the anticipated confidence of the nation, with a
minority of followers in the house of commons, but with the brightest
prospects of political success before him. Nor was he the leader of a
devoted majority, as when he resigned in 1801 rather than abandon his
convictions on the catholic question. He had been compelled to waive
these convictions, without fully regaining the confidence of the king,
and, while the adherents of Fox retained their deep-seated hatred of a
war-policy, the adherents of Addington and Grenville were in no mood to
give him a loyal support. Windham and Spencer were no longer at his
side, and his ministry was essentially the same as that of Addington,
with the substitution of Dudley Ryder, now Lord Harrowby, for Hawkesbury
as foreign secretary, Melville for St. Vincent as first lord of the
admiralty, Earl Camden for Hobart as secretary for war and the colonies,
and the Duke of Montrose for Auckland as president of the board of
trade. Hawkesbury was transferred to the home office, vacated by Yorke,
and the new chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Lord Mulgrave, was
given a seat in the cabinet. Of Pitt's eleven colleagues in the cabinet
Castlereagh alone, who remained president of the board of control--a
wretched speaker though an able administrator--had a seat in the lower
house.
[Pageheading: _PITT'S RECONCILIATION WITH ADDINGTON._]
Military exigencies now engrossed all thoughts, and the king's speech,
in proroguing parliament on July 31, foreshadowed a new coalition, for
which the murder of the Duke of Enghien had paved the way. The
preparations for an invasion of England had been resumed, and Napoleon
celebrated his birthday in great state at Boulogne, still postponing his
final stroke until he should be crowned, on December 2, at Paris by the
helpless pope, brought from Italy for the purpose.[27] A month later he
personally addressed another pacific letter to the King of England, who
replied in his speech from the throne on January 15, 1805, that he could
not entertain overtures except in concert with Russia and the other
powers. Meanwhile, Pitt, conscious as he was of failing powers, retained
his undaunted courage, and while he was organising a third coalition,
did not shrink from a bold measure which could hardly be justified by
international law. This was the seizure on October 5, 1804, of three
Spanish treasure-ships on the high seas, without a previous declaration
of war against Spain, though not without a previous notice that
hostilities might be opened at any moment unless Spain ceased to give
underhand assistance to France. The excuse was that Spain had long been
the obsequious ally of France, and, as the alliance now became open,
Pitt's act was sanctioned by a large majority in both houses of
parliament in January, 1805. The parliamentary session which opened in
this month found Pitt's ministry apparently stronger than it had been at
the beginning of the recess. Despairing of any help from Grenville,
except in a vigorous prosecution of the war, he had sought a
reconciliation with Addington, who became Viscount Sidmouth on January
12 and president of the council on the 14th. Along with Sidmouth his
former colleague Hobart, now Earl of Buckinghamshire, returned to office
as chancellor of the duchy. To make room for these new allies, Portland
had consented to resign the presidency of the council, though he
remained a member of the cabinet, while Mulgrave was appointed to the
foreign office, in place of Harrowby, who was compelled by ill-health to
retire.
But this new accession of strength was soon followed by a terrible
mortification which probably contributed to shorten Pitt's life.
Melville, his tried supporter and intimate friend, was charged on the
report of a commission with having misapplied public money as treasurer
of the navy in Pitt's former ministry. It appeared that he had been
culpably careless, and had not prevented the paymaster, Trotter, from
engaging in private speculations with the naval balances. Although
Trotter's speculations involved no loss to the state they were,
nevertheless, a contravention of an act of 1785. Melville had also
supplied other departments of government with naval money, but was
personally innocent of fraud. There was a divergence of feeling in the
cabinet as to the attitude to be adopted towards Melville. Sidmouth,
himself a man of the highest integrity, was a friend of St. Vincent, the
late first lord of the admiralty, and had not forgiven Melville for his
part in the expulsion of himself and St. Vincent from office. He had
therefore both public and private grounds to incline him against
Melville. On April 8, Samuel Whitbread moved a formal censure on
Melville in the house of commons. Pitt, with the approval of Sidmouth
and his friends, moved the previous question on Whitbread's motion, and
declared his intention of introducing a motion of his own for a select
committee to investigate the charges. In spite of the support which Pitt
derived from the followers of Sidmouth the votes were equally divided on
Whitbread's motion, 216 a side. Abbot, the speaker, gave his casting
vote in favour of Whitbread, and the announcement was received by the
whig members with unseemly exultation.[28]
[Pageheading: _MINISTERIAL CHANGES._]
The censure was followed by an impeachment before the house of lords,
where Melville was acquitted in the following year. Meanwhile, he had
resigned office on April 9, the day after the vote of censure, and his
place at the admiralty was taken by Sir Charles Middleton, who was
raised to the peerage as Lord Barham. The appointment gave umbrage to
Sidmouth, to whom Pitt had made promises of promotion for his own
followers, and he was with difficulty induced to remain in the cabinet.
Pitt was, however, irritated by the hostile votes of Sidmouth's
followers, Hiley Addington and Bond, on the question of the impeachment,
and regarded this as a reason for delaying their preferment. Sidmouth
now complained of a breach of faith, as Pitt had promised to treat the
question as an open one, and he resigned office on July 4.
Buckinghamshire resigned next day. Camden was appointed to succeed
Sidmouth as lord president, Castlereagh followed Camden as secretary for
war and the colonies, retaining his previous position as president of
the board of control, and Harrowby, whose health had improved since his
resignation in January, took Buckinghamshire's place as chancellor of
the duchy. Thus weakened at home, Pitt could derive little consolation
from the aspect of continental affairs. On May 26, Napoleon was crowned
King of Italy in the cathedral of Milan, and the Ligurian Republic
became part of the French empire in the following month. The ascendency
of France in Europe might well have appeared impregnable, and it might
have been supposed that nothing remained for England but to guard her
own coasts and recapture some of the French colonies given up by the
treaty of Amiens.
But Pitt's spirit was still unbroken, and by the middle of July he
succeeded in rallying three powers, Russia, Austria, and Sweden, into a
league to withstand the further encroachments of France. Such a league
had been proposed by Gustavus IV. of Sweden, early in 1804, but nothing
definite was done till Pitt's ministry entered upon office. Meanwhile,
the assassination of the Duke of Enghien had led to a rupture of
diplomatic relations between France and Russia, though war was not
declared. Negotiations were presently set on foot for a league, which,
it was hoped, would be joined by Austria and Prussia in addition to
Great Britain, Russia, and Sweden. An interesting feature in the
negotiations was the tsar's scheme of a European polity, where the
states should be independent and enjoy institutions "founded on the
sacred rights of humanity," a foreshadowing, as it would seem, of the
Holy Alliance. The discussion of details between Great Britain and
Russia began towards the end of 1804. Difficulties, however, arose about
the British retention of Malta and the British claim to search neutral
ships for deserters. A treaty between the two powers was signed on April
11, 1805; but the tsar long refused his ratification, and it was only
given in July, after a formal protest against the retention of Malta.
The object of this alliance was defined to be the expulsion of French
troops from North Germany, the assured independence of the republics of
Holland and Switzerland, and the restoration of the King of Sardinia in
Piedmont; 500,000 men were to be provided for the war by Russia and such
other continental powers as might join the coalition. Great Britain,
instead of furnishing troops, was to supply £1,250,000 a year for every
100,000 men engaged in the war. After the close of the war an European
congress was to define more closely the law of nations and establish an
European federation. At the same time the allies disclaimed the
intention of forcing any system of government on France against her
will. It will be observed that the number of troops specified was far in
excess of what Russia alone could place in the field; such numbers could
only be obtained by the adhesion of Austria and of either Prussia or
some of the smaller German states to the coalition. So far as Austria
was concerned, Napoleon's Italian policy rendered war inevitable.
Already in November, 1804, the Austrian court had entered into a secret
agreement with Russia to make war on France in the event of further
French aggressions in Italy. The coronation of Napoleon as King of Italy
and the annexation of Liguria were, however, more than aggressions; they
were open violations of the treaty of Lunéville which had guaranteed the
independence of the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics. Austria hereupon
determined on war, and secretly joined the coalition on August 9, 1805.
Sweden, which was not a member of it, concluded separate treaties of
alliance both with Great Britain and with Russia. Greater difficulties
had to be surmounted in the case of Prussia. Frederick William III.
cherished no enthusiasm for European liberty, and vacillated under the
influence of Napoleon's offer of Hanover on the one hand and his
numerous petty insults on the other. Prussia in consequence remained
neutral throughout the most decisive period of the ensuing war.
