After the affair of the Russian armament, Pitt turned his back upon Europe; and he had good reason for doing so. He had been compelled to swallow a mortification that his proud spirit could not easily forget; he had learned that in foreign affairs Parliament is an unknown quantity; and that in Great Britain the immediate certainties of trade generally outweigh the most elaborate views of ultimate advantage. Moreover, he saw the storm-cloud overhanging France-no man could say where it would break or how far it would extendand that it was obviously the interest of this country that it should pass over our islands and spend itself elsewhere.

No English minister can ever wish for war. Apart from the inseparable dangers to our constitution and our commerce, his own position suffers sensible detriment. He sinks into a superior commissary; he can reap little glory from success; he is the first scapegoat of failure. He too has to face, not the heroic excitement of the field, but domestic misery and discontent; the heavy burden of taxation, and the unpopularity of the sacrifice which all war entails. If this be true of every minister, with how much greater force does it apply to Pitt.

The task that he had set himself was to raise the nation from the exhaustion of the American war; to repair her finance; to strengthen by reform the foundations of the constitution, and by a liberal Irish policy the bonds of Empire. At this very moment he was meditating, we are told, the broadest application of free-trade principles-the throwing open of our ports and the raising of our revenue entirely by internal taxation.

He required, moreover, fifteen years of tranquillity to realise the fulness of the benefit of his cherished Sinking Fund. His enthusiasm was all for peace, retrenchment, and reform; he had experienced the difficulty of actively intervening in the affairs of Europe; he had no particle of that strange bias which has made some eminent statesmen believe themselves to be eminent generals; but he had the consciousness of a boundless capacity for meeting the real requirements of the country.

Had he been able to carry out his own policy, had France only left him alone, or even given him a loophole for abstention, he would have been by far the greatest minister that England has ever seen. As it was, he was doomed to drag out the remainder of his life in darkness and dismay, in wrecking his whole financial edifice to find funds for incapable generals and for foreign statesmen more capable than honest, in postponing and indeed repressing all his projected reforms.

To no human being, then, did war come with such a curse as to Pitt, by none was it more hated or shunned. What made his position the more galling was that there could not have been a more inauspicious moment for war. Strangely enough, the fourteen years from the outbreak of the French Revolution to the Peace of Amiens -- from 1789 till 1802 -- formed an almost unbroken succession of bad harvests, and that of 1792 was one of the worst of the series.

There was, moreover, a commercial crisis of the first magnitude, unconnected altogether with any prospect of hostilities. For, indeed, up to within a few weeks of the actual declaration there was no sign of apprehension of war in any branch of trade; the country had rightly judged Pitt, and was confident of his determination to preserve peace.

From other causes, however, there were, in November 1792, no fewer than 105 bankruptcies -- almost double the number recorded of any previous month. And whereas the number of such failures in 1791 had been 769 and in 1792 934, in 1793 there were 1,956; of which as many as twenty-six were those of country banks.

In April 1793 Parliament had to intervene, and authorise advances amounting to £ 5,000,000 in Exchequer bills to leading merchants on good security. It was, then, at a moment of acute commercial and agricultural crisis that this most pacific and commercial of ministers found himself confronted with a war of the very first magnitude.

It is probable that on the continent of Europe he still stands higher than any of his contemporaries and successors as having headed the great league against France. Never was there a more involuntary distinction. If we can fancy Lord Eldon complimented for his performance of the Carmagnole, or Wycherley upon his theology, we can form some idea of the feelings with which Pitt up to 1793 would have regarded such a reputation. It is true that, when he was driven to fight, he fought with all his might and main; no prudent minister could do otherwise: that is a matter of conduct and of method, not of prinelple.

But the supreme and salient point is that there was no man in England more resolutely determined on peace and non-intervention; and that he pushed his ostentatious ignorance of the proceedings in France, and indeed of the proceedings of Europe, to the verge of affectation.

Non-Intervention Strategy

Let us see how this matter stands; and take the positive evidence of his own pen and of his own lips. At first it is quite clear that Pitt considered the French Revolution as a matter which concerned France alone; but which by, disabling her, made a peaceful policy more easy for En~land. On the day of the taking of the Bastile, in ignorance of course of that event, he writes: " This scene, added to the prevailing scarcity, makes that country an object of compassion even to a rival."

