It does not seem necessary in a sketch of Pitt's career to enter at large into the incidents of the war that raged from February 1793 to the preliminaries of the Peace of Amiens in 1801. Its first incident as concerns Great Britain was that an army was sent to Flanders under the Duke of York, to act in conjunction with an Austrian army under the Prince of Coburg. From February to August, (1793), the French sustained an unbroken series of disasters. Dumouriez was defeated at the battle of Neerwinden, and deserted to the enemy. Belgium fell into the hands of Austria. Mayence with a garrison of twenty, and Valenciennes with a garrison of eight thousand men surrendered to the allied forces. Toulon admitted an English fleet.

But the French were stimulated and not cowed by these reverses. They called the whole population to arms. They set in array a million soldiers. Naturally brave, but now inspired with the last heroism of patriotism and despair, they turned the tide of fortune. York was driven from Dunkirk with the loss of all his heavy artillery. The Austrians were defeated at Wattignies. The internal enemies of the Republic were ruthlessly crushed. Lyons fell, and Marseilles. The royalists of La Vendee were scattered and slaughtered. Toulon was taken and introduced Napoleon to the world; a heavier blow to the allies than the loss of a score of fortresses or armies.

A few months later, by a strange freak of fate, he became a subject of the King of Great Britain, when Corsica proclaimed herself a monarchy under the sovereignty of George III. Prussia began to withdraw from the war, preferring the tangible advantages of an immediate share of Poland to the much more doubtful possibilities of a problematical partition of France. The Austrians were overthrown on the historical battlefields of Worth and Weissenburg; while Brunswick once more displayed his sinister strategy in a retrograde movement.

1794

In the succeeding year (1794) the battle of Mourns, followed by a retreat of the Austrians, which is explained less by that defeat than the policy of their government, put an end to the campaign of Flanders; Belgium and Holland fell into the hands of the French. The German Emperor, who had come to witness victory, returned to Vienna. Coburg and York were recalled.

On their eastern frontier the French repelled the Prussians, and on their southern, the Spaniards and the Portuguese. So great was the effect of their successes that, at the opening of the parliamentary session, on the 30th of December 1794, there were several motions urging negotiation, two of them brought forward by Wilberforce.

As some set-off to this picture, it may be recorded that the English had captured the French settlements in India and a few West Indian islands; while, at the famous battle of the 1st of June 1794, Lord Howe secured a crushing victory over the fleet of France.

To the British Government also occurred a signal advantage, for the future conduct of the war by the adhesion of a number of the principal Whigs. Portland, the ex-Prime Minister, and Windham, a brilliant but fantastic orator; Lord Spencer, an administrator of signal ability, and Lord Fitzwilliam, a great noble of less tact than character, joined the Government; and the moral effect produced by their accession was greater than any personal assistance that they could render. It gave a national character to the Administration and to the war. It reduced the Opposition in the House of Commons to something less than fifty; a little later, and they were able to travel with comfort in two hackney coaches.

1795

As the war continued, the superiority of France increased. In April 1795 Prussia, in June Sweden, and in July Spain came to terms with the triumphant Republic. A limited consolation might perhaps be derived from the fact that the Court of Vienna continued its readiness to receive subsidies from England; but in other respects it showed little activity, though its armies under Clairfait gained some unfruitful victories in the autumn.

Pitt's Government displayed a singular but luckless energy. Windham, the new War Minister, built his greatest hopes on an expedition of French aristocrats and malcontents to Quiberon Bay; but this force, sumptuously provided with money and munitions of war, and supported by a powerful fleet, was pulverised by Hoche as soon as it landed. In the West Indies the English arms lost ground.

On the other hand, the Empire was enriched by the splendid acquisitions of the Cape of Good Hope and Ceylon. Pitt's hopefulness was in no degree diminished. He wrote to Addington (October 1795) that he trusted to open his budget before Christmas. "If that goes off tolerably well," he added, it will give us peace before Easter."