[Pageheading: _NELSON AND VILLENEUVE._]
Long before the coalition was ready Napoleon's mind had recurred to his
venturesome project for the invasion of England. An army, the finest
that he ever led to victory, which, even after it had been transferred
to another scene of action, he still saw fit to call the "army of
England," was encamped near Boulogne. It was constantly exercised in the
process of embarking on board flat-bottomed boats or rafts, which were
to be convoyed by Villeneuve, admiral of the Toulon fleet, and
Gantheaume, admiral of the Brest fleet, for whose appearance the French
signalmen vainly scanned the horizon. In the meantime, Nelson had been
engaged for two years, without setting foot on shore, in that patient
and sleepless watch, ranging over the whole Mediterranean, which must
ever rank with the greatest of his matchless exploits. At last, he
learned in the spring of 1805, that Villeneuve, following a plan
concerted by Napoleon himself, had eluded him by sailing from Toulon
towards Cadiz, had there been joined by the Spanish fleet, and was
steering for the West Indies. Nelson followed with a much smaller number
of ships, and might have forced an action in those waters, but he was
misled by false intelligence and missed the enemy, though his dreaded
presence was effectual in saving the British islands from any serious
attack.
The combined fleets of France and Spain recrossed the Atlantic and in
accordance with Napoleon's plans made for Ferrol on the coast of
Galicia. After being repulsed with some loss off Cape Finisterre by Sir
Robert Calder, who was court-martialled and severely reprimanded for
neglecting to follow up his victory, they put in first at Vigo, and then
with fifteen allied ships at Coruña. But, instead of venturing to carry
out Napoleon's orders by challenging Admiral Cornwallis's fleet off
Brest, and making a desperate effort to command the channel, Villeneuve
now took advantage of his emperors recommendation to return to Cadiz in
event of defeat, and set sail for that port in the middle of August.
Nelson, ignorant of his movements, had vainly sought him off the Straits
of Gibraltar, and came home to report himself at the admiralty. Arriving
at Spithead on August 18, he was in England barely four weeks, most of
which he spent in privacy at Merton. During this brief respite he
received a general tribute of admiration and affection from his
countrymen, which anticipated the verdict of posterity. On September 15
he sailed from Portsmouth, with a presentiment of his own fate, after
having described to Sidmouth the general design of his crowning sea
fight: he would, he said, break the enemy's line in two places; and he
did so. He joined Admiral Collingwood off Cadiz on the 29th, and on
October 19 he received news that Villeneuve, smarting under the
prospect of being superseded, had put to sea with the combined fleet.
Complicated naval manoeuvres followed, but on the 21st the enemy was
forced to give battle, a few leagues from Cape Trafalgar, and Nelson
caused his immortal signal to be hoisted--"England expects that every
man will do his duty".
[Pageheading: _THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR._]
The French and Spanish fleet comprised thirty-three ships of the line,
of which eighteen were French and fifteen Spanish; the British had only
twenty-seven, but among these were seven three-deckers as against four
on the side of the allies. It had the additional advantage of superior
discipline and equipment, to say nothing of the genius of its commander.
The British fleet advanced in two divisions, Nelson leading the weather
division of twelve, and Collingwood the lee division of fifteen ships.
According to Nelson's plan Collingwood was to attack the rear of the
enemy's line, while he himself cut off and paralysed the centre and van.
Both divisions advanced without regular formation, the ships bearing
down with all the speed they could command and without waiting for
laggards. Collingwood in the _Royal Sovereign_, steering E. by N., broke
through the allies' line twelve ships from the rear, raking the _Santa
Ana_, Alava's flagship, as he passed her stern, with a broadside which
struck down 400 of her men. For some fifteen minutes the _Royal
Sovereign_ was alone in action; then others of the division came up and
successively penetrated the line of the allies, and engaging ship to
ship completely disposed of the enemy's rear, their twelve rear ships
being all taken or destroyed.
Meanwhile, Nelson in the _Victory_, who had reserved to himself the more
difficult task of containing twenty-one ships with twelve, held on his
course, advancing so as to keep the allied van stationary and yet to
prevent the centre from venturing to help the rear. He designed to pass
through the end of the line in order to cut the enemy's van off from
Cadiz, but, finding an opportunity, changed his course, passed down the
line and attacked the centre. He passed through the line of the allied
fleet, closely followed by four other ships of his division, and the
five British ships concentrated their attacks on the _Bucentaure_,
Villeneuve's flagship, the gigantic Spanish four-decker, the _Santísima
Trinidad_, which was next ahead of her, and the _Redoutable_, which
supported her. The centre of the allies was crushed and the van cut off
from coming to the help of the rear, which was being destroyed by
Collingwood.
Before the battle ended, the naval force of France, and with it
Napoleon's projects of invasion, were utterly and hopelessly ruined.
Eighteen prizes were taken, and, though many of these were lost in a
gale, four ships which escaped were afterwards captured, and the
remainder lay for the most part shattered hulks at Cadiz. By this battle
the supremacy of Great Britain at sea was finally established. Nelson,
who, during the ship-to-ship engagement which followed his penetration
of the enemy's line, was mortally wounded by a sharp-shooter from the
mizzen-top of the _Redoutable_, died before the battle was over, though
he was spared to hear that a complete victory was secure. His death is
among the heroic incidents of history, and his last achievement, both in
its conception and its results, was the fitting climax of his fame. The
plan for the battle which he drew up beforehand for the instruction of
his captains, and the changes which he made in it to meet the conditions
of the moment are alike worthy of his supreme genius as a naval
tactician. His arrangements were carried out by men who had learned to
love and trust him, and who were inspired by the fire of his spirit, and
hence it was that the allied fleet of France and Spain perished at the
"Nelson touch".[29]
Very different were the fortunes of war in central Europe, where
Napoleon himself commanded the "army of England". It was not until the
end of August that Napoleon knew that Villeneuve would be unable to
appear in the Channel, but no sooner did he abandon his project of
invasion in despair than he resolved on a campaign scarcely less
arduous, and gave orders for a grand march into Germany. Pitt, as we
have seen, had successfully negotiated an alliance with Russia and
Austria, whose armies were converging upon the plains of Bavaria and
were to have been reinforced by a large Prussian contingent. Unhappily,
they had not effected a junction when Napoleon crossed the Rhine near
Strassburg and the Danube near Donauwörth, while he detached large
forces to check the advance of the Russians and the approach of
reinforcements expected from Italy. One of these movements involved an
open violation of Prussian territory, but he could rely on the
well-tried servility of Frederick William. The first decisive result of
his strategy was the surrender of Mack at Ulm, with 30,000 men and 60
pieces of ordnance. This event took place on October 20, the very day
before the battle of Trafalgar, and opened the road to Vienna, which the
French troops entered on November 13, occupying the great bridge by a
ruse more skilful than honourable, during the negotiation of an
armistice. Vienna was spared, while Napoleon pressed on to meet the
remainder of the Austrian army, which had now been joined by a larger
body of Russians near Brünn. The allies numbered about 100,000 men;
Napoleon's army was numerically somewhat less, but possessed the same
kind of superiority as the British navy at Trafalgar. The result was the
crushing victory of Austerlitz on December 2, followed by the peace of
Pressburg, between France and Austria, signed on the 26th. The principal
articles of this treaty provided for the cession of Venetia, Istria, and
Dalmatia to the kingdom of Italy, and the aggrandisement of Bavaria and
Würtemberg, whose electors received the royal title as the price of
their sympathetic alliance with France. Russia withdrew sullenly, having
learned the hollowness of her league with Prussia, which had basely
temporised while the fate of Germany was at stake, and whose minister,
Haugwitz, suppressing the _ultimatum_ which he was charged to deliver,
had openly congratulated the conqueror of Austerlitz.
Great Britain had had no direct share in the conflict in Southern
Germany and Moravia; she had, however, joined in two expeditions, the
one in Southern, the other in Northern Europe. In spite of a treaty of
neutrality between France and the Two Sicilies, ratified on October 8,
an Anglo-Russian squadron was permitted to land a force of 10,000
British troops under Sir James Craig, and 14,000 Russians on the shore
of the Bay of Naples. These troops effected nothing, and the violation
of neutrality was, as we shall see, destined to involve the Neapolitan
monarchy in ruin. The expedition to North Germany was planned on a
larger scale. Hanover had been occupied by France since June, 1803. Its
recovery was attempted by an Anglo-Hanoverian force under Cathcart,
which was to have been supported by a Russian and Swedish force acting
from Stralsund. The co-operation of Prussia was also expected. In order
to secure this alliance the British government offered Prussia an
extension of territory so as to include Antwerp, Liège, Luxemburg, and
Cologne, in the event of victory. In November the expedition landed. In
December Prussia had definitely given her protection to the Russian
troops in Hanover and offered it to the Hanoverians. Pitt computed that
at the beginning of the next campaign nearly 300,000 men would be
available in North Germany. But the vacillation of Prussia ruined all.
