Kitabı oku: «The Political History of England – Vol XI», sayfa 2

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 The income tax was repealed, almost in silence, as the first fruits of peace, and Addington, as chancellor of the exchequer, delivered an emphatic eulogy on the sinking fund by means of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.

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.

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.

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 words¹¹: —

"'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.

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.

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.

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: —