1796

In 1796 a general election refreshed Pitt's majority. While it was proceeding, he sent on his own responsibility a subsidy of £ 1,200,000 to Austria -- a grave act, fiercely censured by the Opposition, and only condoned by a devoted House of Commons, on the express stipulation that it should not be considered a precedent.

He was rewarded by the recall of Clairfait and the substitution of the Archduke Charles, a young prince whose consumnate generalship was sometimes crippled by physical disabilities, and more often by the pedantry or jealousy of his own Government, but who stands forth as one of the most brilliant opponents of Napoleon.

He at once defeated Jourdan, and drove the French back across the Rhine. In the West Indies, Great Britain also secured some advantages. But all was darkened and eclipsed by the Italian campaign of the irresistible Bonaparte; while Spain and Prussia entered into distinct alliance with France.

This year (1796) began and ended with determined overtures for peace on the part of Pitt. In the previous December (1795), the minister had brought a royal message to Parliament, declaring that the establishment of a now constitution in France (that of the Directory) offered facilities for negotiation. In March, Pitt made an earnest and genuine overture for a general pacification, through Wickham, our envoy in Switzerland; but it was ungraciously received, and was rejected.

Again, in October, Lord Malmesbury, a diplomat of the highest distinction, was sent to Paris. But as had happened in March, the envoy's instructions to insist on the evacuation of the Netherlands by France rendered negotiation fruitless. On the 19th of December (1796) he was ordered to leave France within forty-eight hours.

Four days earlier, a French fleet, with an army under General Hoche, had sailed for the invasion of Ireland. The expedition was, however, wholly unsuccessful. The weather was unfavourable; the fleet was scattered; Hoche was in one portion, the army in another; both returned separately to France, and the hopes of Irish discontent were postponed. A slighter enterprise of a filibustering character directed against south-western England completely failed.

A far greater effort was, moreover, crushed in its inception. It had been calculated that by a junction of the Dutch, the French, and the Spanish fleets, another and more fortunate Armada might effect the invasion of England. But the great victory of St. Vincent, fought on the 14th of February 1797, by which Jervis and Nelson crushed the Spanish contingent, blighted these hopes.

1797

The year 1797, which opened so brilliantly, was destined to be the darkest and most desperate that any British minister has ever had to face. In April, Austria, England's last ally, laid down her arms and concluded a preliminary treaty of peace at Leoben (April 7, 1797). France was now free to turn her victorious armies and her inexhaustible resources to the destruction of England; and she was determined to do so.

At this moment Great Britain was paralyzed. The Navy, that had just given fresh courage to the nation, was now to deal a blow which struck at the heart and stopped the circulation of the Empire.

In the middle of April, the crews of the Channel Fleet at Portsmouth rose in rebellion, dismissed their officers, and hoisted the red flag. Their grievances were great, their demands were moderate; and these had to be conceded with a full amnesty. By the end of April the mutiny was over. At the beginning of May, however, it broke out again and spread to Sheerness. Here, it assumed a graver aspect, and bore all the marks of being inspired by revolutionary agencies outside. There was, indeed, no sympathy between the two movements.

The sailors at Spithead sent word to the sailors at Sheerness that their conduct was a "scandal to the name of British seamen." Nevertheless, the Government was as much disabled by the one as the other. The fleet with which Duncan was blockading the coast of Holland joined the rebels, with the exception of two ships. With these the Admiral kept signalling as if to the rest of his squadron: a mild stratagem, on which, however, the safety of England depended, and which was happily successful. In these days the news would have been flashed to every nook of Europe, and Britain would have lain at the mercy of her enemies. Fortunately neither the French nor the Dutch bad any idea of our condition.

The mutiny lasted five weeks and spread all over the world. It smouldered in the victorious fleet of Jervis; who, however, suppressed it with a prompt and masterful hand. The crew of the Hermione, cruising near Porto Rico, outraged by the inhumanity of their captain, killed all their officers, and delivered their ship to the Spaniards.

At the Cape of Good Hope, the British squadron was in open revolt, but was brought back to discipline by the ready firmness of the Governor and Admiral. The artillerymen at Woolwich were tampered with. There was an attempt to seduce the army.