On December 15 Haugwitz signed the treaty of Schönbrunn, by which
Prussia was to enter into an offensive and defensive alliance with
France and was to receive Hanover in return for Ansbach, Cleves, and
Neuchâtel. Frederick William could not yet stoop to such a degree of
infamy, and therefore, instead of ratifying the treaty, resolved on
January 3, 1806, to propose a compromise, which involved among other
provisions the temporary occupation of Hanover by Prussia. In
consequence of this determination he sent, on January 7, a request for
the withdrawal of the British forces, which were accordingly
recalled.[30]
[Pageheading: _THE DEATH OF PITT._]
The collapse of his last coalition was the death-blow of Pitt, cheered
though he was for the moment by the news of Trafalgar. The fatal
consequences of Austerlitz were reported to him at Bath, whence he
returned by easy stages to his villa at Putney in January, 1806. His
noble spirit was broken at last by the defection of Prussia, and after
lingering a while, he died on the 23rd of that month, leaving a name
second to none among the greatest statesmen of his country. His
sagacious mind grasped the advantage to be gained by freeing trade from
unnecessary restrictions, and anticipated catholic emancipation,
parliamentary reform, and the abolition of slavery. He gave the nation,
in the union with Ireland, the one constructive measure of the first
order achieved in his time, and only marred by the weakness of more
pliable successors in a lesser age. His dauntless soul, which bore him
up against the bitterest disappointments, the desertion of friends, and
the depression of mortal disease, inspired the governing classes of
England to endure ten more years of exhausting war, to save Europe (as
he foretold) by their example, and to crown his own work at Waterloo.
His lofty eloquence, which has been described as a gift independent of
statesmanship, was indeed a product of statesmanship, for it consisted
in no mere witchery of words, but in a luminous and convincing
presentation of essential facts. He may have been inferior to his own
father in fiery rhetoric, to Peel in comprehensive grasp of domestic
policy, and to Gladstone in the political experience gained by sixty
years of political life, but in capacity for command he was inferior to
none. If he was not an ideal war minister, he was not a war minister by
his own choice; his lot was cast in times which suppressed the exercise
of his best powers; and he was matched in the organisation of war,
though not in the field, against the greatest organising genius known to
history. He must be judged by what he actually did and meditated as a
peace minister; his conduct of the war must be compared with that of
those able but not gifted men who strove to bend the bow which he left
behind him; and we must assuredly conclude that none of his colleagues
or rivals was his peer either in powers or in public spirit.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Buckingham, _Court and Cabinets_, iii., 242; Lewis,
_Administrations of Great Britain_, p. 225.
[14] Buckingham, _Court and Cabinets_, iii., 282-90; Pellew, _Life of
Sidmouth_, ii., 113-31; Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iv., 20-39.
[15] See vol. x., p. 399.
[16] Pellew, _Life of Sidmouth_, ii., 145-47; Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_,
iv., 88-93.
[17] For a list of Canning's squibs, belonging to this period, see
Lewis, _Administrations_, p. 249, note.
[18] It was not fair to hold Addington entirely responsible for the
promotion of his brother, who had been a junior lord of the treasury
under Pitt. The taunt came with a particularly bad grace from Canning,
who had himself been paymaster-general in the last administration.
[19] Pellew, _Life of Sidmouth_, ii., 250.
[20] _Annual Register_, xlvi. (1804), p. 34.
[21] Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iv., 135-44.
[22] See the letter in Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iv., appendix, pp.
i.-iii.
[23] There is preserved a sketch in Pitt's handwriting of a combined
administration with Melville, Fox, and Fitzwilliam as secretaries of
state, and Grenville as lord president.
[24] Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iv., appendix, pp. xi., xii.
[25] The best account of Pitt's return to power is to be found in
Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iv., 113-95; appendix, pp. i.-xiii. The story
is told in a very spirited manner by Lord Rosebery, _Pitt_, pp. 238-44.
[26] Rose, _Life of Napoleon I._, i., 450-53.
[27] Napoleon actually crowned himself, although he had originally
intended to be crowned by the pope.
[28] Malmesbury, _Diaries_, iv., 338.
[29] Nelson's tactics at Trafalgar are explained in a series of
remarkable articles in _The Times_ of September 16, 19, 22, 26, 28, 30,
and October 19, 1905. For incidents of the battle see Mahan, _Life of
Nelson_, ii., 363 _sqq._
[30] Rose, _Life of Napoleon I._, ii., 53-57, 63-65.
CHAPTER III.
GRENVILLE AND PORTLAND.
The immediate effect of Pitt's death was the dissolution of his
government. The king turned at first to Hawkesbury, afterwards destined
as Earl of Liverpool to hold the office of premier for nearly fifteen
years; but he then felt himself unequal to such a burden. He next sent
for Grenville, who insisted on the co-operation of Fox, to which the
king assented without demur, and the short-lived ministry of "All the
Talents" was formed within a few days. It was essentially a whig
cabinet, but it included two tories, Sidmouth as lord privy seal, and
Lord Ellenborough, the lord chief justice. Grenville himself was first
lord of the treasury, Fox foreign secretary, and Erskine lord
chancellor. Charles Grey, the future Earl Grey, was first lord of the
admiralty. Spencer home secretary, Windham secretary for war and the
colonies, and Lord Henry Petty, the future Marquis of Lansdowne,
chancellor of the exchequer. Fitzwilliam was lord president, and the
Earl of Moira master-general of the ordnance. Ellenborough owed his
place in the cabinet to the influence of Sidmouth. The appointment was a
departure from the established constitutional practice. Since Lord
Mansfield, who had ceased to be an efficient member in 1765, no chief
justice had been a member of the cabinet, and it was argued in
parliament by the opposition that a seat in the cabinet was inconsistent
with the independence which a common law judge ought to maintain. It is
also important to observe that Sidmouth when accepting office gave
express notice to Grenville and Fox that under all circumstances "he
would ever resist the catholic question".[31]
The friendly relations of the king with Fox were creditable to both of
them, and in the last few months of his life Fox showed himself a
statesman. Besides the abolition of the slave trade, his grand object
was the restoration of peace on a durable basis. There were some grounds
for believing that this was possible. France, under an emperor, seemed
no longer to represent a new principle in European politics, and was not
necessarily a menace to her neighbours; the coalition was fairly beaten
on land, while British supremacy had been reasserted on sea, and
Napoleon might well wish for peace to enable him to consolidate his
position on land and regain the power of using the sea, just as he had
done in 1801. Fox lost no time in renewing a pacific correspondence with
Talleyrand, afterwards carried on through the agency of Lord Yarmouth,
an English traveller detained in France, and Lord Lauderdale, who was
sent over as plenipotentiary. The principle of the negotiation was that
of _uti possidetis_, but it failed, as Whitworth's efforts had failed,
because the pretensions of France were constantly shifting, and
especially because France, anxious to isolate Great Britain, insisted on
negotiating separately with Great Britain and Russia, while Fox very
properly refused to make peace without our ally. Grey himself, now Lord
Howick, afterwards declared that France showed no disposition to grant
any terms which could be accepted by Great Britain. On September 13, Fox
died, and was buried in Westminster Abbey almost side by side with his
great rival.
While he was earnestly striving for peace, there was no cessation of
warlike movements or political changes either in Central Europe or in
Italy. In June, 1806, Napoleon converted the Batavian Republic into the
kingdom of Holland, over which he set his brother Louis. In July the
discord of Germany, which had long ceased to be a nation, was
consummated by the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine, which
separated all the western states from the Holy Roman empire, and united
them under the protection and control of France. On August 6, Francis
II., who had assumed the title of Emperor of Austria in 1804, formally
renounced the title of Roman Emperor, and the Holy Roman Empire became
extinct. The King of Prussia, with singular disregard of good faith and
national interest, finally accepted on February 15 the bribe of Hanover
for adhesion to France, but without the offensive and defensive alliance
offered him in the previous December, and with the additional
humiliation of being compelled to close his ports to English ships. He
vainly strove to conceal this shameful bargain, and was, as will be
seen, punished by the destruction of Prussian commerce. After all, he
found himself overreached by Napoleon in duplicity, and was at last
provoked into risking a single-handed contest with his imperious ally.
He declared war on October 1, and within a fortnight the army of
Prussia, inheriting the system and traditions of the great Frederick,
was all but annihilated in the twin battles of Jena and Auerstädt fought
on October 14.
