G.5.H. CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GOLDWIN SMITH HALL FROM THE FUND GIVEN BY GOLDWIN SMITH 1909 Date Due »R8 19b!i WR^ni^"^ ^> iq/s^ia^ Cornell University Library DA 480.R641911 3 1924 014 654 044 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014654044 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN EIGHT VOLUMES EDITED BY SIR CHARLES OMAN I. England before the Norman Conquest. By Sir Charles Oman. II. England under the Normans and Angevins. By H. W. C. Davis. III. England in the Later Middle Ages. By Kenneth H. Vicicers. IV. England under the Tudors. By Arthur D. Innes. V. England under the Stuarts. By G. M. Tre- velyan. VI. England under the Hanoverians. By Sir Charles Grant Robertson. VII. England since Waterloo. By Sir J. A. R. Marriott. VIII. Modern England, 1885-1943. By Sir J. A. R. Marriott. ENGLAND UNDER THE HANOVERIANS Sir CHARLES GRANT ROBERTSON FORMERLY VICE-CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM VELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD WITH SEVEN MAPS METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.a LONDON First published February 23rd, igii Reprinted sixteen times Reprinted, igSS CATALOGUE NO. l6-2 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR IN England, as in France and Germany, the main characteristic of the last fifty years, from the point of view of the student of history, has been that new material has been accumulating much faster than it can be assimilated or absorbed. The standard works of the 19th-century historians need to be revised, or even to be put aside as obsolete, in the Ught of the new information that is coming in so rapidly and in such vast bulk. The series of which this volume forms a part is intended to do something towards meeting the de- mand for information brought up to date. Individual historians will not sit down, as once they were wont, to write twenty-volume works in the style of Hume or Lingard, embracing a dozen centuries of annals. It is not to be desired that they should — the writer who is most satisfactory in dealing with Anglo-Saxon antiqui- ties is not likely to be the one who wiU best discuss the antecedents of the Reformation, or the constitutional history of the Stuart period. But something can be done by judicious co-operation. In the thirty-four years since the first volume of this series appeared in 1904, it would seem that the idea has iustified itself, viii INTRODUCTORY NOTE as the various sections have passed through many editions and revisions varying from six to seventeen. Each is intended to give something more than a mere outline of one period of our national annals, but they have little space for controversy or the discussion of sources. There is, hovi^ever, a bibliography annexed to most of the series, which will show the inquirer where information of the more special kind is to be sought. Moreover, a number of maps are to be found at the end of each volume which, as it is hoped, wiU make it unnecessary for the reader to be continually referring to large historical atlases — tomes which (as we must confess with regret) are not to be discovered in every private library. The general editor and his collaborators have been touched lightly by the hand of time. All regret the too early decease of our colleague Henry Carless Davis, sometime Regius Professor of Modern History in this University, who wrote the second of the eight volumes of the series. He had several times revised his contribution. Most of us survivors continue to do the same from time to time, as the pen (or sometimes the spade) produces new sources of information. Naturally the spade is particularly active for the purveying of fresh material for the first of our volumes, and the pen (or the press) for the two last. Informa- tion must be kept up to date, whatever the epoch concerned, even though it is known that much undis- covered evidence may yet be forthcoming in the near future, C OMAN UxroRD, 1st Jan., 19SS PREFACE THE writer who endeavours to cover in a single volume of 500 pages the period of English history from 1714 to 1815 is confronted by an insoluble and continuous difficulty. The problem is not the selection of what he will insert, but of what he wUl omit. The original sources are so embarrassingly rich, the historical stage is so crowded with attractive or commanding per- sonalities, the plot is so packed with episodes, and. the story so interlaced with the evolution of the European state system that a writer, with space at his disposal double that of the present volume, would of necessity lay himself open to criticism on the score of arrange- ment, choice of subjects, and omissions. Every reader, or would-be reader, comes to the history of eighteenth century Great Britain with decided interests, preferences, and a scale of values ; and every writer working under exacting conditions of space is probably bound to dis- appoint more readers than he can satisfy, even if the treatment of what he has selected be adequate. I cannot expect, therefore, that this volume has achieved the impossible ; and I fuUy recognise that, whUe selection has been an insuperable difficulty, I have too often been obliged to be brief when 1 would willingly I PREFACE have been copious, to sacrifice much material I had hoped to include, and to be silent on many points which I would gladly have discussed. It has been my object to treat the eighteenth century as a whole, to emphasise as clearly as lay in my power what, on prolonged re- flection, appear to be capital, characteristic, and impor- tant features, to be guided in the choice of topics and principles by the century that preceded and the century that followed, to present the period from 1714 to 1815 as a great chapter in a continuous but unfinished na- tional evolution, and to touch lightly, or pass over, with much regret, aspects, episodes, and details that, tested by this standard, appear to be of secondary interest and importance. Briefly, it has been my endeavour to trace the ordered development of an imperial, constitutional, and industrial State, the foundations of which were laid when George I. ascended the throne, and to show how far the structure of that State had been modified or advanced when Napoleon was overthrown in 1815. The expansion of the British Empire, the consohdation of Parhamentary government under a constitutional monarchy, the transformation of the political and econ- omic organisation of society by the agricultural and industrial Revolution — to illustrate and explain these three capital features of eighteenth century British history has been my self-imposed task. Certain con- troversial points, a discussion of which would have interrupted the narrative text, have been relegated to appendices ; and in each case the evidence on which conclusions are based is specifically indicated. Military or naval history, in which the century is so rich, but which can only be profitably handled or studied in PREFACE zi elaborate detail, has been summarised rather than ex- pounded at length. But I have striven to connect the evolution of the constitution, the broad movement in thought and ideas and the working of the underlying economic forces with the central issues of political history proper. The Bibliogi-aphy has been drawn up with a view of providing a student with the necessary and practical information both as to topics and features discussed in the text and to episodes handled lightly or omitted. I may, perhaps, be permitted to hope that the volume may prove helpful even to those who do not find in it all that they expect or need. There remains the pleasant duty of thanking speci- fically some kind friends. M. Paul Mantoux, the well- known author of a brilliant study of the Industrial Revolution, bien documents, put at my disposal the fruits of his researches which are embodied in the two maps illustrating the movement of population in the eighteenth century. With no less generosity Mr. Blaikie allowed me to adapt for my purposes the map, an indispensable piece of painstaking research, in his Itinerary of Prince Charles Edward; and Professor Terry also permitted me to incorporate, if necessary, material embodied in his The Last Jacobite Rising of 1745. The map, therefore, at the end of the volume is due to these two experts. Mr. H. W. C. Davis, of BaUiol College, undertook the thankless task of reading the proofs, and helped me vnth many criticisms and suggestions. To my editor. Professor Oman, I am similarly indebted, and I have drawn freely on his History of the Peninsular War, the completion of which is eagerly awaited by all serious students. But none of these gentlemen must be held responsible for the accuracy of statements, or for xii PREFACE opinions expressed, in the text. My general debt to the standard secondary authorities will be obvious to all acquainted with the literature of the period ; but throughout I have aimed at independence of judgment, and, to the best of my ability and knowledge, at basing my conclusions on the original sources rather than on the secondary authorities, however authoritative. C. G. R. All Souls College, Oxford, November, 19IO. NOTE TO THE TENTH EDITION (1930) SINGE this book was published in 1911, various additions of a piece- meal kind have been made to subsequent re-issues. The preseni edition is the result of a complete revision both of the text of the narrative, the Appendices, and the Bibliographies. The revision Is based on the research work of many scholars since 1911, so as to bring the book up to date in every way. History, happily, can never be like mathematics, an exact science in which a conclusion is either exactly right or wholly wrong. Historical judgments will always be influenced by " values " to which different minds will attach a different qualitative scale. I have endeavoured to see that the facts have been accurately stated ; my conclusions from those facts, framed after prolonged reflec- tion, must be left to the reader's judgment. The main results of the revision will be found in the footnotes to the text, the Appendices, many of which are new and all of which have been revised, and in the Bibliography. The differences in the present text from that of 1911 could only be shown by a page to page collation. I have been helped in the improhus labor of revision by many com- ments from teachers and readers ; and the Eevised Edition will, I hope be not less useful than I should like it to be. C. G. B. Thb Univbbsity, Bibminqham, October, 1929. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION "" Characteristic Features of the Eighteenth Century— The Imperial Problem and the Expansion of Great Britain — The Evolution of Parliamentary Government — The Industrial Revolution — Empire Builders — Principles of Foreign Policy under Queen Anne— The Treaties of Utrecht— Whig Principles— The Baltic Problem and the Great Northern War. CHAPTER I GEORGE I. AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF HANOVERIAN RULE, 1714-1727 ij The Accession of George I. — Character of the New King — The Court — The Whig Supremacy and Foreign Policy — The Jacobite Rising of 1715 — The Septennial Act — Stanhope's Foreign Policy — The Whig Schism — The Quadruple Alliance— The Baltic Question— The Peerage Bill— The South Sea Bubble — Stanhope's Death — Walpole's Administration and Career — Jacobite Intrigues — Ireland — Scottish Affairs — The Congress of Cambray — The Ostend East India Company — Great Britain, Spain, and the House of Austria — British Foreign Policy — The Tory and Whig Opposition — Bolingbroke's Programme — Walpole's Financial Schemes — Death of George I. — Features and Results of the Reign. CHAPTER n GEORGE II.— THE MINISTRY OF WALPOLE, 1727-1742 ... 57 The New Administration — Character of George II. — Queen Caroline — The Royal Court — The Prince of Wales — Features of the Reign — Walpole's Foreign Policy — The Treaty of Seville — The Pragmatic Sanction — Townshend's Retirement — The War of the Polish Succession — The Double Marriage Project — The Opposition in Parliament — The Excise Bill — Walpole's Finance — The Prince of Wales and the Opposition — Scotland and the Porteous Riots — Death of Queen Caroline — British Foreign Policy and the Third Treaty of Vienna — The Cause of the Spanish War of 1739 — Walpole's Attitude and Retention of Office — The Death of Charles VI.— The First Silesian War— Attacks on Wal- pole — His Defeat and Resignation — Survey of his Administration. illl «▼ CONTENTS CHAPTER III PAfiB THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. § I. The War of the Austrian Succession, 1740-1748 , • . 86 The Situation on Walpole's Resignation— The Broad-bottom Administration —Attacks on Walpole— The Committee of Inquiry— Foreign Policy— The Situation on the Continent— Maria Theresa and Fredericlt the Great— Carteret's Foreign Policy— Progress of the War— The Battle of Dettingen— The Treaty of Worms— The Second Silesian War — Crisis in the Ministry — Carteret's Retirement — The Campaign in the Low Countries — The Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 — Culloden and the Gov- ernment's Measures — Progress of the War on the Continent — A Second Ministerial Crisis — Pitt and George II.— The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle —The Moral Of the Peace— The Imperial Problem. {The Diplomatic Revolution, 1748-1756 ■» The Seven Years' War, 1756-1760 / Problems arising from the Peace — North American Colonies and Canada — India and the East India Company — Features of the Epoch of Peace — Great Britain, France, and the House of Austria and Prussia — Financial and Legislative Measures of the Pelham Ministry — The Death of Henry Pelham — The Newcastle Ministry — Newcastle, Henry Fox, and William Pitt — Clive and Indian Affairs — British and French in North America — Acadia — The Congress of Albany — The Policy of the Ministry — Kaunitz and Austrian Policy — Newcastle's Foreign Policy — War Measures — Military Failure in North America — Critical Relations of Great Britain and France — The Subsidy Treaties — Dismissal of Pitt — Action of Frederick the Great — The Convention of Westminster — The First Treaty of Versailles — The Diplomatic Revolution — Incapacity of the Ministry — Byng and the Loss of Minorca — The War in North America — Resignation of Newcastle — Pitt's First Administration — Ministerial Interregnum — Pitt's Second Administration — Pitt's Career and Characteristics — The Campaign of 1757 — The Campaign of 1758 — The Year of Victory, 1759 — Clive's Achievements in India — Diplomatic Manoeuvres — Great Britain, Spain, and France — Death of George II. CHAPTER IV HANOVERIAN ENGLAND, 1714-1760 160 The Revolution Settlement— The Whig Creed and Party — Defects in the Whig System — The Tories and Toryism— The Crown- The House of Lords — The House of Commons— Parliamentary Procedure — The Opposition — The Problem of Parliamentary Reform — Political Ideals — The Executive — The Royal Household — The Secretariat — The Treasury —The Admiralty— The Army— The Post Office— The Privy Council- Political Thinkers — The Cabinet, its Origin and Development — The Cabinet System — The Revival of Toryism — Legislation of the Period— The Position and Influence of the Judiciary — Irish Affairs and Whig Policy — Scotland and Scottish AlTairs — The Economic Development of CONTENTS XT England — Agriculture and Industry — The Poor Law — The Anglican Church — Methodism — John Wesley's Life and Achievements — The American Colonies — The Navigation Acts — The Colonial and Imperial Problem — Results of the Seven Years' War — The Future of the Empire. THE REIGN OF GEORGE III CHAPTER I THE NEW MONARCHY 217 Accession of George III. — His Education and Character — The Earl of Bute — First Measures — The Revival of Toryism — The Principles and System of the King — The New Whiggism — Progress of the War — Ministerial Changes — Peace Negotiations — Pitt's Resignation — Bute's Administra- tion—The Peace of Paris— The Results of rhe Treaty— The New Age and its Problems — Ministry of George Grenville — John Wilkes and The North Briton— The Stamp Act and the Colonial Problem— The Rock- ingham Ministry and its Policy — Chatham's Ministry — Foreign Policy — Grafton's Administration — The American Question^Wilkes and the Middlesex Election — ^Junius — Lord North's Ministry — The Crown, the King's Friends, and the Whigs^-Burke and Fox CHAPTER II rHE DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE. § I. The Ministry of Lord North, 1770-1778 »5i Lord North and the King's System — The King and the Opposition — The House of Commons and the Law Courts — The Royal Marriage Act — Corsica — The First Partition of Poland — The Ministry and the Colonies — Penal Measures — The Quebec Act — The Continental Congress — Lexington — Survey of Ministerial and Opposition Policy — The Problem of the American War — The Strategical Situation — The Campaign of 1775 — The Campaign of 1776 and the Declaration of Independence — The Campaign of 1777 — Burgoyne and Saratoga — The Intervention of France in the War. §2. The Struggle FOR Empire, 1778-1782 272 The New Situation— Character of the War — Ministerial Finance and Policy — Death of Chatham — The Campaign of 1779 — War with Spain and Holland — Naval Operations — The Disaster at York House — Policy of the Opposition at Home — The Gordon Riots — The Campaign of 1781 — Resignation of Lord North — The Ministry of Lord Rockingham — Charles Fox — Ireland — The Volunteer Movement and Free Trade — India — The Achievements of Warren Hastings, xvi CONTENTS PAOI § 3. Thr Crown and the Whigs, March 20TH, i782-March 2STH, 1784 293 Rockingham's Ministry and Measures — Irish Policy — Negotiations for Peace — Rockingham's Death and the Whig Split — Ministry of Lord Shelburne —The Treaty of Versailles — Defeat of the Ministry— The Coalition Ministry of North and Fox — Fox's India Bills — Dismissal of the Min- istry — Ministry of William Pitt— The Struggle with the Opposition — The General Election and the Rout of the Opposition — The Crown and the Whigs — Position of Pitt in 1784. CHAPTER III PITT AND THE NEW TORYISM, 1784-1792 306 Character of the New Epoch — The Needs of Great Britain — Career and Character of the Younger Pitt — His Political Principles — The Crown and the New Prime Minister — The Westminster Election — The India Bill — Parliamentary Reforms — Financial Measures — The Irish Problem and Pitt's Proposals — The Commercial Treaty with France, 1786— The Impeachment of Warren Hastings — Cornwallis in India — Foreign Policy — The Crisis in the Netherlands — The Triple Alliance of 1788 — Do- mestic Affairs — The Regency Question — Great Britain and Prussia — The Affair of Nootka Sound — 'The Dispute with Russia — The Eastern Question, CHAPTER IV THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 329 The Industrial Revolution— Progress in, Agriculture — The ^Enclosures — The Great Inventors and Inventions — Wedgwood and James Watt — Roads and Canal»— Brindley's Work — The Development of British Trade — The Growth and Redistribution of Population — The New England — The Food Pro blem— The Disappearance of the Small Landowner— New Politicafana^ Social Problems— Capital and Capitalism— The Age of Factories— The Distribution of Industry— The New Towns and the New Urban Race— The Age of Iron— The Workshop of the World- Science and Industry — Finance and Currency — Adam Smith and the New Political Economy— The Reformers— Radicalism and the Intel- lectual Movement — Bentham and Burke— The Freedom of the Press —The House of Lords— The Poor Law— Problems Created by the Industrial Revolution. CHAPTER V ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION The Stages in the French Revolution— The Partitions of Poland— Pitt's Foreign Policy— Transition from Neutrality to War— Opinion in Eng- land—The Constitutional Act— The Whig Split— Reform Organisations —The Government's Coercive Legislation— Trials for Sedition— Minis- terial Policy— The Case for the Opposition— Pitt and Pitt's Influence- Fox and the Principles of Whiggism— Foreign Policy and the War— CONTENTS xvii Ministerial Policy — Ministerial Mismanagement — Array and Navy — Finance — The Campaign of 1793 — The Campaign of lygg — Dissolution of the First Coalition — Negotiations for Peace — Jervis' Naval Victory — The Naval Mutineers — Camperdown — The Egyptian Expedition and the Battle of Aboukir Bay — The Irish Question — The Rebellion of '98 — The Second Coalition — British Expeditions — Negotiations for Peace — The Battle of Copenhagen — India under the Marquess Wellesley — The Legislative Union with Ireland — Resignat ion o f Pitt — AdHinprtnn'a Min- istry — Th<» Peace of Araiens — The Positions of France and Great Britain. CHAPTER VI THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON, 1802-1815 408 The I ^eace of Amiens an d the Treaty of Lun6ville — Napoleon's Acts — The Renewed War — The Addington Ministry — Pitt and Fox — Pitt's Second Administration — Character of the War — Phases of the War — Napoleon and the Problem of Invasion — The Third Coalitio n — The Canr nif?" "' Trafalgar — Napoleon's Campaign on the Continent — Wellesley in India — Impeachment of Melville — Death of Pittj JPhe Ministry of all the Talents — The Prince of Wales — Fox's Negotiations — British Military Failures — Death of Fox — The Question of Pledges — Party Principles — Portland's Administration — Canning and Castlereagh — Canning and the Treaty of Jena — Continen ' ^' ^yo>».n,. -».< n^. n,A„,r. ;„ r'.^■.,..-;l ■ nj..pni»>>n and Spain — The Spanish Rising of 1808 — Wellesley's First Campaign — Expedition under Sir J. Moore — The Campaign of i8og — The Wal- cheren Expedition — Canning and Castlereagh — The Whigs and Whig- gism — The Peninsular War — The Bullion Committee — The Regency and the Prince Regent — The Campaign in Spain of 1810 — The Cam- paign of 1811 — Salamanca — Administration of Lord Liverpool — Do- mestic Troubles — Conflict with the United States — The War of 1812 — The Russian Campaign and the European Coalition — The Campaign of 1813 and the Pyrenees — Abdication "f Kj^pfili-nn — The American War — Events in Europe — The Treaty of Paris — The Congress of Vienna and British Policy — Problem of the Congress — Return of Napoleon and the Hundred Days — The Waterloo Campaign — Napoleon's Second Ab- dication-- The Second Treat y of Paris^ -Thejnroppin Sfttlamwnt nL 1815— Prmciples of British Policy and their Results — Unsolved Prob lems — The Imperial Problem in 1815 — Australia — India and the British Empire in India — Canada and the Colonial Problem — The Economic and Political Conditions at the Conclusion of the Great War — Final Conclusions. APPENDICES NoTK. — ^«fir mni not merely revised Appendices are marked with an asterisk. PAQI I. THE PRISONER OF AHLDEN 489 II. WALTON'S DESPATCH 490 III. THE WAR OF JENKINS' EAR 490 IV. "THE DOUBLE MARRIAGE PROJECT" 492 V. PITT'S RESIGNATION IN 1761 AND THE PEACE OF 1763 . 492 VI. THE AUTHORSHIP OF JUNIUS 495 VII. GRAVES' ACTION (Sept. 5th, 1781) AND RODNEY'S ACTIONS OF APRIL 17TH, 1780, AND APRIL laTH, 1782 . . .496 •VIII. WARREN HASTINGS 497 IX. THE DROPMORE PAPERS 498 X. MILITARY MEASURES, 1793-1801 501 XI. NELSON AT NAPLES 504 *XII. THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR 505 XIII. CANNING, TILSIT, AND THE EXPEDITION TO COPEN- HAGEN .... 506 •XIV. THE CABINET 509 XV. LORD GEORGE GERMAIN, SIR W. HOWE, AND GENERAL BURGOYNE 513 *XVI. BYNG AND THE LOSS OF MINORCA 514 •XVII. JOHN WILKES 516 "XVIII. JAMES COOK 517 •XIX. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Sig •XX. THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE . , . .520 •XXI. THE WHIG POLITY 523 •XXII. THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1784 527 •XXIII. REFORM AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION .... 529 TABLES I. THE HANOVERIAN SUCCESSION 53, XL THE HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK ! ! 53a in. THE GROWTH OF THE NATIONAL DEBT . . . i 533 IV. THE COST OF WARS FROM 1714-1815 • • ■ . ! 534 BIBLIOGRAPHY .... 53j '^''^'^ ^ 553 MAPS To face pagt I. MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE OPERATIONS IN THE LOW COUNTRIES, 1714-1815 27 IL DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION IN 1701 337 in. DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION IN 1801 338 IV. SPAIN, TO ILLUSTRATE THE PENINSULAR WAR . . 435 V. SCOTLAND, TO ILLUSTRATE THE JACOBITE RISINGS OF x 1715 AND 1745 f -„ VI. CANADA AND THE NORTH AMERICAN COLONIES, 1760 . I VIL CANADA AND THE NORTH AMERICAN COLONIES, 1783 , ' ENGLAND UNDER THE HANOVERIANS INTRODUCTION THE seventeenth century as a historical epoch in British history properly closes with 171 4. The death of Anne, the last of the Stuart line, saw the end of the long struggle which began in 1603 with the peaceful accession of the first Stuart to the English throne. The equally peaceful accession of George I. meant much more than the introduction of anew dynasty. Thrice in the previous hundred years the form of goveniment had been violently altered. One King had perished on the scaffold ; the founder of the Common- wealth had been branded as a usurping traitor; a second sovereign of the restored line had died in exile and his sons disinherited by penal statutes. In 1714 an Englishman of sixty years of age could recall the downfall of the military republic, the restoration of Charies II., alliance with France to destroy Holland, alliance with Holland to destroy France, the horrors of the Popish Plot, the struggle over the Exclusion Bill, the proscription of the Whigs, the campaign of Sedgemoor, the expulsion of James II., civil war in Ireland and Scotland, twenty years of war abroad, and the " last four years of Queen Anne ". Foreign observers might well be justified in pro- nouncing the English people singularly fickle, unstable, turbulent, treacherous and vindictive. In reality the era of fierce travail was finished. Behind the welter of bloodshed, and warring creeds, a national State had been slowly built up, and the coming of the new German ruler triumphantly indicated the solidarity of its basis in the Revolution Settlement. George I.'s crown was the creation of law and national will ; the people he was invited to rule were in culture, institutions and principles of government indelibly stamped with the spirit and achievement of an intense and peculiar nationality. At Westminster, Edinburgh and Dublin the Protest- ant national State was linked with a Protestant national Church. « INTRODUCTION [171* The legislative union of 1707 had converted the personal union of the English and Scottish Crowns into the single dominion of Great Britain. And with 1714 set in a remarkable change. Hence- forward Europe may be rent asundei- by political upheavals; dynasties may come and go, forms of government be remade, crumble and perish, and the streets of European capitals run with the blood of revolution. Great Britain alone is the exception. Her sovereigns die in their beds and pass then* sceptre undisputed to theii- heirs ; the outward form of the constitution defined in 1689 and 1701 remains unaltered ; London, unlike Paris, Moscow, Berlin, Vienna, Brussels, Rome, has never seen a foreign foe in possession ; in the British calendar days of March, May, July, August and December are not marked for national rej oicing or remorse. What- ever verdict may be passed on the British people since 1714 they must be acquitted of the charge that in constitutional matters they are incurably turbulent, unstable and vindictive. A single formula — the expansion of Great Britain — conveniently sums up the main results of the new epoch which begins with 1714 and ends with Waterloo and the Congresses of Vienna. And in this expansion thi-ee features stand out in deep-cut relief — the growth and consolidation of the empire, the organisation of the parlia- mentary State, the Industrial Revolutioa These three are triple aspects of the evolution of a single national life. They are con- cun'ently worked out ; common formative causes combine to operate in producing effects that are revealed concurrently in the political, constitutional and economic spheres of State-development But the student, anxious to compai'e broadly the contribution of the eighteenth century to our national development with that of the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries, is entitled to disentangle and to analyse these features separately, in order more accurately to appreciate their intrinsic characteristics and import I. In 1714 the treaties of Utrecht mark a definite stage in the expansion of the British Empire, whose groundwork was now firmly laid. Gibraltar and Minorca were stepping-stones to the East ; on the West coast of Africa trading settlements pointed to the Cape and across the Atlantic to Jamaica and the British islands in the West Indies. In North America twelve colonies hold the eastern littoral from the Penobscot River to South Carolina. Farther North, Acadia, Newfoundland, Rupert's Land and the Hudson Bay 1714] THE IMPERIAL PROBLEM 8 Territory were a threat to, and threatened by, the growth and ex- pansion of New France. In the Peninsula of Hindustan, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras marked the footholds of the East India Company. Will these results be retained? What stracture can or will be built on these foundations ? It is the problem of the new world. East and West, a problem of oceanic commerce and colonial development, whose full significance is not grasped until htilf the century has worn itself out in efforts to upset, and counter-efforts to maintain, the Ti'eaties of Utrecht from which it starts. And then the imperial movement sets in with impressive force, so that by 1815 the answer to the questions of 1714 has been given with unmistakable emphasis. To the diplomatists of 1713 Great Britain is the paramount sea-power, to the diplomatists of 1814 she is also the paramount colonial Power. "The old colonial system " serves to remind us that before 1714 the empire and the imperial problem were fully recognised. To the men of the eighteenth century the problem in foreign policy is first and foremost a question of the relations of Great Britain to France and the kindred Bourbon States, Spain that flanks the Western Medi- teiTanean and looks across th^Atlantic to a jealously guarded com- mercial empire, the Two Sicilies, which are the creation of eighteenth- centuiy diplomacy. From 1689-1815 for Great Britain seventy-seven years are years of war, and of these fifty-six are waged openly with France as a principal The rivalry extends from Europe to the remote comers of the earth, and it is one not merely of arms, but of exploration, of commerce, of civilisation in its intellectual and social aspects, of political principles and systems of government. For France strikes with her civilisation and her national and racial ideals as well as with her ships and guns. Europe, it has been well said, was Bourbonised, before she was revolutionised, by France. From the unceasing struggle with the Bourbon, Great Britain passes inevitably to the titanic battle with Napoleon and the Fi-ench Empire which " the heir of 1789 " founded on the Bour- bonised Europe of the ancien rdgime. In 1713 Great Britain had survived the collision with the monarchy of Louis XIV. ; in 1815 she emerges victorious from the fight for existence with Napoleon ; and the results are woven into the fabric of the British State and written on the map of the world. II. In the evolution of the British Constitution the change 4 INTRODUCTION [1714 between 1714 and 1815 is supei-ficially less striking perhaps, but none the less of permanent significance. In 1714 Great Britain alone of the leading European States had definitely committed her- self to a constitutional monarchy, to parliamentary institutions, to representative government in principle by and on behalf of the governed. Defective as we, the heirs to-day of that system who have entered into and extended our heritage, may regard it, the capital fact remains that Englishmen in the seventeenth century had literally cut their national life from the broad currents of European State-development, and had bought with their blood and b-easure the right to liberty under a limited monarchy. Nor can it escape a student's notice that before the men of our race entered on the critical period of imperial expansion they first settled beyond dispute the fundamentals of their home-government. In 1689 and 1701 they closed the long account with monai-chy and Church, with Kings, soldiers and priests. The supremacy of the Constitutional Crown over all causes and all persons ecclesiastical as well as civil throughout its dominions — the supremacy of the civil over the military power — the supremacy of law as made by the Crown in Parliament — the supremacy of the Commons in taxation, the practical independence of the judiciary as the interpreter of the law, the responsibility of the executive agents of the Crown to the legislature — these and their corollaries are, in the language of the national settlement, "the birthright" of the people of England. No Englishman,' Whig or Tory, was prepared to sun-ender them ; they sum up with telling precision the fundamental diffei-ence between the British State of 1714 and the rival European States of that day. A triple duty was thereby imposed on the eighteenth century British citizen — ^to prove that his system would repay what it had cost to win — in the grinding strain of international competition to convince a sceptical and hostile Europe that, in Fox's noble phiase, libei-ty was order, that liberty was strength, and that liberty was also unity — to apply to the Britains growing up beyond the seas the same principles of fi-eedom and self-government. In two of these tasks the facts supply an adequate verdict. Great Britain fought as a pai'liamentary State with the absolutist Bourbon Powers and the centralised militaiy despotism of Napoleon, and though she was guilty of many mistakes, one blunder she pei-sistently declined to make. Even in the darkest houi-s of national peril and disaster the 1714] THE INDUSTRIAL STATE S belief of Englishmen in the superior efficacy of their free govern- ment remained unshaken. For us who can look back, their justifica- tion most truly lies not in Quebec, Minden, Salamanca, Ti'afalgar, Waterloo, but in the moral and spiritual elements built into our national life and our conception of citizenship by that noble national obstinacy of conviction — the faith of a people in its ideals and interpretation of life. And if the independence of the United States witnesses to a failure, the development of Cabinet government at home, the retention of Canada, and the establish- ment of British power in India by a parliamentaiy State, were in- structive object-lessons for the nineteenth century. III. The seventeenth century had made Great Britain and Holland "the two sea-powers"; England already was, in 1713, what Louis XIV. had called her, a nation of shopkeepers. But as yet her national economy is that of a trading not a manufactur- ing community ; she is a commercial not an industiual State. As early as 1714, the influence of trade and the commercial classes on English policy, on government, and on institutions and social organ- isation is a characteristic emphasised by ever'y foreign obsei-ver.' The Bank of England and the National Debt showed how commerce and wealth combined to be the motor forces and the armoury of a national policy. And the commercial aspects of the State found their most comprehensive and concrete political expression in the mercantilist system based on mercantilist economics. The chief aim of this system, dating from the Navigation Acts of 1651 and 1660, was to develop national power ; its method, the tariff'-book, may be economic but its objects are essentially political, derived from a conception of national well-being and imperial unity whose justifica- tion rested on the current definition and interpretation of wealth. It thus operates both as the cause and the efifect of the seventeenth century ideal of nationalism. But if we compare 1815 with 1714 we see that a new Great Britain has been brought into existence. Manufacture on a large scale in specialised districts, capitalistic production, a series of mechanical inventions altering the methods, •"These gentlemen [the merchants] . . . used in time past to come Cap in Hand to the office praying for relief, now the second word is, You shall hear of it in another place, meaning in Parliament. All this must be endured, and now in our turn we must bow and cringe to them " (Delafaye to Keene, Oct. 3rd, 1731. P.R.O., Spain, S.P.F., 109; cited by Temperley, Royal Hist. Soc., igog, 222). 