What a position for a country engaged in a life-and-death struggle with a triumphant enemy! Never in the history of England was there a darker hour. The year had begun indeed with one great naval victory, and was destined to close with another. Bnt these isolated successes formed the sole relief to a scene of perpetual gloom. Our generals and armies had been so uniformly unfortunate that we had no longer a foot on the continent of Europe. On land our great foe was everywhere triumphant. We were entirely on the defensive. Two invasions of our islands had been attempted. A third was impending; it might at any moment take place, and could scarcely be opposed.

The war had lasted over four years; and had added a hundred and thirty-five million to the National Debt, or about as much as the whole cost of the American war, for scarce any corresponding advantage. The Funds had fallen to a lower point than in the worst depression of the American war.

In December 1796 it had been necessary to propose a further loan of eighteen millions, and three millions and a half of new taxes. The loan, though issued at a price which produced 55 per cent, was at 151 discount in March 1797. There had been an unexampled run on the Bank of England. Cash payments had just been suspended. There was a terrible dearth. Not merely were the ports thrown open to foreign corn, but large bounties were paid on its importation. The last of our allies had just made her peace with France; and we were left to continue the contest alone.

Our own efforts to come to terms had been so received as to make all hope of truce indefinitely remotee. The worst of all wars was raging in Ireland. Scotland, though not harried into open rebellion, was scarcely less discontented. England was maddened by crimps and press-gangs and unprecedented taxation. Pitt was grossly insulted in the streets; he had to be brought back from St. Paul's under an armed guard. And at this juncture our one efficient arm, to which alone the nation could look for solace and even protection, was paralysed by insubordination: the flag of lawlessness had been hoisted; and the guns of the navy were pointed at British shores.

But the spirit of the minister was not shaken, though his health had begun definitively to fail. At the height of the crisis, Lord Spencer came to him for instructions so pressing (for it was said that the marines had joined the revolt and were about to march on London) that he awoke Pitt in bed. He received them and left; but in a short time he received a contradiction, and returned. He found the minister already asleep.

This crisis has been dwelt on at perhaps disproportionate length, because it represents not merely the darkest period of the war, but the dauntless spirit which faced it, and which enabled this country, in spite of incapacity and blunders and debt, in face of the hostility of a surpassing genius and of a world in arms, finally to surmount its difficulties. And we are thus able to understand why Pitt, with all his share of miscalculation and disaster, remained long after his death the embodiment and watchword of British determination.

Once more this year did he make overtures for peace. I feel it my duty," he repeated to Grenville, who urged that the French minister was treating him with scant courtesy, "as an English minister and a Christian, to use, every effort to stop so bloody and wasting a war."

Grenville formally dissented. But Pitt persisted, in spite of the disapproval of his Foreign Secretary and the anguish of the King. He sent Lord Malmesbury, whose instructions Grenville had the irksome task of drawing, to the town of Lille, which had been fixed for the meeting of the plenipotentiaries. These, however, had their eyes fixed on Paris, where a struggle was impending between the extreme and the moderate factions; on the issue of which, and on nothing elsefor Pitt was ready for the most considerable concessions -peace really depended. On the 4th of September 1797 the party of extremes and of war gained the upper hand, and on the 16th of September Malmesbury was again ordered to leave the soil of France.

During the next month, (October 1797), the eclipse of the Navy was proved to be only temporary. In a bloody and obstinate battle off Camperdown the Dutch fleet, once so famous and so formidable, took its leave of history. It fought with a splendour of heroism worthy of its ancient renown, but was defeated by Admiral Duncan at the head of the fleet which had returned to discipline; and thus this black year ended well.

1798

In the year 1798, the struggle had ceased on the continent of Europe, with the exception of a brief campaign in the, kingdom of Naples. The genius of war in the shape of Napoleon was in Egypt; where Nelson, by destroying the French fleet in Aboukir Bay (August 1798), seemed effectually to confine him. We were fully occupied at home by the rebellion in Ireland; which might, had timely succour arrived from France, have proved sufficient to tax the entire energies of the Empire.