[Pageheading: _SMALL EXPEDITIONS._]
The British government, though not unwilling to forgive the perfidy of
its former confederate, was powerless to strike a blow on his behalf
until it was too late. Indeed, the only warlike operation undertaken by
Great Britain in Europe during the year was in the extreme south of
Italy. Ferdinand, King of the Two Sicilies, had been driven out of his
capital to make way for Joseph Bonaparte, who entered Naples on February
15, and the exiled monarch took refuge in the island of Sicily. In
accordance with the shortsighted policy of small expeditions, a British
force under Sir John Stuart was landed in Calabria to raise the
peasantry, and on July 4, defeated the French at the point of the
bayonet in the battle of Maida. This action shook the confidence of
Europe in the superiority of the French infantry, and saved Sicily from
France, but the French troops remained in possession of the Italian
mainland. The prestige of Great Britain was raised by the conquest of
the Dutch colony of the Cape of Good Hope in January by a naval and
military force sent out by Pitt under the command of Sir Home Popham and
General, now Sir David, Baird, but was damaged by a futile expedition to
South America, undertaken by Popham without orders from the home
government. The city of Buenos Ayres was taken, indeed, in June by
General Beresford, but it was retaken by the Spaniards in August, and
soldiers who could ill be spared from the European conflict now
impending were lavished on a chimerical project on the other side of the
Atlantic.
The short administration of Grenville, so inactive in its foreign
policy, is memorable only for one redeeming measure of home-policy--the
abolition of the slave trade. Before Fox's death, the attention of
parliament had been divided mainly between Windham's abortive scheme
for a vast standing army, to be raised on the basis of limited service,
and the secret inquiry into the conduct of the Princess of Wales. This
resulted in her being acquitted of the more scandalous charges against
her, but on the advice of the cabinet, she was censured by the king for
unseemly levity of behaviour. On October 24 parliament was dissolved. It
was a foolish dissolution, for ministerial convenience only, and aimed
not merely at strengthening the ministry, but at weakening the tory
section within the ministry. The election was not well managed, and the
king withheld the subscription of £12,000 with which he was accustomed
to assist his ministers for the time being at a general election. Still
the ministry obtained a considerable majority.[32] The new parliament
met on December 15, and on March 25, 1807, the abolition bill, having
passed the house of lords in spite of strong opposition, was carried in
the commons by 283 to 16. Thus ended a philanthropic struggle, which
began in 1783, when the quakers petitioned against the trade. Three
years later Clarkson began his crusade. Two bills in favour of abolition
were carried by the house of commons before the close of the eighteenth
century, but were thrown out in the house of lords. The same fate befell
a bill for a temporary suspension of the slave trade, which passed the
commons in 1804 under the spell of Wilberforce's persuasive eloquence;
but Pitt's government caused a royal proclamation to be issued, which at
least checked the spread of the nefarious traffic in the newly conquered
colonies. A larger measure failed to pass the house of commons in 1805,
but in 1806 Fox and Grenville succeeded in committing both houses to an
open condemnation of the trade. This was followed on March 25, 1807, by
an enactment entirely prohibiting the slave trade from and after January
1, 1808, though it was not made felony to engage in it until a further
act was carried by Brougham in 1811.
[Pageheading: _FALL OF GRENVILLE'S MINISTRY._]
In default of important legislative tasks, the parliament which expired
in 1806 devoted much attention to various features of the military
system, as well as to proposed reforms in the public accounts. It
sanctioned the principle of raising a great part of the war-expenses by
special taxes rather than by loan. A property-tax of 10 per cent. was
freely voted, and this was then represented to be its permanent limit.
The assessed taxes were increased at the same time by 10 per cent., but
with an allowance in favour of poorer taxpayers for every child above
the number of two. It is worthy of notice that, while Grenville's
ministry was in office, Whitbread brought forward an elaborate plan not
only for reforming the poor laws but also for establishing a system of
national education. Some changes in the cabinet were necessitated by the
death of Fox. Howick became foreign secretary and was succeeded at the
admiralty by Thomas Grenville, brother of the prime minister, most
famous as a book-collector. Fitzwilliam retired at the same time on the
ground of ill-health. He retained his seat in the cabinet, but was
succeeded as lord president by Sidmouth, while Fox's nephew, Lord
Holland, succeeded Sidmouth as lord privy seal.
The fall of the whig government in March, 1807, was due to a cause
similar to that which had brought about the retirement of Pitt in 1801.
The Duke of Bedford, who was lord lieutenant of Ireland, had urged the
importance of making some concessions to Roman catholics. An Irish act
of 1793 had opened commissions in the army as high as the rank of
colonel to Roman catholics, and the ministry obtained the reluctant
consent of the king to the extension of this concession to Roman
catholics throughout his dominions. Without having fully ascertained the
king's mind, Howick, on behalf of his colleagues, moved for leave to
bring in a bill opening all commissions in the army and navy to Roman
catholics. The king at once refused his sanction, and the government,
finding that they could not carry their bill, agreed to withdraw it.
This decision was announced to the king in a cabinet minute, drawn up at
a meeting from which Ellenborough, Erskine, and Sidmouth, who
sympathised with the king, were excluded, and from which Fitzwilliam and
Spencer were absent owing to ill-health. The minute went on to record
their adhesion to the policy embodied in the bill, reserving the right
to advise the king on any future occasion in accordance with that
policy. Thereupon, Sidmouth, who had already sent in his resignation,
Eldon, Portland, and Malmesbury, with the concurrence of the Duke of
York and Spencer Perceval, urged the king to make a stand upon his
prerogative. He did so, by requiring the ministers who had signed the
minute, to give him a written pledge that they would never press upon
him further concessions, direct or indirect, to the Roman catholics.
This pledge they properly declined, and accepted the consequence by
resignation. Spencer was present at the meeting which arrived at this
conclusion and concurred in the decision of his colleagues.[33]
A new administration was formed by Portland, as nominal head, but with
Perceval as its real leader and chancellor of the exchequer, Canning as
foreign secretary, Hawkesbury as home secretary, and Castlereagh as
minister for war and the colonies. Camden, Eldon, Westmorland, and
Chatham resumed the offices they had held before the death of Pitt,
Mulgrave became first lord of the admiralty, and Earl Bathurst president
of the board of trade. In this government, too, Sir Arthur Wellesley,
the future Duke of Wellington, who had returned in 1805 from a brilliant
military career in India, held office outside the cabinet as chief
secretary for Ireland. Spencer Perceval was a half-brother of the Earl
of Egmont and brother of Lord Arden. He enjoyed a large practice at the
bar and had made his mark as a parliamentary debater when filling the
offices, first of solicitor-general, and then of attorney-general under
Addington. He had held the latter office again under Pitt. Not the least
source of his influence was his steady and determined opposition to the
Roman catholic claims.
[Pageheading: _NON-INTERVENTION._]
After a short but animated debate on the important constitutional
question raised by the circumstances of the change of ministers,
parliament was again dissolved on April 27. The king's speech in closing
the session was virtually a personal appeal to his people, and a
majority was returned in favour of the new ministry. This result may be
said to mark the last triumph of George III. in maintaining the
principle of personal government. "A just and enlightened toleration"
was announced as the substitute for catholic relief. Still, a certain
revival of independent popular opinion may be traced in the return of
Sir Francis Burdett and Lord Cochrane for Westminster. It was not until
June 22 that parliament assembled, and the engrossing interest of
foreign events left but little room for discussions on home-policy. A
motion by Whitbread, however, bore fruit in a bill for establishing
parochial schools, which Eldon successfully opposed in the house of
lords, mainly on the ground that it would take popular education out of
the hands of the clergy. The same not unnatural apathy about home
affairs prevailed throughout the session of 1808, which began on January
31, and though a large number of acts were placed on the statute book in
this and succeeding years, the mass of them, including many relating to
Ireland, were essentially of a local or occasional character. An
exception must be recognised in the partial success of a motion for the
reform of the criminal law, which was proposed by Sir Samuel Romilly,
famous for his efforts in the cause of humanity, and which resulted in
the abolition of capital punishment for the offence of pocket-picking.
During this critical period, when Great Britain was gradually drifting
into a position of isolation, the course of parliamentary history
becomes inseparable from the progress of those mighty events on the
continent, which Grenville's government would fain have treated as
outside the sphere of British interests. For, notwithstanding Windham's
schemes for a reconstruction of the army, that government had allowed
the naval and military establishments of Great Britain to fall below
their former standard. The leading idea of their policy was
non-intervention, and at the opening of 1807, there was no longer any
thought of sending a force to cope with Napoleon's veterans on the
continent When in 1805 a British force was operating in North Germany,
it was possible that if Prussia had been faithful to her engagements,
the disaster of Austerlitz might at least have been partially retrieved.
It was otherwise when, after the collapse of Prussia, France and Russia
stood face to face with each other. The drawn battle of Eylau in East
Prussia, marked by fearful carnage, was fought on February 8, 1807. This
check, breaking the spell of Napoleon's victorious career, had a
remarkable effect in raising the spirits of the allies, Russia, Sweden,
and Prussia, some remains of whose army were still in the field. These
powers now drew closer together, but they received a lukewarm support
from Great Britain, which might have done much to save Europe by timely
reinforcements and liberal subsidies. In reply to an urgent appeal from
the tsar for a loan of £6,000,000, the Grenville ministry doled out
£500,000 to Russia, and a still more pitiful gift to Prussia. No troops
were sent to aid Sweden on the Baltic coast, although, when, at
Napoleon's instigation, Turkey declared war against Russia, expeditions
were despatched to Alexandria and the Dardanelles. The notion of making
war on a large scale, in concert with allies, on the continent of
Europe, as in the days of Marlborough, and even of Lord Granby, seems to
have vanished from the minds of English statesmen, except Castlereagh,
who always advocated concentrated action.