6 INTRODUCTION [17U scope and volume of trade, the scientific and extended utilisation of the raw material, iron and coal, hidden in the soil ; the trebling of population and a redistribution of it on the map, the increasing concentration of life in towns, comprehensive enclosures, scientific agriculture, the bi-eak up of the mediaeval village community, the displacement of domestic industry, the dying out of the yeomam-y, and a new school and system of economics — these we the striking featmes of the new Great Britain which justify the term "indus- trial revolution ". The era of coal, iron, machinery, water-power, factories, and the industrial proletariat has been reached. The transition from mercantilism to the era of steam, electricity, and industrial democracy has been accomplished. The centre of econ- omic gravity in 1815 is now fixed in the heart of the district bounded by a line from Glasgow to Edinburgh, and a diagonal line from Bristol to the Wash. The seventeenth century wastes ai-e already the familial* Black Country of the nineteenth century. We may pause to note further : (1) these striking changes are com- pressed lai"gely into the epoch between 1780 and 1815. Seldom has an organised State passed through so complex and complete an altei-ation of its economic life in so shoi-t a period ; (2) the change begins in the era of the American war which dismembered the Empire and culminates in the colossal strain of the Napoleonic wars ; (8) it was in reality a political revolution, for it dislocated the established distribution of political power ; (4) it was inevitably accompanied by widespread and deep social suffering ; it made unemployment, pauperism, and the regulation of industry formid- able national problems. By 1815, viewing the results as a whole, the industrial primacy of Great Britain is established beyond challenge. At that date she is in Europe the only industrial State in the modem sense of the term, and her supremacy rests on thi-ee qualities — the synthetised features of her industrial organisation, the volume, character and range of her economic px-oduction, and her maritime ascendancy. The roughest analysis of these co-operative forces whose efffects ai'e gi'aven deep on the structure of our modem, imperial, constitu- tional, and industrial British State, thus suggests that it is unjust and inaccurate to limit the proud title of empire-builder to a hand- ful of admirals, generals, and statesmen. Hume, Burke, Bentham and Adam Smith, Mansfield, Camden, Erskine and Eldon, Jethio 1714] EMPIRE BUILDERS 7 Tull, "Turnip" Townshend, Arthur Young, Bakewell and Coke of Norfolk, Arkwi-ight, Boulton, Wedgwood and Watt, Wesley, Wilberforce, Clarkson, Romilly and Howard, even a profligate demagogue such as Wilkes, or the dissipated staymaker Tom Paine, have a right to share the mansions assigned by the proud gratitude of fellow-citizens to Walpole, Chatham, Pitt, Clive, Wan-en Hastings, Dorchester, Nelson, Wellington, Castlereagh, Canning, and Wellesley. Multiply or liminish the list, the names are only isolated voices expressing more or less eloquently the inarticulate aspirations of the national spirit, broken lights through which flash the unquenchable aspiiations of millions of humble hearts, the reaching out of millions of gi-oping hands for the undying ideal of a nation's life. In the valleys of the eighteenth century, so storm-ridden then, so dim to-day, the vanquished, too, speak of the sweat and dust of a nation's travail — Bolingbroke and Charles Edward, the Highlanders who pei'ished at CuUoden, the Irishmen of '98. Every parish churchyard, the forgotten gi-aves under tropin cai suns, the oblivion of the blood-stained seas, hold unnumbered nameless men and women who before they died had responded to the magic of the dreams of the great dreamers, had given to their land and their people's future that small but costly sacrifice without the free gift of which they and their country would have been the poorer. The great empire-builder has been the British people. At the tribunal of history the chronicler is only the clerk of the court ; the British people stand at the bar, and the British people, who come after, must judge. Mercy, truth, and justice alike demand that the verdict should be based, not upon the sum of what was accomplished, but upon the final value to the world of the ideals of national life that failure and success in the efibrts of a century alike reveal. The year 1714 opens a new chapter in the evolution of the State- system of modem Europe. From 1714-40 the elements of the political situation, particularly as they affect the foreign policy of Great Britain, combine and dissolve with kaleidoscopic suddenness, while the apparent reversal of the principles of the dominant party at London adds a further confusing element. The last four years of Queen Anne had witnessed a bitter and 8 INTRODUCTION [17U dramatic struggle between the two historic parties in the British State. The contest at home turned largely on principles of foreign policy, and on the issue of that struggle, as was clearly grasped by Bolingbroke, Harley and Ormonde, by Marlborough, Godolphin, Sunderland and Stanhope, by Louis XIV. and Prince Eugene, de- pended the character of the future government of Great Britain. The Whigs, taught by their master William III., were determined to maintain the Balance of Power by breaking the Bourbon ascendancy in Europe of Louis XIV. From 1689 to the outbreak of the French Revolution this fear of the Bourbon dynasties (traceable even in the period of the entente cordiale from 1717-38) remained the most characteristic article of the Whig ci-eed in foreign policy. The sys- tem of William III., completed by Marlborough and Godolphin, rested on an identity of political interest between three European centres — London, the Hague, Vienna ; diplomatically it was ex- pressed in a network of continental alliances, militarily by using British troops in co-operation with the armies of the grand alliance, navally by securing the command of the sea, financially by lavish subsidies to the anti-French allies. William III. and Marlborough thus secured the Revolution system at home, the balance of power in Flandei-s, and on the Rhine. Conversely, the Tories decided to sever Great Britain from costly and unnecessai-y continental en- tanglements, and to base her power on insular isolation made in- vincible by a supreme fleet. France was not the enemy to be annihilated, but a rival, an understanding with whom could secure European peace and the extension of our commerce.^ The Bourbon hostility to the Revolution system and support to Jacobitism made this an audacious and difficult policy, but the Tory Ministiy of 1710-14 canied it out. The treaties of Utrecht, negotiated under • Cf. Sunderland's statement : " The strange whim ... as if the Parliament was not to concern themselves in anything that happens " in Germany or the Con- tinent, "and indeed this notion is nothing but the old Tory one that England can subsist by itself, whatever becomes of the rest of Europe, which has been so Justly exploded by the Wigs (sic) ever since the Revolution " {Hist. MS. Comm., Rep. xi., App. IV., p. 103) : with these dicta from Bolingbroke : " an island, under one government, advantageously situated, rich in itself, richer by its commerce, can have no necessity in the ordinary course of affairs to take up the policy of the Continent, to enter into the system of alliances ... or, in short, to act any other part than that of a friendly neighbour and a fair trader " {Works, ii., igi) : " We must remember we are not part of the Continent, but we must never forget that we are neighbour! to it " (op. cit., viii. 382), and Swift's Conduct of the Allies, passim. 17U] FOREIGN POLICY 9 fierce Whig criticism, gave peace to England and France, and withdrew Great Britain from the continental struggle. How the victories won bj the Whig system secured the concession of tolerable terms, and how Bolingbroke's policy was mutilated by the re,ection of the commercial treaty does not concern us here. It suffices that Bolingbroke's diplomacy accomplished two decisive results-^peace with France and the acceptance by Louis XIV. of the Protestant succession as regulated by British law. Boling- broke indeed intended to go much farther. A new system of alliance between Great Britain, the Bourbon Powers (Fi-ance and Spain), and Savoy to compel the House of Austria and its allies (the former allies of Great Britain) to accept a European settle- ment satisfactory to this new coalition was akeady on foot at Whitehall. It is not necessary to discuss here whether this was also to be followed by upsetting the Protestant succession, and the establishment of the permanent supremacy of the Tory party by imposing Tory terms on the Jacobite claimant. Bolingbroke won his free hand too late, and the Queen's death on August 1st, 1714, left England in a singular position. At that moment she had not an ally in Europe. The policy of one gi-eat party had been revei-sed, the members of the Whig Grand Alliance alienated ; the Tories had so far secured only the bare neutrality of France. Out- standing questions — the expulsion. of "the Pretender" from Lor- raine, the demolition of the foi-tifications at Dunkirk, the treatment of the Catalans — had still to be regulated. Spain and the House of Austi'ia were still at war ; the Ban-ier Treaty between England and Holland, by which the Dutch pledged themselves to garrison a line of fortresses between the new Austrian Netherlands and France at Austrian expense, and guaranteed the Protestant succession together with the grant of commercial privileges, had not been accepted by the Emperor. The political and economic relations of England to Spain, embittered by the transfer of Gibraltar and Minorca, were not properly defined, and the vital questions between Madrid and Vienna, involving the distribution of power in the Mediterranean were still unsolved. Fi-ance, too, might repeat her conduct of 1701, and repudiate her acceptance of the Protestant succession. If the fateful Sunday of August 1st was followed by what has been called the greatest miracle in our histoi'y, the peace- ful accession of George I., the uncertainty and confusion in the 10 INTRODUCTION [1714-« relations of the European States do not evaporate until the death of a more important world-figure, Louis XIV., on September 1st, 1715. 1714-40 For two decades and more the maintenance or reversal of the Treaties of Utrecht dominate Em-opean and British diplomacy. Europe expected in 1714 that a Whig Ministry, restored under the Hanoverian sovereign to ascendancy, would return to the system of Marlborough and Godolphin and renew the war d outrance with France. Only in this way could the Grand Alliance be rebuilt and Britain and British allies exact retribution from the Ahab who troubled Israel. For twelve months England hovered on the edge of war. But the European chanceries had not peneti-ated the patriotic selfishness of Whig statesmanship. Foreign policy to the Whigs was not an end in itself but simply the means to a grand object, the maintenance of the revolution system. The annihilation of Bour- bon ascendancy, the Balance of Power, the Whig watchwords, were primarily based not on European but on purely English needs, as interpreted by a great pai-ty. That the Whigs decided to uphold the treaties of 1713 may be a pai-adox of party government, but it was the facts not the Whigs that had changed. Fi-om 1714- 42 the presei-vation of the Protestant succession and the Revolution system ai-e as persistently pushed as previously from 1689-1710 — but by a different method. Stanhope who made the French alliance of 1717, Walpole who strove to keep it intact, worked for the same party interpretation of a national ideal as William III., Somei-s, Marlborough, and Godolphin who fought to bleed France white. Nor did the decision rest with Great Britain alone. The sleepless disturber of the peace of Europe from 1715-40 is Spain, inspired by a woman, Elizabeth Farnese. The Treaties of Utrecht had placed the Bourbon Philip V. on the throne of a dismembered empire ; they had restored the Pyrenees by forbidding the union of the French and Spanish Crowns ; to the House of Austria they assigned the (Spanish) Netherlands, Milan, Naples, and Sardinia ; to Savoy Sicily; to Great Britain Gibraltar, Minorca, and the Assiento conces- sion in the South Seas. Spain had good reasons to work for a new settlement, and dynastic ambitions inflamed national resentment. A wife and a hassock, it was said, were all that the new King of Spain needed. The wife (she was his second) was provided in " the Tei-magant " from the House of Pai-ma ; the hassock was adequately 1740] ENGLAND AND SPAIN 11 represented by Cardinal Alberoni. Elizabeth Fai-nese shares with Caroline of Anspach, Maria Theresa, and Catherine II. the right to figure as one of the four gi-eat political women of the eighteenth century. Her dynastic ambitions convulsed Europe for thirty years and pei-manently moulded the destinies of the Bourbons and of Italy from her death until the final unification of the peninsula under the House of Savoy in 1870. In concert with the Queen of Spain, Alberoni desu-ed to revive the glories of the humiliated Spanish Empire by extirpating the Austrian power in Italy. The future of " Baby Carlos " (the later Charles III.) and subsequently of "Baby Philip " (the later Duke of Parma), Elizabeth's two sons, was injured by the prior rights of Ferdinand (King of Spain, 1746), Philip's son by his first wife (Mary Louise of Savoy). They must be provided with appanages in Italy, partly from Austiian possessions (jB.g. Sicily, which the Emperor proposed to gain by hand- ing Sardinia to Savoy), partly from Tuscany and Parma, in which the ruling houses were on the point of extinction. Elizabeth therefore had the strongest of motives to upset the ti-eaties and to challenge the claims of the Austrian Habsburgs in Central and Southern Italy. And Great Britain? Her statesmen, influenced by the powerful commercial classes, aimed at a balance of power in the Mediteiranean, the security of Gibraltar and Minorca, and tbe extension of British trading privileges in the Spanish- American colonies. A new com- mercial treaty with Spain was one of the most pressing needs of the Ministry in 1714, and Stanhope summed up English senti- ment in his I'emark, that a wai* with Spain would cost him his head, but that in twenty-four hours he could get Parliament to vote for a war with Fiance. After Anne's death Anglo-Spanish relations developed in two phases : (1) from 1714-17 in which Alberoni en- deavours to cany out his Italian policy by keeping Britain friendly or neutral ; (2) 1717-38 in which Elizabeth, aided by Alberoni and Rippeixla, actively opposes British power. Schemes to overthrow the Hanoverian dynasty, to recover Gibraltar and Minorca and build up anti-British coalitions have to be frustrated by counter- coalitions and the concerted coercion of Spain skilfully directed 1738 from St. James's until the Thu'd Ti-eaty of Vienna established a compromise. The war of 1739, however, brings the intrinsic contradiction between English and Spanish aims once more into 1740 the foreground, and with the death of Charles VI. Europe and 19 INTRODUCTION f^^*" Great Britain enter on a train of events no longer essentially de- rived from the Treaties of Utrecht. ^ Nearer home the relations of "the two sea-powers "—-Great Britain and the United Netheriands— provide a cleariy marked Imk between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The mtegnty and independence of Holland, an alliance based on reciprocal guarantees of the political systems of the two allies, the closing of the Scheldt, and a fortified barrier along the North-east frontier of France are prime objects of British policy. Both Whig and Tory were in agreement that the littoral of the Channel and the North Sea from Dunkirk to Rotterdam must be in the hands of a friendly Power, that Fi-ance must be debaned from annexing " the Low Countries," that the modern Belgium should be a market for Brit, ish goods leading to the commercial centres of Europe. Britain's interest in this command of the seas facing her vulnerable East and South-east coast, and her determination to prevent the conti-ol pass- ing into hostile hands were inherited from the past, and are as clearly marked in the policy of the younger Pitt, Castlereagh, Canning and Palmerston (to go no farther), as in the policy of Elizabeth, Cromwell, and the Revolution Whigs. That this policy involved a continuous effort to frustrate the historic and ineradicable ambition of France to secure the "natural boundary'' of the Rhine, and is vitally connected with the wider problem of sea-power and command of the oceanic ro sites to the East and West, is obvious. Whig statesmanship after 1702 proposed to effect the desii-ed end by a closer concert with Vienna and the Hague, by making the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium) an Austrian buffer-State, by the BaiTier Treaty and a commercial convention with the House of Austria. In 1714, however, the Emperor and Holland were almost at an open rupture, the Barrier had not been established, and the commei'cial treaty had still to be made. An essential preliminary therefore to a return to the Grand Alliance was a restoration of the solid anti- Bourbon League between London, the Hague, and Vienna. Could this be achieved without another great Em-opean war? In 1719, also, a tremendous struggle — the great Northern Question — inde- pendent in its origin and character of the War of the Spanish Succession, had long harassed European statesmen. The conspiracy of Russia, Denmai-k, and Saxony-Poland in 1698 to dismember the Swedish Empire of the Vasas had developed into a widespread 1740] THE BALTIC PROBLEM 18 war in which the original anti-Swedish coalition had been joined by Prussia-Brandenburg and Hanover, bent on stripping the heroic and obstinate Chai-les XH. of his tenitories (Livonia, Pomerania, Bremen and Verden), on the South and Eastern littoral of the Baltic. English interests in the Baltic problem were considerable and historic. The Eastern market supplied her with timber and raw material (pitch, tar, hemp and flax), essential to her navy, and with an outlet for manufactured goods ; her friendship with the Protest- ant Power at Stockholm was a century old. So far, despite inroads on her commerce by Swedish privateei-s and increasingly strained relations with the Government of Charles XIL, Great Britain had remained neutral. She desired peace, a balance of power in the Baltic, and the open door for British trade. Suddenly in November, 1714, Charles XII. dramatically returned from his self-imposed and mysterious exile at Bender and plunged into a hopeless defence of Stralsund. Swedish ascendancy in the Baltic was in fact doomed. What system was to take its place ? The death of Anne brought a new and embarrassing element into British policy, for the personal union of the British Crown with the Hanoverian Electorate hand- cuffed Great Britain to a German State, already mortgaged in its foreign policy. As Elector of Hanover, George I. was a member of the anti-Swedish League, pledged to prosecute the Northern war October and guaranteed as to his share of Swedish dismemberment with the reversion of the Duchies of Bremen and Verden, so important tor rounding oflF the Gueiph territories. Great Britain, too, had com- mercial grievances of her own to redress. George I., not unnaturally, therefore desired to fulfil the treaty obligations of the Elector of Hanover by employing the powerful naval and financial resources of his British kingdom. Even without the pressure of his allies he saw that Eng-lish adherence to the anti-Swedish coalition must make Sweden's defeat certain and rapid. But for the British Ministers the problem was not so simple. The Hanoverian dynasty was new ; if it became unpopular the Revolution system was seriously menaced The danger of continued neutrality, of embarking in a war not of England's making and not required by her true needs in the Baltic, Sweden's refusal to gvunt satisfaction for legitimate grievances, the clamour of the commercial classes for the protection of their ships and goods, the importunity of the sovereign and his Hanoverian advisers, ignorant of English sentiment and of the mystery of 14 INTRODUCTION [17«) ministerial responsibility, the deep-seated hostility in public opinion to the dictation of a " wee, wee German lairdie," and continental entanglements made the Northern problem a maze of conflictmg interests. Nor could a British Ministry forget that in the West and South of Europe two black war-clouds threatened to envelop the whole political horizon. And if the Whigs came back to power at home they had still to establish a foreign ruler on a parliament- made throne, to reconcile the nation to a new order and consolidate the political organisation in accordance with the principles of the Protestant succession, and the Revolution system and party-govern- ment. It is as easy to undeirate the veiy serious difficulties of the Whig government as it is to exaggerate their ultimate success. " La politique," it has been said by a master of state-craft, " est I'art de s'accommoder aux circonstances et de tirer parti de tout, m^me de ce qui deplait." It is a priceless gift to statesmen to start from settled and unshakeable convictions as to the destinies of the land and people they are called upon to sei-ve. In Whig eyes the creed of a party summed up the ideals of Britain's future. On the foundations of the Treaties of Utrecht Whig statesmen of the two first Georges built up a system which made the soundness of their principles of foreign policy essentially dependent on the needs of the British nation at home as Whigs interpreted them. And if Chatham departed from the methods of Walpole and Stanhope as they in turn had departed from those of William III. and of the Whig junto, he and they proved by so doing that they were true sons and heu-s of " the Revolution Whigs ". I7U] COUNCIL OF REGENCY 1» CHAPTER I OEOEGB I. AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF HANOVERIAN BULB ON Sunday, August 1st, 1714, Anne died and George I. was at once proclaimed King of Britain and Ireland without opposi- tion, even in Scotlajid and Ireland, where the Jacobite Chancellor, Phipps, was promptly removed. Holland was ready to act on its treaty guarantee of the Protestant succession, and France as yet showed no sign of repudiating its pledged acceptance of the Hano- verian title. "The events of the five days last week," Swift wrote, " might furnish morals for another volume of Seneca." Atterbury may have asserted that he was ready to proclaim King James III. and VIII., and that the best cause in Europe was lost for want of spirit, but a Jacobite coup d'dtat was effec- tively checkmated by the suddenness of the Queen's fatal illness, the removal of Harley, the placing of the Lord Treasurer's staff in Shrewsbury's hands, and the vigour with which the great Whig peers intervened in the memorable council meeting. The law was clear: the Whigs had been watching for four years, they were organised, and in the hour of crisis the men and the measures were as ready as Bolingbroke was not. By the Act of Succession (6 Anne, c. 7) a Council of Regency, under the title of Lords Justices, consist- ing of the seven great officei-s of state, together with nominees of the lawful heir, were to administer the government until the new sovereign arrived. When the sealed packets were opened, eighteen peers, the most important of whom were the two archbishops, Shrewsbury, Halifax, Anglesea, Cowper, Townshend, Bolton, Devon- shire, and Nottingham, with Addison as their secretaiy, were found to have been nominated. Neither Oxford (Harley), only deprived of office the previous Tuesday, nor Bolingbroke, who still held the Secretary's seals, was in the list. The council was predominantly, but not wholly, Whig. Notable omissions were Marlborough, Sun- derland his son-in-law, Wharton, and Somers. Parliament met on 16 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [I7l4 August 5th, and the oaths of allegiance to George I. and of a^^ juration from the Stuart claimant were duly taken by the ™^™ ^'^ of both houses. A civil list of ^700,000, the same sum that nafl been granted to Anne, was voted. Oxford was for the present ignored. But Bolingbroke, after the Queen's funeral, was ordered Aug. 24 from Hanover to deliver up his seals of office, and his papei-s placed under lock and key. "His fortune turned rotben at the very Aug. 28 moment it grew ripe." The grief of his soul, he wrote *» ^.tter- bury, was that he saw plainly the Tory pai-ty was gone. And he was right. George, delayed at Hanover by the requirements of the electoral administration, set foot for the second time on EngLsh soil at Greenwich on September 18th— the third sovereign in fifty- four years who had been summoned from abroad to occupy the English throne. The new King was in character as different fi-om Charles II. and William HI. as were the circumstances of 1714 from those of 1660 and 1688. Charles had symbolised to an enthusiastic people the restoration of the hereditary monarchy Mid the downfall of the military republic ; William III. had been in- vited by the leaders of a paiiy to deliver the constitution and the Established Church from absolutism and Roman Catholicism, and the Revolution Parliament had legalised the invitation by offering a Crown and supplying a statutory title ; George's peaceful succession was at once the homage to, and the union of, hereditaiy (in the Protestant line alone) with parliamentary right. Born in 1660, the yeai' of the i-estoration of the dynasty whose claims he now so effectively annulled, he was the son of the Electress Sophia and the great grandson, therefore, of James I. In ] 698 he had succeeded to the Electorate and had seen military sei-vice under Sobieski at Vienna, at Neerwinden in 1693, while from 1707-9 as a member of the Grand Alliance, he had commanded an imperial army on the Upper Rhine. His coldness, said the witty Elizabeth Chai'lotte of Orleans, would freeze his suiTOundings. German to the core, passionately devoted to Herrenhausen and his beloved Hanover, a Lutheran by creed, he was a brusque, heai-tless, cruel, avaricious mean, sensual, punctilious, and masterful man, and he had grown up in a provincial court where the ruler's wish was law. His abilities were mediocre, his manners not without a certain stiff dignity, but wholly unattractive. If, in Shippen's memorable phrase, he was as little acquainted with the forms and usages of 1694] THE KING AND THE WHIGS 17 Parliament as with the language of his new subjects, he had reached an age when men of his type can neither forget nor learn. As a Pro- testant member of the Grand Alliance he had contributed 12,000 men to the great war with France ; conviction and interest made him a firm supporter of the foreign policy of William III. and of the Whigs. The reversal of that policy in 1710 he regarded as a fatal and insulting breach by Great Britain of solemn treaty obli- gations. Since 1710 the Elector, encouraged by continuous Whig teaching, had come to believe that to the Whigs he owed his throne, and that England's home affairs quite as much as her foreign policy required a government based on Whig principles. A King made and kept on the throne by a party must necessarily become the King of that party. George was, therefore, reluctantly prepared to assign, when he was compelled, internal administration to Whig hands. What else, indeed, could h e do ? Whig principles and objects in this land of foreign speech and strange institutions coincided by a Leibnitzian pre-established harmony with his dynastic interests. To alienate in the critical September of 1714 the or- ganised group of able, experienced, and loyal men who had frus- trated Bolingbroke in the hour of victory was impossible. The Whigs understood English politics if George did not, and they left no alternative between surrender and defiance. George in sur- rendering had still to learn, as William III. had learned, that if the Tories were the opponents of his Majesty's title the Whigs were no less the opponents of his Majesty's prerogative. A parliamentary title meant parliamentary govemment ; pai'liamentary government must become party govemment under which the sovereign's powers would be syndicated amongst his responsible Ministers. Gieorge's accession, in fact, emphasised by his antecedents and his persona] characteristics, was more than a triumph for the principles of 1689 and 1701. In the logic of facts it made explicit what wm pre- viously only implicit in the nature of the Revolution Settlement. No royal consort accompanied the new King. George in 1682 had married his cousin Sophia Dorothea of Celle, and the unhappy union twelve years later was broken by the mysterious death of the Electress's lover, the Swedish Count Konigsmarck.* Promptly 1694 ' Brothei to Aurora von Konigsmarck, whom Voltaire called the most beautifnl woman of two centuries, the mistreES of Augustus, " The Physically Strong," and by him the mother of the Marfchal de Saxe. the victor of Fontenoy. 2 18 GEORGE 1. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1726 divorced, the miserable woman, who might have been Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, was shut up in a virtual state pi-ison at Ahlden, and in prison, as her unforgiving and tyrannical husband 1726 intended, she died, the world forgetting, by the world forgot.^ The shame of this sordid scandal was to repeat itself with wearisome itera- tion in the quarrels of fathers and sons, and of mothers with their children in the domestic chronicle of the electoral and royal dynasty. Nor were the morals of the first two Hanoverians calculated to com- pensate for their foreign extraction and unfamiliar ways. Two greedy and ill-favoured favourites were a poor substitute for an honest queen — if such were to be had. The lean Countess of Schulenburg, created Duchess of Kendal, and the fat Countess of Kilmansegge, created Countess of Darlington, not unjustly be- came "the Maypole" and "the Elephant" of English satire. The Schulenburg, by her insatiable appetite for intrigue and plunder, played a backstairs part with a zeal that prompted Walpole's remark " that she would at any time have sold her influence with the King for a shilling advance to the best bidder ". Such conventionally- respectable Court life as English society deigned to gi-ace was pro- vided by the heir to the throne, George Augustus, the son of the unhappy prisoner of Ahlden, in whose innocence, with credit to his feelings if not to his judgment of evidence, he believed to the last. Created Prince of Wales in 1714, he revived a title virtually dor- mant since 1649, though from 1688-1701 it had been formally retained by the Prince "across the water," who now in 1714 was called by Jacobites James III. and VIII. or the Chevalier St George, and by Whigs the (Old) Pretender. The Princess of Wales, Caroline of Anspach-Brandenburg, both as Princess and Queen, was destined by her intellectual gifts, her political insight and her broad- minded friendships, to be the most remarkable woman in the history of two reigns. The King's first task was to appoint Ministers, Archbishop Tenison, who was included in the Cabinet, won from George the remark that he liked him better than all the rest of the Court for he was the only one who came to ask for nothing. The Ministry when completed contained Halifax as First Lord of the Treasury, Cowper as Chancellor, Nottingham as Lord President, Townshend and Stanhope as Secretaries of State. Sunderland be- came Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Marlborough was reinstated as * See Appendix I. 1715] WHIGS AND TORIES 19 Commander-in-Chief and Master of the Ordnance ; Robert Walpole, TowHshend's brother-in-law, to whom shrewd observers already ascribed a dominating influence, was only Paymaster, but next year he was appointed First Lord of the Ti-easury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. The aged Somers was a member of the Cabinet with- out office. Hanoverian affairs were reserved for the able junto of Gei-mans, Bothmer, Bernstorff", Robethon, and Gorz, who had worked hai'd to secure their master's Crown, and on whose knowledge and advice in foreign affairs George I., with good reason, relied. Of the English Ministers an inner group of three — Stanhope, Towns- hend and Mai-lborough-r-with Bothmer and Bernstorff, practically decided policy. But after 1716 Marlborough's influence vanished, and Stanhope shared with Townshend the preponderating influence in the closet. With the exception of Nottingham, who lost office in 1.716, the new Administration was selected frpm the Whigs, in whose eyes the authors of the Treaties of Utrecht were traitor's to the true interests of their counti-y. Convinced that Bolingbroke and his colleagues, by methods discreditable, if not plainly treasonable, had plotted to overthrow the Protestant succession, the Whigs were determined to teach their opponents that the principles of the Revolution Settlement were beyond the power of any group of poli- ticians to tamper with or betray. The crisis of the succession was not yet surmounted. If the action of the Whigs seems vindictive it was salutary and decisive, and, under the accepted conventions of political life, inevitable. The Tory party had yet to learn how to blend Jacobitism as a sentimental creed for the private conscience with public acceptance of the principles of Church and State laid down in the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement. The con- duct of the Tory leadera, Bolingbroke, Oxford, Ormonde, Strafford, was suspiciously sinister, and it was at the political leaders that the Whigs with sound strategy struck. For the time the memory of Sacheverell saved Atterbury and the other Jacobite divines. After George had been crowned with all the solemn ritual of the old here- ditary; monarchy Parliament six months after the demise of the sovereign was, as required by law, dissolved. The elections took Jan. 5, place amidst strong excitement ; a Jacobite reaction had inevitably "^7^5 followed the strain of the crisis in August, and riots, revealing the latent feeling in many centres, occurred, particularly in the Midland counties. Aided by a royal proclamation and by an ill- 20 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1678 judged manifesto issued by " the Pretender," the Whigs obtained a decisive majority in the new Parliament that met on March 17th. The address, explicitly framed against the authors of the Treaties of Utrecht, was a Whig declaration of war. A secret com- mittee was appointed to examine the papers of the late Ministiy, and its report, for which Walpole was chiefly responsible, was a masterpiece of party tactics. Though it did not furnish, as was hoped, clear legal proof of treason, it inflamed the pent-up bitterness amongst the Whigs. But Bolingbroke had already lost his head before his enemies could take it off. On April 6th he committed the most serious of tlie many serious blunders of his life when, disguised as a valet, he fled to France, shortly to enter openly "the Pre- tender's " service. His flight relieved the Ministry of the difiiculty of proving that as Anne's Secretary he had been guilty of treason, while it effectually completed his ruin. The popular Ormonde, " the star of danger," fled in August, also to take service in the Stuart cause. " Farewell, Duke, without a Dukedom," Oxford re- marked at parting. " Farewell, Earl," retorted Ormonde, *' with- out a head." Oxford and Strafford stood their ground and were formally impeached. Against Bolingbroke and Ormonde acts of attainder were passed. From the chaos of recrimination caused by these measures two points emerge. The Whigs emphasised the doc- trine of ministerial responsibiKty.i They refiised to admit the late Queen's authority as an adequate reason for exonerating her Minis- tera from liability, and thereby the precedent laid down in Danby's 1678 case was made good. It was not to be forgotteiL Walpole, who encouraged the demand of the Commons for condign chastisement, already foreshadowed the principle which later as a minister he was to enforce. In the interests of the Protestant succession and of the Whigs, its avowed champions, the Tories must be branded as disloyal Jacobites and politically broken. The Tories, unfortunately for themselves, were justifying the soundness of such tactics, and the plausibility of the indictment For the moment they were dis- united, discredited, and leaderless. Shippen, Bromley, Wyndham, in the Commons ; Anglesea, Trevor, Harcoui-t, in the Lords, were feeble substitutes foi the brilliant Bolingbroke, the experienced Ox- ford, and Ormonde, the toast of squire, parson, and the daughters of the manoi-s. Jacobite lawlessness provided an excellent reason in the same session for strengthening the executive by "the Riot 1715] WHIG FOREIGN POLICY 21 Act " (1 Geo. I., st 2, c, 5), which made it a felony for a rioter to refuse to obey the command of lawful authority to disperse. It is noticeable that both this act and the Septennial Act of next yeai', which originated in the troubles of the Hanoverian succession, re- mained on the Statute Book until 1911, when the Parliament Act became law. With no less firmness of purpose the Whig Ministry had begun to handle the problems of foreign policy. A change began at once under the Lords Justices. Bolingbroke's schemes were di'opped. The demolition of the fortifications at Dunkirk (as provided by the treaties) and the expulsion of the Pretender from Lorraine were actively pressed. It was a foregone conclusion that the new Ministiy would return to the system of 1710. If the Emperor could be persuaded to accept the Barrier Treaty of 1713 two ad- vantages would follow, the reconciliation of the House of Austria to the United Netherlands, the imperial guai'antee of the Hanoverian throne, the latter of cardinal importance to a country at that moment without allies whose relations with France were exceed- ingly critical. Fortunately for the Whigs, Stanhope and Marl- borough had previously earned the gi-atitude of the Emperor, Charles VI., by their militaiy arid political achievements, and Stan- hope now commenced his notable work in diplomacy by a pei-sonal mission to Vienna which convinced Europe that the Whigs October would not shrink from renewing the war with France. British efforts were primaiily concenbated on the Bamer Treaty, and after a year of tedious negotiations Dutch and Austrians were cajoled into agi'eementand the Bander question settled. That the bai-rierNov. 