When it is remembered that the population of Ireland was then little less than one-third of the whole population of the United Kingdom; that it was largely in possession of arms, and almost wholly disaffected; it is not easy to calculate what would have been the extreme extent of the danger, bad one of the many French expeditions, under such a general as Hoche, arrived to aid and discipline the revolt.

Fortunately for Great Britain, the French force under Humbert, which landed in Killala Bay on the 22d of August (1798), came two months too late; for the battle of Vinegar Hill, in which the insurgent forces were completely routed, had been fought on the 21st of June. Moreover, Ulster, which had been the province most organised and eager for insurrection, held aloof-deterred by the religious character of the rising; and the rebellion spent itself in the isolated efforts of a war of banditti, distinguished by constant horrors of outrage and reprisal.

Pitt's Duel

In this year Pitt himself engaged in single combat. Tierney had declared that the proposal to carry in one day the Bill for the more effectual manning of the Navy was somewhat precipitate. Pitt, in reply, charged him with a desire to obstruct the defence of the country. The taunt of obstruction, even of obstruction so mild as to be almost imperceptible to the palled palate of our generation, was then an insult to be wiped out with blood.

The statesmen met and exchanged shots; while Pitt's devoted friend the Speaker, Addington, watched the harmless combat from the genial shade of a gibbet on an adjoining hill. Addington was destined to be Pitt's successor; but it is said that Pitt was asked by Ryder, his second, on this occasion, who should succeed him in case of the worst, and that he designated Perceval. This nomination would be inexplicable, did there not exist a letter of Pitt's which shows the extraordinary impression that had been produced on him by a recent speech of Perceval's.

Pitt's own account of the combat is still happily extant, in a letter to Lord Wellesley. In it he lightly declares as to Tierney and himself : "I believe we parted better satisfied with each other, than on any other occasion in our lives."'

The duel seems childish to us now, and may have seemed so then, for it was followed by a widely circulated report that Pitt was insane, a rumour less discreditable under the circumstances than such rumours usually are. Though he was not insane, there is no doubt that his health was seriously impaired, to which, perhaps, we may attribute his loss of self-control on this occasion.

The break-up of his constitution is so marked and so important that it deserves a momentary reference; as it marks an era in his career scarcely less critical than the declaration of war in 1793.

It has been seen that Pitt was a delicate child. A careful course of life, except in regard to the large quantity of port that he was accustomed to drink, had enabled him to get through his work and enjoy his holiday without interruption up to 1797. In that year, the death of his brother-in-law Eliot deeply affected him 3 and at that very time he began to complain of illness. He suffered greatly from headaches.

What is more significant is that he began to speak of retirement, and of Addington as his successor. It is clear that these allusions were due to yielding nerves and broken health; for the reasons which afterwards caused his resignation did not then exist. His condition became worse in 1798. The passage with Tierney reveals a petulance alien to his singular self-command. And when Wilberforce threatened a motion condemning the principle of duelling, Pitt wrote to him that he considered it as one for his own removal.

The report of his insanity probably arose from a continuous display of nervous irritability, culminating in the duel. A few days after his letter to Wilberforce, this last notes that his friend was seriously ill. Wine began to produce an effect on his seasoned head.

In August 1798, Lord Auckland reports him as much shaken in his constitution. It is clear that 1798 marks an evil crisis in Pitt's health, which accounts for much in his subsequent career. The man is different afterwards. His will seems to shrink; he has less self-control. The illness of princes and ministers is always a subject of hard swearing; and it will be curious to watch if the archives of Pitt's contemporaries, as they yield their treasures, will gradually clear up a certain air of mystery that surrounds his health in this year.

Meanwhile, Pitt was strenuously combining a second coalition against France. He found in the Czar Paul, who had recently succeeded to the throne of Russia, an ardent if insane ally, who was able to contribute not only great armies but a consummate general to the common cause. The Porte, outraged by the French occupation of Egypt, readily lent its aid. Naples, alarmed by the French invasion of Italy, also prepared for war. Austria, who had recently come to terms with the French at Campo Formio, finding herself tricked, was again arming.