The succession of Portland and Canning to Grenville and Howick brought
no immediate change in our insular policy and the new government had
been in office for above three months before a British force at last
appeared in the Swedish island of Rügen. It arrived too late, Danzig
surrendered in May, and on June 14 Napoleon obtained a decisive victory
over the Russian army and its Prussian contingent at Friedland. Russia
now gave a supreme example of that national selfishness, and contempt
for the rights of independent states which had dominated the counsels of
sovereigns ever since the first partition of Poland. Doubtless the tsar
might plead that Great Britain, too, had been wasting her strength in
selfish attempts to secure her mastery of the seas, and to open new
markets for her trade. He also deeply resented her recent failure to aid
him in the hour of his utmost need, while he still cherished the policy
of the "armed neutrality," and was eager to prosecute his designs
against Turkey. Dazzled and flattered by Napoleon, he welcomed overtures
for peace at the expense of Great Britain, and there is no doubt that
his imaginative nature indulged in the vision of a regenerated Europe,
divided between himself as emperor of the east and Napoleon as emperor
of the west. It is therefore far from surprising that he should have
held a private interview with Napoleon, on a raft in the Niemen, which
led to the treaty of Tilsit on July 7.
[Pageheading: _THE TREATY OF TILSIT._]
This treaty, in which the King of Prussia shared as a helpless partner,
contained both public and secret articles, but the distinction was not
very material, for the secret articles almost immediately became known
to Canning. The general effect of the whole agreement was the utter
humiliation of Prussia, the recognition by that country and Russia of
all Napoleon's acquisitions, and their combination with France against
the maritime claims and conquests of Great Britain. The western
provinces of Prussia were to be incorporated with other German
annexations to form the new kingdom of Westphalia; Prussian Poland was
to be converted into the duchy of Warsaw under the crown of Saxony, to
which a right of passage through Silesia was reserved; and Berlin with
other great Prussian fortresses were to remain in the hands of the
French until an exorbitant war indemnity should have been paid.[34] At
one stroke Prussia was thus reduced to a second-rate power, with a
territory little greater than it possessed before the first partition of
Poland. The rule of Joseph Bonaparte at Naples, that of Louis in
Holland, and the confederation of the Rhine, were solemnly confirmed.
Above all, Russia pledged herself to join France in coercing Sweden,
Denmark, and Portugal into an adoption of the organised commercial
exclusion, known as the "continental system," and hostility to Great
Britain in the event of her resistance. If Sweden refused to join this
league, Denmark was to be compelled to declare war on her.
No sooner did it receive information of this alliance than the British
government despatched a naval armament to Denmark and landed troops,
which were soon reinforced by those withdrawn from Rügen. There had been
no open rupture with Denmark, though much irritation existed between
Denmark and Great Britain with reference to neutral commerce. But there
were the best reasons for believing that the Danish fleet, as well as
that of Portugal, would be demanded by France and Russia, to be employed
against Great Britain, and it was certain that Denmark could not
withstand such pressure. The British envoy, Jackson, was accordingly
instructed to offer Denmark a treaty of alliance, of which one condition
was to be the deposit of her fleet on hire with the British government.
The proposal was accompanied by a threat of force, and the crown prince,
with a spirit worthy of admiration, refused the terms. In consequence a
peremptory summons to deliver up her ships of war and naval stores was
addressed to the governor of Copenhagen by the British commanders,
Admiral Gambier and Lord Cathcart, under whom Sir Arthur Wellesley was
entrusted with the reserve. The surrender, if made peaceably, was to be
in the nature of a deposit, and the fleet was to be restored at the end
of the war. The governor returned a temporising reply, and a bombardment
of Copenhagen followed (September 2); the fleet was brought to England
as prize of war; and Denmark naturally became the enemy of Great
Britain.[35] Sweden declined the proffered alliance of France and
Russia, and actually invaded Norway, then a part of the Danish kingdom.
The result was the loss of Finland and Swedish Pomerania. The king,
Gustavus IV., resembled Charles XII. in quixotic temperament, but not in
ability; and Sir John Moore, sent to his support with an army of 10,000
men, found it hopeless to co-operate with him. Shortly afterwards, his
subjects formed the same opinion, and he was compelled to make way for
his uncle, who succeeded as Charles XIII. with Marshal Bernadotte as
crown prince. In consequence of this change Sweden became reconciled to
Russia, and estranged from Great Britain.
The seizure of the Danish fleet, in time of so-called peace, roused
great indignation throughout most of Europe, and, in some degree,
strained the conscience of the British parliament itself. The justice
and wisdom of it were strenuously challenged in both houses, especially
by Grenville, Sidmouth, and Lord Darnley, who moved an address to the
crown embodying an impressive protest against it. It was defended,
however, by the high authority of the Marquis Wellesley, as well as by
Canning and other ministers, on the simple ground of military necessity.
Napoleon himself never ceased to denounce it as an international outrage
of the highest enormity. This did not prevent his doing his best to
justify it and to imitate it by sending Junot's expedition to Portugal,
with instructions to seize the Portuguese fleet at Lisbon. It is strange
that in the debates on this subject, peace with France was still treated
on both sides as a possibility; but Canning declared that neither
Russian nor Austrian mediation could have been accepted as impartial,
or as affording the least hope of pacification. However, on September
25, the king addressed a declaration to Europe, in which, after
justifying himself in regard to Copenhagen, he professed his readiness
to accept conditions of peace "consistent with the maritime rights and
political existence of Great Britain".
[Pageheading: _COMMERCIAL EXCLUSION._]
Still more reasonable attacks, supported by strong petitions, were made
by the opposition upon the "orders in council," whereby the British
government retaliated against Napoleon's "continental system". This
system was founded on a firm belief, shared by the French people, that
Great Britain, as mistress of the seas, was the one great obstacle to
his imperial ambition, and the most formidable enemy of French
aggrandisement, only to be crushed by the ruin of her trade. Prussia
had, in conformity with her treaty of February 15, 1806, issued a
proclamation on March 28 of that year, closing her ports, which would
now include those of Hanover, against British trade. The British
government replied by first laying an embargo on Prussian vessels in the
harbours of Great Britain and Ireland, and by proclaiming a blockade of
the coast of Europe from Brest to the Elbe. This was followed on May 14
by an order in council for seizing all vessels found navigating under
Prussian colours. As yet the policy of commercial exclusion had not been
carried to any great length, but the Berlin decree issued by Napoleon on
November 21 after the battle of Jena proclaimed the whole of the British
Isles to be in a state of blockade, prohibited all commerce with them
from the ports of France and her dependent states, confiscated all
British merchandise in such ports, and declared all British subjects in
countries occupied by French troops to be prisoners of war. Howick
replied by further orders in council in January, 1807, forbidding
neutrals to trade between the ports of France and her allies, or between
the ports of nations which should observe the Berlin decree, on pain of
the confiscation of the ship and cargo. On the 27th another decree,
issued at Warsaw, ordered the seizure in the Hanse Towns of all British
goods and colonial produce. The reply of Great Britain was a stricter
blockade of the North German coast.
The accession of Russia to Napoleon's commercial policy at Tilsit seemed
to have brought the combination against British trade to its furthest
development, and it was answered by new orders in council, treating any
port from which the British flag was excluded as if actually blockaded,
and further limiting the carriage by neutral vessels of produce from
hostile colonies. The Milan decree issued on December 17, and further
orders in council published during the same winter, carried to greater
extremes, if possible, this intolerable form of commercial warfare,
under which neutral commerce was gradually crushed out of existence.
Great Britain, owing to her command of the sea, was more independent of
this kind of commerce than her rival, and both the decrees and the
orders in council inflicted far more damage on France and her allies
than on Great Britain. But neither party was able to enforce completely
its policy of commercial exclusion. Europe could not dispense with
British goods or colonial produce carried in British vessels. The law
was deliberately set aside by a regular licensing system, and evaded by
wholesale smuggling; neutral ships continued to ply between continental
ports, and Napoleon did not disdain to clothe his troops with 50,000
British overcoats during the Eylau campaign. Still, Great Britain was
enabled to cripple, if not to destroy, the merchant shipping of all
other countries, and the interests of consumers all over Europe were
enlisted against the author of the continental system. On the other
hand, a heavy blow was dealt to friendly relations between Great Britain
and the United States, the chief victim of these belligerent
pretensions.[36]
[Pageheading: _FRUITLESS EXPEDITIONS._]
In the meantime, the prestige of Great Britain had been injured by three
petty and abortive expeditions projected by the Grenville ministry. The
first of these was sent out to complete the conquest of Buenos Ayres,
the recapture of which was unknown in England. Sir Samuel Auchmuty, who
commanded it, finding himself too late to occupy that city, attacked and
took Monte Video by storm with much skill and spirit, on February 3,
1807. Shortly afterwards, he was superseded by General Whitelocke,
bringing reinforcements, with orders to recover Buenos Ayres. In this he
signally failed, owing to gross tactical errors. The British troops were
almost passively slaughtered in the streets, and Whitelocke agreed to
withdraw the remains of his force, and give up Monte Video, on condition
of all prisoners being surrendered. On his return home, he was tried by
a court-martial and cashiered, being also declared "totally unfit to
serve his majesty in any military capacity whatever".