15, thus set up would prove worthless against a resolute France was '^'5 happily not mtule clear until 1743. Meanwhile Great Britain had secured the commercial privileges she desired, the North-east fron- tier of France was apparently ban-ed and the agreement of Hol- land and the House of Austria might be made the basis of an effective alliance between the Emperor and George I. It was the first and a welcome Whig success. Concuirent negotiations had been pi'oceeding with Spain to amend the unsatisfactory commercial treaty of 1713 and to assist in settling the claims of Charles VI. (who pei-sisted in regarding himself as the true King of Spain) and those of Philip V. who refused to admit the validity of Habsburg rights to the former Spanish possessions in Italy. Alberoni agieed to a fresh commercial treaty, though the advantages it promised n GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [l71« Dec. 24, were subsequently made nugatory by the reluctance of the Spanish Government to act up to its word. In reality both the British and Spanish Minister were playing an insincere game of bluff, be- cause neither had penetrated the ulterior objects which each Power had in view. Alberoni for the present was willing to speak Stanhope fair and make illusory commercial concessions on paper until his recuperative measures had provided the means to defy Great Britain, if necessary, and to expel the Habsburg intruder from his ill-gotten gains in Italy. Stanhope had no intention of sacrificing a renewal of the historic and valuable alliance with the Emperor to a speculative entente with the Bourbons at Madrid. As regards Nov., the North, Hanover had secured a Prussian guarantee of the cession ' * of Bremen and Verden and a renewed Danish guai-antee to the May, same effect. As Elector, therefore, George was doubly committed to the war on Sweden. Under the provocation of a Swedish pri- Feb.. vateering ordinance, a violation of the rights of neutrals which '^'5 Townshend said "no treaty, law, nor reason could justify," and the pressm-e of the commercial classes and of the Court, the British Ministers consented to ask for a parliamentaiy vote and to send Admiral Norris to the Baltic with a fleet. But to the indignation of his continental allies the King of Great Britain was not per-' mitted formally to declare war, and the ships avowedly sailed only to protect British trade. The dangerous dualism between England and Hanover was thus coiTcctly, if somewhat hypocritically, main- tained, and George received his first unpleasant lesson in the doc- trine that British Ministers could not forget theii- responsibility to a Parliament which was impeaching the Tory leaders, despite the undeniable fact that their acts had been endorsed with the full ap- proval of the late sovereign. Nevertheless George profited by the refusal of his EngHsh advisers to commit themselves to the aims of the allies. The presence of the British fleet co-operating with the Danish ships enabled the Anti-Swedish League to achieve a deci- Dec. 22 sive sti-oke. The capture of Riigen, the fall of Stralsund and Wismar deprived Charles XII. of his last foothold on German soil. The adamantine obstinacy of the Swedish King in refusina to make concessions to Great Britain which might have secured the friendship of Ministry, Pariiament, and people had practicaUy ensured Bremen and Verden for the Elector of Hanover. But the Northern Question was by no means settled yet. The death of 1715] THE JACOBITE RISING 88 Louis XIV. had altered the whole European situation, notably inSept, i, three directions. By making the Regent Orleans the next heii'^^'^ (under the Treaties of Utrecht) to the sickly boy who now became King as Louis XV. it severed the union between Madrid and Paris ; it cut the ground from under the Jacobites' feet at the precise moment when help from France might have proved decisive; it made the maintenance of the Treaties of Uti'echt as necessary to the Regent in Paris as to the Whigs and Hanoverians at St, James. The way was open for a new system, but before the Whigs could utilise it the home Government was embroiled in a rebellion. A rising had been simmering on both sides of the Channel for some time. Scotland natui'ally offered the best prospects of success. The geographical configuration of the country, the clan system, and the adherence of many of the most influential chiefs to the Stuart dyn- asty, shai-pened by the jealousy of Argyll and the Campbells, would probably win the Highlands. South of the Tay and East of the Grampians the Episcopalian gentry and clergy were almost wholly Jacobite. The memory of the Darien fiasco still smouldered. The legislative union and the subsequent legislation were very unpopu- lai-, and the cry of Scottish independence under a national King of Scottish blood appealed to many AVhig and Presbyterian hearts out- side the Jacobite fold. Had a Scottish rising against the domina- tion of England been properly prepared and judiciously timed with effective English risings in the northern and western counties, " the Fifteen " might have been the first chapter of a bloody struggle for a thi-one, and, as in 1689 and 1701, led up to a European Armaged- don, once more to determine the fundamental principles of the British State. The military weakness of the Whig Government, the estrangement of the continental Powers, the growing disillusion- ment in England with regard to the new dynasty, and the wide- spread resentment of the Church and the Tory landed gentry at Whig tyranny and vindictiveness offered a splendid opportunity to unquenchable sentiment, resolute skill and oi'ganisation. But against stupidity even Divine Right and the White Rose fight in vain. " The Fifteen " was hopeless from the outset, nor was its pitiful tragedy illumined as it was thirty years later by the imperishable romance which can touch even hearts convinced that the better side won. Wodrow's comment : " The providence of Scotland's God has been adorable at this juncture," tersely sums up the effect of 24 GEORGE I, AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [171« Louis XIV.'s death. Babbling women, dreaming priests among the refugees, ignorance, treachery, jealousy, divided counsels and im- becile leadership damned the cause even more effectively than the poverty of the Pretender, the abstention of France, the power of the British fleet, and Whig vigour at headquartei-s. James's noble loyalty to his religion chilled the Lowlands, the parochial clergy and gentry of England. But Bemick, Bolingbroke, Mar, and Forster cannot be exonerated from the chief responsibility for the disaster. Misled by advices from England, the Chevalier had authorised a rising in August. He countermanded it, but the letter either was disobeyed or never reached its destination. Order — counter-order — disorder. On September 6th the Eai-1 of Mai-, popu- larly known as " Bobbing John,'' raised the standard at Kirkmichael on the Braes of Mai', and James VHL was proclaimed at Aberdeen, Dunkeld, Dundee, and Inverness. The English Administration was well served by Stair, the Ambassador at Paiis, and by spies. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended ; Lansdowne and Wyndham were .^n-ested together with other known Jacobites in the midland and western towns ; 6000 Dutch troops were summoned from Hol- land. Ormonde's expedition, betiayed to the Government, found the West neither ready nor willing to be ready, and the leader was derisively compared to the picture of the soldier "with his heart where his head should be, and no head at all ". Instead of Marlborough, Argyle, whose knowledge of Scotland was as conspicuous as his loyalty, was given the command against Mar. In October a handful of Catholic gentry under Forster and Dei-wentwater, amateurs in rebellion and war, had ridden out in Northumberland, and Kenmure with Nithsdale, Wintoun and Camwath, independently rose at Moffat. The two little bands, who met with feeble suppoii, joined hands at Rothbury. Islay, Argyll's brother, using Inverai-ay and Dumbaiton Castles, effectively checked the Jacobite clans in the West. Farther North, Lochiel's efforts were bridled by Fort William, while the loyalty of the disloyal and memorable Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, was a fresh blow to the success of the Cause. Mar, whose force at Perth had swollen to some 12,000 men, and who might have pounced on Edinburgh and made a union with Forster and Kenmure, thi-ew away weeks in laborious idleness. At last a small detachment under Mackintosh crossed the Forth and, frustrated by Argyle at Edinburgh, thanks to Mar's amazing 1716] THE OLD PRETENDER 26 folly, joined Forster at Kelso. Thence, the eastern route being blocked at Newcastle, they sealed their fate by crossing the border to the West with Manchester as their objective. " You will take them," Marlborough said, putting his finger on the map at Preston, " there " ; and at Preston, place of ill omen for the Stuart aims, they were taken. Drifting rather than mai-ching, " courting and feasting " most of the way from Hawick by Cai-lisle, Penrith, Kendal and Lancaster, they were finally penned at Preston by General Wills, advancing from Wigan, and General Carpenter from the North. After some fierce barricade fighting on November 12th, the force capitulated next day at discretion. The quixotic travesty of civil war by a mob of foxhunters had found no support save from the more dare-devil of the Catholic gentry and Mackin- tosh's Highlandei-8. The English rebellion was at an end. On the same fatal November 13th, Inverness fell to George I., and Mar had stumbled on, rather than brought Argyll's force to, an en- gagement at Sheriffmuir. The conflict was a confused scuffle on both sides in which the Highlandei's gave the regulars a taste of their quality. Well might Gordon of Glenbucket make his famous remark, " Oh, for an hour of Dugdee ! " though Dundee or Montrose would have swept the Hanoverian army out of existence at least a month earlier. Mar by retreating proclaimed his real defeat. His army, spared by Argyll's dilatoiy tactics, rent by divisions and jealousies, and soon to be driven back on the hungry North, was doomed. And just as the cause had received its coup de grace James, who had escaped from Lon-aine, lingered at St. Malo, and then evaded the British frigates, landed at Peterhead. His an-ival Dec. la was an act of homage to an obstinate honour'. This melancholy young man, who shares with Charles II. alone of his race the gift of seeing things as they really were, was not the sensual bigot, faithless to friend and foe, that Jacobite scandal and Whig tradition have conspired to picture. A prince, the victim of his inheritance, of a sane but profound pessimism, bom of unbroken misfortune, the pawn of incapable and selfish conspirators and foolish dreamers, he was condemned to expiate the sins of his forefathers, and to be traduced after he was dead. He deserves our pity, for if his chilling manner and misinterpreted silence were a sore disillusionment to the Highland chiefs and the romantic hearts of Jacobite women, in an age of spiritual bankruptcy, he refused to the end to sell his soul and 26 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1716 his religion for the chance of a heretic crown. Assuredly not the man to revive a forlora hope, James was too clear-headed to sacnnce the future of his cause by peiishing sword in hand after the dis- pirited ai-my had fallen back across the frozen Tay. On February 22nd he bowed once more to the curse on his line and, accompamed by Mar and Melfort, left Scotland, never to see it again. His return to the Contment was followed by an open quanel with Bolingbroke ; Mar's incompetence in Scotland was rewai-ded with the disillusioned Bolingbroke's "seals," and the unfortunate Chevalier retired to Avignon, Henceforward as " Jamie the Rover " he was fated to endure with exemplary patience the buffets of Fortune tempered by the intrigues of his Court. Mar's deserted army finally broke up at ,716 Ruthven in Mai-ch and the Whigs were free to pacify and to punish. Walpole again voiced the demand for severity. Of the seven noble prisonei-s Nithsdale, by his wife's help, escaped in a woman's clothes ; Widdington, Carnwath, and Nairn were reprieved, Derwent- water and Kenmure were executed. Wintoun subsequently escaped, as did Forster and Mackintosh. Some thii-ty of the English rank and file were hanged in Lancashu'e ; the Scottish prisoners, despite protests against the violation of the Treaty of Union, were tried at Cai-lisle and a few executed. The majority were sent to "the Plantations". The royal ermines were pronounced to have been stained with blood, but the Government treated the rebels far less harshly than any other European Government would have done. The Whigs, however, threw away a fine opportunity to extirpate the causes and danger of Scottish Jacobitism. Spasmodic coercion of Episcopalian clergy and chapels, a Forfeited Estate Bill, and a few roads made by General Wade, were neither a palliative nor a cure. The failure in 1716 to break up the clan system, defeudalise the Highlands and divert the clansmen into the service of the dynasty was responsible for " the Forty-five ". The Highlands continued to be the one part of Great Britain where a Stuart prince could by a nod bring into the field a superb force whose loyalty and bravery neither disaster nor treachery nor desertion could quench. In England the most important result of the rebellion was the passing of the Septennial Act Under the Triennial Act of 1694 (6 & 7 Will. & Mary, c. 2) the existing Pai-liament was bound to be shortly dissolved ; but by an exercise of the sovereignty of the Crown in Parliament it was now proposed to extend the duration MAP TO ILLUSTRATE MIUTARY nPFPATinN5>.NTHEmwa)UNTRIESI7l4-l8l5 Pkuxs underlined were Barrier Fortresses under the Barrier Treaty of Hor. 15^' 1715. ^ Austrian Netherlands Dm United Netherlands ^2 France EIZ] Bishopric of Liege >.»fiviM^fi.^vi<* English i » » 1° M ».o w «p MiiBg 1718] THE SEPTENNIAL ACT «7 of this and of subsequent Parliaments from three to seven years. Whig advocates urged on general grounds that the bill would diminish bribery and secure the authority of the representative chamber; Opposition ci-itics denounced it as an unconstitutional and purely partisan measure, the offspring and the pai-ent of coimption, fatal to freedom and subversive of the rights of the electors. Unconstitutional in the sense of illegal the Septennial Aet cei-tainly was not. How far urgent political necessity, of which the legislature without reference to the electoral body is the sole judge, can entitle a representative body elected for a limited period to prolong its own existence is a nice question in political jurispi-udence to which very different answers will be given. Englishmen had as good reason to fear a standing Parlia- ment as a standing army. But the Whig Government (as the pre- amble to the bill assei-ts), probably rightly, believed that a general election "when a restless and Popish faction are designing and endeavouring to renew their plots " would endanger the stability of the Revolution System. Foreign policy too required con- tinuity of polity and the permanence of a Government in which foreism Powers could trust. In the critical condition of affaii-s at * . . . home and abroad the Septennial Act had its origin and must find, if anywhere, its justification. Somers, a true finend to constitutional libei-ty (who died in May), warmly supported it His view that it would help to emancipate the Commons both from the Crown and the Lords was confiimed later by the experienced judgment of Onslow, the gi'eatest of eighteenth century Speakers. The act, though intended to be temporary, remained unrepealed until 1911, and tested by its consequences, not fully foreseen at the time, it is an important codicil to the great formative statutes of the Revolu- tion era, whose principles it markedly helped to rivet in the law and custom of the Constitution. For the moment it set the seal on the Whig triumph; the young Hanoverian dynasty and the Hanoverian-British State had survived the sharp distemper of i-ebeUion and civil war. Sceptical foreign Governments could now believe that the new dynasty would rest where it was. With the crushing of the Jacobite rising and the passing of the Septennial Act the real political supremacy of the Whigs began and remained un- impaired until it was broken by the Hanoverian monarchy it had created and pi'eserved. 88 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1716 Whig diplomacy now aimed at securing a political alliance with both Holland and the Emperor. Was this to take the ioira of a triple union or two separate aiTangements which could be cemented later into a single agreement ? To Charies VI. a British fleet in the MediteiTanean was no less essential than a British fleet in the Baltic was to the Anti-Swedish Coalition. When English Ministers pro- tested that at Vienna more time was wasted in hagglmg ovei- a single point than it took to equip a squadron at Portsmouth, the Austrians retoi-ted that at London they asked in an hour more than the Emperor could consent to in a whole year. George desired an im- perial guarantee of his throne and the ratification of the cession of Bremen and Verden ; Charles VI. required the coercion of Spain into accepting his terms. After wearisome negotiations Whig diplomacy concluded two separate treaties, a formal alliance with Holland, a formal alliance with the Emperor. In each case the contracting parties guaranteed their respective possessions with a pledge of armed assistance against attack. The isolation of Great Biitam was thereby brought to an end, the Hanoverian dynasty was shored up with solid support, and the old undei-standing with the Hague and Vienna renewed. This fresh success was the effective prelude to a new and startling departure in Whig diplomacy. The King's first visit to Hanover marked the growing sense of security. His Ministers, Townshend in pai-ticular, reluctantly con- sented to procure the repeal of the clause in the Act of Settlement which forbade the sovereign leaving England without the consent of Parliament. But George was insistent. " I believe," Petei'borough drily remarked, " the King has quite forgotten the misfortune that befell himself and his family on August 1, 1714." In his absence the Prince of Wales, as guardian and lieutenant of the realm, acted as Regent ; Stanhope accompanied the King, Townshend re- mained as chief adviser in London. The existence of two centres of political authority, Hampton Court and Henenhausen, was fatal to Whig unity. The brusque Townshend had incuned George's enmity, fomented by the intrigues of Bothmer, Robethon, and the Duchess of Kendal, whose influence and rapacity he thwarted. Sunderland, chafing at his subordinate position, was jealous of his power. The estrangement, at fii-st pei-sonal, soon involved principles of policy, and next year led to an open schism. The credit of the alliance with Fi-ance, which shortly amazed 1717] THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 29 Europe, belongs mainly to Stanhope and the Abb^ Dubois, " goat- faced Cai'dinal, ugliest of created souls, Archbishop of Cambrai by the favour of Beelzebub ". Dubois had met Stanhope at Hanover in August, and by October 11th the treaty had been drafted. This decisive stroke was much facilitated by the presence of George and Stanhope abroad, but its conclusion was hindered by opposition in the Cabinet. Townshend's insistence on the participation of Holland increased the gi'owing breach between himself and his mas- ter, supported by Stanhope, Sunderland, and the other Hanoverian Ministers. On November 28th the treaty was signed, and the inclu- Jan. 4, sion of Holland consummated the famous Triple Alliance — a Tory '^i? conception grafted on to the solid stock of the old Whig system. Great Britain and France solemnly guaranteed the clauses in the treaties by which the Protestant succession in England and the re- nunciation of Philip V.'s claims to the French Crown were regulated Minor clauses pledged France to secure the expulsion of the Pre- tender from Avignon and to demolish the foi'tifications of Mardyck. The story that the Regent Orleans and his mother kissed the i-atified treaty picturesquely epitomises its importance to their am- bitions. For neither Europe nor (he Regent could divine that the sickly Louis XV. would see two Kings of Spain and two of Gi-eat Britain into their gi-aves, and by his policy and debauchery ruin the monarchy for Bourbon and Orleanist alike. But the Anglo-French alliance did much more than secure Georgeon his thi-one. Stanhope was quick to see that the union of the two Powers whose rivalry had convulsed Europe could be slowly forged into an instrument, irre- sistible if judiciously used, to settle the problems ai-ising from the treaties whose maintenance it guaranteed, and might make Hano- verian Great Britain the predominant influence in the councils of Europe. Two storm-centres — the Baltic and the MediteiTanean — menaced the continental horizon, and events were working to blend them into one. In 1716 a stronger fleet, with Nonis again in command, had been sent to the Baltic. But under the pressure of conflicting interests the anti-Swedish coalition was rapidly dissolving. The ambitions and power of Peter the Great combined Great Britain, Hanover, and Denmark, in opposition to the concert of Russia and Prussia. George and Peter each desired to get a separate peace with Sweden in order to checkmate the objects of the other, but neither defeat nor the exhaustion of Sweden moved Charles XII. to satisfy 80 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1717 British claims, or to cede an inch of ten-itory, or a stone of his for- ti-esses to his victorious foes. The English Ministry was importuned to secure Bi-emen and Verden by force, and to checkmate the growing supremacy of Russia in the Baltic by compelling Peter to withdraw his troops from Mecklenburg. Townshend stood out for preferring Swedish im-oads on English commerce to a war with Sweden and Russia too. Great Britain, therefore, continued its attitude of a correct neutrality, and after much ink had been wasted on paper the Czar's withdi'awal of his troops from Mecklenburg averted the crisis for the moment A new phase opened with the sudden rise to influence with Charles XII. of Gortz, a knight of diplomatic industry, gifted with ability, insight and courage. The Anglo- French alliance deprived Sweden of France's benevolent friendship, and Gortz now played with an ambitious plan to reconcile his master with Peter, defeat the coalition by their united forces, and over- throw George at London, the Regent at Paris by Jacobite and Bour- bon plots. Ever since Anne's death the help of the gi-eat soldier, Charles XII., had been a Jacobite dream, and through Gyllenborg, the Swedish Ambassador at London, Gortz entered into close rela- tions with the Jacobites in England. Money was what he wanted above all, and money might be wheedled out of Jacobite purses foi purely Swedish needs by lending an ear to Jacobite schemes. For it is more than doubtful whether Gortz entertained seriously the pro- posed union of the foreign forces without and the Jacobite foi-ces within against the reigning dynasty. But the plot — if it was a plot — was betrayed. The Whig Government did not hesitate to Jan. 29, arrest Gyllenborg, while the publication ot his papers explained, if it did not justify, the daring breach of an ambassador's rights.' Gortz at the same time was an-ested by the Dutch, though he was shortly released. The Government was well informed of what was afoot, and it struck at the plotters when it knew not so much that the plot was ripe, as that an exposure of the inti-igue would powei- fuUy influence public opinion, and weaken the dangerous pai-liamen- tai-y opposition to its policy in the Baltic. And this it certainly did. The revelation of the "plot " and the publication of the incriminat- ing documentary matter caused no little excitement in London ; it > Similarly in 1718 the French Government arrested Porto Carrero, the Spanish Ambassador, on the occasion of the Cellamare conspiracy ; and in 1726 Philip V. had Ripperda seized in the house of Stanhope, the British Ambassador at Madrid. 1717 1716] THE WHIG SCHISM 81 staved oiF a parliamentary defeat, yet the demand for parliamen- tary supplies brought to a head the dissensions in the Ministry. Townshend had already been transfen-ed to the lord -lieutenancy Dec., of Ireland, but in April the vote of ci-edit against Sweden was '''^^ supported so lukewarmly by Walpole and To wnshend's followers that the lord-lieutenant was dismissed, whereupon Walpole with Devonshire, Methuen, Orford, and Pulteney marked their resent- ment by resigning. Walpole's ability and influence with the Com- mons were so conspicuous that the King begged him to remain. No fewer than ten times were the seals placed upon the table, but in the end George, not Walpole, yielded, and the Ministry was re- constructed. Stanhope became First Lord of the Ti'easury, Sunder- land and Addison Secretaries of State, and from now till his death Stanhope's supremacy in foreign policy was assured.^ The split in the Whig party rejoiced the dashed Jacobite spirits, and was im- portant. Aggi'avated by personal feeling, the quarrels raised ques- tions of policy, as well as the right of the sovereign to choose his Ministei-s unfettered by party or parliamentary dictation. And behind Walpole's resignation lay the principle, which later he was to enforce, that ministerial responsiJ)ility implied ministerial unity on the vital public questions of the day. Toiies and Jacobites detected in the party quarrel and the discreditable squabble of the King, with the Prince of Wales over .the restricted powers of the Regent, a welcome proof of the decay of the Whigs and the failure of the dynasty. Atterbury's correspondence shows that the stren- uous opposition of the ex-Ministera to the measures of their former colleagues was read as the writing on the wall. No view could have been more mistaken. Walpole and Townshend were as sound on the Revolution System as Stanhope and Sunderland. The mp- ture in reality strengthened rather than weakened the Whig supre- macy. It provided salutary Whig criticism of Whig measures ; it gave Stanhope a free hand to complete his diplomatic work, and when a financial maelstrom engulfed the country, leadera of ability and experience and unimpeachable Whiggism were at hand to replace! the discredited Whig Ministry, reorganise the demoralised party, and continue the Whig predominance. The next four yeai-s are crowded ' In 1718 Sunderland became First Lord of the Treasury, Aislabie Chancellor of the Exche^quer, and Stanhope (to control foreign affairs more effectively) Secretary of State, with James Craggs as bis colleague. 82 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE 11716 with important events, ana Stanhope's hands were fully occupied with foreign affairs. The failure of Gortz's first " plot " had not scotched the zeal and fertility of resource in this subtle and cool- headed intriguer, and the storm-centre in the South shortly burst In August, 1717, Alberoni and Elizabeth Famese thi-ew off their masks and challenged their foes. The treaties of 1716 and 1717 had opened Alberoni's eyes to the real aims of Great Britain. Prob- ably he would have preferred to wait until the army and fleet of Spain were in a better state, but the airest in Italy of a Spanish inquisitor by the Austrian Goveinment fired national resentment and forced his hand. England was engaged in the Baltic ; the military forces of the Emperor were locked up in the Turkish war, and in France the Legitimists had found a leader in the Duke of Maine, aided by the strong sentiment of Bourbon solidaiity and the unpopularity in the ruling class of the Anglo-French Alliance, To prevent its exchange for Sicily, a Spanish army was flung into Aug. 8 Sardinia, but, unfortunately for Alberoni, ten days before Eugene had captured Belgrade. The Emperor promptly claimed from Great Britain the assistance due under the treaty of 1716. But the Ministry hesitated. In marked contrast to 1739 a war with Spain was unpopular, and the Baltic situation thi'eatened also to issue in an equally unpopular war. Charles XII. and Gortz had come into touch, through the Jacobites, with Alberoni in the South. The common enemy to both was the Anglo-French unioa The overthrowal of the Hanoverian dynasty would free Sweden from the coalition, unite France and Spain, and make the latter more than a match for the Emperor entangled in the East. Behind the cuitain of official diplomacy was spun a network of ambitious and menacing schemes. The reconciliation of Charles XII. with Peter the Great was to be followed by risings in Scotland and England, aided by the victor of Narva and Clissow, with 10,000 of the unconquerable Blue Boys of Sweden, Porto CaiTero and Cellamare and the Spanish party at Pai'is were to overthrow the Regent Orleans and the English alliance. But Stanhope was not idle, English diplomacy was sti-enuously employed to mediate a peace between the Emperor and the Turks, Dubois, under pressure from London, agreed to a joint mediation based on the exchange of Sicily for Sardinia, and the reversion of the succession in Tuscany and Parma to Don Carlos, Elizabeth Famese's elder son. Alberoni 1716] THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE 83 rejected the offer, though England went so far as to hold out a prospect of restoring Gibraltai-. The Turks and Prince Ragotski of Transylvania were encouraged to hamper the Emperor : Cella- mare's conspiracy giew, and Ormonde and the two Keiths were seleDted for risings in the West of Scotland and England. Charles XII., who was attacking the Norwegian fortress of Frederikshall, was to clinch its fate by joining in an invasion of England from the East. So at least Alberoni and the industrious Jacobite agents hoped, and the British Government feared, not without a very clear perception of the advantage the menace gave them in mani- pulating public opinion and coercing a critical legislature. But it is more than doubtful whether the scheme went beyond paper plans, and verbal assurances capable of very different interpreta- tions. The evidence is wholly against the conclusion (believed at the time) that Charles XII. either in 1716 or 1718 consented to be the general of a Jacobite rising in England. Yet never had the Jacobite hopes risen so high as in this critical summer of 1718. But fortune, treachery, and the British fleet were against them, and the issue for Great Britain lay on the water. Stanhope now was determined to bring about a quadraple alli- ance with Fi-ance, Holland, and the Emperor. On June 4ith, Byng sailed for the MediteiTanean, and the same month Stanhope inter- vened in peraon at Peiris, and after a sharp struggle won the Regent from the Spanish party. On August 20th the Quadruple Alliance was signed in London."^ Though bitterly criticised by Walpole, Shippen, and Wyndham, it was a notable victoi-y for British and Hanoverian diplomacy. For if Stanhope by tact and decision secured the wavering Regent, the convei-sion of the Emperor was mainly the work of Bothmer and Bernstoi-ff. Already on August 11th, Byng had destroyed the Spanish fleet off Cape Passaj'o * and the Spanish ai-my was locked up in Sicily — a signal illustration of the influence of sea-power. Eleven days earlier, thanks largely to the skill of the British envoy, Sir R. Sutton, the Emperor had made peace with the Turks at Passa- ' The terms ran on the lines of the foiled mediation. Don Carlos was to suc- ceed to Tuscany, Parma, and Piacenza, separated from the Spanish Crown ; the Emperor and Spain were to renounce their respective claims on each other's terri- tories ; Sicily was to be exchanged for Sardinia. If heirs in the direct line failed the Spanish Crown had the reversion of the succession in Savoy. ' See Appendix II. Si 94 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1719 rovitz and the victors of Belgrade were thus free to act against Spain. Stanhope, after a visit to Madrid, was convinced that peace would come only when Alberoni had been dismissed. Philip V. must therefore be coerced. The Jacobite plots were ruined by treachery, mismanagement and fate. The bullet which on December 1st killed Charles XII. in the trenches at Fredeiikshall was followed by the beti-ayal and crushing of the Cellamare conspiracy at Paris. On De- 1719 cember 17th Great Britain, and on January 3rd France, declared wai- on Spain. The fear of a combination of Sweden, Spain, and Russia, aided by the Jacobites against the Revolution dynasty and settle- ment, silenced for the time the parliamentary critics. On March 8rd Gortz, deprived of his one protector, the late king, and detested by the Swedish aristocracy, after the mockery of a trial was judicially murdered at Stockholm. When Ormonde's expedition, delayed week after week in the Spanish dockyards, finally sailed fi-om Cadiz on March 7th, Stair and Dubois knew more about it than Ormonde himself. Norris waiting off the Lizard was not, however, to have the honour of rivalling Byng. The unfortunate pawn, the Chevalier, once again was brought by the desperate gamblers too late into the game. When James, who had escaped from Rome, reached Corunna on April 17th, he learned that not for the first nor the last March zg time in his career a storm had ruined the stroke.^ Ten days earlier *"^ '^ the two Keiths with Tullibardine and Lord George Murray had shipped from Havre with a handful of Spanish troops, and April 13th found them stranded at Loch Alsh. With tragic ii-ony June 10th, the birthday of the prince whose cause they represented, saw the little force, swollen by about 1000 Highlanders, "shamefully dis- pei-sed " by General Wightman at Glenshiel. It was a wretched commencement of the careei-s of James Keith, the Field-Marshal of Fredei'ick the Great, and of George Munay, destined to fio-ht for the White Rose at Preston Pans, Falkirk, and CuUoden. On Au- Sept. 5 gust 14th, the unfortunate James left Spain to many Clementina Sobieski, the girl of sixteen whom Charles Wogan, in an evil hour » Ormonde henceforward followed the example of Berwick and Bolingbroke and abandoned the cause of the White Rose. His brother, Lord Arran, was permitted to repurchase his forfeited estates. At Avignon in 1745, the most promising year for Jacobitism, Ormonde closed a singularly adventurous career, in which he had twic* been attainted (in i68g by James II., in 1715 by the Whigs). 1721-31] THE NORTHERN QUESTION SS of romance for bridegroom, bride, and the Cause, had stolen for his master, and conducted through the snows of the spring from her captivity at Innsbruck to share a " Pretender's " crown. The French victories in Spain and Cobham's expedition to Vigo (in which the father of the author of Tristram Shandy served) com- pelled Philip V. to yield, and in December, 1719, Alberoni was dis- missed. Grimaldi, who took his place in May, 1720, accepted the terms of the Quadruple Alliance. The Treaty of Madrid, compris- ^^^^ ing the commercial treaties of 1713, 1715, and 1716, established ai72i' defensive alliance between France, Spain, and Great Britain, and relegated outstanding questions to a congress at Cambrai. The Alberoni phase of Anglo-Spanish relations was closed. If Spain had met with a severe check Elizabeth's dynastic aims had been partially recognised. The next well-defined phase was to tui-n ^ ^ on the relations of Spain with the Emperor, and the dynastic appetite of " the Termagant " encouraged by her success. There still remained the great Northern Problem. With the accession of Ulrica Eleanora to the Swedish throne, and the political revolu- tion that destroyed the royal absolutism, the astonishing resistance of the exhausted Swedish nation collapsed. The best that Sweden could hope for was to purchase peace either fi'om Great Britain or from Russia and to resist the demands of her other foes. Stanhope's diplomatic work elsewhere had secured the co-operation of France and neutralised for a time imperial jealousy. Great Britain now aimed at the restoration of a peace which would satisfy Hanoverian, Danish, and Prussian claims ; at checkmating a Russian supremacy in the Baltic and leaving Sweden sufficiently strong to withstand in the future Russian expansion. These objects were only paiiially realised, but Stanhope's difficulties were insuperable. Public opinion at home could be easily inflamed by the ciy of Hanoverianism in the Cabinet and royal closet ; the concert with France and the Emperor had to be maintained ; the conflicting greeds of the claimants for the spoil defied all efforts at reconciliation. The idea of a general offensive league against the Tsar broke down ; yet war alone would coerce Peter, and neither Stanhope nor Parlia- ment was prepared to plunge England into a war with Russia for benefits to be shared by Hanover, Prussia, and Denmark. Prussia too adhered to the Tsar. In 1719 Carteret, who had made the brilliant dfbut of a brilliant career by a defence of Ministerial policy in the House of Lords, was sent to Stockholm. Norris with 86 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1720 hia fleet was ordered "to give countenance to Lord Carteret s negotiations," and from that date a sheaf of conventions and treaties, after long hagglings and no little chicanery in Stanhope's diplomacy, was slowly vamped together. Carteret made peace be- tween Sweden and Great Britain ; Prussia was detached after much difliculty and some dishonesty from the Russian alliance and her terms with Sweden settled; finally Denmark and Sweden were brought into a sullen acquiescence of terms that satisfied neither. The hope that the Russian fleet might be provoked into a conflict with Non-is and destroyed was disappointed. The First and Second Jan. 21, Treaties of Stockholm and the Treaty of Frederiksborg assigned Oct°zo Bremen and Verden to Hanover; Stettin and Pomerania, as far as the Peene, to Prussia ; restored Stialsund, Riigen, and Wismar to Sweden, and permitted Denmai-k to retain the Duchy of Schleswig. Money payments from Great Britain and Sweden salved these con- cessions. The Tsar alone remained obdurate, and though England endeavoured to help her new Swedish ally's attempts to form a great anti-Russian coalition, by subsidies, and the sending of a fleet, Peter bided his time. Stanhope's death, the financial crash at home, and British hostility to war with Russia, finally forced Sweden to lyai make the peace of Nystad, which by the cession of Livonia, Ingiiii, and Caielia, established Russia as the predominant Power in the Baltic. A gi'eat chapter in European history was ended. Sweden sank from the first-rate rank to which she had been raised by the Vasas to comparative insignificance, and British influence in the Baltic steadily waned before the wonderful expansion of the empire of the Tsars and the rise of Prussia under the HohenzoUems. The ultimate failure of British Ministers to maintain a Scandinavian banier cannot be attributed to the Hanoverian bias in their policy. Such English interests as could be secured by diplomacy alone were on the whole gained. The insane obstinacy of Charles XIL, and worse, the continuous and incurable disunion of the Scandinavian peoples, ruined the great fabric of Gustavus Adolphus. For Great Britain the need of the Baltic exports declined with the fostered growth of raw mateiial in her American colonies. After 1721 British policy concentrated on more vital political and commercial interests elsewhere which compensated for the decay of prestige and power in the Northern Sea. But despite these considerations the victory of Peter the Great was a vutual checkmate to the policy of 1717] THE WHIG OPPOSITION 87 George I. The King's ambition had been first to secure Bremen and Verden and then to crush the new Russian Power. In this he completely failed. By 1721 England at home had been shaken by an economic convulsion, and the administration had passed into other hands. On leaving office Walpole in particular did not scruple to utilise the Tory party led by Wyndham and Shippen against the Whig Administration. Foreign policy was severely ci-iticised,the Jacobite charge of peculation against Cadogan supported, the Mutiny Act of 1718 denounced, and by use of a technical point of privilege Oxford's impeachment dropped. Oxford received a pardon and is j_,- the last example of a purely political impeachment — the transition from the legal to the moral responsibility of Ministers, fi-om the criminal liability of a politician arraigned by political foes for politi- cal blunders to lose his head to the political liability to lose his office. The lenient temper of the Government was illustrated by pardons to the rebels of 1715, and the proposals to repeal the Schism Act and to modify the Test and Corporation Acts. Walpole, who had previously described the Schism Act as worthy of Julian the Apostate, now allied with Anglicai^ Toryism to resist concessions to the Nonconformists. The Schism Act indeed was rejjealed, but by so narrow a majority that the idea of further relief to classes whose loyalty, apai-t from equity and justice, deserved Whig gratitude was abandoned. In these vaiious actions it is impossible to acquit Walpole from the charge of ambition, faction, and bigotry. But now on the Peerage Bill he vindicated his right to be regarded as the true exponent of progressive Whiggism. By this Ministerial measure it was proposed that the existing number of the Peers should not be enlarged beyond six. Peerages lapsing from failure of issue male could, however, be replaced. The scheme was mainly Sunderland's, who feared the unlimited power of the peer-creating prerogative when it fell to the Prince of Wales, the mainstay of the Opposition of the day. By a statutory restriction of the royal pre- rogative the Whig supremacy in the House of Lords would be permanently assured. The King's hatred of his son was stronger than his love of his prerogative ; the sixteen Scottish peers were won over by making them hereditary Lords of Parliament, and the idea of turn- ing the House of Lords into a close college and tin unalterable caste, entrenched in the Statute Book, appealed to the social pride and S8 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1717 political ambitious of the existing members of the Upper House, When the bill, passed by the Peers, came down to the Lower House, Walpole seized the oppoiiunity to discredit its ministerial authors. On the threshold of a career which was to make the Commons the centre of political authority, he exposed in a masterly speech the sinister and inevitable consequences of the measure. The Lower would in all conflicts with the Upper House arm the peei-s with a statutory veto irreversible by the Crown, Commons, or the electorate, and alterable only by a law which there would be no legal means to compel the Peers to accept " There would be no arriving at honour," he summed up, " but through the winding- sheet of a decrepit lord, or the grave of an extinct noble family." The bill was rejected and the contemporary theory of ministerial relations to the legislature is aptly illustrated by the fact that Ministers did not resign, while Walpole and Townshend accepted office as Paymaster and Lord President respectively under the men they had just signally defeated. Walpole had as yet no seat in the Cabinet nor a real voice in determining policy, but with the burst- ing of the " South Sea Bubble " his hour had at last struck. The South Sea Scheme originated in a sincere desire to deal with a problem, regarded as pressing by politicians and publicists of both parties — the growing burden of the National Debt. That the scheme culminated in widespread disaster was due partly to fallacious fin- ance, but chiefly to one of the inexplicable cyclones of speculation which sweep over nations and which in Law's similar proposals de- vastated France at the same time. In 1711 Harley had formed the South Sea Company by funding .