Fox too in February 1790 delivered a great speech against any augmentation of the peace establishment. " Had France," he cried, "remained in that formidable and triumphant state by which she was distinguished in the year 1783, I should have been the first to applaud such an augmentation."

He described her as now, however, "in a state which could "either fill us with alarm nor excite us to indignation."

"If fortune has humbled the pride and ambition of this mighty empire, if the anarchy and confusion incidental to such a revolution has struck her people with inertness and inactivity, why should we dread her sudden declaration of hostilities?"

Small blame, perhaps, attaches to Fox for this extremely imperfect appreciation of an unprecedented situation; on the other hand, in the teeth of such declarations it is unwise to claim for him any superior policy of prescience.

Pitt's reply was no less remarkable. "The present convulsions in France must sooner or later terminate in general harmony and regular order, and though the fortunate arrangements of such a situation may make her more formidable, they may also render her less obnoxious as a neighbour. I hope I may rather wish as an Englishman for that, respecting the accomplishment of which I feel myself interested as a man, for the restoration of tranquillity in France, though that appears to me to be distant. Whenever the situation of France shall become restored, it will prove freedom rightly understood, freedom resulting from good order and good government; and thus circumstanced France will stand forward as one of the most brilliant pioneers of Europe: she will enjoy that just kind of liberty which I venerate, and the invaluable existence of which it is my duty as an Englishman to cherish. Nor can I under this predicament regard with envious eyes an approximation in neighbouring states to those sentiments which are the characteristic features of every British subject."

"And," he concluded, "we must endeavour to improve for our security, happiness, and agrandisement those precious moments of peace and leisure which are before us."

It will be observed that the tone of the minister is one of almost patronising friendship. Yet within a year or two he was to be universally denounced as the ruthless and inveterate enemy of the new state of things in France.

In October 1790 he writes to Hugh Elliot: "This country means to persevere in the neutrality which it has hitherto scrupulously observed with respect to the internal dissensions of France, and from which it will never depart unless the conduct held there should make it indispensable as an act of self- defence. . . . We are sincerely desirous of preserving peace and of cultivating in general a friendly intercourse and understanding between the two nations."

Again, in July 1791, he writes to his mother : "We are all anxious spectators of the strange scene in France," and by underlining the word "spectators" he emphasises the attitude he was determined to maintain.

It is, however, in February 1792 that we obtain the most remarkable view of his inind on this subject. It was then that he delivered that famous survey of the finance of the country which has been noticed as the exception to his commonplace budgets of these four years. In it he repealed taxes, he added to the Sinking Fund, he reduced the previous vote for seamen by 2000 men -- from 18,000 to 16,000 -- he declined to renew the subsidy for the Hessian mercenaries.

And to raise hopes of further reductions he declared that: "Unquestionably there never was a time in the history of this country when from the situation of Europe we might more reasonably expect fifteen years of peace than at the present moment."

This, it may be said, is a random expression in debate. Even in a budget speech, an eloquent and sanguine Chancellor of the Exchequer may be betrayed into a flash of extravagance by the high hopes that he entertains and excites.

On the contrary, this was a speech as to which extraordinary means were taken to supplement the imperfect reporting arrangements of that day. Moreover, this unusually accurate result was submitted to Pitt, and the speech is one of the two, or at most three, which he corrected for publication. So far, then, from this being a haphazard utterance of impulse, it may be considered, delivered as it was after three years of watching and waiting, specially reported and personally revised, as one of the most mature expressions of Pitt's most deliberate opinions. Nothing, perhaps, can more than this impress the reader who remembers that within twelve months the great war between France and England had begun. But Pitt's letter of the 13th of November 1792 to Lord Stafford is, if possible, still more remarkable.

He was writing within ten weeks of the commencement of hostilities, and says: "However unfortunate it would be to find this country in any shape committed; " and further: "Perhaps some opening may arise which may enable us to contribute to the termination of the war between different powers in Europe, leaving France (which I believe is the best way) to arrange its own internal affairs as it can."