Equally ill-managed was the naval expedition, directed to support
Russia, then in close alliance with Great Britain, by coercing the
sultan into a rupture with France. Collingwood, who was not consulted,
was required to entrust the command of this expedition, which started in
February, 1807, to Sir John Duckworth. Everything depended on
promptitude, and the admiral found little difficulty in forcing the
passage of the Dardanelles, as it was then almost unfortified. Having
reached Constantinople, he allowed himself to waste time in fruitless
negotiations, contrary to Collingwood's earnest advice, and not only
effected nothing but gravely imperilled his return. Instructed by the
French minister Sébastiani, the Turks had armed their coasts, and
erected batteries along the Dardanelles, through which the British fleet
made its way with considerable loss. Instead of being detached from the
French alliance, the Porte was thrown into its arms and became more
embittered than ever against Russia. It was soon involved in a serious
conflict with that country--for the possession of Wallachia and
Moldavia--only to be deserted again by France under the compact made at
Tilsit. The expedition to Egypt, planned in combination with the
expedition to the Dardanelles, ended in a still worse disaster. Though
General Fraser, its commander, was able to surprise Alexandria on March
30, he awaited in vain the expected news of Duckworth's success; he
proceeded to attack Rosetta with as little generalship as Whitelocke had
shown at Buenos Ayres, and encountered a similar repulse. An attempt to
besiege the town met with no better fortune: the British troops
submitted to a capitulation, evacuated Egypt, and sailed for Sicily in
September, 1807. In an imperial manifesto addressed to the French nation
at the end of this year, the British failures at Buenos Ayres,
Constantinople, and Alexandria were paraded, together with our alleged
crime against the rights of nations at Copenhagen.
In the early months of 1808 the continental system was extended by the
establishment of French administration at Rome, and the annexation of
the eastern ports of the Papal States to the kingdom of Italy. On
February 18 of the same year Austria under French pressure adopted the
system. Sweden and Turkey were now the only continental countries left
outside it, but the retention of Sicily by the Bourbon king rendered it
easy for British commerce to enter Italy through that island. The
irritation of neutrals increased as the area of commercial exclusion
widened, but the United States were now the only neutral power of any
consequence. After April 17 Napoleon took the high-handed step of
confiscating all American shipping in his ports. In spite of this
aggression, the president and congress of the United States continued to
favour France against Great Britain. The story of the commercial warfare
between Great Britain and the United States will be related more fully
hereafter. For the present, it is sufficient to mention that an act,
placing an embargo on foreign vessels in American ports, was passed by
congress on December 22, 1807, and another on March 1, 1809, forbidding
commercial intercourse with Great Britain and France and the colonies
occupied by them.
Meanwhile Great Britain continued to enforce her maritime rights,
including that of searching American merchantmen for British-born
sailors, and impressing them at the will of British naval officers.
These grievances ultimately led to a war between Great Britain and
America in 1812. The continental system, however, did not long remain so
complete as in the beginning of 1808. Junot's expedition to Portugal had
led to a French occupation of that country before the end of 1807. The
conquest of Portugal was followed, as we shall see later, by a partial
conquest of Spain. This threw the Spaniards back upon the British
alliance and afforded an opportunity for the liberation of Portugal, so
that from May, 1808, Great Britain once more had a large seaboard open
to her commerce. The early success of the Spanish resistance to France,
and other events in the peninsula hereafter to be recorded, encouraged
Austria to arm again; and on the news of the capitulation of the French
army at Baylen in July, she pushed forward her preparations with
redoubled energy. A national movement arose simultaneously in North
Germany, but the Prussian government dared not head it so long as
Russia remained faithful to the French alliance.
[Pageheading: _NAPOLEON AT ERFURT._]
Notwithstanding a peremptory declaration from the tsar after the seizure
of the Danish fleet, Russia had nothing to gain by war with Great
Britain. She was bound to France by the prospect held forth to her at
Tilsit of the conquest of Finland and the partition of Turkey, but she
was inwardly desirous of peace with Great Britain. Napoleon, on the
other hand, saw in the partition of Turkey an opportunity of striking at
India, and had actually given orders for naval preparations to be made
in Spain, when all thought of eastern conquest had to be postponed owing
to the success of the Spanish patriots. After a conference between
Napoleon and the tsar at Erfurt a secret convention was signed on
October 12, by which France sanctioned Russian conquests in Finland and
the Danubian provinces, and Russia recognised the Bonaparte dynasty in
Spain and promised to assist France in a defensive war against Austria.
The two powers despatched a joint note to Great Britain inviting her to
make peace, on the principle of _uti possidetis_. Canning replied that
he was prepared to negotiate if his allies, especially Sweden and the
Spanish patriots, who were at that time in actual possession of almost
the entire country, were included in the peace. On November 19 Napoleon
expressed his willingness to treat with the British allies, but not with
the Spanish "rebels," as he styled them. Alexander took up a similar
position, speaking of the Spanish "insurgents," and expressly
recognising Joseph as King of Spain. Thus ended these pacific overtures,
and on November 3 the official _exposé_, annually issued in Paris,
described Great Britain as "the enemy of the world".
The year 1808 is memorable in English history for the active
intervention of Great Britain in the affairs of Spain which developed
into the "Peninsular war".[37] This intervention was rendered possible
and effective by the organisation of our army system in 1807, which was
due to Castlereagh, though he received little credit for it. Under this
system, the old constitutional force of the militia was made the basis
of the whole military establishment. By the militia balloting bill and
the militia transfer bill, that force, largely composed of substitutes,
and bound only to home-service, was practically converted into a
recruiting-ground for the regular army, and proved sufficient to make
good all the losses incurred during the long campaigns in Portugal and
Spain. The army thus raised contained, no doubt, many soldiers of bad
character, whose misdeeds, after the furious excitement of an escalade,
or under the heart-breaking stress of a retreat, sometimes brought
disgrace upon the British name. But these men, side by side with
steadier comrades, bore themselves like heroes on many a bloodstained
field; they quailed not before the conquering legions of Austerlitz and
Wagram; they could "go anywhere or do anything" under trusted leaders;
and they restored the military reputation of their country before the
eyes of Europe. To have forged such an instrument of war was no mean
administrative exploit. To have maintained its efficiency steadily on
the whole, though sometimes with a faint-hearted parsimony, and to have
loyally supported its commander against the cavils of a factious
opposition superior in parliamentary ability, for a period of seven
years, must be held to redeem the tory government from the charge of
political weakness.
[Pageheading: _PARLIAMENTARY ZEAL._]
At the beginning of 1809, however, the interest of parliament was less
concentrated on Sir Arthur Wellesley's first campaign in Portugal, or
even on the convention of Cintra, than on the scandals attaching to the
office of commander-in-chief, held by the Duke of York. Though an
incapable general, the duke had shown himself, on the whole, an
excellent administrator, and in the opinion of the best officers had
done much for the discipline and efficiency of the British army.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Clarke, his former mistress, had received bribes for
using her influence with the duke to procure military appointments.
Colonel Wardle, an obscure member of parliament, to whom Mrs. Clarke had
temporarily transferred herself after being discarded by the duke,
animated by a desire to damage the ministry, came forward with charges
directly implicating him in her corrupt practices, and incidentally
brought similar accusations against Portland and Eldon. The government
foolishly agreed to an inquiry on the Duke of York's behalf, and it was
conducted before a committee of the whole house, which sat from January
26 to March 20. In the course of this inquiry, Sir Arthur Wellesley
bore strong testimony in his favour, and the duke addressed a letter to
the speaker, declaring his innocence of corruption. Though Wardle and
his associates pressed for his dismissal, Perceval ultimately carried a
motion acquitting him not only of corruption but of connivance with
corruption. The majority, however, was small, and the duke thought it
necessary to resign on March 20, whereupon the house of commons decided
to proceed no further. A curious sequel of this case was an action
against Wardle by an upholsterer, who had furnished a house for Mrs.