£"10,000,000 of floating debt, as- signing it to the stockholders as the Company's capital and securing the interest by duties and commercial privileges. By 1719 the Company's stock sold at a premium. In 1714 the National Debt amounted to ^64,145,363, a large pai-t of which was unfunded, and the annual charge was about ,£3,351,358, in an average budget of £10,000,000. Many politicians, failing to undei-stand the resources out of which both debt and revenue had grown, saw in these figures impending national bankruptcy. In 1717 Walpole's Sinking Fund authorised the borrowing of money at the lowest mai'ket rate to redeem debt, and ear-marked the savings on the redemption operations for the further reduction of the outstanding dead-weight of debt. The South Sea Act of 1720 was a proposal 1717] THE SOUTH SEA BOBBLE 89 to combine the advantages of the Sinking Fund with the machinei'y of the Joint-Stock Company. The directors of the South Sea Com- pany outbid their financial rivals and agreed to convert into stock annuities to the amount of ^"30,981,712 (at 5 per cent, until 1727 and 4 per cent, after that date), and to make the annuities redeem- able. They also offered to pay a sum equivalent to ■£'7,500,000 for the bargain and to circulate gratis o&l,000,000 in exchequer bills at 3 per cent. In return the Company was to be remunerated for its management expenses of the debt taken over and to have the monopoly of the South Sea trade. The Government in fact had made far too favourable a bargain, but despite Walpole's criticism Parliament accepted the scheme. Success required that the public should be tempted to subscribe by an inflation of the Company's shares, and that the Company from its trade profits should pay a dividend adequate to the premium on the shai'es. Thanks to artificial manipulation, wild rumours as to Spain grant- ing gold and silver districts in Peru, the amount of capital avail- able for investment, and the gambling fever that now gripped every class, issues of South Sea stock were eagerly absorbed at rising prices. By the end of May ■£'100 stock stood at de890. Change Alley became a roai-ing Hell-porch of insane or dishonest specula- tors. The most transparent impostures were daily floated. Pro- posals to transmute quicksilver, make wheels of perpetual motion, found hospitals for bastard children or import Spanish jackasses for unspecified purposes to unsuitable regions found ready investora. Even " a company for carrying on an undertaking of great advan- tage, but nobody to know what it is" obtained 1000 subscriptions. South Sea Stock touched its highest price, .£'1060, on June 25th. But the action of the Company in prosecuting illegal frauds on the market probably precipitated the inevitable crash. On Sep- tember 21st South Sea stock had fallen to £150. The failures of banks unable to realise, and of sound business concerns unable to meet their creditors because their debtors were ruined, followed on the bursting of the innumerable quacks. Many men and women were reduced to bjeggary ; every class in the community suffered heavily. Jacobite correspondence shows that, apart from the econ- omic panic and havoc, " the heaven-sent " catastrophe might be used by deft intriguers to focus the univei-sal cry for vengeance on the foreign dynasty and its con-upt and incompetent advisers. This 40 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1721 danger became more serious when Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the two Craggs were found guilty of being bribed into connivance at the woret features of the scheme. By general consent but one man, WsJpole, "who could convert stones into gold " could save the situation. And Walpole proved equal to the task. Resisting the demand for retribution and instantaneous relief he saw that a financiei-'s first duty was to re-establish public ci'edit and make a permanent settlement. Confiscation of the Company's property as a sop to bankrupt suffierers would only ruin the Company and stain a fresh financial panic with State-sanctioned injustice. The private property of the directors, however, to the sum of .fS.OOOjOOO was distributed to shareholdera ; the Company was relieved of ^£'7,000,000 it had undertaken to pay Govern- ment, and by a redivision of the capital every holder of J'lOO stock received 33 per cent. By 1741 both the interest and the total of the capitalised annuities "taken over from the National Debt were successfully reduced. Of the inculpated Ministers Aislabie was ex< pelled the House of Commons ; the elder Craggs committed suicide, and his son died of small-pox before the inquiry was over. Sunder- land was acquitted, but public opinion made his resignation necessary, and his death followed in 1722. Stanhope, of whose innocence there was no question, was so affected by a bitter attack from the Feb. 1721 Duke of Wharton that he was struck with apoplexy and died. His death marks the close of a well-defined phase of the Whig supremacy. As a statesman Stanhope has received scant justice in our text-books. A Whig of the Whigs, he had given proofs of his abilities both militaiy and civil previously to 1714, and his capture ,7og of Mmorca was in 1717 fitly associated with the title of his peer- age. No man after George's accession worked harder to make the Revolution System and the new dynasty a success. But his chief claim to national gratitude will rest securely on his achievements as a Minister of Foreign Affairs. Insight, tact, patience, decision, and fertility of resource were his gifts, and he devoted them to the service of his country. As a diplomatist he did not stick at trifles nor was overburdened by scruples. But even in these respects he will compare favourably with the men whom it was his business and his duty to defeat or to win. In 1714 he found Great Britain isolated, disci-edited, and vacillating in the principles of her policy. He left her in 1721 powerful, respected, and the centre of the 1708] STANUOl'E'S WORK 41 European system. The moi-e closely these seven years of msis aie studied by the light of the copious evidence now available, the more convincing is the conclusion that the difficulties imposed tests of the highest statesmanship, and that in most of the successful solutions the originative and driving force came fropa London. And Stanhope's most signal achievement, which he handed on to his successors, was the French alliance and the masterly adapta- tion of it to the needs of Great Britain. By it the Jacobites were stale if not checkmated. From 1719-43 the Jacobite danger was never really serious ; and the crisis of 1744 proves what would have happened more than once in these twenty-five years if there had been no French alliance. As employed by Stanhope and Walpole, the concert of France and England was a powerful instrument for peace, and peace was priceless to the statesmen whose duty it was to reconcile a nation exhausted by long wars to the Hanoverian dynasty and the Revolution System. The prestige of French diplomacy aided British efforts in every disturbed quarter of Europe. Equally im- portant was the severance of Spain from France. Strategically as well as politically and commercially France and Spain were Great Britain's most natural and formidable adversaries. Sooner or later she was bound to enter on a prolonged struggle with both. The Anglo-Fiench alliance crippled Spain, France's future ally, and defeiTed the long duel with France until England's dynasty and financial credit were secured, her American colonies developed and her own resources quadrupled. On the sea, the French Government came to rely on the British fleet, with the desirable result for Eng- land that her fleet was adequately maintained while that of the French declined. The fleet indeed was Britain's most persuasive diplomatist. Unfortunately a navy that a Foreign Office converts into an international police force tends to lose its giip on the science of war. The ineffectiveness of our fleet, 1743-48, was prob- ably due in part to the mildew bred by the long non-existence of a serious competitor. On the whole, however, it is not surprising that French historians of weight should be disposed to place the treaty of 1717, which demonstrably worked with gi«ater benefit for Great Britain than for France, in the same category as the Austro-French Treaty of 1757. But such criticism only serves to emphasise in British eyes the patriotic insight of the states- man who originated, and of those who strove and knew how to 42 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1708 maintain it, as the cardinal principles of a sound Whig foreign policy. Marlborough's death in 1722 left no successor on whom his mantle could fall. In the titanic struggle with Louis XIV. the maiTellous versatility of his genius made him the most conspicuous figure in Europe. After 1714 his career, as previously, was tainted with duplicity and avaiice, and since 1717 he had hardly been more than the shadow of a splendid name. The greatest soldier our country had yet, or perhaps has ever, produced, he cai-ried with him to the grave a great tradition. Not until the Peninsular War did Great Britain, though she sorely needed both, find a chief and a militai'y instrument of the quality that Marlborough provided. The way was now open to Walpole, whose primacy in the Com- mons had been completed by his period of Opposition. In April, 1721, he was appointed First Lord of the Tieasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, while Townshend became Secretary of State with Cai-teret as his colleague. Walpole's long tenure of power, without a parallel save in the Ministry of the younger Pitt, gives the next twenty years a character of their own. " I parted with him once," said George I., " against my inclination, and 1 will never part with him again." By birth, taste, and fortune, Robert Walpole belonged to the countiy gentry. Born in 1676, two yeais earlier than his rival, Henry St John, his political career exemplified the apologue of the idle and the industrious apprentice. And at the accession of George I. he was already a notable figure. Gifted with robust health and great powers of work, he had steadily pushed his way to the front by his sincere and intelligent devotion to Whig prin- ciples, his solid abilities, his discerning penetration of men and affairs, and his intuition of his country's needs. These qualities he retained to the end, and they stamped his administration. Hervey, who knew him well, said that no man was ever blessed with a clearer head a truer or quicker judgment, or a shai-per insight into mankind, and his conduct from first to last confirms the verdict His character and personality have perhaps little on the surface that attracts, much that repels. He was neither a brilliant orator nor a cultivated spirit, save in his love of good pictures. His tastes, habits, and morals were those of the squire of his day. For a man who could bet with Pulteney over a classical quotation, he cared little, if at all, for good literature. It is said that he always opened fii-st the report 1708] WALPOLE'S ACHIEVEMENTS 43 from his head gamekeeper. He drank deeply, hunted hard, swore, talked coai-sely, kept at least one mistress, none of which things shocked Hanoverian England. He was ready to provide for his sons with pensions and sinecures at the expense of the State ; he did not scruple to bribe men and women who were willing to be bribed. He was intensely ambitious, loved power, and was intolerant of op- position. But no man cared less for the frippery and trappings of success ; when we remember the ethics of his world and his unique opportunities for plunder and self-advancement we may well be astonished at his moderation. What distinguishes him fi.-om his political rivals and places him in the first division of the fii-st class of our statesmen is not his gifts as a debater, nor as a financiei-, nor even his supremacy in the House of Commons — remarkable as these are — but the political sense and intuition which differentiate genius from mere ability in statesmanship. Stai-ting from the axiomatic premiss that an Englishman's duty was to maintain the Protestant Succession and Revolution System, and convert them into instruments of national efficiency and prosperity, Walpole regarded public affairs as serious business. A Minister's function was to administer ; men in the long run at home and abroad were governed by " interest " ; the nation must have a policy that would pay national dividends. In the power to lead a party, create a practical programme and caiTy it out under a parliamentaiy rdgirne — a task that requires a combination of the highest political qualities — Walpole has few equals and no superiors. By exercising the functions of a Prime Minister, by the development of the Cabinet system, and the organisation of party government thi-ough the House of Commons as the centre of authority, he permanently moulded the machinery of government. He maintained his control in the teeth of un- scrupulous opposition for twenty years ; he was called upon to solve both at home and abroad problems the complexity and difficulty of which the evidence now at a student's disposal fully reveals; he was matched against critics of brilliance and ability — Towns- hend, Carteret, Chesterfield, Pulteney, Wyndham, Bolingbroke, and the elder Pitt — and in nine cases out of ten when Walpole and they differed Walpole was right and they were wrong. His op- ponents ascribed his success to his extraordinaiy luck. But good fortune in statesmanship is only another name for the proper use of opportunities. The solid qualities that inspiie the confidence ♦4 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [17(» of a sovereign and of a representative legislature may be brilliantly displayed, but they are not to be acquired haphazai-d, in the royal closet or on the floor of the House of Commons. The Ministry of Walpole in the sti-ict sense perhaps is more cor- rectly dated from 1730 than from 1721. The Administration that replaced Stanhope and Sunderland was a business partnei-ship of Townshend and Walpole, in which the chief control of foreign affairs fell to the Secretary of State. Walpole was suflficiently occupied with finance and " the King's business " in the Commons to be con- tent to leave his brother-in-law for the time a separate sphere of power. But no one understood better that neither an efficient business firm nor an efficient Cabinet can have two chiefs, and in the clash of character and the issues of public policy a trial of sti'ength between these two masterful men was sooner or later inevitable. The unseemly squabbles of the Court provided public opinion with scandal and Ministers with no little worry. George I. regulated his family life with the despotism of a military martinet. In 1718 the judges had declared in his favour that the King was guardian of his grandchildren, and could, even against their father's wishes, veto their marriages. A quanel at the baptism of the eldest son of the Pi'ince of Wales, and a threat to fight a duel with the Duke of Newcastle, led to the Prince and his family being ordered from St. James, and all who visited the heir to the Crown were forbidden to appear at Court. In 1720 Walpole with Cowper's help succeeded in patching up a reconciliation, and Leicester House, the residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, whose relations ' with the King continued to be strained, became the centi'e of the political Opposi- tion. Walpole, however, had divined the ability and influence of the Princess ; for the time he riveted his grip on the Court by using the venal power of the Duchess of Kendal, "as much Queen of England as ever woman was " ; but he did not forget that an alliance with Caroline would one day justify the pains to secure it With equal truth and wit Chesterfield remarked later that the easiest way to disgust the nation with "the Pretender" would be to make him Elector of Hanover. ' George I. actually sounded two Lord Chancellors (Cowper and Parker) as to the feasibility of disinheriting the Prince from the Electoral Succession in Hanover. And in 1727 a paper was found in which apparently it was suggested to the King that the Prince should be kidnapped and carried off to America. 1708] A JACOBITE PLOT 45 The Jacobite " Plot" of 1720-21 presented the familiaa- combina- tion of farcical and serious elements. Goring, a Sussex baronet, Kelly, Atterbury's secretary, and a gang of smugglei-s, " a hellish crew," known as " the Waltham Blacks," were mixed up in a wild-cat scheme to seize the Tower, the Bank of England, and the King, and raise a popular insun-ection which was apparently to be helped by an invading force led by Ormonde and Dillon. Dubois got wind of the vapourings of these comic opera conspirators, and warned his Ministerial allies in London. The Duke of Norfolk, Lords Orrery, North, and AiTan (Ormonde's brother) were implicated. Corre- spondence was intercepted, and Atterbury was imprisoned in the Tower. The affau' with all its incoherent ramifications and its atmosphere of b-eachery caused a gi'eat deal of excited talking. Walpole and the Government took it more seriously than it deserved. The Habeas Coi-pus Act was suspended for a whole yeai", the longest period on record ; shai'p measures were meted out to Roman Catholics and Non-Jurors. An example was made of Atter- bui-y. Dean of Westminster, Bishop of Rochester, and a friend of many of the literary lights of Anne's reign : Pope, Swift, Prior, Gay, Arbuthnot, and South. Since 1717 the Dean, the most pro- minent of the High Church party, had been in communication with the Jacobite leaders. His arrest stirred clerical fanaticism, but despite an able defence by the Whig Lord Cowper, he was con- demned by bill of attainder, depiived of his offices and banished. Already an old man, he died abroad in 1732, one moi-e heart broken in a hopeless cause. As the last of a long list of political attainders, Atterbury's case is memorable ; but it also serves to illustrate the severity with which Walpole was prepared to treat those in high places who were foolish enough to dabble in treason.^ Both Ireland and Scotland were sources of trouble. Swift, indeed, showed again how a literaiy genius by an hour's work in his study could make three kingdoms di-unk. There was no mint in Ireland, which had a great need of small coins. In 1722 a patent to issue a new copper cuiTency had been granted to the Duchess of ' Mar was believed to have been instrumental in betraying " the plot ''. On Mar's guilt or carelessness, see A. Lang, History of Scotland, iv., 336-42. Mr. Lang says : " I could not give a verdict of ' guilty ' against Mar " ; and on the whole question of Atterbury's intrigues, Canon Beechmg'a Atterbury (London, igog), pp. 251-307. 46 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1726 Kendal who sold it to Wood, an English merchant. Irish public opinion, exasperated by the recent act, fui-ther limiting the Consti- tution (6 Geo. I., c. 6) believed that a gieedy mistress and the hack of a Ministry had combined to di-ain the country of its small stock of gold and silver, and leave it at the mercy of debased copper coins. And Wood's thieat " to pour the coinage down the throats of the people," only stiffened the univei-sal determination to boycott the new issue absolutely. Swift, in his Drapier's Letters, lashed public excitement into the verge of rebellion. In the memorable Fourth Letter he indicted the whole system of English power in Ireland, and by arguments leading up to the triumphant conclusion, "government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery," effectively unwhigged the Whigs. It was useless for authority aided by Isaac Newton to demonstrate that the coinage was free from the defects alleged. Warned by the Irish Primate Boulter that the gi'owing opposition would produce a formidable union of Papists, Jacobites, and Whigs, the Ministry 1725 compensated Wood and cancelled the patent. Nine years later in the Excise Scheme, fifteen years later in the Spanish War, Walpole was taught the same unmistakable lesson that once sentiment, however ignorant or unjust, has mastered a nation, appeals to reason and facts are useless. A film attitude was more successful in quelling the trouble in Scotland caused by a change in the malt tax. Under Anne it had been agi-eed that Scotland was to be exempt fi-om the tax until the war was over. In 1714 fear of strengthening the anti-union feeling made the tax a dead lettei-, and instead, in 1724, an additional six- pence was laid on each barrel of beer, while the bounty on exported gi-ain was removed. The general indignation was skilfully fanned 1725 ^y the Jacobites, and the Ministiy compromised by placing a tax of threepence a bushel on malt, just half the amount of the English tax. A riot in Glasgow was suppressed by Wade's troops, but in Edinburgh the brewers refused to brew. Duncan Forbes, famous later as the President of the Court of Session, urged fii-mness on the Government. An Act of Sederunt accordingly requu-ed the breweries to be kept going, and after a public meeting the brewers decided to obey. Walpole, like George III. later, did not forget defaultei-s. Roxburgh, the Secretaiy of State who had supported Carteret in the Cabinet, and Craigie, the Lord Advocate, were both 1724] CARTERET'S POLICY « dismissed. Islay, the brother of Ai-gyle, though not made Secre- tary, stepped into Roxburgh's place, and with his brother's help and that of Forbes, promoted Advocate General, successfully kept Scotland quiet until the Porteous Riots. 1737 In foreign policy Townshend and Walpole had inherited the French alliance, as well as the congress at Cambray which was to secure for the Emperor the terms agieed upon by the Treaty of Madrid. By 1723, owing to the deaths of the Regent Orleans and of Dubois, French policy was no longer in the hands of the authors of the Entente, and had fallen to the incompetent Duke of Bour- bon, " the one-eyed ruffian," ruled by his misti-ess, the Marquise de Prie, who was the tool of the Paris financiers, Duvemey. Towns- hend's co-Secretary was Carteret, brimful of ideas, masterful, and above all anxious to complete his diplomatic work in the North, by checkmating Russian ascendancy in the Baltic Carteret would have sent a fleet to coerce the Tsar, but the Swedish aristocracy- preferred to come to terms with Russia, and Townshend's pacific lyj^ policy of non-intervention won the day. The Anglo-Fi-ench under- standing alone prevented France from adding to the Tsar's su- premacy by a renewal of the Fra®co-Russian alliance. Carteret, unfortunately for himself, sought to strengthen his position by Court influence rather than by solid political connections, and a sordid family intrigue gave Walpole the opportunity to assert his control. Two royal mistresses, the Countess of Darlington and the Countess of Platen, were scheming to marry the daughter of the latter and the niece of the former to the Comte de St. Florentin, whose father, the Marquis de la Vrilli^re, was for his compliance to be rewarded with a dukedom. The King, our ambassador, Luke Schaub, Bemstoi-ff and Bothmer, even Bolingbroke, were all con- cerned, and Carteret took their side. The affair became a trial of strength in the Cabinet, but the deaths of Orleans and Dubois ruined the project. Walpole's brother, "old Horace," replaced Schaub at Paris, and Carteret was transfeiTed to the viceroyalty of Ireland. The young Duke of Newcastle, an adherent of Wal- pole's, received Carteret's seals. Walpole, in fact, had not merely showed that he would not tolerate insubordination. He had ex- tended his right to direct into the sphere of foreign policy. The Congi'ess at Cambray, " most inane of human congresses and memorable on that account if no other," spent two yeai"s in " eat- 48 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1722 ing, drinking, and other civilities," and in settling minutia; of diplo- matic etiquette and red-tape. It was not formally opened until January 26th, 1724, and by October it was at a standstill. The Emperor had proved as irritable as usual over the investiture of Don Carlos and the introduction of the Spanish gai-risons into the Italian, ports, but by 1723 the investiture had been obtained. More serious ti'ouble was brewing elsewhere than at Cambray. Charles VI., who had no sons, had begun in earnest the great " shadow-hunt " for " the imperial bit of sheepskin " — ^the Pragmatic Sanction, first promulgated in 1713 (which secured the succession of his elder daughter, Maria Theresa, to the hereditary dominions of the Habs- Dec. ig, burg House). The European ratification of this arrangement was ''^* now the prime object of Austrian diplomacy. By granting a charter to the Imperial and Royal East India Company of Ostend the Emperor roused English and Dutch jealousy in its most sensitive quarter. The idea of promoting Belgian commerce by such a chartered company dated as far back as 1714 and John Ker of Kersland, a Scottish adventurer, and John , Colebrooke, "a perfect master of the art of stock-jobbing," played a part in its promotion. By 1720 Belgian ships were already competing in the monopoly of the Eastern trade, and factories had been set up at Coblom (coast of Coromandel) and Canton, to the anger of the Dutch and English tradere. The menace was no idle one. The venture was profitable, and, under Imperial protection, bid fair to inflict serious loss on its long-established rivals. In 1723 the English House of Commons declai'ed the scheme antagonistic to British interests, and English subjects were forbidden to subscribe for the Company's shares. The commercial classes, thoroughly roused, called on the Government " to destroy this cockatrice whilst still young ". No Whig Govern- ment, even if it had wished, which it did not, could resist such pres- sure. But the matter shortly was connected with larger issues. Spain, pressing for the enforcement of the terms of the Madrid Treaty, oiFered the sole mediation between hei-self and the Emperor to Great Britain. The Ministry, aware that acceptance would practically involve a breach of the French Alliance, declined, and Bourbon's peremptory action in breaking off the proposed dynastic maniage between the Courts of Madrid and Pai-is brought about an Uar. 1725 open i-upture between France and Spain. Elizabeth Fai-nese, tii-ed of waiting, and fui-ious at the insulting return of the Infanta, Maria 1726] TOWNSHEND'S DIPLOMACY 49 Victoria from Paris, had come under the influence of Ripperda, " the man with great views rather than with great parts ". Europe was startled by the new policy embodied in the Ti-eaty of Vienna. April 30 Ripperda aimed in this triumphant coup de theatre at creating by inter-marriages of the two dynasties a close union between Madrid and Vienna, the establishment of Don Carlos with a Habsburg bride in Italy, the recovery of Gibraltar and Minorca from Great Britain, and a supremacy in Europe for the allies. Spain guaran- teed the Pragmatic Sanction and opened her colonial ports to ships bearing the certificates of the Ostend Company's dii-ectors. The British Ministry, not without reason, suspected that support of the Pretender would be one of the weapons of the new allies. The menace to British trade, both in the West and East Indies, and the menace to the Protestant succession, secured enthusiastic assent from Pai-liament and public opinion to a vigorous policy. Townshend, with France as an ally, was eager to build up a counter-European system, and in September the treaty of Hanover — an alliance with Prussia — was a reply to Ripperda's challenge. It was in vain that the new Opposition organ, The Craftsman, denounced the unpatriotic Hanoverianism of the Ministry, continental subsidies, and the sham bogey of Jacobitism. Parliament was convinced that the Treaty of Vienna was " calculated for the entire destruction of British trade," and implied the loss of Gibraltar and the subsequent restoration of the Stuarts. With French and Dutch support England was deter- mined to kill the Ostend Company and force a settlement on both Spain and the Emperor. Diplomatic activities on both sides were feverishly employed to procure allies. The Emperor, by the treaty of Wusterhausen, detached Prussia in 1726, secured Russia, and in the Second Treaty of Vienna committed himself to recovering by force, if necessary, Gibraltar and Minorca, and to a dismemberment of France. Townshend, on the other hand, had won over the Dutch, Denmark, the Landgrave of Hesse, and Portugal. By the fitting out of three fleets England in 1726 showed that she was in earnest, and it looked as if a great European war must follow from the division of Europe into two well-defined confederations. In April Hoziei''s squadron was despatched to blockade Porto Bello and to seize the Spanish treasure fleet. Opinion in the British Cabinet, however, was seriously divided. Townshend throughout desired to break with the Emperor and use the confederation to compel him by 50 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1727 force to give way. WaJpole, averse from continental engagements, was reluctant to go to war with Spain. It was clear that the hostile alliance could only be dissolved by offering acceptable terms either to Vienna or Madrid. A breach with the Emperor was a serious departure from established Whig traditions, from whih a strong party in the Cabinet dissented. The accession to power at Paiis of the peace-loving Cardinal Fleury, anxious to prevent war between France and Spain, turned the scale in favour of an attempt to deal fii-st with Charles VI. Madrid and Vienna were already quarrelling. Ripperda, unable to secure from the Emperor the execution of the May 14 terms of his treaty, was dismissed, and his revelation of the secret articles in the Vienna Treaties fui-ther inflamed British indignation, while it broke up the artificial and ill-mated union. Two more British fleets — one to the Baltic to protect Denmark from a Russo- Swedish attack, another to the Mediterranean to check a possible Jacobite invasion — were sent to sea. Charles and his ambassador, Palm, very nearly brought about a war. PaJm throughout had supplied the Opposition with ammunition for theii' attacks, but his Mar. a, publication of a memorial " to the whole nation," traversing the '7^7 statements in the King's speech, was j ustly resented as an impertinent interference on the pait of a foreign Power in British home govern- ment Supported by a parliamentary address, the Ministry ordered Palm out of the country, and military preparations continued on Jan., 1727 both sides. With Spain, Great Britain already was formally at war, Feb 22 and the siege of Gibraltar began. Fleury worked hard for peace. Feb. 27 Preliminaries to be offered to the Emperor were agi-eed upon, and were presented on May Snd^ with an ultimatum that war would follow May 31 their non-acceptance. The Emperor consented ; his desertion left Spain isolated, unable to take Gibraltar, and with her trade harassed by British ships. A fortnight later the Spanish ambassador at Vienna consented to sign the articles. The reign of George I. thus closed with the prospect of a definitive settlement in sight. This chapter of foreign policy emphasises instructively the value of the French alliance, the power of France and Great Britain acting m concei-t, the devotion of the Emperor to the Pragmatic Sanction, the extreme difficulty of severing France from Spain, and the strength of Elizabeth Farnese's dynastic ambitions. Great Britain, however, emerged with renewed power. Her fleets and her subsidies were de- cisive factoi-8 in the final issue. The importance of commerce and 1727] WALPOLE AND TOWNSHEND 51 the pressure of the commercial classes are revealed in her strenuous hostility to the Ostend Company, her grip on Gibraltar, and the hostility to a Spanish war which must strain to breaking point the Anglo-French understanding, damage trade, and lead up to a European imbroglio menacing to the stability of the Revolution System. The Ministry had worked for peace, so essential to light taxation and commercial prosperity, but they were not prepared to purchase it at any price. No less important for the future, a widening divergence between the views of Walpole and of Towns- hend had beeL disclosed. On the cardinal point — a policy to strengthen the Protestant dynasty — they were at one. But Walpole regai-ded with increasing distrust the methods and objects of his colleague's European diplomacy. The preliminaries of May 31st were in reality a victory for Walpole. The political difference between the brothers-in-law was accentuated, as had been the case in the Ministerial split of 1717, by personal elements. Walpole having secured a virtual supremacy in home affairs was bent on having the like in foreign policy. Townshend was not the man to brook control in a sphere that he regarded as peculiarly his owa The struggle too cut deeper. Cabinet unity and efficiency required, as the logic of its development slowly proved, that Ministers must agree on political principles, which in practice must come to mean the principles of the most influential chief. A departmental division of public affau-s and administration into water-tight compartments, the individual independence of Ministers, must be fatal to an effective system of parliamentary and party government. The evolution of a Prime Minister was inevitable and desu-able. And the place would be automatically taken by the Minister who could make him- self indispensable to his Sovereign and Parliament, and whose insight and ability would teach him how to build and maintain a Ministry based on parliamentary support, and its capacity to pro- mote national intei"est, as interpreted by a majority of the nation's representatives. Apart from the impeachment and condemnation of Lord Macclesfield, the Lord Chancellor, in 1725, for financial irregularities, the most important event in these yeai-s had been the return of Bolingbroke. Pardoned in 1723, he had met Atterbuiy on his way to exile. " We are exchanged," had been the dean's concise comment; and in 1725 Bolingbroke, thanks to unwearied effoi-ts on his behalf, assisted by a handsome douceur to the Duchess 52 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1720 of Kendal, was permitted to recover his landed estates. Walpole, who had agreed to this with the greatest reluctance, refused all suggestions of a coalition ; nor would he even allow him to take his seat in the Upper House. Bolingbroke, who settled at Dawley, where his new home became a notable centre of Uterary and political celebrities, now set to work to organise a new Opposition out of the reorganised Tories and the discontented Whigs. Jacobitism was a dying, if not a dead, political 1720 creed. The maniage of James Edward and the birth of Charles Edward, aided by the South Sea crash, had galvanised the party into new and disastrous activities. But the unhappy man-iage, the scandal about Mar, the struggle between Mar's party and the Hays, and the unreasonable and childish conduct of " Queen " Clem- entina, rent the exiled Court across the water with the bitterest, meanest, and most absurd strifes. The growing solidarity and success of Walpole's Ministry and the patent hostility of the nation to any dynastic change further discredited the cause. Its former leaders had either, like Bolingbroke himself, found salvation by laudable submis- sion, were in impotent exile like Atterbury and Ormonde, or were dead. Bolingbroke saw that an Opposition could not be created out of an anachronistic theology (in which he had never believed), the help of " honest " Shippen, and the reactionary political philosophy and decaying dogmas of an Oxford hopelessly out of touch with the intel- in 1714 lectual and moral life of the nation. Twice it was to be his task to *„,'" create a virile, united, and progressive Tory party ; twice he was to 1726-35 have the instrument, forged with such care and brilliance, broken in his hands. The Craftsman became the organ for educating both the new party and his and Walpole's masters — Parliament and the electorate. And the polish of its pages and the unscrupulous venom of its epigrams has, as with the Letters of Junius, cast on it the shadow of an immortality that its message little justified. Of an enduring criticism of life in its political expression the student will find virtually nothing in Th^ Craftsman. And Bolingbroke, too, like Mirabeau later, was damned by his past — ks f antes de sa jeimesse. The ambrosial nights of the wits at Dawley appealed as little to the rectories and manor-houses as they did to the Dis- senting chapels, to the seats of the great Whig territorials, and to Lombard Street. "Bagatelles, Bagatelles," as George I. said of Bolingbroke'* 1726-36] THE OPPOSITION 68 schemes. But in proclaiming that they would fight neither with small nor with great, save only with Robert Walpole, the con- federates were practically right "Sir Blue-Stiing," Leicester, Villiere, Empson, Dudley, Wolsey, Catiline, Sejanus, Harlequin, Mac-Heath, Bob Booty ai'e some of the denominations under which they gibbeted with misplaced erudition and unwearying malignity the chief of the government. Corruption — "the bottomless pocket of Robin " — is the one unfailing charge, and the traditional belief in the magnitude and profligacy of Walpole's bribery is largely an illustration of the truth that in politics unproved and reiterated assertion will in time become its own evidence.