1799

Thus, with powerful armies commanded by the genius of Suvaroff and the Archduke Charles; with the fleets of Great Britain in absolute supremacy at sea; and with Napoleon blockaded in Egypt; the year 1799 opened with splendid prospects for the now confederacy.

Had it not been for the strange oscillations of Austria, all these bright presages might well have been realised. But the brilliant victories, with which Charles and Suvaroff opened the campaign in Switzerland and northern Italy, were rendered futile by the orders from Vienna. Russia retired disgusted from the contest. Austria persevered for one year more, unequally matched with Napoleon, who had succeeded in returning to Europe.

England's share of the war, besides subsidies, was to send another expedition to Holland, then the favourite theatre of English incompetency. It was commanded by the Duke of York, and was, though the Dutch fleet was finally captured, indecisive and even disastrous. Pitt, ever sanguine, derived a whimsical consolation in its discreditable termination from the fact that "it ought to be a great satisfaction to us to know that our valuable army will be restored to us safe and entire."

Against this failure it is only fair to set off a great triumph in the East. Tippoo, the sovereign of Mysore and the relentless enemy of Great Britain, encouraged by the presence of the French army in Egypt, had become a serious danger to our dominion in India. Under the command of General Harris, with the guidance of Lord Wellesley and his greater brother, a British army invaded Mysore, and after an obstinate combat stormed Seringapatam. Tippoo fell, and his kingdom was divided.

In the East, again, Sir Sidney Smith had held Acre against Napoleon's Egyptian army, which, after a pertinacious investment of sixty days, was obliged to retire: the sole check that he knew in his career, until he crossed the Pyrenees.

The last day of the year 1799 brought a letter from Napoleon, who had just become First Consul, with overtures for peace. It was scarcely six weeks since a revolution had placed him in power; and Pitt, dogged though he was in his anxiety for a cessation of warfare, felt that the actual situation of France did not hold out any solid security to be derived from negotiation. He was anxious, however, to express this negative in terms of eagerness for peace, with a hint that that would be best secured by the restoration of royalty.

It was a pity that the task of answering the First Consul's letter devolved upon Grenville. The didactic despatch is unhappily familiar to us in the annals of British diplomacy. England has always assumed the possession of a European censorship, which impels her to administer exhortation and rebuke to the States of the continent through the medium of her Foreign Office, as well as by the articles of her press. It is this peculiarity which has constantly earned for her an unpopularity of the most universal and the most exquisite kind.

No British minister or journalist has, however, carried this spirit further than Grenville on this occasion. He did not send any direct reply to Bonaparte's letter, but he enclosed to the Foreign Minister at Paris what was, though called a note, in reality a supercilious and arrogant lecture to the French nation. Harping on a "system" which he did not further describe, but which he said was the source of all the woes of France and of Europe, he informed Talleyrand that "His Majesty cannot place his reliance on the mere renewal of general professions of pacific dispositions."

Some further guarantee was required. "The best and most natural pledge of its reality and permanence would be the restoration of that line of princes, which for so many centuries maintained the French nation in prosperity at home and in consideration and respect abroad," and so forth. There is a fine untutored insolence in this communication, addressed to the triumphant head of a victorious republic, that would be difficult to match. Even George III could not stomach it. He wrote on the draft, "In my opinion much too strong, but I suppose it must go."

To the advice thus considerately offered, Napoleon despatched a conclusive reply. "The First Consul," he wrote, "of the French Republic could not doubt that his Britannic majesty recognised the right of nations to choose the form of their government, since it is from the exercise of this right that he holds his crown; but he has been unable to comprehend how to this fundamental principle, upon which rests the existence of political societies, the minister of His Majesty could annex insinuations which tend to an interference in the internal affairs of the republic, and which are no less injurious to the French nation as to its government, than it would be to England and His Majesty if a sort of invitation were held out in favour of that republican government of which England adopted the forms in the middle of the last century, or an exhortation to recall to the throne that family whom their birth had placed there, and whom a revolution compelled to descend from it."

