During these years of struggle, Pitt was compelled to allow all measures of social progress to remain in abeyance. The note of his domestic policy was to avoid any measure that could embarrass the efficient conduct of the war. That, however short it might be in his anticipation, would in any case require the undivided energies of the country. He had no choice, as has been seen, but to go to war. Suppose that, having done so, he had devoted his energies not to the war, but to measures of emancipation and reform, and had split Parliament, which in a war should be unanimous, into half a dozen parties, would he have done better? War is a hideous engrossing fact; it cannot be played with.

Too much or too little, as Burke said of property, is treason against it; it must have all; every nerve, every muscle, every fibre. And the nation that gives its whole immediate energy to the war it has in hand will have an incalculable advantage over the nation to whom it is merely an expensive incident, dividing its attention with a number of other agitating and absorbing problems.

Parliamentary reform was, no doubt, loudly and justly demanded. But, while, on the one hand, the enthusiasm of the French Revolution would have demanded a larger measure than Pitt would have granted, the far more general reaction against anything in the shape of change would have denied anything. Reformers then insisted on more than we, after a century of agitation, have attained.

To move in the matter, then, could only provoke irritating and fruitless dissension, perhaps disabling anarchy, when the union of the nation was the first necessity. It was absurd to discuss annual parliaments when the Gaul was at our gates. It was indispensable to check the French revolutionary propaganda, of which these proposals were only an instalment, and which were really aimed at the subversion of the entire constitution of which Pitt was the official trustee. Heavy taxation for war with little apparent result, and the maintenance of a narrow system against a popular and reasonable demand for reform, soon bear fruit in what is called coercion. And to coercion Pitt was compelled to resort.

It has been said that the period from 1789 to January 1793 -- the first part of the French Revolution -- was one, not of coercion, but of almost competing liberalism. It is true, no doubt, that in May 1792 a royal proclamation had been issued, warning the people against seditious writings; and another in December of the same year had called out the militia as a precaution against the intrigues of "evil-disposed persons acting in concert with persons in foreign parts"; but these edicts could scarcely be considered as other than storm signals.

Even the Alien Bill, which was introduced in 1792 as a measure directed against revolutionary propagandism, though severe and harassing to foreigners, was not extraordinary, when the circumstances and opinions of the time are considered. These measures were, however, followed up by frequent press prosecutions; and juries competed in finding persons guilty of sedition on the thinnest evidence, or on no evidence at all.

More especially was this the case in Scotland, where the judges hounded on the prosecutions; and where Braxfield attempted, not without success, to rival the fame of Jeffreys. The discontent here stopped little short of rebellion. A Convention sate in Edinburgh, which scarcely disguised revolutionary aims. So far as parliamentary representation was concerned, the malcontents were fully justified; their grievance in that respect was immeasurably greater than that of Ireland, for they had lost their own parliament, and had no real representation in any other. But, had their complaints been less founded, disaffection would have been justified by the measures taken against them.

A brilliant young advocate named Muir, arraigned as a member of the Convention and as a promoter of parliamentary reform, was condemned to transportation for fourteen years. Palmer, a clergyman, was sentenced to seven years' transportation for circulating a paper in favour of parliamentary reform. Skirving, for being concerned in the same address and in the Convention, was transported for fourteen years. Margarot and Gerrald, the London delegates to the Convention, received a like punishment.

These trials sank deep into the minds of the Scottish people. Half a century afterwards, a memorial was erected to the victims on one of the loftiest sites in Edinburgh; while Fox expressed in an ejaculation what is still thought of those who sentenced them: "God help the people who have such judges."

So far, these prosecutions had proceeded under the ordinary law. But, in May 1794, a royal message was communicated to Parliament, calling its attention to certain papers that were to be laid before it. A secret committee was appointed in both Houses.

Reports issued by each to the effect that a traitorous conspiracy existed for purposes of revolution. The Habeas Corpus Act was instantly suspended. In that year Watt, who had been a spy, was tried and executed in Scotland for high treason; nor, indeed, did he deny that his designs were rebellious, though the plot was on so small a scale that it might well have been treated as venial.

In England, on the other hand, a few weeks later, Hardy, Horne Tooke, and others were brought to trial on the same charge and acquitted. Nothing apparently in the nature of treason was proved against them; they had merely combined for purposes of reform; and they derived an agreeable satisfaction from summoning Pitt and Richmond to testify to their own former participation in similar aspirations. These acquittals cleared the air. They showed, on the one hand, that the alarms of Parliament had been exaggerated; and on the other, that in England, at any rate, justice was still pure and unbiassed.