^ The lies of a literary ai-tist who makes himself readable become the proofs of historical and political critics whom no one troubles to read. Continuous in- dictment of foreign policy, the identification of Hanoverianism and Whiggism, the iniquity of standing armies, "the Gothic wisdom which made our Parliament annual," the need of Pension and Place Bills, the destruction of party — such are the main elements of the new creed. W. Pulteney, Akenside's Curio, " who bellows for liberty to-day and roai-s for power to-morrow," was the most im- portant of the new recruits. He iiad been left out of the recon- structed Ministry in 1721, and by 1725 his political quarrel with Walpole had become acute. As leader of the Opposition, Pulteney founded with Bolingbroke's help the "Patriots'" party, which included Shippen, Gower, Bathurst, Wyndham, Mar, Marchmont, Bromley, and in the next reign was reinforced by Cai-teret, Chester- field, and othei- Whig rebels, and later still by the Boy Patriots. The common bond between its various members was antagonism to Walpole ; its weak points lay in the real difference of political creed between its two wings and its lack of a constructive pro- gramme truly calculated to satisfy the correctly interpreted needs of the nation's political life. Shippen, as 1742 showed, had divined the charswter of his associates when he said : " Robin and I are two honest men ; he is for King George and I for King James, but those men in the long cravats only want places under one or the other". The men in the long cravats (including Bolingbroke), who drank to each other's epigi'ams at Dawley, knew in their heart of heai-ts that they only wanted Walpole's place. Walpole had virtually lost the two mostbrilliant of the younger Whigs, Carteret in 1724 (though he remained a nominal adherent until 1730), and ' See Appendix XXI. 54 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1726-36 Philip Stanhope, who became Lord Chesterfield in 1726, the year after his refusal of the revived Order of the Bath had marked his quan-el with the Government. But in 1724 began the long tenure of office of the Duke of Newcastle and his matchless and indefatigable efiorts in season and out of season to create a Pelham battalion. In [the same year his brother, Henry Pelham, the trusted subordinate of his Chief, who taught him the art of parliamentary management and ministerial leadei-ship, was ap- pointed Secretary at War. Financial capacity proved to be one of Henry Pelham's gifts, and in finance Walpole had abeady j ustified his reputation. The fii-st function of a Chancellor of the Exchequer is to provide with a minimum of dislocation the revenue required both for ordinary and extraordinary occasions. The ways and means in the strain of 1726-27 had been provided with ease. In 1727 the interest at which the State borrowed was successfully lowered from 5 to 4 per cent, thereby effecting a saving of ^"877,381. If it is true that Walpole frequently raided his own sinking fund, established in 1717, either by diverting to current revenue the surplus or by using it as collateral security, or by employing it to keep the land tax at one shilling, the Chancellor would have replied that political quite as much as financial reasons enter into budgets. Reduced taxation, avoidance of deficits, or recouree to fresh loans are frequently as sound methods for increas- ing a nation's assets and taxable capacity as direct diminution of its capital liabilities. To steal by the adjustment of taxation tlie support of the landed gentry from the Opposition was a legitimate political object. If through finance the nation as a whole became reconciled to the new rigiime the result was as beneficial, if not as brilliant, as a column of figures proving the amount of dead-weight of debt paid off. Indirectly and in a variety of ways Walpole showed himself an enlightened mercantilist, anxious to redeem the pledge in the King's Speech of 1721 : "to make the exportation of our own manufactures and the impoi-tation of the commodities used in the manufacturing of them as practicable and as easy as may be ". In 1721 and 1724 the book of rates was much simplified : in 1723 the customs were put under one commission. From 1722-25 the powers of revenue officers were inci'eased to check smuggling and increase revenue. Export duties were taken ofF manufactures, im- port duties either removed or lowered. Bounties to colonial-grow 1726-36] THE REIGN OF GEORGE I 55 hemp, to the whale-fishery, to silk goods, mark the desire to cut new channels or deepen the existing ones of trade. In 1724 there is a distinct anticipation of the famous excise scheme when inland duties were laid on tea, coffee, and cocoanuts, and the system of bonded warehousing introduced. The promotion of the prosperity of the mercantile marine as the necessary basis of a powerful navy and the index of a flourishing foreign trade looms largely in Wal- pole's policy. And the energy with which he made the destruction of the Ostend East India Company a political object tells its own tale. There is indeed some reason to believe that Walpole more readily acquiesced in Townshend's foreign policy because its success would involve the abandonment by Charles VI. of that project. But before further progress could be made apoplexy had struck down George I. at Osnabriick. His death was a sad blow to Boling- broke, since the heir to the throne was no friend of his. How it would affect Walpole and the European situation had yet to be seen. It cannot be said that the King was sincerely regretted by any one in Great Britain, even by the Duchess of Kendal, to whose appetite for plunder his death would administer a quietus. Yet George had not been unsuccessful. He had been fortunate to find and to keep Ministers of commanding ability whose loyalty to their country and the institutions that the monarchy represented was greater than their respect and affection for the Sovereign. The much deaied connection with Hanover cannot be proved to have worked detrimentally to British prosperity. George as naturally exaggerated, as did his Ministers unden-ate, the importance of the Electoi'ate; but it would be difficult to single out an example in which it could be conclusively shown that British interests were de- liberately sacrificed to Hanoverian selfishness. And in 1717 and in 1726 Hanoverian influence and ability were of material advantage in helping to secure important British ends. Through Hanover and its ruler England was kept in touch with the live cuiTents of central European politics, severance from which would in the long run have been damaging to our national life and our political development and position. The social inconveniences and excres- cences of the German Court, on which contemporaiy opinion so readily fastened, were a small price to pay for a throne resting on the principles of the Revolution System. If Anne, James II. and Charles II. prove anything, it is at least arguable that a Stuari 56 GEORGE I. AND THE HANOVERIAN RULE [1728 Court in 1714 would not have been more moral and elevated, less amenable to backstairs intrigue and the con-upt competition of men and women who were courtiers fii«t and last than the Han- overian St. James. If the English Church suffered under the polit- ical Erastianism and theological latitudinarianism of the wicked Whigs and their Lutheran Farliament-made King ii, is more than doubtful whether the substitution of Atterbury for Wake, of Boling- broke for Walpole would have promoted tolerance, spirituality, and love of truth. The new spirit needed in the English Church was not to be found in the lawn sleeves of the lords spiritual nor in the country rectories and the universities. In 1727 it had not yet found expression in " The Serious Call," and was still dormant in 1728 the Rectory of Epworth and the derided band of " Methodists " at Lincoln and Christchurch in the University of Oxford. George I. could die happy for one fact alone. The father had been the only pei-son in Great Britain prepared to dispute the title of the son, George II., to the thi'one. Note. — The most recent authority, particularly on foreign policy, for the Walpole period is P. Vaucher, Robert Walpole et la politique de Fleury (1924), based on an exhaustive study of the MS. sources in Paris and Loudon and with an admirable bibliography ; see also W. Michael, Englische Geschichte im 18 Jahrhundert, vol. ii. (1920) (a continuation of the history, given on p. 518) ; Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy (1922), vol, i. Introduction by Sir A. W. Ward, pp. 1-143. L. G. Wickham Legge, Matthew Prior (1920), is important for the years 1713-16; J. F. Chance, Tlu Alliance of Hanover (British Foreign Policy in last year of George I.) ; F. I* Edwards, James, First Earl Stanhope (1926). 1727-421 GEORGE 11 57 CHAPTER 11 GEORGE II (1727-1760) fHE Ministry of Walpolk 1727-1742 WALPOLE killed two horses in order to tell the new King the news from Osnabriick, and for his reward was dii-ected to apply to Su' Spencer Compton, Speaker of the House of Commons, and Treasurer to the Prince of Wales, " a plodding, heavy fellow with great application and no talents, his only knowledge, forms and precedents ". The general belief was that Walpoie's power was gone. Compton's reception was crowded while Walpoie's was deserted. But the new favourite had offended the Queen by paying coui-t to the Countess of Suffolk, the King's mistress, while Walpoie's prudence and insight had enlisted the Queen's approval. When it appeared that Compton had been obliged to engage Walpoie's help in drawing up the King's Speech, and that Walpole was ready to add ^"130,000 to the civil list with a jointure of £100,000 for the Queen, the tables were turned. The change was picturesquely announced at Leicester House. "There," Caroline remarked, singling out Lady Walpole from the crowd, " I see a friend," with the result that, as the happy lady put it on retiring, " I might have walked upon theii- heads ". Walpoie's offer was not a mere bribe to retain the powers for which he was so well fitted. George I.'s civil list of d£'700,000 was inadequate to meet the grow- ing expenditure, and the additional sum was opposed only by Ship- pen. The Administration remained practically unchanged. Walpole, whom the King had once dubbed a rogue and a rascal, was First Lord and Chancellor of the Exchequer ; Newcastle " the impertinent fool," and Townshend "the choleric blockhead," were joint Secretaries. Compton had the sense to recognise his lack of fitness to be Prime Minister. As Lord Wilmington he became Paymaster-General and then Privy Seal of the Council. Within the Cabinet, policy 58 GEORGE II [1727- was directed by an inner group, "the select lords" (Walpole Townshend and Newcastle, Wilmington, the Lord Chancellor, King, and the Lord Pi-esident, Lord Trevor). The new King, bom in 1683, and the son of the miserable prisoner of Ahlden, was a dry, irascible, punctiliously punctual man with the passion for routine of a military martinet. Personally brave, interested in the red-tape of the ai-my, he had fought at Oudenarde, and, at Dettingen, was to be the last British Sovereign to command a force in the field. From 1718 his Court as Prince of Wales had been the centre of domestic and political opposition to his father, an example of filial conduct not lost on his own soa Walpole 's judgment of him ^ scarcely does justice to his qualities. Since 1714 he had been steadily trained in English ways, and had adapted himself with some success to a strange political atmo- sphere. No less devoted than his father to Hanover and Hanover- ian interests, a firm believer in his prerogative, he was obstinate though he generally recognised when it was necessary to give way. His confidence was difficult to win, but once won his loyalty was sincere and enduring. His relations with Walpole, Carteret, Heniy Pelham, Newcastle, and Pitt exemplify the strong and weak sides in his character. Above all he relied, though he would stoutly have denied it, on the judgment of those whom he trusted, and preferred unconsciously to be guided. Throughout his reign he was always under the influence of a pei-sonality stronger than his own. The sharp-sighted men and women who divined that he could not be bullied but could be led by tact were those who enjoyed both the royal confidence and real power. The most notable of these for the first ten years was the Queen. Walpole's political career was lai'gely occupied with endeavouring to checkmate the schemes of one royal and headstrong woman, Elizabeth Famese, and with maintaining his alliance with another, Caroline of Brandenburg-Anspach. Born in the same year as the 1683 King, she had "scorned an empire for religion's sake" when she refused the hand of the Archduke who became the Emperor Charles VI. But as Burnet savs, "her pious firmness was not to go unre- quited even in this life," for in 1705 she married her cousin, to become lyay in due course Queen of Great Britain. Hei- intellectual tastes weie > " He thinks he is devilish stout, but if I know anything of him he is with all bis personal bravery as arrant a political coward as ever wore a crown." 1742] QUEEN CAROLINE 59 wide, if not very deep. She was the third woman of the Welfenhaus who corresponded with Leibnitz and would know the why of a why. In her gi-otto at Richmond she placed the busts of Woolas- ton, Locke, and Clarke. Latitudinarian in theology, she favoured Whiston, Tindal, Hoadly, Butler, Seeker, Sherlock, and Berkeley, and was the patron of Sterne, Gay, Tickell, Arbuthnot, and Haildel. Her domestic life was very unhappy. With her eldest son she quarrelled bitterly more than once, and her political supremacy at Court was only maintained by close study of and obedience to the King's foibles, and by alternately conniving at and encouraging the infidelities of an exasperating husband. If in Caroline a coarseness of fibre and conduct, lack of heart and cynical tolerance of the intolerable, jar on us, we may remember what as a woman, wife, and queen, she was called on to endure, and that she pursued her duty with unfaltering courage and cheerfulness to the end. Walpole pronounced her to have a greater political capacity than any woman he had ever met (and he was a severe critic of women who inter- fered in politics) and she proved it by her industry, insight, and forbearance. To the Minister whom she had practically selected she was a tower of sti"ength, and their unbroken friendship and mutual respect reflect equal credit on both. John, Baron Hervey, the " Sporus " of Pope's savage " Epistle to Arbuthnot," whose memoirs give a vivid, entei-taining, and heightened picture of Caroline's Court, was, next to Walpole, the Queen's most ti-usted adviser. Henrietta Howard, mamed to the Earl of Suifolk, had been the reigning beauty of Leicester House, and down to 1734, when she retired from Court, was the maitresse en titre of the King. After Caroline's death the Countess of Walmoden took the place both of the Countess of Suffolk and of the Queen. But during Wal- pole's tenure of power none of the " chargeable " ladies whom his majesty was pleased to dishonour with his affections can be reckoned as a serious political force. The traditional hostility of the heir to the throne was fully main- tained by Greorge II.'s son, Frederick Louis, created Prince of Wales in 1729. Born in 1707, the young prince, who had the literary tastes of a precocious fop, rapidly developed into a libertine. The Histoire du Prince Titi, inspired if not written by himself, was a caricature 1735 of his father and mother, and his support of Buononcini against Handel was one of the least harmful examples of his cultivated 60 GEORGE II [1727- perversity. His continuous connection with and patronage of the Opposition was a political fact of importance. His father's constant condemnations of him as a puppy, fool and rascal, and his mother's amazing verdict, > require considerable discounting; but it is diflS- cult to understand Bolingbroke's reason for selecting him in Th£ Idea of a Patriot King to be the prince who could " distinguish the voice of his people from the clamours of a faction," " break the spirit of faction," and effect " the union of his people ". Had Frederick been called to the thi'one, which fortunately he was not, he would probably have thrown over the habitues and allies of Nor- folk House with as little scruple as his debauched gi-andson threw over the Whigs in 1810. A prince who, in 1745, when Charles Edwai'd had reached Derby, was found playing blindman's buff with the pages added no doubt considerably to the gaiety of the world of Courts and political scandal, but was scarcely entitled even to the confidence of hungiy office-seekera out of place. The thii-ty-three years of George II.'s reign cover an important epoch in our national development, the first clearly marked phase of which ends with the fall of Walpole in 1742. In many respects the year 1740 more accurately indicates the dividing line. The war with Spain, the death of the Emperor Charles VI., the accession of Frederick the Great, and the Silesian war, which is the unmistakable commencement of the long duel for supremacy in Germany between the house of HohenzoUern and the house of Habsburg, ring up the curtain on a revolution in the State-system in Europe. For Great Britain the same year brings her once again into sharp collision with the Bourbon Powers. The stniggle for colonial, commercial, and naval supremacy will become the struggle for empire. It is to be a struggle chiefly with France. From 1740-56 the true meaning of the war and the futile peace that follows are concealed. But with the Diplomatic Revolution in 1756 the world stage is cleared and the issues are fairly joined. Though George II. died in the fifth of the momentous seven years of war, it was tolerably clear that decisive victory in this first round of the struggle for empire lay with Great Britain. At home after Walpole's fall the development is tedious, confused, and peiplexing — a period of second-rate men for the most part, of rapid changes and complicated political intrigues. I " My dear first-born is the greatest ass and the greatest liar and the greatest ca- nailU and the p-eatest heast in the whole world, and I heartily wish he were out of it." 1742] FOREIGN POLICY 61 The unity and character that Walpole and his system impress on the first great phase are but faintly traceable in the leadership of Henry Pelham, illuminated by one imperishable gleam of romance, 1743-54 the tragedy of the Young Pretender and the White Rose, as iiTelevant io the working oirt of the central theme in the drama, as it is pic- turesque and appealing. The rise of Pitt to a unique dictatorship is emphasised, the crumbling away of the Whig pai'ty concealed, by the magnitude and importance of the events outside the naiTow world of St. Stephens. The future of Great Britain was being moulded more decisively at Sans Souci, on the St. Lawrence, the coast of Coromandel, and the Ganges ; as well as in the economic evolution at home that paved the way for the Industrial Revolu- tion. " There are few difficulties that cannot be surmounted," Walpole said, " if properly and resolutely engaged in." The remark, charac- teristic of the man and his methods, is peculiarly applicable to his foreign policy. At the death of George I. a settlement of the Euro- pean difficulties was possible, but not yet made. The convention of the Pardo, signed by Elizabeth Famese, " after a rage," and with March 6 the home-truth that the English were never content, partly cleared 1728 the situation for the congress to meet at Soissons. But there were disquieting elements in the situation. A rapprochement between France and Spain, the growing independence of France towards Great Britain, were signs that the alliance was wearing thin and re- quired tactful handling and a wary eye on the European horizon. The Emperor had still to be converted or coerced into acquiescence, despite the acceptance of his preliminaries. It was clear that Elizabeth would fight to the last for her dynastic policy, and that the commercial relations of Spain and Great Britain were the crucial matter. The Cabinet was divided. Townshend and (old) Horace Walpole (at Pai-is) desired to come to terms with Spain, even by ceding Gibraltar, and thus coerce the Emperor. Walpole and New castle preferred overtures to the emperor and thus isolate Spain. In an offer to guarantee the Pragmatic Sanction they held a trump card. At the same time Walpole was extremely reluctant to renew the wai- with Spain and strain the Anglo-French alliance to the breaking-point. The Congress of Soissons meanwhile proved futile. June 14 William Stanhope, foimerly an ambassador at Madrid, was sent to Spain on a special mission. Townshend's policy had won the day. Nor. 9 68 GEORGE II 1727- and the Treaty of Seville, to which the Dutch acceded, with French co-operation, promised redress for commercial gnevances, the restora- tion of the commercial status quo in America, and of the privileges granted in 171S and 1716, pledged France and England to the in- troduction of Spanish instead of neutral garxisons into the Tuscan forti-esses, and (by a secret article), if war followed with the Emperor, the regulation by treaty of European questions. The Gibraltar difficulty was thus brushed aside, French support had been retained and Great Britain, if she could make the treaty operative, was in a favourable position to deal with the Emperor. The Emperor's reply to the treaty was to refuse his consent to its terms, unless the alHes guaranteed the Pragmatic Sanction. Id the case of refusal he was prepared to prevent by force the intro- duction of Spanish garrisons into Italy. A year went by in idle negotiations, plans of campaign, and proposals by Great Britain for a joint military stroke on Sicily to bring the Emperor to reason — all of which the French diplomatists did theii- best to postpone or nullify. Spain in disgust, in November, 1730, declared that in con- sequence of the failure to execute the Seville Treaty she would no longer be bound by it. Great Britain therefore decided to come May 15, to terms with the Emperor. The resignation of Townshend had *73o removed the most weighty member of the opposition in the Cabinet to this step. And despite the delays caused by Hanoverian de- mands in connection with the imperial investiture of Bremen and Verden and the administi-ation of Mecklenburg, Robinson, on March 16, 1781, concluded the (second) Treaty of Vienna. In return for a guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction (voidable if the Ai-chduchess Maria Theresa man-ied a Bourbon prince) the Emperor consented to the introduction of the Spanish garrisons, the suspension of the Ostend Company, and a new commercial tariff for the Austrian Netherlands, Commercial considerations had been an important element in the protracted discussions, and Robinson wrote that the Austi-ians complained he " had sucked them to the very blood ". The suspension of the Ostend Company (in reahty an abolition though the more politic term was emplo3'ed) " the original cause of aU the jumble" was not the least of the gains of the ti-eaty which once more made the Emperor formally Britain's ally. By June, Spain had been brought to renew the Treaty of Seville, and after the usual haggling and recriminations, Don Carlos in 1732 was 1742] THE TREATY OF VIENNA 68 solemnly escorted by a Spanish and British fleet across the Medi- teiTanean and installed in Tuscany. It is not easy to strike the balance in the complicated trans- actions thus briefly summarised. Certain points are obvious. Great Biitain had succeeded in bringing both Spain and the Emperor to a settlement. She had saved Gibraltaa-, recovered her ' com- mercial concessions and killed the Ostehd Company.' Throughout her diplomacy had worked hard to avoid war, and to dissolve the dangerous union of Charles VI. and Elizabeth Farnese, to keep Spain and France apart, to preserve the alliance with France and not to sacrifice the traditional friendship with Vienna. On the face of it she had succeeded in these objects. The Opposition critics who denounced in the Ministerial policy the predominant influence of Hanover really selected the weakest and most un- tenable line of attack. "I see my afiaii-s," growled George II., "are on that foot that I must yield in everything." A close study of the negotiations does not support the conclusion that *Jie Treaty of Vienna of 1731 was detrimentally affected by Electoral bias. On the contrary what British Ministers demanded on behalf of British interests was wrung from the Habsburgs, while Robinson was expressly authorised to sign even if he failed to secure imperial assent to Hanoverian demands. In a word Britain's wishes were, those of the Elector of Hanover were not, fully granted. Walpole, however, had paid a price for his document. The guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction was a serious mortgage on British policy for the future, justifiable if it is agreed that the Emperoi"'s alliance could not have been obtained without it and that that alliance was worth the price paid. Did the alliance ne- cessarily involve an inevitable rupture with France ? Experienced diplomatists like Townshend and (old) Horace Walpole feared such a result, and prefeiTed the understanding with France to the dubious advantages of the imperial alliance. It is unquestionable that the tone of the French Foreign Office had been far from cordial, and some historical writers would date the termination of the Anglo-French entente as early as 1732. Events and national ten- ' The Company was not formally dissolved until 1793. Pitt's opinion later is worth reading ; The suppression was " a demand we had no right to make nor was h our interest to insist upon it "- But it is very doubtful whether he would have expressed himself chus in 1731. 64 GEORGE II [1727 dencies which no diplomatist could control were steadily driving France and Great Britain apart. From 1731 colonial and trading difficulties with both the Bourbon Powei-s begin to crop up. On April 9th, 1731, Captain Jenkins of The Rebecca lost his historic ear,* and though the complaint was duly recoried and forgotten, the world was to hear more of Captain Jenkins and to verify Pulteney's prophecy "that his story would raise volunteers". Jacobite in- trigues and Dunkirk, facts of a sinister hue, were sticking in men's memories, and the plain truth that the Franco-British alliance no longer was a necessity to France, that despite Fleury's smooth words the younger school in France chafed at the bondage to England, was not lost on Walpole and Newcastle. Nevei-theless Walpole rightly clung to the entente he had inherited from Stan- hope. His secret service fund kept him uncommonly well informed about the unending web of intrigue and the secret aspirations in foreign chanceries ; he declined to believe that friendship with Vienna necessarily meant the loss of France, while if the worst hap- pened the Emperor had already been secured in advance. The future for Great Britain would turn mainly on two points — her relations with the Bourbon Powers, and, above all, Spain, for with Spain Fi'ance would in the last result act ; and secondly on the capa- city of Ministers to keep Great Britain out of all continental intrigues where her interests were not directly and manifestly concerned. The installation of Don Carlos had been a triumph for Elizabeth Famese and the dynastic ambitions of the Bourbons. It affected the distribution of power in the Mediten-anean and created a suitable base for an extension of the Spanish Bourbon claims. But the negotiations had shown that without British help Don Carlos would have won his appanage only at the cost of a great war. The maintenance of British sea power and the strengthening of her financial and commercial resources were the most effective means of neutralising what Spain had gained. Peace, and no one knew it better than Walpole, would do more for Great Britain than for any other European Power. It was his duty and interest to secure it, for he was now master in his own Cabinet. Townshend's retirement in 1730 was brought about by a com- bination of causes. Strong differences on foreign policy, on parlia- mentary tactics, on patronage, and the assured position of Walpole ' See Appendix III. 1742] TOWNSHEND'S RETIREMENT 66 in the royal closet, were aggravated by personal friction. A violent altercation at Mrs. Selwyn's was followed by his resignation. Vir- tually defeated on the issue of foreign affairs, Townshend was not the man to carry out a programme of which he disapproved. The firm had become Walpole and Townshend, and he declined to can-y on business on those terms. But with singular dignity and self- restraint he equally declined to follow the example of Carteret, Chesterfield, Roxbuigh, and other notable Whigs, and join the opposition to his brother-in-law. He gave up public life, retired to Rainhain in Norfolk, and as " Turnip Townshend " by his ex- periments in agriculture made himself one of the pioneers of the new scientific farming. This service to his countiy was not an unfit close to a distinguished career which had begun with helping to make the legislative union with Scotland. Honourable, high- minded and liberal, he had shown himself to be one of the most energetic and progressive of the Whig leaders who established the Whig supremacy. As Secretary of State, his work was characterised by great industry, acumen, boldness of conception, and vigour. With the Cabinet and the Queen against him, he tacitly admitted that there was not room in a Ministry for both Walpole and himself; but he left a gap which was not adequately filled by William Stanhope, to whom the Treaty of Seville had brought the title of Baron Hanington. For Stanhope as Secretary for the Northern Department failed to justify the reputation he had won as a diplomatist. The firm was now Walpole alone, and the fust true premiership in our political annals may be said to date most accurately from 1730. A fresh and serious complication in Europe speedily tested the Minister's mastery of the situation at home and abroad. The death in 17S3 of Augustus, the Physically Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, reopened the succession to the Polish throne. The Emperor and Russia supported the late King's son Augustus, the Morally Weak, while the French candidate was Stanislaus Leczynski, ex-King of Poland, whose daughter was the wife of Louis XV. Russian and Saxon troops put Augustus upon the throne, but France, joined by Spain and Savoy, made the election a trial of strength between Bourbon and Habsburg in Europe, and attacked the Emperor. The Austrians could be driven out of Italy, the kingdom of Naples won for Don Carlos, whose Duchy of Parma 86 GEORGE II [1727- would then be available for his brother Don Philip. The issues on the surface seemed to repeat those of the previous gi-eat wars — ^the prevention of a Bourbon supremacy in Europe. Plainly Great Britain could only intervene on one side, the imperial. Her troops, her subsidies, and her fleets would turn the scale. Pressure of every kind was put upon Walpole. But despite the imperial defeats, the arguments of the Court, the martial ardour of George II., the national desire to prevent a Bourbon triumph, the attacks of the Opposition and the party in the Cabinet, to whom the Whig tradi- tions of support to Vienna were as the laws of Medes and Persians, England was kept out of the war. Walpole saw that the Polish succession to Great Britain was not worth the bones of a grenadier of the First Foot Guards. " Madam," he said to the Queen, "there are 50,000 men slain in Europe this year, and not one Englishman." War was costly; taxation ciippled trade and was unpopular. Openly to take the imperial side meant sooner or later a breach with France and Spain. And Walpole knew, what Opposi- tion critics did not, that Paris and Madrid had drifted into a secret alliance. Eeene at Madrid, thanks to paid treachery, had Feb. 1734 sent to Newcastle, almost before the ink was dry, an accurate draft of the First Family Compact of 17S3, though Walpole could not confute his critics by revealing it in debate. The maintenance of the Anglo-French entente alone could prevent the Bourbon solidarity, now written out on paper, from maturing into an effective anti-British coalition. The right policy was to keep our powder diy, the Cabinet cool, and throw the whole weight of our diplo- macy into restoring peace and safeguarding British interests in the final settlement. In the domestic annals of the dynasty a minor matter had absorbed a vast amount of ink, energy, and fruitless scheming — the famous " double-man-iage " project.^ Chesterfield in 1728 had suc- cessfully an-anged the man-iage of the Princess Royal to William IV. of the Orange House, thereby renewing the connection between the British and Dutch royal families. Sophia Dorothea, George IL's sister and Queen of Prussia, earnestly desired to unite Prussia and Great Britain by a double wedding. The Crown Prince (after- wards Frederick the Great) was to maiTy the Princess Amelia, while his sister Wilhelmina, known to history as the Maigravine of Bay- ' See Appendix IV. 1742] THE DOUBLE MAKllIAGE PROJECT 67 reuth and the witty authoress of remarkable memoh-g, was to become the Princess of Wales. Difficulties both pereonal and political baiTed the way. The jealousy of Prussia and Hanover was of long stand- ing : King Frederick William I. and King George II. revealed in phrases chaxacteristic of both that they were on the worst of terms. The bondage of Prussia to Vienna, so dexterously main- tained by Grumbkow and SeckendorfF at Berlin, had long thwarted the German policy of Hanover. The marriage project appealed to George II. and his Hanoverian advisers, backed by his sister's ambi- tions, as a means of destroying Grumbkow's power, detaching Prussia fiom Vienna, and bringing it into the Hanoverian sphere of influence. Hotham at Berlin succeeded in arranging a single marriage, that of the Prince of Wales and the Princess Wilhelmina, but the English Court would have the double marriage or nothing. And when the domestic intriguers learned that every effort to shake, by fair means or foul, the position of Grumbkow only stiffened the aversion of Frederick William from the Crown Prince's marriage to a British princess, and that Prussia, represented by the tyrannical drill- sergeant who laid the basis of the army and State of Frederick the Great, was not to be weaned from his infatuation for the House of Austria, WiLhelmina's marriage with the Prince of Wales was promptly dropped. The Crown Prince was reserved to make another woman unhappy, and the Prince of Wales, bereft of his Wilhelmina, was married in 1736 to Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. It is easy to speculate on the possibilities in Queen Sophia Dorothea's motherly ambitions. At no time in his career would a wife have influenced the policy of Frederick the Great. But Wilhelmina might well have been happier at St. James's, even with the Prince of Wales, than at Berlin and Bayreuth. Great Britain would not at a critical juncture have lost Pitt, and she might, to her advan- tage, have never heard of Bute. The year of the Polish war is also memorable for a sharp Minis- terial rebuff. The Pension Bill of Sandys, nicknamed " the motion maker " from his energy in bringing resolutions before the Lower House, was an unsuccessful effort in 1730 to deal with an admitted evil, the number of members whose dependence on the Ministry was secured by salaries on the Civil List. The real remedy was not the exclusion of placemen, but the suppression of places and a more com- plete control, appropriation, and audit of the Civil List by Parliament. 