Clarke by Wardle's orders, in consideration of her services in giving
hostile evidence against her former protector. The plaintiff obtained
£2,000 damages, and the law-suit was the means of producing a reaction
in popular feeling in favour of the duke.
This scandal in high places quickened the zeal of parliament for general
purity of administration, and led to a disclosure of some grave abuses.
One of these, connected with the disposal of captured Dutch property,
dated as far back as 1795. Others were found to exist in the navy
department and the distribution of Indian patronage; others related to
parliamentary elections. Perceval brought in a bill to check the sale
and brokerage of offices, nor did Castlereagh himself escape the charge
of having procured the election of Lord Clancarty to parliament by the
offer of an Indian writership to a borough-monger. A frank explanation
saved him from censure, especially as it appeared that the offer had
never taken effect. The charge was renewed, in a different form, against
both him and Perceval, and their accusers moved for a trial at bar. But
as it turned out that undue influence rather than corruption was their
alleged offence, and as the avowed object of the resolution was to force
on parliamentary reform, it was negatived by an immense majority.
Nevertheless, the object was not wholly defeated.
The removal of the Duke of York from the command of the army was
singularly inopportune, for Sir David Dundas had scarcely been appointed
as his successor when a juncture arose specially demanding a combination
of energy and experience. The British government, already engaged in the
Peninsular war, had at last resolved to take a vigorous part in the new
and desperate struggle between France and Austria in Southern Germany.
The latent spirit of German nationality, aroused by Napoleon's ruthless
treatment of Prussia, and quickened into a flame by sympathy with the
uprising in Spain, was embodied in the secret association of the
_Tugendbund_; and Austria, smarting under a sense of her own
humiliation, mustered up courage to assume the leadership of a national
movement. South Germany, governed by old dynasties, which profited by
the French alliance, displayed as yet no symptoms of disaffection to
France; but in North Germany the old dynasties had been either humbled
or deposed, and the general ferment among the people, needed, as the
Austrians believed, only the presence of a regular army to break out
into a national revolt against the foreigner. Prussia, it is true, was
still unwilling to move, because Russia was hostile; but the Austrian
court knew well the lukewarmness of Russia's attachment to France, and
hoped that a national upheaval would carry the Prussian government along
with it. No one, in fact, had played a more active part in rousing
Northern Germany than the Prussian minister, Stein, whom Frederick
William, by Napoleon's advice, had called to his councils after Tilsit,
and who was now compelled to resign his office and take refuge in
Austria.
[Pageheading: _NAPOLEON IN AUSTRIA._]
The British government was aware of the situation in Germany when it
received a request in January, 1809, for the despatch of a British force
to the mouth of the Elbe. Austria was, however, still nominally at war
with Great Britain, and George III., perhaps not unreasonably, refused
to give her active military assistance till peace was concluded.
Meanwhile a subsidy of £250,000 in bullion was despatched to Trieste,
and inquiries were set on foot as to the means of supplying such a
military expedition as Austria desired.[38] On March 22, Dundas, who had
only been a few days in office as commander-in-chief, reported that
15,000 men could not be spared from home service, and, in consequence,
no extensive preparations were made until the muster rolls in June
showed that 40,000 troops might safely be employed abroad. This
convinced the government that a large force could be sent without
interfering with home defence, as Castlereagh had long contended; and
throughout June and July the naval and military departments were busy in
preparing for what has since left a sinister memory as the Walcheren
expedition. Meanwhile, as if the passion of frittering away resources
were irresistible, a smaller force was despatched, as a kind of feint,
against the kingdom of Naples. It consisted of 15,000 British troops and
a body of Sicilians. Bailing from Palermo early in June it captured the
islands of Ischia and Procida and the castle of Scylla, and threw Naples
into consternation. But the attack was not pushed, and it was too late
to be of any assistance to the Austrians who had already been expelled
from the Italian peninsula. At last, in July, the treaty of peace with
Austria was signed and the great armament was ready to sail.
But Napoleon had not awaited the deliberations of British statesmen.
Hurrying back from Spain, he remained in Paris only long enough to
organise a campaign in South Germany, and left the capital to join his
armies on April 13. A week earlier, the Archduke Charles, having
remodelled the Austrian army, issued a proclamation affirming Austria to
be the champion of European liberty. On the 9th Austria declared war
against Bavaria, the ally of France, and her troops crossed the Inn. On
the 17th, when Napoleon arrived at Donauwörth, he found the archduke in
occupation of Ratisbon. His presence turned the tide, and, after three
victories, he was once more on the road to Vienna. The most important of
these victories was that of Eckmühl, and he regarded the manoeuvre by
which it was won as the finest in his military career. On May 13 the
French entered Vienna, but the Archduke Charles with an army of nearly
200,000 men was facing him on the left bank of the Danube. Napoleon's
army crossed and encountered the Austrians on the great plain between
Aspern and Essling. He was repulsed and fell back upon Lobau, between
which and the Vienna side of the Danube the bridge of boats had been
swept away by a rise of the river and by balks of timber floated down by
the Austrians. In this dangerous position he remained shut up for
several weeks. He finally succeeded in throwing across a light bridge by
which his army regained the left bank on the night of July 4. Finding
their position turned the Austrians took up their stand on the tableland
of Wagram. On July 6 another pitched battle was fought, which, in the
number of combatants engaged and in the losses inflicted on both sides,
must rank with the later conflicts of Borodino and Leipzig. A hard won
victory rested with the French, but it was not such a victory as that of
Austerlitz or Jena, though it secured the neutrality, at least, of
Austria for the next four years. Her army retreated into Bohemia, and on
July 12 an armistice was signed at Znaim in Moravia, which formed the
basis of a peace concluded at Vienna on October 14.
Nothing remained for Great Britain but to abandon the auxiliary
enterprise so long planned, but so often delayed, or to carry it through
independently, with little hope of a decisive issue. The latter
alternative was adopted. The very day on which the news of the armistice
arrived witnessed the departure of the greatest single armament ever
sent out fully equipped from the shores of Great Britain. The deplorable
failure of the Walcheren expedition has obscured both its magnitude and
its probable importance had it only proved successful. The command of
the fleet was given to Sir Richard Strachan, a competent admiral; that
of the army to Chatham, who sat in the cabinet as master-general of the
ordnance, an incompetent general, who owed his nomination to royal
favour. This was the first blunder; the second was the utter neglect of
medical and sanitary precautions against the notoriously unhealthy
climate of Walcheren in the autumn months. The armament sailed from the
Downs on July 28, in the finest weather and with a display of intense
national enthusiasm. It consisted of thirty-five ships of the line, with
a swarm of smaller war-vessels and transports, carrying nearly 40,000
troops, two battering-trains, and a complete apparatus of military
stores. Its destination, though more than suspected by the enemy, had
been officially kept secret at home. Castlereagh must be held largely
responsible for the delays and for the unwise choice of a general which
marred its success, but he showed true military sagacity in designating
the point of attack. Inspired by him, the British government,
distrusting the national movement in North Germany, had decided to
strike at Antwerp, which Napoleon had supplied with new docks, and
which, now that the mouth of the Scheldt had been reopened, threatened
to become the commercial rival of London. The town was entirely
unprepared, and a blow dealt here seemed the best way of doing as much
harm as possible to France and at the same time gaining a national
advantage for Great Britain.
[Pageheading: _THE WALCHEREN EXPEDITION._]
Chatham had received very precise instructions from Castlereagh, the
objects prescribed to him being, (1) the capture or destruction of the
enemy's ships, either building or afloat at Antwerp or Flushing, or
afloat in the Scheldt; (2) the destruction of the arsenals and dockyards
at Antwerp, Terneuze, and Flushing; (3) the reduction of the island of
Walcheren; (4) the rendering of the Scheldt no longer navigable to ships
of war. These objects were named, as far as possible, in the order of
their importance, and Chatham was specially directed to land troops at
Sandvliet and push on straight to Antwerp, with the view of taking it by
a _coup de main_. Napoleon, who clearly foretold the catastrophe
awaiting the British troops in the malarious swamps of Walcheren,
afterwards admitted that Antwerp could have been captured by a sudden
assault. Chatham obeyed his general orders, but, instead of taking them
in the order of importance, gave precedence to the objects which could
most easily be accomplished. By prompt action the French fleet, which
was moored off Flushing, might have been captured, but it was allowed to
escape to Antwerp. By August 2 the British were in complete possession
of the mouth of the Scheldt, and had taken Bath opposite Sandvliet,
while Antwerp was still almost unprotected. But Chatham concentrated his
attention on the siege of Flushing, which surrendered, after three days'
bombardment, on August 16, contrary to Napoleon's expectation. Antwerp
had meanwhile been put in a state of defence, and was now protected by
the enemy's fleet, while French and Dutch troops were pouring down to
the Scheldt. After ten days of inactivity, Chatham advanced his
headquarters to Bath, found that further advance was impossible, and
recommended the government to recall the expedition, leaving 15,000 men
to defend the island of Walcheren. This advice was adopted, but the
garrison left in Walcheren suffered most severely from fever in that
swampy island. Eventually, on December 24, Walcheren was abandoned, the
works and naval basins of Flushing having been previously destroyed. The
destruction of Flushing was the sole result of this expedition.