He concluded by proposing to put an immediate end to hostilities, and to name plenipotentiaries to meet at once at Dunkirk or some similar place. Grenville sent a bald and meagre rejoinder saying, what was in fact untrue, that he had no desire to prescribe to a foreign country the form of its government, and refusing the offer.

We may assume from what we now know of the character of Napoleon as it developed itself, that a durable peace could not then have been concluded; but it is melancholy that Pitt, who had grasped at hopes so much more slender, should have declined even to entertain this solid proffer. He was willing to negotiate in the succeeding August; but in January the French Government was not sufficiently established.

On this point Fox was especially happy. "We must keep Bonaparte some time longer at war as a state of probation. Gracious God! is war a state of probation? Is peace a rash system? Is it dangerous for nations to live in amity with each other? Is your vigilance, your policy, your common powers of observation to be relinquished by putting an end to the horrors of war? Cannot this state of probation be as well undergone without adding to the catalogue of human suffering? But we must pause. What! must the bowels of Great Britain be torn out-her best blood be spilt, her treasure wasted, that you may make an experiment?"

After pointing out that soldiers in other battles, such as Blenheim, at least knew what they were fighting for, he proceeded: "But if a man were present now at a field of slaughter, and were to inquire for what they were fighting, 'Fighting!' would be the answer, 'they are not fighting, they are pausing.' 'Why is that man expiring? Why is that other writhing with agony? What means this implacable fury?' The answer must be, 'You are quite wrong, sir; you deceive yourself; they are not fighting; do not disturb them, they are merely pausing! This man is not expiring with agonythat man is not dead-he is only pausing. Lord help you, sir! They are not angry with one another. They have now no cause of quarrel, but their country thinks there should be a pause,"' and so forth.

This volley of reason and pleasantry was all the more stinging from being directed at what was, indeed, Pitt's real motive, (as we see in a letter to Dundas of the 31st of December 1799), which was to wait, or, as Fox would have said, to continue fighting until the French Government was firmly established. Nothing could be more impolitic than this refusal, except the manner of it. If Bonaparte were insincere, as was said, and only wished to make the French believe that the wish for peace was on his side and not on ours, the negative upon negotiation was playing his game. If he were sincere, the responsibility of the Government was unbounded. Moreover, there was the advantage of dealing with a strong administration, even if its durability was insufficiently proved.

It must, however, be acknowledged that the reception of peace proposals in France had hitherto been far from encouraging; that the dealings of the French with other nations even in the act of treaty did not inspire confidence; and that the course of negotiation in the succeeding August shows that Bonaparte rather desired to snap an advantage by parley, than to establish anything like a durable peace.

1800

In 1800, the Austrians, after a succession of disasters, were compelled to conclude an armistice; and Pitt again made overtures for peace through Lord Minto, our ambassador at Vienna, so that a settlement might be arrived at in conjunction with Austria, and not by separate negotiation. But the preliminary conditions of the French stipulated that they should be allowed to send supplies, while negotiations were pending, to their army in Egypt, and to their garrison in Malta, which were blockaded by our fleets. This would have deprived the British Government of the only trumps in their hand. The opportunity, therefore, if it was one, again passed away. But it elicited a curious minute from Dundas, showing the fierce divisions that existed in the Cabinet on foreign policy.

He traces no less than four factions in a cabinet of a dozen persons, ranging from Windham, the representative of Burke, the apostle of holy and eternal war with the Revolution, to the less exalted views of Pitt, who was anxious for peace on any decent terms. These differences were not abstract, but practical and incessant. It is clear, therefore, that Pitt must not merely have overridden some of his colleagues in his negotiations, but looked to a certain break up of his Cabinet, had they been successful. It is necessary to note that, while the negotiations were proceeding, Malta fell into the hands of the English (September 1800).

Austria was more successful. She concluded peace at Luneville in February 1801. That peace, which marks the termination of the Second Coalition, coincides with Pitt's retirement from office.

Chapter IX: Pitt as War Minister