68 GEORGE II [1727- Next year the most effective of the Opposition leaders, Pulteney, who was in the thick of the bitter pamphlet war and the intrigues whose ob- ject was to procure Walpole's dismissal, had fought a duel with Her- vey, and so incensed the King that he struck his name from the roll of Privy Councillors. Pulteney was to have his revenge when Walpole submitted his notable excise scheme. In 1732 the excise on salt had March 14, been reimposed and the land tax reduced to one shilling. Walpole ''^^ now proposed to extend the excise system, begun in 1724, to tobacco and wine. His object was to increase the revenue while lowering the duty, check smuggling and fx-auds, both on the trade and the revenue, and make London the free port of the world. With the savings thus made he desired to keep the land tax at one shilling or abolish it altogether. The Opposition at once saw their chance, and by a skilful combination of exaggerations, appeals to sentiment and plain untruths lashed the country into rage and panic. The Budget they announced was the prologue to a general excise, " that plan of arbiti'ary power " ; the Constitution was to be sacrificed to the pre- vention of frauds in the revenue ; excises were in every country badges of slavery; the increase of revenue would augment the arbitrary power of the Crown, subject every free citizen to an tinlimited in- quisition, and enable a corrupt Minister to control elections by his hirelings from the custom house and debauch the House of Commons by a bloated patronage fund. Placards representing the excise vam- pire sucking the blood of the populace were widely circulated. " No slavery, no excise, no wooden shoes," became the motto of the day. Petitions poured in from all quarters and riots broke out. In vain it was pointed out that brewers and maltsters already lived under an excise and were not slaves in wooden shoes, that the additional inci-ease in revenue officers would be exactly 126, that the profits would be strictly appropriated to the public expenditure and would not go to the Crown, that warehouses alone would be liable to official inspection without a warrant The second reading of the Bill was carried by a majority only of thirty-six. Lord Scarborough, con- sulted by the Queen, replied that he could answer" for his regiment against the Pretender, but not against the opponents of the excise. Walpole, of whom the King said truly that he had more spirit than any man he ever knew, summoned a meeting of his supporters and decided that " this dance could no further go ". He would never be the Minister to impose taxes at the expense of blood. The pro- 1742] THE EXCISE SCHEME 69 posal was therefore dropped. It is clear that it was not defeated on its merits. Long after, it met with the approval of Adam Smith, and was carried out in an extended form and to the great benefit of trade and the revenue by the younger Pitt. It is practically certain that its adoption in 1733 would have been followed by the advan- tages claimed for it by its author. But the Opposition neither understood nor wished to understand the scheme; and the com- bination of personal hatred and faction playing upon credulous ignorance was all the more deplorable because it succeeded. Wal- pole assured the House of Commons that he " was not so mad as ever to engage again in anything that looked like an excise ". The bonfii'es, feasting, and healths to Bolingbroke and James III. which had disgraced London and Oxford when the scheme was aban- doned convinced him that political duty to the dynasty was superior to economic benefit to the national revenue. But his hand fell heavily on the Whig malcontents who had abetted the disgraceful conspiracy against the Bill and himself. The Ministerial pai-ty " had been put to their stumps," and the restoration of discipline was im- perative. The Duke of Bolton and Lord Clinton were removed from their Lord-Lieutenancies ; Cobham and Bolton lost the colonel- cies of their regiments ; Montrose was deprived of the Great Seal, and Lord Stair of the Vice-Admiralship, of Scotland. Stair had also drawn from the Queen a delightful retort. His opposition was a matter of conscience, he said. " Ah, my lord," Caroline replied, "do not talk to me of conscience, votts raefwiies ivanmtir." Most dis- tinguished of them all, Chesterfield, who had been reconciled to Walpole, was now deprived of the Lord Stewardship he had ac- iiepted in 1730, and promptly rejoined the Opposition. These vai'ious dismissals are often alleged as proofs of Walpole's insatiable jealousy and vindictiveness. But if a Minister with a parliamen- taiy majority and the confidence of the Crown had not taught his subordinates that disaffection is punishable by loss of office. Cabinet and parliamentary government would never have been established. Walpole had neither the misplaced charity nor political pusil- lanimity of Newcastle in 1754' To have passed over the congenial ' " I do not care," George II. said to Newcastle, " for the Opposition if all my Bervants act together. But if they thwart one another then it will be another case." The case for collective unanimity and responsibility and its importance in the evolu- tion of parliamentary government could not be mote pithily put. Newcaitle, who 70 GEORGE II ["27- disloyalty of high-placed peei-s was to place a premium on mis- chievous inti-igues and a penalty on loyal service. A Ministry in Walpole's eyes was not a group of independent office holders voting as their interest or ambition dictated, but a union of the Crown's servants chosen from a party because they could unite in common action on a common policy for the benefit of their country. The dismissal of military officers opens up a difFerent line of argument. In 1734 the Opposition unsuccessfully attempted by bill to prevent for the future such means of expressing the Crown's displeasure. The question was again raised under George III. But so long as the Crown regarded the army as a sphere of prerogative with- drawn from parliamentary control, and colonelcies of regiments were gi-anted as political rewards, and military officers on the active list claimed the right, as Pitt did when a Cornet of Horse, to take pai-t in controversial politics, no satisfactory remedy was possible. Even to-day it is not easy to draw a line between military and political considerations. The modern elimination of the army from politics implies on the part of Crown, Ministers, and the public constitu- tional conventions and a practice which in 1733 were neither accepted nor in existence. 'The failure of the excise scheme damped effectively bold finan- cial reform. In 1737 Walpole defeated Barnard's scheme for the redemption of the old and new South Sea Annuities, interesting constitutionally as the proposal of a private member. The scheme was very unpopular with the moneyed men and the stockholders, and Walpole objected to it on that ground and also because it would prevent the application of the Sinking Fund to cunent expenses. On principle he preferred to appropriate from that fund rather than to raise new loans or additional taxation. And thi-oughout the years 1730-40 the national finances were constantly balanced only by such appropriations. The policy of postponing the reduc- tion of debt by avoiding the necessary taxation when national expenditure increases is more often determined by political than financial considerations. Walpole saw that the steady increase in national resources made the burden of the National Debt much less serious than it was popularly held to be. Low taxation pro- vided him with the means of meeting a sudden strain without serious forgot the lesson from 1733-41, was taught its value later by Henry Fox, Murray and Pitt, 1754-56- 17421 WALPOLE'S FINANCIAL POLICY 71 discontent, and he aimed above all at reconciling the classes on whom the bulk of the taxation must fall to the Hanoverian gov- ernment. It is questionable whether a more heroic policy of continuous amortisation of capital liabilities by extended taxation would have commended itself to Parliament, and it was with a Parlia- ment in which money and commei-ce were influentially represented that as a practical politician he had to deal. At any rate the war scares of 1731, 1734, 1735, and 1738, and the wai- expenditure from 1739-41, were met with singularly small additions to the debt. By ingenious arrangements he paid his way. Despite the diversion of moneys from the Sinking Fund the National Debt was nearly £9,000,000 less when he resigned than when he took office, and he left the public finances on a sound footing and the nation in a posi- tion to meet far more serious demands on its taxable wealth than he had permitted himself to make. The wisdom and insight of one of his many remarks deserves recording afresh. To a sugges- tion for imposing taxation on the colonies he replied that as he had Old England against him he had no wish to have New England also. He would leave it to a successor who had more courage and cared less for commerce than he did.*^ In the general election of 1734 the Opposition more than held their own, and the new Parliament brought to the Opposition two promising recruits, William Pitt, member for the family pocket borough of Old Sarum, and George, afterwards Lord, Lyttelton. With Richard Grenville, afterwards Lord Temple, these two formed the nucleus of the " Boy Patriots," known as " the Cobham cousin- hood " or " Cobham's cubs " from their leader and relative Lord Cob- ham. Fresh blood was sorely needed, as there had been a split in the Opposition. Pulteney, like Walpole, found Carteret and Chesterfield difficult political allies, and Bolingbroke and himself had quarrelled. A great assault led by Wyndham, and skilfully organised by Boling- broke to combine the two Opposition wings of Tories and malcon- tent Whigs, had failed. The denunciation of the standing army March 13, 1734 'The Financial Act 7 Geo. II., c. 12, is a notable constitutional departure. It provided ;£i, 200,000 from the Sinking Fund and a vote of credit, by which the Crown was empowered to raise at discretion any sum of money necessary for augmenting the sea and land forces, i.e. it empowered the King to contract debts unspecified in amount, and spend money not specifically appropriated. Walpole used it three times, in 1739, 1740, and in 1741, and a total of ;fi,ooo,ooo was borrowed under ihe powers conferred. 72 GEORGE II 11727- and the demand for the repeal of the Septennial Act were defeated by 247-184 votes. Bolingbroke now practically threw up the 1733 game. With the publication of his Dissertation on Parties, the most finished exposition of his latter-day political creed, and the continuance of a Ministerial majority in the new Parliament, he with- drew to the Continent, convinced that " some schemes then on the 1735 loom made him one too many, even to his most intimate fiiends ". 1736 The next year, however, showed that the Opposition could push the invincible "sole minister" hard. The Prince of Wales had stepped into Bolingbroke's place as chief of the Opposition staff. Pitt's maiden speech was made in moving the address of congratulation to the Prince on his marriage, for which the King proposed to allow him ^^50,000 a year from the Civil List. Frederick, however, thought himself entitled to a separate establishment and a fixed income specifically provided by Parliament. Walpole persuaded the King much against his will to meet the Prince by making the paternal allowance a fixed gi-ant with a jointure for the Princess. But the Prince's advisers were determined to demand ^100,000, and grasped the opportunity of inflicting a parliamentary rebuff on the King and of effecting a permanent breach between the heir to the throne and the all-powerful " Grand Vizier ". The Prince's reply to his father's offer, that the matter must be settled by Parliament, threw George into a passion in which both Frederick and Walpole were bitterly reproached, the one for being a puppy and a blockhead, the other for suggesting indulgence to such a rascally fool. Pulteney moved the grant in the Commons, Carteret in the Lords. Both were rejected. " If ever," Walpole said in his vivid way, " any man in any cause fought dagger out of sheath I did that day''- Intrigues at Couii and mutiny in the Cabinet made the issue doubtful. Newcastle in particular wished to come to terms with Carteret. "Your grace," Walpole said, "must choose between him and me. I have said it to your betters and I will stick to it" The Minister was saved by the action of Wyndham, who with forty-four of the Tory country gentlemen walked out without voting rather than co-operate in further payments to the German rulers. But Walpole having won, characteristically kept the King to his bargain, when he would have punished the re- bellious son by withdrawing the concession offered. The young Pitt, whose speech founded the hostility of the King to himself, so 1742] THE KING AND THE PRINCE OF WALES 7« disadvantageous to both, was marked out by being deprived of his cometcv. " We must muzzle this temble cornet of horse," ^ had been Walpole's remsirk. Rut the time was coming when more than a muzzle was needed for the ambitious young orator. The political quaiTel between the Sovereign and the heii- to the throne was followed by a domestic scandal. Prince and Princess had con- tinued to live under the same roof as the King and Queen, but suddenly one night at Hampton Court the Princess, on the point of her confinement, was hurried by her husband into a chaise and in the pains of labour driven at full gallop to the empty Palace of St. James, and there an hour after her arrival her first child was bom. The King, not unnaturally, was furious. The infant was in the direct succession to the Crown, and, apart fi"om the danger to the mother's life and the insult to the King and Queen implied in the act, the custom of the constitution required official confirma- tion of the birth of a royal child. Frederick was ordered to leave the Court; the guards were taken away fi"om his door; foreign Ministers were warned and the Court forbidden to hold intercourse with Norfolk House, which had been lent to the Prince of Wales. When presently Prince and Princess moved to Carlton House, this became the centre of the Opposition, and it was in this demoralis- ing atmosphere of family scandals and political tracasseries, of petticoat politics and backstair intrigues, that the future George III. was born and brought up. Two years earlier Scotland had again thrust itself on the 1738 notice of the Government by an affair, immortalised, if necessarily somewhat manipulated by the novelist's art, in Scott's Heart of Midlothian. Two smugglers, Robertson and Wilson, sentenced to death for robbing a custom house, made an attempt to escape from the Tolbooth Church where they had been brought to hear their last sermon. Robertson succeeded, while Wilson failed in getting away. At Wilson's execution Lieutenant Poi-teous in command of the town guard, fearing an organised effort to rescue the condemned prisoner, ordered his men to fire on the crowd, was tried and sentenced to death. The Queen in the absence of the King reprieved him for six weeks in order that discrepancies % ' A cornetcy not in the Royal Horse Guards, " The Blues," as generally stated, but in the Second or Cobham's Horse (now the First or King's Dragoon Guards), 74 GEORGE II [1727- in the evidence at the trial might be examined. On the night of September 8th, 1736, a crowd, cai-efully organised, stormed the Tplbooth Prison, and, with a rope duly paid for, hanged Por- teous on a dyer's pole in the Grassmarket. The rioters then quietly dispersed, committing no other outrage. There seems little doubt that the magistrates, aware how incensed popular feeling was against Poi-teous, acted with culpable negligence both on the night of the murder and subsequently by their failure to bring the ringleaders to justice. The murder itself had probably no political significance beyond illustrating the sympathy of the populace with smugglers, the detestation of the English custom-house system, and the determination to forestall a pardon for a man by whose orders the hateful minions of the law had shed blood. The Queen and Walpole resented strongly the affi-ont to authority, and a bill was introduced to revise the city charter, abolish the town guard, and disable the Provost fi'om holding any civil employment in Great Britain. Scottish sentiment was further exasperated by the summoning of three of the Scottish j udges to London to be examined at the bar of the House of Lords. Ai'gyU ^ voiced the national resentment at the severity of the penalties proposed, which in deference to the strenuous opposition both of English and Scottish members of Pai'liament were considerably reduced. Unpopular as the English government unquestionably was in Scotland, the whole aiFau' fur- nishes proof of the helplessness of the Jacobite cause. The Jacobites had no share in the lawless acts of the mob, nor were they in a posi- tion to turn the fierce popular sentiment to theii- advantage. Twenty years earlier the standai-d of James III. would probably have been hoisted at the Tolbooth Cross as a reply to Whig insults and Hanoverian tyranny, i-jy In this year of conflict the death of the Queen inflicted an irreparable loss on Crown and Minister. Caroline had long suffered from an internal infirmity, the true nature of which she concealed from her physicians. A wrong coui-se of treatment was followed, and when the real character of the malady was discovered it was too late. " Tant mieux," was her calm comment, revealing much, when she was informed that final release fi-om pain was at hand. "The frequently quoted remark of the Queen that stie would make Scotland a hunting ground, and ArgyU's retort that in that case he would retire to hii native country to make ready his hounds, rest on very untrustworthy evidence. 1742] DIPLOMATIC COMPLICATIONS 75 She quietly urged the King to many again. ''Non, non," he replied, "j'aurai des mattresses." "Ah, mon Dieu ! " the Queen answered, " cela n'empeche pas." She forgave her eldest son, but refused to see him, and after commending the kingdom and her house to Walpole, and her " good Sir Robert " to the King, met her end with the courage that was not the least of her gifts. To Walpole the loss was even more serious than to George II. And it came at a time when events both at home and abroad with increas- ing exigency called for insight, patience, and self-restraint. Had the Queen's life been spared another year, she would have seen the conclusion of Walpole's elaborate diplomatic efforts to restore the peace of Europe, broken by the Polish Succession War. The situation on the Continent was critical. If the imperial can- didate had secured the Polish throne, French victories on the Rhine strengthened the determination of Fleury to justify his policy of intei-vention by compensation for France at the expense of the Empire. The combined Spanish and Savoy forces had over- run Naples, and Don Carlos had been crowned as Charles III. The Emperor was insisting on the re-establishment of the status quo, while Elizabeth Farnese, flushed with victory, was bent on confirm- ing Don Carlos as King of the TVo Sicilies, and transferring his Duchy of Parma to his brother Don Philip. The close under- standing between the Bourbon Powers and the success of their arms made their demands difficult to resist, unless the military balance was altered by the active intervention of Great Britain on the im- perial side. A British fleet in the Mediterranean, the Hanoverian conthigent stiffened by British troops, financial subsidies, possibly Dutch co-operation also brought about by British pressure, would make a substantial difference in the situation. The obligations of the Treaty of Vienna made the policy of Great Britain delicate and embarrassing. A strong party in the Cabinet sided with the 1731 stronger feeling of the Court to aid the Empiie, give France a sharp lesson, and checkmate Bourbon ambitions. The crowning offer to Greorge II. of the command of the imperial forces on the Rhine appealed to his Electoral pride as much as to his confidence in his own generalship. Caroline said truly enough of the com- binations that divided Europe that they put her in mind of the South Sea Scheme. Everybody went into it knowing it was all a cheat, still hoping to get something out of it. Eveiybody meant 76 GEORGE II [1727- to make his own fortune and be sharp enough to scramble out, leaving the others deeper in the lurch. Walpole slowly converted Coui-t and Cabinet to the view that the interests of Great Britain and of Europe would be best served not by prolonging the war or extending the sphere of its operations, but by patching up a com- promise which could be forced on each of the combatants. By October, 1735, preliminaries were submitted only to be rejected, but Walpole believed in the principle of " pegging away ". Great Britain's position was in reality a strong one. Refusal to aid the Emperor made his continued resistance impossible. A guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction from France would go a long way to salve the loss of Naples. Versailles and Madrid feared that either might come to terms with the Emperor at the expense of the other. The despatch of a British fleet to the Tagus to support Portugal in a quarrel with Spain was a timely hint that British forbearance was not inexhaustible. The historic alliance enabled direct pressure to be brought on France. And throughout, the severance of France from Spain was the keynote of Walpole's plan. By the use of every diplomatic device, by bluster, cajolery, and sops, and the gi-adual exhaustion of the combatants, definite terms were at last laid down 1738 by the Third Treaty of Vienna. An elaborate territorial juggle satisfied, so far as they were capable of being satisfied, the signa- tories to the treaty. France witiidrew her Polish candidate, guaran- teed the Pragmatic Sanction, and was awarded the reversion of Lorraine, assigned as compensation to Stanislas Leczynski, and on his death to be incorporated in the Fi-ench kingdom. The King- dom of the Two Sicilies fell to Don Carlos. Francis, Duke of Loixaine, who in 1736 had mamed Maria Theresa, was trans- ferred to the Duchy of Tuscany. Savoy was given a rectification of frontier, which added Novara and Toiiona to her territory, while Parma and Piacenza and Milan were confirmed as imperial fiefs. Great Britain asked for and received nothing ; she had played with pertinacity the part of the honest broker, and as proof of her good faith repeated her guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction. The success of the negotiations cannot be credited to Walpole without considerable resei-vations. If he had worked hard for peace and prevented an unjustifiable expenditure of British treasure and lives, the King and his Hanoverian advisei-s had ably co-operated in the final stages. BoUngbroke's comment, endoi-sed by the leaders of the 1742] THE THIRD TREATY OF VIENNA 77 Opposition, was not amiss when he said that if English Ministers had a hand in the peace they had more sense than he thought ; if they had no hand in it they had better luck than they deserved. Alberoni's previous criticism of the Utrecht Treaty, that it pared and cut countries like Dutch cheeses, is applicable to this as to many of the great European settlements before and since 1738. And if the principle of the balance of power was artificial, it was in many respects when expressed in the diplomatic idiom of dynastic ambition capable of producing results as dm'able as treaties based on the previous principle of religion or the modern one of nation- ality. The incoi-poration of LoiTaine into Pi-ance, Fleury's best title to gratitude from his nation, lasted for 130 years, as did the Bourbon dynasty at Naples, and the connection between Tuscany and the Habsburg House in Vienna. The splendid pertinacity of Elizabeth Famese had once more reaped a rich reward. In two particulai-s the arrangements were ominous for the future — the Western Mediterranean was steadily tending to become a Bourbon lake ; the cutting away of a rich province from the empire was a seiious dislocation of the imperial fabric. Walpole's defence that France had seized and kept Lorraine in every war corresponded With plain facts, but did not really meet the argument that it was directly against the interest of Great Britain to assist France in realising step by step the policy of those "natural frontiers," the Rhine and the Alps, which harmonised dynastic with national aspirations. Yet it would be unfair to blame Walpole for the subsequent failure of the chief European guarantors of the Prag- matic Sanction to keep their faith with Maria Theresa. The Third Treaty of Vienna did not give Europe peace ; mainly because those who negotiated it exaggerated the value of diplomatic pledges, and would not or could not foresee that the Pragmatic Sanction would not by itself solve the problem which the death of Charles VI. must raise ; still less, that the Emperor's death would coincide with the accession of Frederick the Great in Prussia, and would be preceded by a war between Great Britain and Spain which sapped the system on which British foreign policy had for a quarter of a century been based. The causes of that war were strikingly varied. Theii- cumu- lative force is rich in political instruction.' By the Treaty of 1729 > See Appendix III. 78 GEORGE II [1727- the commercial relations between Great Britain and Spain were confinned. Since 1718 Great Britain had enjoyed the right to supply the Spanish colonies with negro slaves (assiento de negros) and to send annually one ship to trade at Cartagena or Portobello (navio de permiso). Under the cover of the slave trade and this annual vessel, a commerce, technically illegal, had grown up ; for with the connivance of the Spanish dealers the English merchant, freed from the prohibitive Spanish tariff, undersold the Spanish importer. The business was profitable and British traders came to regard the illegitimate extension of trading rights as legitimised by prescription. To enforce the treaties and prevent an increasing evasion of the protected colonial trade, the Spanish coast-guard fleet was reorganised, while the Spanish authorities pushed to extreme limits the right of search against British vessiels suspected of smug- gling. If the British trader was guilty of defying the Spanish commercial code, the Spaniard was guilty of harsh acts of vio- lence and retaliation. Walpole desired to settle the claims for redress and counter-claims for damages by direct agreement between the Governments at London and Madrid. There was more at issue than the trade disputes which came with disquieting vehe- mence and frequency from the Spanish Main. Our quarrel with one great Bourbon Power, Spain, might, probably would, strain to the breaking-point our relations with another, France, and a conflict with the united Bourbon States involved the whole futm-e of the British colonial possessions across the seas. The Opposition saw their opportunity, and now resumed with vigour the advocacy of the national case against Spain. England rang with the tales of atrocities " enough to fire the coldest," and Captain Jenkins at the bar of the House of Commons retold his story with the famous comment, that in the hour of outrage and impotence he had com- mended his soul to God and his cause to his country — a sentence worthy of Junius or Bolingbroke, which we may be sure a rough sea captain did not frame without assistance. The Convention of the Pai-do (Jan. 14, N.S.) was a sincere eflbrt of both Govern- ments to eliminate the causes of the dispute and pave the way for a complete understanding — perhaps even a ti-eaty of alliance between Great Britain and Spain. And the provision of .£"95,000 by the Spanish Government as compensation implicitly recognised the dam- age mflicted on British traders by surbitrary seizjires. But it had one 17«] "JENKINS" EAR" 19 fatal omission — the right of search was not abandoned — though on this point as on the others in the controversy it would appear that Spain had in the argument a stronger case, both in law and facts, than a factious Opposition and an ignorant public opinion would admit. And Walpole knew it. The Convention was denounced by Pitt, in a speech which established his oratorical reputation, as March S "insecure, unsatisfactory, dishonourable, and a stipulation for national ignominy ". More ominous still, Pitt contended that "it was a suspension of the first law of Nature — self-preservation and self-defence," and rested the British case on rights " from God and Nature " — that double-edged argument of illimitable potency, ap- pealed to again in 1776 and in 1789. Alike in 1739, 1776, and in 1789 these title-deeds of "a Natural" humanity converted into national ideals and rooted in the politician's interpretation of history and philosophy, were to be baptised in toii'ents of blood. After a stiff debate the Convention was approved by the House of Com- mons, and the Opposition, led by Wyndham, seceded to mark its condemnation of the Minister's treachery ; a foolish coitp de thddtre which has never succeeded in our political life and which was not devised but condemned by Bolingbroke, who at least knew the temper of the House of Commons. But it became clear that no Convention which did not secure a categorical renunciation of the right of search would satisfy the inflamed temper of the nation. The Prince of Wales appeai-ed in the streets and shouted for revenge ; Ai'gyll joined the Opposition and was dismissed from his offices ; within the Cabinet, Newcastle, who in 1755 thii-sted to make Byng a scapegoat, was cowed by the popular clamour, and was ready as ever " to yield to the times," to sacrifice his chief, if need be, and to stoop to any diplomatic dishonesty that would satisfy the public. In vain the Prime Minister strove to bring his colleagues and his countrymen to reason. For behind the critical relations of Spain and Great Britain he knew lay critical relations in Evu-ope. The Family Compact of 1733 would unite VereaOles and Madrid and a war with Spain would sooner or later involve war with France ; war with France was the destruction of our system of policy. Assistance from the Emperor, the German Princes, Holland, and Sweden was not to be expected. It is doubtful whether the fear of a Bourbon coalition was justifiable; it is certain that it profoundly influenced the Cabinet. On March 80 GEORGE II [1727- 10th Newcastle sent counter-orders to the Meditenanean fleet, a distinct step towards war. The expectation that Spain, under these circumstances, could abandon the right of search was absurd. The South Sea Company, whose aiFaii's had been most mischievously blended with the diplomatic issues, declined to pay what was due to the Spanish King or to substantiate its counter-claim by the production of accounts. The Spanish Government by a counter- refusal to pay the ^5,000 stipulated in the Convention, provided a technical casus belli. The powerful mercantile classes, national sentiment, and Newcastle fought against Walpole and peace. War " threatened little bloodshed and promised victories more solid than glory ". A war with Spain was " a war of plunder ". Walpole yielded to Court, Cabinet, the trading interests and the Opposition. " It is your war," he said to Newcastle, " and I wish you joy of it," — Newcastle " whose name was perfidy ". On October 19th the British ultimatum was rejected and war declared. " They are ringing the bells," Walpole remarked. "They will soon be wringing their hands." His retention of office, which made him an unwilling accomplice in a war of which he disapproved, can be explained but certainly needs explanation. The political custom of 1739 did not require a Minister to resign because he failed to have his own way on a definite issue of policy. Provided that he still enjoyed his Sove- reign's confidence and could carry on the King's business in the legislature he was entitled, almost bound by duty, to remain in the service of the Crown. The authority and peculiar primacy of the modern Prime Minister were not yet accepted conventions. Wal- pole had not lost the confidence of George II., nor had he been defeated in either House. He had simply declined to press his policy against his colleagues and the nation, which to a certainty had there been a general election would have endorsed the demand for war. The King's appeal not to desert him, a natural reluctance to surrender power to a group whose chief object was not so much the defeat of his policy as the proscription of himself, confidence in his own capacity to avert more blunders, foi-tified his desire to remain. Nevertheless it was a gi-ave and regi-ettable en'or. He was not fitted to carry on a wai- in whose justice and expediency he rightly disbelieved. Resignation would have made him the most formidable of rarities; when the incompetence of his successors had 1742] THE SPANISH WAR 81 been proved it might have brought him back with renewed prestige to the service of Crown and country ; it would have been a homage to conscience, and in any case a dignified close to a great career. His retention of office was not due simply to lust of power, but no act of his life contributed more fatally towards making the accusa- tion plausible. We have Burke's authority ' for the statement that later many of the fanatical aitics of 1739 did not " in the least defend the measure or attempt to justify their conduct ". Pitt lived to recant handsomely his views as to the right of search and to regret his opposition to the policy of " that wise and excellent Minister ".''■ None the less, both Great Britain and Europe stood on the thres- hold of a new epoch, and the Spanish war emphasises the rise of a new and inarticulate feeling in the nation which Pitt and the Op- position voiced if they selected an illegitimate opportunity for proclaiming the fact. With the logical irony of national evolution that inarticulate feehng was largely the result of WaJpoIe's success in giving Great Britain twenty years of peace, prospeiity, and economy. The expansion of British trade was fettered by the colonial policy and colonial monopoly of the Bourbon Powers. The develop- ment of the British settlements in North America brought her into conflict with Spanish Florida in the South, with the French in the North. Diplomacy and conventions could only postpone, not avert the day when the maritime, political, and colonial issues that were implicit in the Spanish question of 1739 must bring Great Britain into collision both in the East and the West with rivals whose political strength centred in Europe. The broad gravamen of Pitt's indict- ment both now and later rested on a statesman's intuition that the British nation, as an imperial Power, must either assert its right to expand beyond the limits prescribed in the parchments of the chan- ceries or perish. Pitt, the representative of the new and younger England, felt that in 1739 the facts had completely altered. He demanded, and in vain, for ten years a new interpretation of Eng- land's interest, a new system, a new attitude on the part of Ministers, and a new method which would provide an adequate synthesis be- tween policy and national ambition. He was ignorant, hot-headed, 1 Works, viii., 147; see alBO p. 116. » Letters of Sarah Lennox, 1., 53 n. 82 GEORGE II [1727 factious ; in details he betrayed his inexperience ; but his central conviction was sound ; in the pith of his demand he was right, and both in his faults and in his aspirations he came to be the cham- pion of all that was best in the spirit of the British nation. To assert so much is not equivalent to asserting that sound states- manship demanded in 1739 a . direct challenge to the Bourbon Powers. How long it would have been possible, had war with Spain been averted, to have maintained after 1740 the entente of 1717 with France, the original reasons for whose existence were now worn out, it is idle to argue. The die was cast in 1739. The system of Stanhope and Walpole was broken when the nation plunged Walpole into war. And the death of Charles VI. created Oct. 38 a wholly new situation for Europe. On October 28th the Tsarina Anne of Russia died. On December 16th Frederick the Great who had succeeded in the same year to the army and bureaucratic auto- cracy a-eated by his father, invaded Silesia to wrest that province from Maria Theresa. Frederick's act was a cynical violation of the Pragmatic Sanction which Prussia had guaianteed. On September 29th Anson had sailed from Portsmouth on the memorable three years' voyage round the world which proclaimed the newly awak- ened determination of Great Britain to assert her sea power in the Pacific. Two hard questions at once confronted the new Europe; was the new Emperor to be from the friends or foes of the House of Habsburg? would the Bourbon States follow Prus-,ia and repudiate solemn treaty obligations, or Great Biitain and observe the Pragmatic Sanction ? The Spanish war proved a bitter disappointment. Vernon delighted the buccaneering spirit at home Nov. 21, by desti-oying the defences of Porto Bello, but the great expedition 5?39 ^against Cartagena ended in disaster. Delay in despatching it, the death of its original commander, Cathcart, defective equipment, quarrels between the admiral, Venion, and the general, Wentworth, imbecile tactics and slowness and the deadly climate, justified the criticism " that the general ought to hang the guides, and the King May 7, ought to hang the general ". It was abandoned and followed by a JZ'H failure on Santiago de Cuba and a final failure on Portobello. A vast expenditure of life and money had been thrown away to no pur- pose. The military fiasco in the West Indies damned the Govern- ment at the time when it most needed support. The sands of Walpole's Ministry were running out. Four 1742] A FALLING MINISTER 88 millions in 1739 were voted for the war, though the iiTesponsible levity of the Opposition was exemplified in the fact that twice in this yeai- they pressed their annual motion for the reduction of the Feb. 14 standing army. " Sir Robert," Pulteney wrote with centempt for ^J** ^°^' his own reputation as a statesman, " will have an army, wUl not have a war and cannot have a peace." A Place Bill was only de- feated by the significant majority of sixteen. Next year Wyndham died. " What a star has our Minister ! " Bolingbroke exclaimed. But the death of Wyndham, a courageous and sincere opponent of Whig supremacy, in reality signified little. The stars in their courses were fighting against, not for, Walpole. Leicester House under the Prince of Wales was the centre of the Opposition in which Pitt became more and more prominent. Walpole's wonder- ful physical powers were collapsing ; the Cabinet seethed with in- trigue and treachery ; Hardwicke and Newcastle supported King and Court, who desired to add a war on the Continent to a war with Spain. The justifiable criticisms on the conduct of the cam- paign against Spain culminated in a combined assault, led by pjb_ j, Carteret in the Lords, by Sandys in the Commons, for the dismissal 1741 of the Minister.