In 1795, the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act was renewed, and it was continued till 1801. In this year the King, on the opening of Parliament, was shot at and pelted; his coach was wrecked. These outrages were followed by a Treasonable Practices Bill and a Seditious Meetings Bill. Both measures were interferences with the liberty of a subject, which only the last extreme of necessity could justify. The first indefinitely enlarged the category of treasonable offences, and dispensed with proof of any overt act of treason; the second forbade all public meetings of more than fifty persons without the superintendence of a magistrate, and contained other clauses of a similar tendency. These bills were voted by great majorities.

In 1799, an Act was passed for putting an end to various societies, and forbidding the formation of others under specified conditions. Regulations and restrictions and taxation were also imposed on the press. For some years past steps had been taken with the special object of restraining the circulation of cheap newspapers, of which these burdens were the complement. These various proceedings gave Fox a great advantage, of which he nobly availed himself. Though he thundered in vain against the enactment of such laws, his speeches remain, and embody in the most exact and stirring terms the large polity of a free people. In half a dozen words he laid down the fundamental principle of liberal policy. "Liberty is order," said he, "liberty is strength."

It is not easy in cold blood to defend these proclamations and prosecutions and bills. Still less easy is it for a generation that has so often resorted to coercion to criticise them. Ever since the death of Pitt, all English governments have at times adopted those exceptional measures for which their supporters are so apt to censure him. But he can only be held partly responsible. In Scotland, the ruling and language of the judges were largely answerable.

In England, the early findings of juries under the ordinary law pointed in the same direction. For the extraordinary laws Parliament itself bears the burden. Its secret committees and reports made it impossible for any minister to refrain from proposing coercion bills. The scandal and terror caused by the assault on the King were the cause of others. But more must be acknowledged than this.

These laws were passed, and these prosecutions instituted, under the ignorant ferocity of panic. The extremity and brutality of that panic can perhaps best be realised in the accounts of the Birmingham riots, of which Catherine Hutton, one of the chief sufferers, has left so graphic a narrative. The French Revolution was a new portent; none could measure it, nothing could be predicated with regard to it; its terrors consisted not merely in the success of its arms, but in the ramifications of its proselytism.

Before any exceptional measures were taken, it was encouraging revolt in England, promising support to rebellion, and receiving disaffection with cordiality and honour. To this the English response took the form of some conspiracies, real, though no doubt exaggerated; but in the main of an intense reaction and dismay. "Repression and severity," says so stout a Whig as Erskine May, "were popular and sure of cordial support."

Mr. Massey supplies from secret records the exact moment when the masculine mind of Pitt succumbed to the plots and rumours of plots with which he was encompassed. In December 1792 three thousand daggers had been discovered at Birmingham; one of them had been flung by Burke on the floor of the House of Commons.

The Government had convincing evidence, or evidence which at any rate convinced them, that this was only a part of a vast and imminent conspiracy. The Cabinet sate till four in the morning. When it had dispersed, Pitt still bent brooding over the fire. Presently he asked the under secretary, who was in attendance, what he thought of the situation; and added, "Probably by this time to-morrow we may not have a hand to act or a tongue to utter."

Nor did the gravity of his apprehensions diminish with time. He told Wellesley and Wilberforce in 1795 that, were he to resign, his head would be off in six months; and, shortly afterwards, when Wilberforce borrowed Pitt's carriage, he was informed that, were it recognised, its occupant ran the risk of being murdered. When once Pitt yielded to the public sentiment in this matter, there could be neither pause nor limit. The public in its terror called for more and more; Parliament passed every repressive measure with something like acclamation; it was not the coercion of a people by a government, it was the coercion of a government by the people.

It must, further, be admitted that later ministries have departed from the ordinary law with much less reason. While we were struggling for bare existence with the most formidable enemy that England has ever had to face -- an enemy fighting not with armies and fleets alone, but with every art of seduction -- we had one-third of our population, that of Ireland, arrayed in avowed disaffection; Scotland was combustible and explosive; and it was impossible to speak with confidence of the population of England. All that was known was an enormous sale of the works of Paine, an extensive manufactory of secret arms, a considerable and indefinable amount of furtive organisation. It was as usual the unknown, the suspected, that was terrible. At any moment we might find the very ground that we were defending from France crumble beneath us. Discontent might burst forth somewhere; and once in view, who could tell, with bad harvests and heavy taxes and press-gangs to foster it, how far it might extend? Making the best front we could against an overwhelming enemy, we might find the country in flames behind us.