It will be perceived that he still speaks as a mere spectator of the war in Europe, and as a supporter of the sound and wholesome policy with regard to France which he had always advocated: this but a few days before France had declared the Scheldt open, and her readiness to overturn every established government in Europe.

Grenville's language is even stronger. He was at this time, it will be remembered, Pitt's Foreign Secretary. Six days before the letter last quoted, (November 7, 1792), he writes: "Portugal and Holland will do what we please. We shall do nothing....All my ambition is that I may at some time hereafter...have the inexpressible satisfaction of being able...to tell myself that I have contributed to keep my own country at least a little longer from sharing in all the evils of every sort that surround us. I am more and more convinced that this can only be done by keeping wholly and entirely aloof."

This language was fully embodied in action, or rather inaction. In spite of many provocations, the Government preserved a severe neutrality. They would have nothing to do with the expedition of Brunswick, towards which they preserved rather an unfriendly than a friendly attitude.

They indeed recalled Gower, the ambassador in Paris, after the events of the 10th of August 1792, but that was because the King to whom he was accredited was actually suspended, and soon afterwards deposed; so that his mission had terminated, and he had no longer any functions to discharge; while the fact that an insult to his person or domicile was possible in the convulsed condition of Paris, made his presence there an actual danger to peace.

They ordered Chauvelin, the ex-envoy of France, to leave England after the execution of Louis XVI; but public sentiment left no choice in that matter, and Chauvelin had been actively employed, since his official character had ceased, less as a diplomatic than what is known in police language as a provocative agent. On the other hand, they saw Belgium, and what is more, Antwerp, seized by France, but they determined not to make either event a cause of war.

Decrees of 1792

It may safely be said that few ministries would have remained so passive. They witnessed the promulgation of a policy of universal disturbance, which culminated in the decrees of the 19th of November and the 15th of December 1792.

The first of these decrees promised assistance to all nations that should revolt against their governments, and was accentuated. by the constant reception of English deputations to whom the Convention promised early "liberty"; while the second compelled all territories occupied by the French to accept the new French institutions. As the French had seized Savoy and Nice, the Low Countries, and the Rhine Provinces of Germany, there was an ample area for its execution.

By these decrees the French Government had not merely placed all monarchies on their defence, but goaded them into war. Nor were they merely abstract declarations ; they were accentuated by constant promises of action.

A few days after their promulgation a deputation from Great Britain, which came to intimate its intention of overturning the British Government, was received with rapture by the Convention, which assured the delegates that the day was at hand when France would be able to congratulate the National Assembly of England. These deputations were numerous and frequent, and were invariably received with the same incendiary assurances. France, in fact, would not leave other countries alone-would not leave England alone. By so doing she disarmed the most ardent and powerful advocate in England for peace at almost any cost-the Prime Minister himself.

It can hardly be denied that the Government pushed their neutrality to an extreme point. On the publication of the decrees, however, these being the open declaration of a proselytising policy which was at the moment being carried into effect by arms, and when the navigation of the Scheldt was thrown open, this imperturbability began to give way.

The navigation of the Scheldt had been assured to the Dutch by the treaty of Westphalia. It had been repeatedly guaranteed by the Powers; by France herself in 1785; and by Pitt in the name of Great Britain more solemnly and specially in 1788. The French now declared these provisions abrogated by the law of nature, and the Scheldt to be an open river. It was impossible for Pitt to pass by his own treaty of 1788, without a violation of good faith, so signal as to be remarkable even at the time of the second partition of Poland.

But, on wider grounds, the danger to Europe was more universal. To allow that the French Government were in possession of a law of nature which superseded all treaty obligations, and the copyright and application of which rested exclusively with them, was to annihilate the whole European system. On this point, however, the French were firm. They were ready to explain away the decree of the 19th of November, but on the question of declaring the Scheldt open, and open by the operation of natural law, they would give no satisfaction at all.

Moreover, it was certain that an invasion of Holland was being prepared; and the treaty of 1788, barely four years old, compelled Pitt, without any possibility of evasion, to come to the assistance of the States.