^ Both motions were thrown out ; in the Loi-ds by 108-59, in the Commons by 290-106, a majority swollen by the refusal of Shippen and his group to vote. The general election in May went heavily against Walpole. The Prince of Wales and Lord Falmouth turned the Cornish boroughs; in Scotland Ai-gyll's powerful influence was thrown on the Opposition side. When the new Parliament met in December the Ministry were faced by an exultant coalition of Jacobite and Hanoverian Tories, rebel Whigs, and Fi'ederickites. The early letters of the greatest of eighteenth century letter- writers, Horace Walpole, tell the story of the fierce fight to oust his father from the Councils of the Crown. Pulteriey's motion for a secret committee to inquire into the conduct of the Administration was defeated only by three votes, though both sides ' The significant terms of the Lords' Protest deserve verbatim quotation : " We are persuaded that a sole, or even a first, Minister is an officer unknown to the laws of Britain, inconsistent with the Constitution of this country, and destructive of liberty in any government whatsoever ; and it plainly appears to us that Sir R. Walpole has, for many years, acted as such by taking upon himself the chief, if not the sole, direction of affairs in the different branches of the administration " (Rogers, Protests of the Lords, ii., lo). The Protest according to Lord Trevor was drafted by Boling- broke (Coxe's WalpoU, 3, 564). 84 GEORGE II [1727- poUed the sick and the dying; Ministers failed to carry their Chairman of Committee, and on the Chippenham election petition Feb. 2, the Scottish and Comish vote turned the scale and the Opposition '^*^ had a majority of sixteen. Divisions on election petitions were i-e- cognised trials of pai-ty strength. Walpole, a martyr to stone, and broken physically, had met the continued attacks " with a gi-eat and undaunted spirit and a tranquillity more than human " ; but he was convinced now that for the head of a Cabinet rent by dissension it was impossible to carry on the King's business in defiance of a virtual vote of no confidence by the representative Chamber. On February 9th he became Eai-l of Orford and ceased to be a Minister of the Crown. " The reign of Sir Robert " was over. He left the House of Commons " sure that no other Minister would ever be able to stand so long as he had done, twenty years," and he was right. Newcastle was a Secretary of State continuously for thirty- 1724-1757 three years, a State career unparalleled in our political annals ; but not until the younger Pitt did a Minister enjoy the confidence of sovereign, legislature, and nation, or an enduring supremacy in the Cabinet equivalent to that asserted and maintained by Walpole. It is strikingly characteristic both of the man and his system that he refused to yield to the Opposition until he had been plainly defeated, not in the closet, but in Parliament. He had still the confidence of George II. and a majority in the Lords, but he had lost the trust of the Commons. The Chippenham vote was a personal censure. A reconstruction of the Administration under his leadership would simply have transfeiTed the sti'uggle from St Stephen's to the Cockpit at Whitehall. Walpole had too great a masteiy of the secrets of political efficiency under parliamentary conditions to believe that the shuffling jugglery of place-hunters and managers could make a tesselated mosaic of discordant pieces anything but a tesselated mosaic. Unlike Newcastle, but like Chatham, he was not prepared indefinitely to accept responsibility for the measures of whose principles and objects he disapproved, nor to lead an independent horde of departmental colleagues by whom he would be continuously outvoted. Walpole stood for a definite and intelligible system both in home administration and foreign policy. His fall was the fall of that system. New men, new problems, a new national temper, a changed European situa- tion sharply mark off the last twenty years of George II.'s reign 174X] WALPOLE'S CAREER 86 from the age of Walpole. But the essential features of his work as a statesman endured. They provided the basis on which his successors could build with assured success. Modern criticism can easily emphasise the gi'eat Minister's defects. Throughout he exaggerated the efficacy of diplomacy : " the rage of negotiat- ing" fastened on by contemporaiy opponents, particularly in latei" years, blinded him, though not alone of European masters of state-craft, to the deep and rising currents of national life. In common with most British statesmen both in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries he failed to see that a scientific organisation of the military resources of the kingdom was as essential as a well-filled ti'easury to a policy of peace and economy. He was not fitted to conduct a great war. Neither tattered drums and colours in our cathedrals, a swollen national debt, new imperial provinces on the map, nor an impi'essive list of legislative enactments enshrine his memory for generations that only by an effort can reconstruct the problems and the needs of the Great Britain which he patiently studied and overcame. The perils of a Stuart restoration, the transition trom monarchical to parliamentary government and the evolution of the Premiership, the Cabinet, and the party system can only be pieced together painfully to prove the share of a com- manding political genius in their construction. In the closet, in finance, in foreign policy, in the management of trade, and on the unseen foundations of national and imperial prosperity and power, Walpole accomplished much. Statesmen may feirly claim to be judged not merely by the successes they achieve, but by the dangers they avert Estimated by this test, Walpole has an indisputable place amongst the master-makers of modem Great Britain. In- tensely English both in his strength and his weakness, he was the last of the true Revolution Whigs, of the men who overthrew the monarchy and system of the Stuarts, and substituted for it a gigantic experiment in self-government. The twenty years of dull, plodding, but gifted statesmanship and administration under Walpole put the coping-stone on the fabric of 1688. In 1742 the Revolution State had taken an impregnable place in the State systems of modem Europe. Note. — See the authorities cited on p. 56 : and add : Sir R. Lodge, Great Britain and Prussia in the Eighteenth Century (1922). 86 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1740- CHAPTER in THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE § 1. The Wae of the Austrian Succession, 1740-1748 WHO was to succeed Walpole ? In the confusion that ensued three points were tolerably cleai" ; a Cabinet dominated by a single leader was impossible, because no one at the moment desired the continuance of a " sole or Pi-emier Minister," and there was no one with the qualities, the chsiracter, or the authority capable of playing the part ; it was impossible to satisfy all the claims of all the claimants for office in the heterogeneous coalition ; the majority of the existing Mihisters welcomed the sacrifice of their chief, but resisted the sacrifice of themselves. Horace Walpole, fresh from Rome, said that the maze of intrigue reminded him of nothing so much as the cardinals in a conclave electing a Pope. But in 1742 at St. James no one desired a Pontifi", though all hungered for a share in a syndicated tiai-a. Newcastle and Hardwicke anxiously negotiated with Carteret and Pulteney. Walpole, too, " had left his tongue in the Commons," and his advice was both asked for and acted upon. That Carteret failed to become First Lord of the Treasury and Pulteney took an earldom was largely the fallen Minister's work. " I have turned the key of the closet on him," he said of Pulteney. " Here we are, my lord," was his greeting to his rival, " the two most insignificant fellows in the kingdom," which was ti-uer of the first Earl of Bath than of the first Earl of Orford. Pulteney in fact lost his head in the crisis. He had made his posi- tion by that tongue which Walpole said he feared more than another man's sword, but in the House of Lords he had an alien audience and no party. He redeemed his pledge that he would not take office by entering the Cabinet without a portfolio, and he had no 1748] THE BROAD-BOTTOM ADMINISTRATION 87 opportunity of showing administrative skill ; with his failure to force on the new Ministry an adequate contingent of his personal followera his career after 1742 " was a wretched tissue of disappointed hopes ". The nominal head of the Broad-bottom ^ Administration was Lord Wilmington, on whose dull mediocrity, as in 1727, a brief greatness was thrust a second time. Newcastle retained his Secre- taryship, Hardwicke the Chancellorship, Henry Pelham the Pay- master-Generalship. Sandys, " who thought he could make out the revenue and the House of Commons " (in both of which he failed), became Chancellor of the Exchequer. The one admission of im- portance was Carteret. To make room for him Harrington ex- changed his Secretary's Seals for the Lord Presidentship. The omissions were numerous and significant. Chesterfield was left out. Of the young men, " the silver-tongued " Murray, the contemporai-y of Henry Fox and Pitt at the University of Oxford, who had at once on his entry into Parliament justified his great reputation at the bai', became Solicitor-General; Henry Fox was too stout a Walpoleite 174a to receive anything ; Cobham was made a Field-Marshal, but his " cubs " the " Boy Patriots," Pitt, Lyttelton, George Grenville, were left to growl and bark outside the ^oors of office. Nor was the Bottom of the Administration broad enough to admit the strict Tory element. Ai-gyll, pacified with the chief command in Scotland and the Master-Generalship of the Ordnance, demanded in vain recognition of the Tory allies, and in a huff at the refusal resigned his offices. The new Ministry in fact was as bitter a disappointment to Leicester House as to Bolingbroke. The dieam of a national union, dissolving party connections and combining the talents of all in disinterested service of the Crown and country, vanished in thin air a.s soon as it became a serious question of offices and places, of Whigs and Tories, of canying on the business of an obstinate and prosaic King in a workaday House of Commons. In the witty phrase with which, in the happier hours of irresponsible Opposition, Pulteney had attacked Walpole's Sinking Fund, " the promised philosopher's stone " that was to make England patriotic, pure, independent of Crown and Ministerial conuption, "ended in some little thing for curing the itch". A modest Place Bill ' " One now hears of nothing but the broad bottom ; it is the reigning cant word and means the taking all parties or people indifferently into the Ministry " (H, Walpole to Mann, February i8th, 1742). 88 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1740- was carried, but the other heroic remedies for an England ruuied by Walpole— the repeal of the Septennial Act, the abolition of the standing army in time of peace, the sunender of the Secret Service Fund, the extinction of the National Debt, the reduc- tion of taxation and the rigorous exclusion of all pensioners and placemen — were quickly dropped. The plain truth was that these things were as necessary to the intriguing gentlemen to keep themselves in office as they had been to the Minister they had turned out. But one matter could not be wholly burked— the de- mand for the exposure and punishment of the monster of political and financial iniquity, who for so long had defied the Opposition and manipulated Crown and Legislature. Against Walpole articles of impeachment were drafted, but the evidence that would convict the fallen Minister of treason was difficult to find, and a triumphant acquittal after a brilliant defence might bring Walpole back to power. A Bill of Pains and Penalties, by which a fair trial might be avoided, even if it got through the Commons, would certainly be rejected by the Upper House, to which Lord Orford now be- longed. It was fairly clear that the clamour for Walpole's head had been only a clamour for his place, and the clamour was now satisfied. Ministers were not anxious to reforge an instrument which a year or two hence a victorious Opposition could use for a like pmpose against the new occupants of the Treasury BencL Recourse was therefore had to a Secret Committee of twenty-one (nineteen of whom were Walpole's avowed foes) to scavenge in the dust heaps of the past ten years and publish to a horrified nation a damning indictment. But again the evidence was not forthcoming, probably because it did not exist. Scrope, the Treasury official who had confidential knowledge and might have revealed to whom pay- ments had been made and (perhaps) for what, wisely and stoutly refused to lay bare secrets which might have affected members of Pai'lianient, and certainly would have affected the organised intelli- gence department. of our Foreign Office. To aid the baffled com- mittee a bill was brought in providing an indemnity to all who would reveal damaging information, but it was riddled with criticism by Hardwicke, and on the advice of Carteret, who had some sense of justice and of humour, this device for intimidating the honest and rewarding the dishonest was summarily rejected. The Committee soon became an object of ridicule, and its report 1748] THE PRAGMATIC SANCTION 89 proved a fiasco.* Burke's later judgment that Walpole governed 1790 " by party attachments " has the authority of Walpole's own explicit and repeated statements. " The charge," Burke proceeds, " of systematic corruption is less applicable to him perhaps than to any Minister who ever served the Crown for so gi'eat a length of time." Certainly the politicians of 1742 — Pitt alone excepted — were not those who could thank God that they were not as the fallen Minister. And in the collapse of the retributive measures one more decisive step was taken towards substituting for im- peachment deprivation of office as the penalty for failure to retain the confidence of the representative Chamber of the Legislature. The crucial question of the hour was foreign policy. George II. Nov, tg had announced his intention to maintain his treaty pledge as re- '74° gards the Pragmatic Sanction, and Walpole had obtained from Parliament a vote for an armed force, and a subsidy for Maria Theresa, whose cause was popular in Great Britain. But with the succession to the hereditary dominions of the House of Austria, threatened by Frederick, was bound up the succession to the Im- perial Crown. As a woman Maria Theresa was debarred from election, but her husband, Francis of JLon-aine, was not. The most formidable candidate for the Imperial Crown was the Elector of Bavaria, who had never accepted the Pragmatic Sanction, and was a candidate also for the Austrian heritage. Another claimant was the King of Spain. If the Pragmatic Sanction was observed one great object of Maria Theresa was automatically gained ; but the imperial election necessarily involved securing the votes of the German Electors, of whom George II. was one. Behind the Elector of Bavaria and the King of Spain might be found the Bourbon Monarchy at Paris, anxious to weaken the traditional Habsburg foe. Fi-ederick's invasion of Silesia was a deliberate attack on the integrity of the Austrian dominions, and Frederick was an Elector to the Imperial Crown. Did Britain's treaty pledge and national interests require her to plunge into a continental wai- in order to protect Maria Theresa's rights, and further the Hanoverian policy of securing for Germany an Emperor whom marriage had made a • The charges and evidence adduced by the committee are analysed at length and with critical acumen by Coxe in his Walpole, i., 719-64. See also Lord Morley's Walpole, pp. i2i-g ; Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, vol. ii,, part i., p. 107 n., and see also Appendix XXL 90 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1740- Habsburg? Clearly, if a French ally ousted Maria Theresa from Vienna and won the Imperial Crown, Europe would be con- fronted by a resuiTection of the dreaded Bourbon ascendency led by Fi-ance, which it was the traditional policy of the Whigs to defeat. Was the Government to accept the logic of the Spanish war and enter on a life-and-death struggle with France? But Walpole, who had seen in 1739 one-half of his system of foreign policy shattered, struggled hard against sacrificing the other half. He did not share the Hanoverian and Austrian envenomed hostility to Prussia ; he distrusted the policy of continental engagements, the end of which could not be seen. To come out into the open against France destroyed all hope of dividing the Bourbon Powers and of controlling the policy of Maria Theresa. The Austrian Ministers clearly grasped that as long as Walpole was in office the renewal of the Grand Alliance and the identification of Great Britain with the House of Habsburg, for which they were working, could not be expected.* They were, therefore, as eager for his fall as Carteret and Pulteney. Meanwhile our Ministers saw that Berlin was the key to the position. If Frederick could be kept from a French alliance, and reconciled to Maria Theresa, diplomacy might settle the imbroglio without a general European war. Ne- gotiations were begun for a Grand Alliance (Holland, Russia, March, Austria, Saxony, and Great Britain) against Prussia. But bitter i'*?, was Austria's disillusionment when George II. announced his readi- April lo . " . ness to mediate between Frederick and Maria Theresa. The King of Prussia was willing, if Silesia were ceded, to support Maria Theresa and vote for Fi'ancis to be Emperor. British Ministei-s there- fore urged the acceptance of these terms. But the Austiian Com-t, deceived by Fleury's pacific language, foolishly rejected them. The Franco-Prussian alliance of June 4th was a second bitter disillusion- ment ; in August two French armies crossed the Rhine to support Sept. 19 the claims of the Elector of Bavaria ; the Treaty of Nymphenburg, which detached Saxony from the Habsburg to the Bavarian cause, revealed the objects of French policy — the dismemberment of the Austrian dominions, the election of an Emperor under French con- trol. If Walpole's dwindling authority was proved by George's journey to Hanover against his Ministers' wishes, the hasty declara- ' See especially the evidence for this from the Austrian archives in Pribram, Oeitttr. Staatsvrrtrdgt, England, i., 551-53. 1748] THE WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION 91 tion of Hanover's neutrality, made behind the back of the British Sept. aj Cabinet, which roused both Ministerial and popular indignation, was a fresh blow to Austrian hopes. Our diplomacy still strove to reconcile Vienna with Berlin, and the secret Convention of Klein- SchneUendorf, under which Frederick checked his militaiy opera- Oct. 9 tions, was due to English pressure. Maria Theresa had appealed to the loyalty of Hungary with triumphant success, although the election of the Elector of Bavaria as Emperor with the title of Jan. 24, Charles VII. was a severe set-back to Austrian ambitions. At this '79* point Walpole resigned. The Broad Bottom Administration in- herited a problem in foreign policy which called for great courage, decision, and a wide and deep insight into the confusing elements of a complicated situation. Above all, it was essential to frame a clear view of the true interests of Great Britain, and to settle the fii*st principles of our political and militaiy action. But here the new Ministers failed. The War of the Austrian Succession, so far as Great Britain was concerned, is a dreary record of conflicting principles, half-pursued, involving a vast expenditure of life and treasure with small or no results. The Cabinet, no doubt, was ilivided by internal strife, clogged by the Hanoverianism of the Crown and the inadequacy of Britisli militaiy resources. For the next fifteen yeai-s Great Britain paid a heavy price for the starva- tion of her standing army, her neglect of the science of war, her criminal failure to organise a reserve in the form of a national militia. No nation can divorce policy from war without disastrous consequences in both spheres, and the War of the Austrian Suc- cession shows how a series of attempts to combine principles radically opposed vitiates strategy, and mai-s even sound strokes of executive action. Too often the strokes were as ill-devised as the principles underlying them were confused and imperfectly conceived. For the fii-st two yeai-s interest centies on Carteret. His know- ledge of European politics and acquaintance with the German language (rare in his contemporaiies) made him very acceptable to the King ; his previous advocacy of Maria Theresa's cause ac- ceptable to Vienna. His diplomatic experience and brilliant gifts of intellect and oratory especially fitted him to realise his ambition of controlling the foreign policy of his country. A Whig by burth, culture, and sympathy, Carteret approached the problem with the traditional attitude and measures of the old Revolution 9« THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1740- Whigs. "I always," he said, "traverse the views of France in place or out of place ; for France will ruin this nation if it can." As the architect of a grander Grand Alliance, Carteret aimed at repeating the work of William III. The Bourbon ascendency was to be smashed on the Continent by continental methods. The union of London, the Hague, Vienna, with the lesser German States, in securing which Hanoverian influence would be useful, could be concentrated by the diplomacy which was his joy and his finest gift into an irresistible instrument for humbling Prance. But at the outset four assumptions may be noted in this wide conceptioa (1) Carteret must get and keep a free hand over Court, colleagues, and Pai-liament; (2) the objects of the Viennese Com-t must be broadly identifiable with the true interests of Great Britain ; (3) the issues between Great Britain and France must really be capable of being settled in Flanders, the Rhine, Silesia — on continental battlefields as the result of continental measures ; (4) the miUtary executive mus^t be equal to the diplomatic plan and to the political ideas underlying both. The Grand Alliance had found its Marl- borough and rested on a united Whig party at home. Carteret had to deal with the Pelhams, Hardwicke, and Newcastle ; he had to reckon with Pitt, with Maria Theresa, and above all with Frederick the Great. And outside Eui'ope there had grown up a new world. Louis XV. had entered the war not as a principal but as the aujdli- ai-y of Charles VII. ; Great Britain now entered it as the auxiliary of Maria Theresa. A large subsidy to the Queen of Hungary was voted ; Savoy was detached to co-operate with Austria in Italy against Spain ; 16,000 Hanoveiians and 6000 Hessians were hired to bring a British force in the Low Countries up to 30,000. In 1742 Mathews drove Spanish galleys into St. Tropez and burned them despite the neutrality of France ; at Naples, Commander Martin gave Charles III. one hour by the watch to withdraw his contingent from joining the Spaniards in North Italy; Charles III. submitted, but never forgot the humiliating coercion of the naval " tyrant ". The relentless pressure of our diplomacy compelled Maria Theresa lun ^^ accept the Preliminaries of Breslau, confirmed by the Treaty of July 28 Berlin by which Frederick gained Silesia, threw over his allies, and withdrew from the war. In consequence the French retreated from Jan., 1743 Prague and relieved Maria Theresa from the grip of her foes in Bohemia. Carteret and his colleagues had made a biilliant start 1748] DETTINGEN 9» The moment for a sharp blow at France had come. Had the advice of Stair, appointed to the command in Flanders, been taken, the Anglo-Hanoverian force would have struck at the weakly de- fended north-east frontier, with Paris as the objective. But the delay of the Hanoverian contingent, fear of such bold strategy, the fiction that we were not directly at war with France, the desire at Vienna to use "the Pragmatic Army" for Austiian objects in Germany, caused the winter of 1742 and the spring of 1743 to be wasted. Despite Frederick's protests the anny advanced towards Mainz to find the French now ready on the Meuse and the Moselle. When the King joined it on June 16th Staii-'s force was cut off" from Fi'anconia in the East and Hanau in the West, though the fault was not Stair's. De Noailles had secured the bridges on the river below and above the British forces and as soon as lack of sup- plies compelled them to retreat on Hanau, he prepared to crush them. The battle, however, that ensued at Dettingen, the last in ,^^^ which a British King commanded in person, resulted in a French defeat, thanks to the rashness and disobedience of De Grammont, who abandoned his strong position and engaged the whole Anglo- Hanoverian army before De Noailles' enveloping movements were completed. By pushing on at once to Hanau, Geoi ge had the good foi-tune to extricate his army from almost certain disaster and to en- able Handel to celebrate a royal victory in his " Dettingen Te Deum "• Stall', who had urged a vigorous pursuit, resigned a few month later, disgusted at being repeatedly overruled. As the French army in Bavaria had been defeated and fallen back on Alsace, De Noailles retreated also. George then advanced to Worms where a conven- tion of neutrality between Chai-les VII. and Maria Theresa brought operations to a standstill. Spain too had been severely checked in Italy by the Austro-Sai-dinian victory at Campo Santo and the co- operation of the British fleet ; the Electoral territories of Charles VII. were in Austrian possession, and the hour of the diplomatists had come. The danger points were really three. France, smart- ing under her failure, meditated shifting the theatre of her main operations in order to strike Great Britain out of the coalition by combining a campaign in Flanders with a Jacobite invasion of Great Britain ; Maria Theresa refused to regai-d the loss of Silesia as iiTevocable, and desired at least adequate compensation on the Rhine ; Frederick was determined not to imperil the future 94 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1740- of Pi-ussia by permitting unchallenged a renewal of an undisputed Habsburg supremacy in Germany. Carteret's position was hampered by the jealousy of his colleagues and the strong anti -Hanoverian feeling both in the Cabinet, Parliament, and public opinion. In July Wilmington had died. Caiteret favoured Bath's (Pulteney's) ambition to succeed him, but the Pelham group aided by Lord Orford's influence placed Henry Pelham at the head of the ad- ministration.i In complete agreement with George, Carteret was busily en- July 7. gaged in an elaborate scheme (the Preliminaries of Hanau) for *"g' I securing his imperial title and Bavarian territories to Charles VII., while he waived all claims on the House of Austria, and the French albandoned all fortified posts within the Empire. Hia colleagues sympathised with the popular desire for war (in alli- ance with Vienna) with France, but they declined to provide Ches- terfield and Pitt with new arguments for denouncing the curse of Hanoverianism and to demand in Parliament a subsidy for a Bav- arian Emperor in order that the Elector of Hanover might pose Sept. 7 as the Dictator of the Empire. The Treaty of Worms, which sub- stituted a great league (England, Holland, Austria, Saxony, Sai-- dinia) for the rejected scheme, was only earned in Cabinet after violent recriminations. The treaty drew severe a-iticism from the Opposition. On the brink of a war with France, Great Britain added Sardinia to her subsidy list, prolonged the subsidy to Austria, and pledged herself to teiritorial guarantees, which might be inter- preted to include the recovery of Silesia and the lost possessions in Italy. On Mai-ch 15th, 1744, France declared war on Great Britain April 14 and on Austria ; Fi-ederick replied to the Treaty of Worms by the Hjay union of Frankfort in support of the Emperor, by renewing his June alliance with France, by seizing East Frisia, long coveted by Hanover, August ^y marching into Bohemia, and thus commencing the Second Silesian War. The responsibility for this renewal of the general European straggle cannot be shifted from the British Cabinet. Austi-ia wag dependent on British subsidies and Hanoverian contingents for the realisation of her policy. A policy which pinned down the Viennese Court to frank acceptance of the Treaty of Bei-lin and the recogni- 1 " You have taken post," Orford wrote, " and will be able to maintain it. . . . Broad Bottom cannot be made for anything that has a zest of Hanover. Whig it with all opponents that will parley, but 'ware Tory." 1748] CARTERET'S POLICY 95 tion of Charles VII. as the basis of a settlement would have separated France from Prussia, British from Austrian and Hanovei-ian interests in Germany, and left England fi-ee to concentrate every man, gun, and penny on the maritime and colonial struggle with France. Car- teret's original policy was preferable to the compromise which satis- fied the Cabinet. But it ignored the imperial issues at stake beyond the seas, and his influence with the King and passion for wide-flung continental combinations deflected British resources from vitally British ends. The Ti'eaty of Worms to be successful, more- over, imposed on the Cabinet the task of organising and conducting under the conditions of a coalition a great war, for which events soon showed they had not the capacity. In the Mediterranean the indecisive action of February 22nd off Toulon, where the combined French and Spanish fleets might have been crushed, though it brought out Captain Hawke, proved the mismanagement of Ad- mirals Matthews and Lestock and the inefficiency of our tactics. The cashiering of Matthews was a poor compensation for the escape of the enemy to Carthagena and Alicante. In Flanders the inade- quacy of our force, the sluggishness of the Dutch, the jealousy of the Austrians left Marshal Wade, a cautious commander at best, helpless against the superior French army under a general of genius, Marshal Saxe. The FVench secured the line of the Lys as a basis for more serious efforts next year. Austrian operations in Alsace were nullified by Frederick's invasion of Bohemia, and Bavaria was abandoned to the Emperor. Though Fi'ederick was compelled to retreat from Prague the French crossed the Rhine, captured Freiburg and oven-an Bavaria; in Italy the Austiians were defeated at Velletri ; but the Sardinians, aided by the British fleet, foiled the French at Coni, and compelled them to recross the Alps. The end of a year memorable for a futile expenditure of human life and treasure saw a reconstruction of the Cabinet. Carteret, who had become Earl Granville, supported alone by the influence of the Crown, insisted on conti'olling foreign policy, for which his colleagues were required to find the money in Parliament and share the unpopu- larity of his demands. To the request for his favourite Minister's dismissal, the King, aided for the first and last time by the Prince of Wales, offered a stout resistance. The question raised political and constitutional issues of capital importance. Orford had broken silence in the Lords in the spring by a powerful speech em- 96 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1740- phasising the dangera to the Revolution Settlement in the continental pohcy of the Secretary of State. A dying man, he now hurried up Nov. 24, to London, and Carteret's retu-ement was largely due to his interven- '7« tion. It was the last service rendered to the dynasty by Robert Walpole. His prediction that a breach with the Bourbon Powers would involve the reopening of the dynastic question at home had been verified this year, and was to be more sti'ikingly fulfilled in the March, year of his death. The Pelhams carried out their mastei-'s counsel '745 of silencing the Opposition by giving office to its most prominent members. Harrington succeeded Carteret as Secretary, Chesterfield became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland ; the Tory Lord Gower was made Privy Seal, the Duke of Bedford, head of " the Bloomsbury gang," and conspicuous for his opposition to Walpole, was put at the head of the Admiralty. Even Sir John Cotton, a professed Jacobite, was gratified by a place at Court. Minor posts were found for Lyttelton and George Grenville. The " Patiiots " pai-ty was thus largely reconciled with the Administration. Pitt alone was passed over. Given to understand that royal resentment at his denuncia- tion of Hanoverianism forbade his being offered office, he was obliged to wait, and in the meanwhile be gratified with the recognition of his allies and the removal of " the execrable sole Minister," who " had drunk of the potion described in poetic fiction which made men forget their country ". George sullenly accepted these changes, enforced by a veiled constitutional lecture from Haidwicke on be- half of the Cabinet. "Ministers, sir," wound up the Chancellor, "ai-e only your instruments of government." "Ministers," was the royal retort, " ai-e the King in this country." And eighteen months later George II. was to receive a still shai-per lesson in the power of Ministerial solidarity. Cai-teret's fall invites a comment. He left St. James laughing, we ai-e told. Neither the extent of his political knowledge, the versatility and energy of his diplomacy, the polish and refinement of his culture, which made his personality so attractive then and since, had availed him. Yet it was not his bra- vwra levity of tone, his aiTogant and dictatorial nature, nor his self- indulgence which branded him as the ame damnie fii-st of Walpole's and then of the Broad-Bottom Administration. Pitt was quite as aiTogant, perhaps a more difficult, colleague. It would be unjust to deny to Carteret the proud patriotism of the cultivated aristoci-at, a burning ambition to achieve for his country an ascendency in the 1748] CARTERET'S FALL 97 councils of Europe, a remarkable knowledge of and interest in the politics and temper of the Continent. His contempt for popular opinion, his reliance on the power of the Croivn, his neglect of the machinery of parliamentary government, reveal the instructive secret of his failure. Had he, as was well said by a contemporary, studied Parliament more and Demosthenes less he might have been a successful Prime Minister. La haute politique was his self-chosen province. In the upper sphere of government, Pitt, who denounced him more savagely than any other critic, judged him to be without an equal. But he never seems to have grasped the meaning of ministerial responsibility and the multiplex unseen but vital rela- tions between Ministei-s and a representative House of Commons under the conditions of party and parliamentary government. Under an absolutist sovereign he would probably have won fame and wrought enduring results. In the England of his day he was a century too late. Statesmen who fail to understand their country- men or their age are invariably punished by being themselves mis- understood. Cai'teret challenged the right of a system of growing self-government to work out its own salvation by its own methods. The system revenged itself by breaking his power and strengthening its authority by his defeat. To all appearances, however, the reconstniction of the Ministry was not followed by a marked change in foreign policy. The war with France stamped 1746 as one of the most critical years in our annals, and the gravity of the situation at home and abroad made it clear that for Great Britain the question now was not one of principles and systems but of her capacity to maintain her independ- ence and save the balance of power by an honourable peace. The Treaty of Warsaw confirmed and extended the alliance with Austria, jan, 8. Saxony, and Holland, and the subsidies this year reached the'^745 