In so dark and desperate a juncture, men act and strike blindly. In face of so present a peril, it is not the minister who is master. He only attempts to keep his feet in front of a tempestuous crowd; and his responsibility in case of mishap is terrible. It may be that exceptional measures of repression can never be justified. If they can, the justification can only be concrete, can only rest on a solid base of formidable circumstance. If they ever can, a fair plea can be advanced for Pitt; for the crisis was incalculable.

And if they cannot, it is difficult for any extant political party in England to censure him. But the truth, with or without apology, may be best expressed by saying that, while the torrent of the French Revolution demolished monarchy in France, its back- eddies swept Pitt and England into reaction.

Even in this dire time of distress, he turned from a state of war, external and intestine, to those eternal problems where policy and humanity work side by side. Whitbread had brought forward a Bill for regulating and fixing a minimum of wages. Pitt recalled the House to a juster view of political economy. He believed that the true course was to allow the price of labour to find its own level, and that this would best be promoted by a reform of the poor-laws; more especially of that law of settlement which prevented the workman from taking his industry to the best market. But, passing from this criticism, he proceeded to deal earnestly and exhaustively with the whole question of the condition of the poor. He admitted a vast ill, and suggested various remedies, which on a later day he embodied in a measure.

He had spared, he said, no pains to collect information on the subject; and there is a curious tradition as to this. It is said, that on a visit in Essex, (probably to the house of his private secretary, Joseph Smith, at Shortgrove), he was discussing the prosperity of the country and on the comfort enjoyed by the working classes.

His host answered nothing; but took him next day to the neighbouring town of Halsted. The minister surveyed it in silent wonder, and declared that he had no conception that any part of England could present a spectacle of such misery. The scene produced a deep impression on his mind; he at once addressed himself to the question; and not long afterwards he took the opportunity of Whitbread's motion to deliver this sympathetic and thoughtful speech on the condition of the poor; through even the meagre reports of which there breathes a warm spirit of earnestness and humanity, unlike the political deliverances of that day.

He followed it up with a Bill, full of novel and comprehensive propositions: so novel and comprehensive, indeed, that, after several alterations, it sank overweighted beneath the parliamentary wave. A vast now system was to be created; a hierarchy of Justices and Wardens and Guardians. In every parish or group of parishes were to be established Schools of Industry, which were in fact what we have since known as Ateliers Nationaux. Their conditions were to be settled to some extent by Parish Councils; but they were in all cases to furnish work for the destitute poor. The Justices and other authorities were to have nearly the powers of a private employer of labour in regard to them. They were to buy materials; they were to sell the manufactured article; they were to fix the rate of wages. They could build or hire warehouses; they could buy or hire land. They could enclose and cultivate commons for the support of the workers in the Schools of Industry.

Moreover, in every parish or union, a friendly society was to be established. Persons also, having more than two children, or, in the case of a widow, one child, were entitled to claim exceptional relief. A certain amount of visible property was not to debar a person from receiving parochial aid. There were, indeed, some 130 clauses more or less. One perhaps the most daring in those days -- provided that money might be advanced, in deserving cases, for the purchase of a cow or some other animal producing profit.

Bentham, in his criticisms on the measure, urged that a cow required three acres of grass, and asked whence these were to come. Though the question was not answered, the proposal will be recognised as the germ of a proverbial policy.

There was a certain crudity in the measure, which makes it all the more remarkable as a sterling and strenuous endeavour to grapple with a great question, without deference to tradition or precedent; and it affords a view of Pitt's character which can nowhere else be found. To some of us it is the most interesting view.

For in the boldness of this Bill, in its comprehensiveness, in its very immaturity, we see the desperate effort of a man to break through the bonds of circumstance and tradition, through that thin red tape which is mightier than chains, in order to raise his race. Failures of this kind are sometimes more impressive and more honourable than the most polished masterpiece of the parliamentary draughtsman.

The Bill was constantly revised; but the mordant adversions of Bentham, which, though not published at the time, were communicated and circulated, disheartened the Government. It was probably felt that, if to various vested interests the hostility of philosophical radicalism were added, there could be no hopes for the measure, at a time when all novel propositions were discountenanced as dangerous; but men will long look back with admiration to the hearty spirit, the freedom from conventionality or prejudice, and the genuine sympathy which animate its clauses.

Chapter XI: Ireland