It became clear now, even to those most unwilling to see, that war was inevitable. Then came the execution of Louis XVI. A universal shudder ran through England. The nation went into mourning. The playhouses were closed. Maret, afterwards Duc de Bassano, who was secretly in London as a semi-diplomatic agent, said that he could not leave the house for fear of being exposed to the "insults and ignorant ferocity" of the populace.

The King could not leave his palace without being surrounded by crowds demanding instant war. A fortnight before, Fox had been nearly turned out of a vestry meeting at St. George's. But the feeling then, which this circumstance proves to have been sufficiently bitter, was faint compared to the horror excited by the death of Louis. Yet Maret wrote days after that event that Pitt was still sincerely anxious for peace.

There is something pathetic in this flash of light thrown on the lonely figure, clinging to hope with the tenacity of despair. As it fades, the darkness closes, and the Pitt of peace, prosperity, and reform disappears for ever.

While Maret was writing his report, war was already decreed.

On the 1st of February 1793 the French Convention -- moved, as Maret said, by stockjobbers, or as Roland said, by the necessity of finding employment for armed desperadoes, declared war on the rulers of Great Britain and Holland.

Pitt cherished one last sanguine belief. He was confident that the condition of her finances would make it impossible for France to wage war for more than a short time; just as a few years later he is said to have assured the House of Commons that he could see his way to one more loan of twenty millions, but that then the credit of England would be exhausted. Both forecasts were probably correct according to experience; but the French Revolution was destined to annihilate the guidance of experience, and to elicit unsuspected powers both in France and in England. At any rate, Pitt entered on the contest under the firm faith that any war with France must necessarily be brief.

Two points remain to be noticed. Why, if Pitt was so much opposed to war, did he not resign? The answer is simple. His resignation would not have prevented war in any case. He had, moreover, no excuse or colourable ground for resignation. He could not go to the King or to Parliament and say, "I have resigned because I would not go to war. The case for war has arisen under a treaty I concluded with infinite pains four years ago. Yet, rather than avert the very danger against which it was framed, I wish to resign and let others fight for my treaty."

The bare statement of the case needs no further demonstration; he would simply have been succeeded by A minister much more warlike and much less capable than himself.

The other matter is this. A wearisome busybody called Miles has left it on record that George III bullied Pitt into war. But this story is on the face of it untrue; has, indeed, not the remotest plausibility. The date given for the transaction is 1791. If the story be true, Pitt ought to have been dismissed in that year, for it was not until November 1792 that the bare possibility of going to war occurred to him. The authority given for this preposterous statement is Moira, who declared that he was to have succeeded Pitt at the Treasury.

That George III should dismiss Pitt to take to his counsels the bosom friend of the Prince of Wales, would seem to reveal a fit of lunacy of which we have no other record. The relations between Pitt and George III were very far from being of this nature. It is no disparagement to either to say that the King would not have ventured to send such an ultimatum to Pitt; nor at first did he feel any great hostility to the popular movement in France. The royal sentiments with regard to the war were transparent enough. It does not need a Rochefoucault to understand that the first humiliations of that French Court, which had so largely contributed to secure the independence of the United States, were observed without poignant displeasure at St. James's.

And, up to the last moment, the King, as Elector of Hanover, maintained an absolute neutrality. But when monarchy was abolished, and the monarch a prisoner, the drama became unrelieved tragedy. Then, no doubt, the King was anxious for war; and at the end of 1792 Pitt had lost every weapon by which he could oppose it. That, however, is a very different matter from the King's sending word to Pitt that he must either go to war or make way for Moira.

It is, then, abundantly manifest from every source of evidence that wax was forced on the English Ministry; that Pitt carried to an extreme his anxiety to avoid it; that his resignation could not have averted it; and that in any case it was impossible for him as a man of honour, or a serious statesman, to resign.

We shall see, when war had begun, his constant endeavours to put an end to it. Whether he was a great war-minister, as he is generally considered, or an incapable war-minister, as he is called by Macaulay, he is certainly the most strenuous peace- minister that ever held office in this country.

Chapter VIII: War