The failure of the British to make any serious impression on the French
either in the Low Countries or in Spain induced Austria to consent to
peace with France. By the peace of Vienna, signed on October 14, she
ceded Salzburg and a part of Upper Austria to Bavaria, West Galicia to
the duchy of Warsaw, and a part of Carinthia with Trieste and the
Illyrian provinces to France. A small strip of Galicia was ceded to the
Russian tsar, who had rendered France some very half-hearted assistance
and was further alienated by the extension of the duchy of Warsaw.
Austria was enslaved to the will of Napoleon. She had abandoned the
Tyrolese peasants whose loyal insurrection against the Bavarians was the
most heroic incident in the war, and she now joined the other nations of
the continent in excluding the commerce of Great Britain, which had made
a powerful diversion in Spain and an imposing though futile diversion on
the Scheldt to save her from national annihilation.
While the Walcheren expedition was preparing, two additions were made to
the cabinet. Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, brother of the Marquis of
Stafford, was admitted in June as secretary at war, and in July
Harrowby, who was created an earl, became president of the board of
control with a seat in the cabinet. After the fate of the expedition
became known, though before its final withdrawal, a serious quarrel took
place between Canning and Castlereagh. Personal jealousies had long
existed between these two statesmen, both half-Irish, half-English, and
of approximately the same age, yet widely different in character.
Canning was the most brilliant orator of his day, and no less persuasive
in private conversation than in public orations, gifted with an agile
brain that leaped readily from one idea or one project to another, but
cursed with a bitter wit which lightly aroused enduring enmities, and
which, coupled with an excessive vanity, rendered him unpopular with his
colleagues, and made it difficult for any one to take him seriously;
while his rival, not less able, and much more steady and trustworthy, a
skilful manager of men, was scarcely able to pronounce a coherent
sentence. Early in April Canning pressed upon the Duke of Portland the
transfer of Castlereagh to another office. Private communications
followed between various members of the cabinet, and it was understood
that Camden, as Castlereagh's friend, should apprise him of the
prevailing view, which the king himself had approved under a threat of
Canning's resignation. The duke, however, begged Camden to postpone the
disclosure, and others of Castlereagh's friends urged Canning not to
insist upon the change pending the completion of the Walcheren
expedition.
[Pageheading: _DUEL BETWEEN CANNING AND CASTLEREAGH._]
As the scheme took shape in July Camden was to resign, and thus make
possible a shifting of offices, which was to result in the Marquis
Wellesley succeeding Castlereagh as secretary for war. At last, on
September 6, the duke informed Canning of his own intention to retire on
the ground of ill-health, and at the same time disclosed the fact that
no steps had been taken to prepare Castlereagh for the proposed change
in his position. Thereupon Canning promptly sent in his own resignation,
the duke resigned the same day, and Castlereagh, learning what had
passed, followed his example two days later.[39] Believing that Canning
had been intriguing against him behind his back, under the guise of
friendship, he demanded satisfaction on the 19th, and on the 21st[40]
the duel was fought, in which Canning received a slight wound. Such
events provoked little censure in those days, and it is pleasant to
know that Canning and Castlereagh afterwards acted cordially together as
colleagues. Their enmity broke up the government. The Duke of Portland
did not long survive his withdrawal from office, and died on October 29;
Leveson-Gower insisted on following Canning into retirement.
Perceval was entrusted with the task of forming an administration, but
the new ministry was not formed without considerable negotiation.
Canning vainly endeavoured to impress first on his colleagues and then
on the king his own pretensions to the highest office, while attempts,
to which the king gave a reluctant assent, had been made to enlist the
co-operation of Grenville and Howick, who succeeded his father as Earl
Grey, in 1807, but they failed as all later attempts were destined to
fail. The most influential motive governing their conduct was,
doubtless, their feeling that they would not as ministers possess the
king's confidence. Sidmouth's following had also been approached.
Sidmouth himself was considered too obnoxious to some of Pitt's
followers to be a safe member of the new cabinet, but Vansittart was
offered the chancellorship of the exchequer and Bragge, who had taken
the additional surname of Bathurst, the office of secretary at war. They
refused, however, to enter the ministry, unless accompanied by Sidmouth
himself.
Perceval eventually became prime minister, retaining his former offices;
Lord Bathurst, while remaining at the board of trade, presided
temporarily at the foreign office, which was offered to the Marquis
Wellesley, then serving as British ambassador to the Spanish junta at
Seville, and taken over by him in December. Hawkesbury, now Earl of
Liverpool, succeeded Castlereagh as secretary for war and the colonies,
and was followed at the home office by Richard Ryder, a brother of
Harrowby. Harrowby himself gave up the board of control in November to
Melville's son, Robert Dundas, who, however, was not made a member of
the cabinet. Lord Palmerston, who had been a junior lord of the
admiralty under Portland, declined the chancellorship of the exchequer,
and though he accepted Leveson-Gower's post as secretary at war, he was
by his own desire excluded from the cabinet.
[Pageheading: _NEW BRITISH CONQUESTS._]
While the close of the year 1809 was darkened by national
disappointment and political anxieties, the honour of British arms had
been amply vindicated in the Spanish peninsula, and the brilliant
exploit of Lord Cochrane in Basque Roads had recalled the glories of the
Nile. Cochrane had already achieved marvels under Collingwood in the
Mediterranean, and notably off the Spanish coast, when he was selected
to conduct an attack by fireships on the French squadron blockaded under
the shelter of the islands of Aix and Oléron. This he carried out on the
night of April 11, with a dash and skill worthy of Nelson, and unless
checked by Gambier, the admiral in command, who had been raised to the
peerage after the seizure of the Danish fleet in 1807, he must have
succeeded in destroying the whole of the enemy's ships. Gambier was
afterwards acquitted by a court martial of negligence, but the verdict
of the public was against him. In the autumn Collingwood reduced the
seven Ionian islands, and gained an important advantage by cutting out a
considerable detachment of the Toulon fleet in the Bay of Genoa. In the
course of the year, too, all the remaining French territory in the West
Indies, as well as the Isle of Bourbon in the Indian Ocean, was captured
by the British navy. But this unchallenged supremacy on the high seas
did not prevent the depredations of French gunboats on British
merchantmen in the channel. Indeed after the battle of Trafalgar, the
French "sea-wasps" infesting the Channel were more active and
destructive than ever.
On October 25, being the forty-ninth anniversary of his accession, the
jubilee of George III. was celebrated with hearty and sincere
rejoicings. His popularity was not unmerited. He was politically
shortsighted, but within his range of vision few saw facts so clearly;
he was obstinate and prejudiced, but his obstinacy was redeemed by a
moral intrepidity of the highest order, and his prejudices were shared
by the mass of his people. Having lived through the seven years' war,
the war of the American revolution, and the successive wars of Great
Britain against the French monarchy and the French republic, he was now
supporting, with indomitable firmness, a war against the all-conquering
French empire--the most perilous in which this country was ever engaged.
The colonial and Indian dominions of Great Britain, reduced by the loss
of the North American colonies, had been greatly extended during his
reign in other quarters of the globe. His subjects regarded him as an
Englishman to the core; they knew him to be honest, religious, virtuous,
and homely in his life; they justly believed him, in spite of his
failings, to be a power for good in the land; and they rewarded him with
a respect and affection granted to no other British sovereign of modern
times before Queen Victoria. They had good cause to desire the
continuance of his life and reason, knowing the character of his
heir-apparent, and contrasting the domestic habits of Windsor with the
licence of Carlton House.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Colchester, _Diary_ (Feb. 4, 1806), ii., 35, 36.
[32] Holland, _Memoirs of the Whig Party_, ii., 91-94.
[33] Holland, _Memoirs of the Whig Party,_ ii., 173-205, 270-320;
Colchester, _Diary_, ii., 92-115; Malmesbury, _Diaries_, iv., 357-72;
Walpole, _Life of Perceval_, i., 223-33; Buckingham, _Courts and
Cabinets_, iv., 117-50. Holland accuses the king of treachery and
duplicity, and Lewis (_Administrations of Great Britain_, p. 294)
repeats this charge in milder terms. But the documents quoted do not
prove any want of straightforwardness, and the king's conduct was the
logical consequence of his action in 1801.
[34] In the following year Napoleon consented to evacuate all the
Prussian fortresses except three, on condition that the Prussian army
should not exceed a total of 40,000 men.
[35] _Annual Register_, xlix. (1807), 249-70, 731-38; Rose, in _English
Historical Review_, xi. (1896), 82-92.
[36]
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