enormous sum of J?l,178,753. A gi-eat effort in the Low Countiies was organised under the chief command of the Duke of Cumberland. But Marshal Saxe was the first in the field afid invested Toumay. April 30 Against the allied force advancing to its relief Saxe took up a fetrong position, stretching from the Scheldt on his right across Fontenoy to the woods of Barri on his left. Though the battle of Fontenoy resulted in a French victory, the frontal attack of the British and Hanoverians, unsupported by the Dutch or Austrians, May 11 across an open plain, commanded by artillery, into the heai't of the 7 98 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [l740. centre and left of the Fi-ench, must remain one of the most astonish- ing achievements of infantry on record, and a source of undying pride to the regiments which are entitled to bear the bloodstained name of Fontenoy on their coloure. Cumberland perforce retired and Toumay suiTendered — the beginning of a disastrous campaign for which inferiority in numbers, defective generalship, the weakness of the Dutch and quaiTels with the Austrians, were jointly respon- sible. Ath, Ostend, Bruges, Oudenarde, and Ghent fell to the French, and the allies were able to do little more than cover Antwerp and Brussels. The biilliant capture of Louisburg in Cape June Breton Island, " the one real stroke done upon France this year," was a partial set-ofF againsb this failure. But the outbreak of the Jacobite rising at home was the finishing blow. To man the ai-my in Flanders the gamsons in Great Britain had been dangerously depleted. Now in order to cope with the Highland clans, for which reserves that did not exist should have sufficed, the situation in Flanders was seriously imperilled by the withdrawal of the British Commander-in-Chief and practically the whole of his force. Tha July 25 landing of Charles Edward at Loch-na-Uamh thus dramatically shifted the centre of interest to a plain issue in the United Kingdom. Until 174)0 Jacobitism had given little trouble. Indeed had Duncan Forbes' scheme in 1738 for raising five Highland regiments been adopted, it might have made " the Forty-five " impossible ; cer- tainly an adequate military force distributed at the strategic centres would have crushed at the outset the romantic but mad fling for a tlirone of Charles Edward. But the Government did nothing, and events created the opportunity for which the young Stuart Pi-ince (bom 1722) hungered. The dreams of the faithful few had long centred on this brown-eyed, vigorous and attractive young man " with the bloom of a lass ". Charles believed in his star and him- self. He saw the Whigs quarrelling, the Hanoverianism of George II. provoking widespread discontent, Britain embroiled in a conti- nental war and her scanty military resources mortgaged. As early as 1741 the chief Jacobite agents, Macgregor of Balhaldy and Lord Sempill, aided by Murray of Broiighton, were actively negotiating with Cardinal Fleury. To Fi-ance, on the brink of war with Eng- land, the Jacobite Pretender was an effective instrument for a counterstroke which would "contain" Great Britain and might revolutionise her dynasty and system of policy. After Fleurys 1748] "THE FORTY-FIVE" 99 death Maurepas continued the inti-igue ; and though Louis XV. acted 1743 with characteristic secrecy and tortuous caution, serious preparations were put in hand. The information given with confidence and minuteness of detail in the memorials laid before the French Government is the familiar medley of self-deception, crude exag- geration, and reliance on paper calculations of fortune and the future. The plan adopted apparently was to dispense with a formal declara- tion of war and to cover with the fleet from Brest a surprise invasion under Marshal Saxe launched from Dunkirk. History repeated itself. The hesitations and delays of the French executive, the unwilling- ness of the English Jacobites to rise before the French regiments had landed, the quarrels, ignorance, and disunion of the Jacobite leadei-s on both sides of the Channel and of the Tweed postponed the stroke until the British Ministry were ready to frustrate it. Once again a Protestant and parliamentary gale devastated the Brest ships and wrecked the transports at Dunkirk. Noms, too, March 6 was prowling in the Channel for his prey, and the French promptly ^^^' abandoned an expedition doomed to failure if it had started. Charles Edward had escaped from Rome and reached Paris in February. Influenced by a small group, mainly of Irish adventurers, and against the wishes of his father, lucidly pessimistic as ever, he was determined " to win or to lose all," and to get into Scotland even if accompanied only by a single footman. After sixteen months of scheming, and stimulated by the victory at Fontenoy, Charles slipped out of Nantes in a small privateer, and after landing at Eriskay (the tiny island July 2, south of Uist where, as every true Jacobite knows, he planted a pink '''*^ convolvulus which still grows there and will grow nowhere else) set foot on the mainland at Borrodale in Moidaii. On August 19th July 25 the standard of the White Rose was raised at Glenfinnan at the head of Loch Shiel. He had already been joined by Lochiel and the Camerons, Glengarry, Keppoch, Clanranald, and the Appin Stuarts, Amongst his other supporters were the famous-infamous Murray of Broughton, and the aged TuUibardine. The English Government, though taken by surprise, had already placed a reward of ^£"30,000 on Charles's head — an intrinsically disgraceful and contemptible pro- ceeding because it showed a ridiculous ignorance of Highland senti- ment ; the Lord President Forbes hun-ied to Inverness to organise the Whig clans, and prevent Simon Lovat and the Frasers from joining the Cause ; while Sir John Cope with not more than 3000 100 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1740- men, new and raw regiments, was ordered to march northwards. Charles planned to surpiise and destroy his force at the Pass of CorryaiTack, but Cope turned off at Dalwhinnie and took Wade's Aug. 2g road to Inverness. Charles slipped round him, reached Blair- Athole Sept. 4 and then occupied Perth. Joined there by the Duke of Perth, Lord George Murray, and some 200 Robertsons of Sti-uan, he crossed the Forth at the Fords of Flew, skirted Stirling, routed Gardiner's dragoons at Coltbridge ("the Cantei- of Coltbridge "), and after a feeble show of resistance by the city authorities, entered Edin- Sept. 17 burgh. Though the Castle still held out for King George, the Stuart King was proclaimed the same day at the Cross, and the young Prince slept that night at Holyrood, the palace of his ancestors. The gamble for a throne had developed into a chal- lenge to the Hanoverian dynasty and civil war. Cope meanwhile transhipped his force fi-om Aberdeen by sea to Sept. i8 Dunbar, and Charles advanced to meet him as he mai ched by the coast road to Edinburgh. Cope, near Prestonpans, shifted his front from west to east with the sea and Edinburgh behind him, and his face protected, as he believed, by an impassable morass, which he did not guard by sentinels. He had some 2400 men with six small guns. On the night of September 20th Charles and his men, numbering about 2500, found a passage across the morass and flung themselves on Cope's regulars at dawn. The " battle " was finished in about six minutes. The dragoons on the wings at the firet rush of the Highlanders " fled like rabbits " ; the infantry with exposed flanks found bayonets useless against broad- sword and target, and were swept away. Cope escaped with the cavalry to Berwick, having lost his army ; the Highlanders dropped perhaps 100 killed and wounded. The moral effiect of Prestonpans was prodigious. What was to be the next step ? The victory did not, as had fondly been hoped, secure the political support of Scotland nor bring out the Jacobites in England. The British fleet prevented the French Government, involved in Flanders and on the Rhine, from sendmg anything but doles of money, guns, and a few officei's. But the home Government demanded from the Dutch the Treaty con- tingent of 6000 men, and recalled Cumberland and his army. Cleaily, Charles must either cross the Tweed and galvanise English Jacobitism into life before the Whigs had completed their militai7 1748] THE JACOBITE INVASION 101 preparations, or await an organised attack in Scotland. He chose the former, and, in deference to the advice of Lord George MuiTay, decided to turn Wade's force at Newcastle by taking the Western route. To deceive Wade as to the route of the invaders, one column marched by Peebles and Moifat, the other under Charles himself by Lauder and Kelso, and on November 9th they united at Carlisle, which surrendered. Manchester was reached on Novem- Nov. ij ber 29th, but the results so far were dispiriting. The invaders scarcely numbered more than 5000 ; neither English gentry, burghers, nor peasants came forward ; North Wales under Sir Watkin Wynn, South Wales under the Duke of Beaufort and the " gentlemen of the Cycle," were perhaps ready to rise at a nod ; yet Cumberland was lying between Tamworth and Newcastle-under- Lyme ; Wade reinforced could cut the communications with the North, and a camp of the guards and trained bands to guai'd Lon- don was being formed at Finchley. But the capital was Charles's objective. By a skilful feint his ai-my in forced marches got past Cumberland, and reached Derby on December 4th. In the race to the South, Cumberland, now at Stafford with his cavalry horses worn out, could be outstripped by the superior marching power of the Highlandei-s. The camp at Finchley alone barred the way. The news reached London on December 6th, and the panic added the name of Black Friday to our calendar. The Bank was reduced to paying in sixpences. It was also a Black Friday in the calendar of the White Rose. For while London was a prey to consternation the Cameron pibrochs were already sounding not the advance on Finchley but — ^retreat. Charles, with the greatest reluctance, had yielded to the unanimous advice of his officers, and by December 12th his ai-my was back at Preston, heading northwards. The militai-y reasons for the retreat are plausible, but not absolutely convincing. With Wade and Cumberland behind them, a reverse meant ruin to the Jacobite forces. Five thousand men in the heart of an apathetic country, cut off from their base, could not achieve the impossible. Scotland could at least be secured. Further ad- vance was a gambler's thi'ow. But Chailes was a gambler who could only win all by risking all. Another Prestonpans on the heights of Hampstead would have given him the capital, might have brought in the French Government and led to a general rising in England and Wales. To-day no one can be dogmatic on what 102 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1740- might have been. Charles's instinct was sound, and had he failed his fate would have been no woi-se than the disaster that awaited him and his Highlanders in the spring of 1746. It is certain that as soon as Derby was left behind the prince's heai-t was broken, and the belief in the Cause and its inspiring leader which had brought the clans from the Grampians to the centre of England was iiTetrievably shattered. From Dei'by to Culloden is a record of a forlorn hope struggling against superior organisation and resources, of noble gallantry marred by cabals, jealousies, blunders and despair. The honours of the retreat belong to Lord George Munay, who commanded the rear-guard, for Charles who in the advance had won the enthusiasm of the Highlanders by weai-ing kilt and tartan, and sharing their hardships, was now guilty of a sullen slackness. Cumberland pressed the pursuit, but MuiTa/s coolness and dex- terity at Clifton Moor, south of Penrith, checked the English Dec. ig dragoons. At Carlisle against his advice a small garrison was fo'.)lishly left which promptly suiTendered to Cumberland, who occupied the town ten days later. The Esk was safely crossed and Dec. 26 Glasgow reached ; a wonderful march from Edinburgh to Glasgow via Derby in no more than fifty-six days on eighteenth century roads. Cumberland returned to deal with the expected French invasion and the command fell to Hawley, a fair soldier and ferocious dis- ciplinarian, "with no small bias to the brutal". Charles, after joining with the Northern force collected in his absence, which brought his numbers up to some 9000 men, proceeded to besiege Jan. 3 Stii'ling.i Hawley's force coming to its relief was met on Fal- Jan. 17 kirk Muii", but the nature of the ground, a high slope cut by ravines, darkness and a storm of rain, prevented a com- plete victory, and Hawley made an orderly retreat, leaving 500 killed and wounded on the field. The Highland loss was about forty; and as Hawley's army included at least one regiment that had fought well at Fontenoy, it is not unfair to infer what Charles's men in the flush of an unchecked advance mi^ht o ' It was at Bannockburn House at this time ihat the Prince made the acquain- tance of Miss Clementina Walkinshaw (daughter of John Walkinshaw of Barrons- field), the blonde beauty with gold hair and blue eyes whom Alan Fairford (in Redgauntlet) saw at Fair Ladies. She followed the Prince to France and lived with him from 1749 to 1760, but it is pure conjecture that she became his mistress BB early as 1746. Separated from the Prince in 1760, she died in 1792, 1748] CULLODEN 108 have done at Finchley. It was the last conspicuous success. Cum- berland hurried North, determined to reorganise his army and prove that regulars could face and beat the Highlanders, whom he regarded with hati-ed and contempt. Lord George Murray and the chiefs urged the necessity of abandoning the siege of Stirling, and once again Charles sullenly complied. On Februai-y 1st the retreat on Inverness was begun. The reasons for this retirement on the lean North are obscure and con- flicting. Since the unhappy decision at Derby jealousies, divided counsels, lack of accurate intelligence had ruined the confidence of Charles in his followers and of his followers in the Prince. In a vigorous offensive, as Falkirk re-proved, lay the sole chance of success, while Cumberland now was given the time he needed to restore the moral of his troops and introduce new tactics. Two smedl successes preceded the inevitable and final disaster. Loudon from Inverness attempted to seize Charles at Moy Castle, but a handful of Highlanders struck panic in his men (the Rout of Moy, February 10th), and Charles occupied Inverness. Fort Augustus was then captured, but the strokes against Fort William and Blair Castle failed. Murray's operations fcetween Blair- Atholl and In- verness were quite masterly, but they were futile. Cumberland was at Aberdeen on February 27th and at Nairn on April 14th. Desertion and lack of supplies had reduced Charles's force to 5000 half-starved men ; nevertheless it was decided to try a night surprise on the Duke's camp. It failed, and Charles, against Murray's wishes, insisted on giving battle on Culloden Moor. Cumberland's army, with eighteen guns, was 9000 strong, well-fed and confident of victory. The Highlanders were half their number, exhausted by the night- march, and starving. A quarrel between the Macdonalds and the Athollmen as to the place of honour on the right added a further disadvantage to the Jacobite host fighting on open gi-ound against troops specially trained to meet their methods of attack. Cumber- land ran^o risks. He drew up his array in three lines, the second in square formation to stop a rush if the first were broken. Galled by the artillery, the Highland right and centre under Murray charged and partially broke the first line, only to be enfiladed by musketry and grape, and the centre gave way. The Macdonalds on the left were prevented from closing by the artillery and the death of Keppoch, their leader. A dragoon charge on both flanks, despite 104 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1740- the splendid gallantly of the Highland right, crumpled up the lines of the clansmen. In half an hour the battle was decided. Charles " was led off the field by those about him " ; and as no rendezvous had been settled, the task of rallying the decimated forces fell to Muiray, who succeeded in collecting about 1200 men at Ruthven. Culloden ended the rising. Charles fled first to Lovat's house of Gortaleg, thence to the April 26 Castle of Glengarry ; thence he escaped from Bon-odale in a boat and commenced the wonderful wanderings which have im- moi-talised the name of Flora Macdonald. The loyalty and de- votion of the Highlanders to the hunted fugitive, in whose cause they had rained themselves, would only be vulgarised by praise. To the men and women who kept the Prince's secret, chivalry and duty were one and the same thing. After five months of adven- tures and escapes, Charles, on September 20th, sailed for France with Lochiel from Loch-na-Uamh at Borrodale in Moidai't, the precise place where he had landed in 1745 ; and Jacobitism as a serious poUtical cause in British history ceased to exist. From that day until his death in 1788 the caieer of Charles Edward is a pitiful record of deterioration, of a man broken in fortune, character, and hopes, over whose life it is kindest to draw a veil. It would be better for the fame of the conquerors could tlie crushing of the Rebellion have ended with April 16th, 1746. The completeness of the victory and the strength of the victore offered a golden opportunity to the mercy which can bring the richest rewards of constructive statesmanship. The important Act of 1747 (commonly called Hardwicke's), abolishing the feudal jurisdictions and social system of the clans and their chiefs, was a necessary and a wise step.^ The vesting of the forfeited estates in the Crown, due mainly to the advice of President Forbes, was also a sound measure. But the Disarming Act, though cruelly enforced, was not effective, and the Act which proscribed the wearing of the Highland dress rested on the absurd assumption that the kilt, and not its wearei-s, had swept away the breeches at Killiecrankie, Prestonpans, and Falkirk. But the failure of the Government to combine with Hardwicke's Act the diversion of the military energies of the ' Cumberland was really right when he wrote : " If we had destroyed every man, such is the soil, rebellion would sprout again should a new system of govern- ment not be found out ". 1748] "BUTCHER" CUMBERLAND 106 clansmen, by the formation of Highland regiments and a generous economic treatment of a poor semi-civilised country, delayed for a generation the absorption of the Highlands into the administrative and social system of Scotland. The execution of Lords Balmerino and Kilmarnock, of the rank and file taken in arms, was excusable, but a ser ious mistake. No one can regret that Lovat ended on the scaffold a cai'eer of matchless duplicity and villainy. Most will re- gret that a traitor as selfish as Lovat, and far more mean, Murray of Broughton, by turning King's evidence, lived to inherit a baron- etcy. But the rigime of vengeance was as stupid as it was cruel- The burning of villages and of crops, the shooting of prisoners in cold blood, the torture and floggings of men and women, the deliberate encouragement of tribal hatred by letting loose the loyal clans on the vanquished, — these and similar atrocities caiiied out by Cumberland''s orders or with his connivance, cannot be con- doned. " Butcher Cumberland " he was called by contemporaries, and Butcher Cumberland he will and must remain. The carnival of terrorism that he authorised did not exorcise the spirit of the Highlanders ; it invested Jacobitism with the halo of martyrdomi and indelibly stained the fame of a ^soldier to whose courage and skill in an hour of failure and national peril the Hanoverian dynasty and Government were deeply indebted. Nor did the work of the Lord President, Duncan Forbes, whose energy, loyalty, and prudent advice did so much to keep Scotland for George II., ever receive the recognition it deserved. He had the courage to protest against the methods of Cumberland and his minions, and his death in 1747 marks the beginning of a new Scotland which as much as any man he had helped to inaugurate.* The Jacobite rising had coincided with decisive changes in the European situation. The Emperor Charles VII. died and his son, the new Elector of Bavaria, by the Treaty of Fiissen came to 1745 terms with Maria Theresa. He agreed to accept the Pragmatic Sanction, withdraw from the war, and vote for Francis in the forth- coming imperial election. In return the validity of his fathei-'s imperial title was recognised and the Bavarian tenitories restored. To the disappointment of the Fi-ench, one gi-eat object of Habsburg ' Cumberland spoke of him as " that old woman who talked to me oi humanity " — quite in keeping with another memorable remark : " The law* of the country, my lord. I'll make a brigadier give lawi, by God 1 " 106 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1740- policy was secured by Francis of Lorraine's election to the imperial Sept crown. But the other, the recovery of Silesia, was as far off as ever. Frederick's victories at Friedberg, on the Sohr and at Kesselsdorf, and his occupation of Dresden, led up to the Treaty Dec. 25 of Dresden which ended the second Silesian war and confirmed the Prussian annexation of Silesia. The French victories at the Netherlands, and defeat of the Sardinians at Bassignano, only strengthened Frederick in his cool determination to be guided by his own interests alone, and in the pressure of British diplomacy at Vienna he had an ally, anxious to limit the war to a plain struggle with France. But until July, 1746, Great Britain was not in a position to give material support to Charles of Loiraine and the Austrians in the Netherlands, and by that time the French had taken Brussels, Antwerp, and Mons. The ai-rival of Ligonier and a British contingent failed to stem the French advance. Namur Aug. 30 fell and Saxe inflicted a severe defeat on the allies at Raucoux Sept. 30 which ended the campaign for the yeai-. Had the six British g battalions uselessly employed in a diversion to the coast of Brittany, Oct. 12 which ended in a discreditable failure, been sent to stiffen Ligonier's Oct. 24 force in Flandei-s, or to India, where Madras had been lost, they might have achieved some valuable results. The Ministry, how- ever, seemed more bent on defeating the King than their enemies, and here their success was decisive. The Pelhams desired to consolidate their administration by offering office to Pitt. George, whose aversion from Pitt had not cooled, aided by Granville's advice outside the Cabinet and Bath's Feb. 6 within it, stubbornly refused to give way. Whereupon, when affairs in Scotland were still highly critical, the Pelham group re- signed. The King promptly had recourse to Granville and Bath who set about forming an administration. But " they had forgotten one little point, which was to secure a majority in both houses". The parliamentary solidarity of the Pelhams reinforced by the Cobham group threatened the embiyo Ministry with certain defeat. In vain offices were offered in every quarter. The wits said that it was not safe to walk the streets at night for fear of being pressed for the Cabinet. The new Ministry flourished in the morning, grew green at noon, and in the evening it was cut down and for- gotten. Granville and Bath begged to be excused, and the Pelhams resumed their places. Pitt became Vice-Treasurer of Ireland and 1748] A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS 107 was shortly transferred to the Paymastership of the Forces. Created a Privy Councillor " as yet he had no seat in the Cabinet ". But he had earned his promotion by his resolute support of the administra- tion since Granville's fall. It is significant that he owed his place 1744 to that strength of the Whig oligarchy and their party organ- isation which the orator to the end loved to denounce. At the same time Chesterfield succeeded Harrington as Secretary of State ; and Henry Fox, the rival in debating power of Murray and Pitt, became Secretary at War. George might well be alarmed and embittered. For the first time a collective resignation had en- forced two principles. Obviously no Ministry without the support of a majority in the legislature could carry on public business, but George had challenged the claim of his confidential servants to dictate how the royal prerogative of appointment should be exer- cised, and he had been obliged to ask Ministers whom he had practically dismissed to come back on their own terms, bring- ing with them a colleague highly distasteful to the Sovereign. In Almon's words a constitutional King "must take into his service those who have the gi-eatest influence among his subjects ". The Pelhams too had not resigned ^merely to secure Pitt's inclu- sion, but to prevent recourse to irresponsible politicians outside the definite group of the Crown's recognised advisei-s. When Han-ington remai'ked that those who dictate in private should be employed in public he protested, as did Burke later, against the competition of a camarilla of King's Friends with the Cabinet, and indicated (unconsciously perhaps) the relations between Sovereign and Ministers indispensable for adapting the Cabinet to become an effective organ of parliamentary government. But it would be premature to see in Pelham's success a surrender of the government-making power by the Crown to the House of Commons. The part played by Parliament was purely passive. The Pelhams were not a committee of a majority freely elected by independent electors to an independent legislature. The creators rather than the creation of a majority they had simply proved what a imited Ministry could do when it rested on the organised control of the Lower House. The corollaries and consequences of this were reserved for a later generation to work out and adopt. In 1747 the victor of CuUoden returned to Flanders, but the hard-fought battle of Lauft'eld, in which British cavalry and in- June 21 108 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1740- fantry acquitted themselves with signal distinction, was followed by Cumberland's retreat, and though Maestricht was saved, Bergen- op-Zoom fell to the French. Next spring Saxe, who saw that " peace lay within the walls of Maestricht," laid siege to the fortress. But the French suffered severely at sea. Hawke crushed one squad- ron off Cape Finisterre, and part of the enemy which escaped to the West Indies was captured there ; Anson defeated another squad- ron off Belleisle. French maritime commerce was hard hit, and after 1747 " the French flag did not appeal- at sea ". Yet Ministers failed to utilise the offensive to the full. An expedition up the St. Lawrence was delayed and finally countennanded. By 1748 the nation was thoroughly sick of the war. Chesterfield's unwearied advocacy of peace was strengthened by the lavish expenditure on subsidies, the failure in the Low Countries, and the growing diver- gence in the objects of the allies. The French, beaten at sea, driven from Italy, deserted by Prussia, and weakened by the accession of 1747 Ferdinand VI. in Spain, were ready to discuss teiTOs. The prelim- April 30 inaries, arranged without waiting for Austrian or Spanish consent, Oct. 18 matured into the definitive Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which was subsequently joined by the Viennese Court after a formal and public protest against the sacrifices imposed by its ally on the House of Austria. Mutual restoration of conquests, with some modifications, was the broad result. Spain confirmed the Assiento and trading rights ; Madras was exchanged for Louisburg ; the sea fortifications of Dunkirk were to be demolished ; the Austrian Netherlands were evacuated by the French ; Silesia was assigned to Prussia, Paniia to Don Philip ; P'rancis was acknowledged Emperor, and the Pragmatic Sanction guai-anteed. Pitt's view that the peace " was absolutely necessary for our well-being " can hardly be gain- said, but Bismarck's description of the convention of Gastein, that it "papered over the cracks," is eminently applicable. The Peace registered important results on the Continent — the new power of Prussia and the genius of Frederick the Great, the loss of Silesia, the decadence of Holland, the extension of Bourbon power in Italy, the resources available to the House of Austria within its hereditary dominions. Ten years had profoundly modified the grouping and interrelation of the Continental States. The Europe of 174^ was very different from the Europe of the Third Treaty of Vienna (1738) ; but the treaty indicated rather than solved the problems 1748] THE MORAL OF THE PEACE 109 which these changes had thrust upon statesmen. And for Great Britain in particular the crucial issues between the Bourbon powers and herself were left unsettled. Englishmen had good reason to be dissatisfied with the conduct and results of the war. " We were beat," said Bolingbroke, truly enough, " on every spot in which my Lord Marlborough had conquered." The burden of the national debt had been doubled ; our military weakness and lack of organisation had been conspicuous ; our naval efforts pointed to ineffective tactics and confused strategy. " The Government at sea," said a great Elizabethan, "hardly suffereth a head without exquisite experience." Great Britain had not adequately applied the offensive force that co-ordinated direction of, and strategical insight into, sea-power could have given her. And between the lines of the treaty could be read still more dis- quieting conclusions. The right of seai"ch, which had plunged us into war with Spain, was significantly ignored ; the door to the new markets was still locked. Of our claims — "as from God and Nature " — there was not a word. The Bourbon Courts of Paris, Madrid, Naples, and Parma dominated the Western Mediten-anean, and the littoral of the Atlantic that«looked across the ocean to the colonies beyond. The French plan to found an empire in India was neither frustrated, limited, nor accepted ; the ragged boun- daries of Acadia were not defined ; Louisburg was restored to guard the St. Lawrence and menace the New England settlements ; there was nothing to check French schemes of expansion on the Mississippi and the Ohio, nor any attempt to stake out legitimate spheres of influence. The Dutch Alliance and the Barrier had proved worthless ; the Austrian Netherlands had been overrun and could be oven-un again, and a prime object of British policy — the retention of" Belgium " in friendly hands — checkmated. The alliance with the House of Austria had proved costly and inadequate ; it had been maintained with increasing recriminations on both sides, and the peace was as unsatisfactory to Vienna as it was to Great Britain. Pitt's and Chesterfeld's fierce criticisms had ascribed British failure to Hanoverianism, to the shrivelling of the imperial Crown under the Elector's cap, to the dependence of this country on a despicable German Elector. If Pitt meant that George II. 's Hanoverian bias was the main cause of the squandei-ing of British lives and money to no purpose he was unjust both to George II. and to Carteret. But 110 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1740-4 Pitt's insistence on English measures must be interpreted more broadly. He was really indicting the inherent vices of the tradi- tional system of foreign policy as understood by " the continental " school of Whigs, rather than the accidental vices of the men who worked that system. He was insisting that the true question was not, " for what is Great Britain fighting ? " but, " for what otight Great Biitain to fight?" The destinies of the British people turned on her imperial future ; her interests were fundamentally colonial, maritime, commercial ; their development lay, not in the blood-sodden fields of Flanders and Lombardy, the valleys of the Rhine and the Bohemian passes, but outside Europe, on the coast of Coromandel, in Bengal, in the hinterlands of the AUeghanies, and the vast basin of the Mississippi, where its headwatei-s reached out to the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence. These were English objects, and they required English measures to keep them English. But if the criticisms of Pitt, imperfectly acquainted with the diplo- ■matic factors of the Continent and inflated by rhetoric, were to be followed there must be a reconstruction of the system and a new scheme of political and imperial values, as well as a reconsideration of the objects of our foreign relations. The War of the Austrian Succession had ushered in a new age, and in Pitt was the incarna- tion of the awakened spirit and the consciousness of unsatisfied minds moving in Great Britain. But the new age and the new spii'it had not yet moulded the principles that still dominated the mandai-ins of the Cockpit at Whitehall and the legislature at St. Stephen's. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle proclaimed for those who had eyes to see and ears to hear that the traditional system, the synthesis of principles and methods of William III. and Marlborough, of Stan- hope, Walpole, Carteret, and Newcastle and Hardwicke was worn out. But old systems die hard, especially when they are consecrated by success in the past and ai-e enshi-ined in the ends of organised par- ties. Great Britain was conscious of her failure, and she ascribed it to the men rather than to their principles. There was no cleai- warn- ing how similar failure in the future could be averted. Pitt alone, perhaps — and Pitt was now silenced by office and the cessation of the strain brought by the peace — had concluded that a new system was urgently needed, and a new system implied new men touched to the gi-avity of the imperial problem in all its beaiings, and gifted with the courage and constructive power to frame new measures. Before 1748-66] NEW PROBLEMS 111 ten yeai-8 were out that new system did come and justify itself be- yond expectation ; for it started from a revolution in the State for- mation of Europe and it placed the British Empii-e in a new setting. But the transition from the school of Carteret, Hardwicke, and Newcastle to the gospel of Pitt was brought about more by the inexorable pressure of the forces in Europe and the new world than by a conscious conversion of the Whig leadei-s and the nation of 1748. The interest of the eight years that intei-vene between the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle and the Seven Yeare' War centres in the nature and consequences of this process of evolution. § 2. The Diplomatic Revolution, 1748-1756. The Seven Yeaes' War, 1750-1760 The war had brought to the front the imperial question. In the West Indies, in America, in India, British possessions were menaced. In America the Treaty of Utrecht had given Great Britain Newfoundland, Hudson's Bay, and Acadia. The British settlements occupied the littoral eastwards of the Alleghany Mountains ; to the north was New France or Canada, to the south 166987 Spain, to the west a vast unexplored 'hinterland. French exploi-a- tion under La Salle had laid the basis of a claim by the French Crown to all the lands called Louisiana, watered bj the Mississippi ; and the idea of a great North American dominion from sea to sea, from the Gulf of Mexico and the mouth of the Mississippi to the mouth of the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic seaboard, linked up by 1718 the Ohio and the Great Lakes, steadily grew. New Orleans pointed 1731.42 the way. Verendrye carried on the work of penetrating to the main lines of communication which would effectively encirck the British settlement. Acadia meanwhile was not delimited. What were "the ancient boundaries " of the treaty ? Nova Scotia alone ? or did they include the modem New Brunswick and part of Maine to the south? The French relied on keeping the loyalty of the Acadians and fortifying Louisburg in the Isle Royale. Then in 1744 came open war. Colonial sentiment was determined Acadia should not fall back to the French. Thanks to William Shirley, Governor of Massa- chusetts, and with the aid of a naval squadron under Warren, Louisburg, "the Dunkirk of North America," "the pride and terror of these Northern seas," capitulated. " Good Lord," said a New England pastor, " we have so much to thank Thee for that 112 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- time will be too short and we must leave it to eternity." But the conquest of Canada was abandoned and a French counterstroke failed in 1746. Frontier raids went on till the end of the war, when Louisburg, to the disgust of the colonials, was restored to Fraiice. It was clear that the struggle for supremacy between the French and British peoples, between the French and British systems of colonisation, had only begun. Whatever might happen in Europe, La Salle's dream of a great North American Empire was more than a di-eam to French brains at Quebec and Montreal ; the policy of peaceful penetration would be pushed, whatever Versailles might say. To the British colonies, rapidly gi-owing in population and wealth, it was a matter of life and death to secure the right to expand westwards uncontrolled by political foes and a rival civilisation. The French population of Canada was a handful compared with the million and a half of British colonists. If North America became French it would be because France, not Canada, was superior to Great Britain in Europe and in the strategic area aa'oss the ocean. The issue for the British colonists therefore lay primarily upon the water. If the communications between Quebec and Brest were cut, Canada might remain French, but the vastly superior numbers of the British colonists would keep North America south of the Great Lakes for the British Empire. The capture of Louisburg, Anson's defeat, off" Finisterre, of the Pi-ench squadron 1747 destined for Canada, revealed the capacity of sea-power both to menace the existence of the French and to provide the British colonies with the means to achieve their own salvation. But neither continental campaigns nor continental alliances which made the mainland of Europe the strategic centre of our efforts would solve the imperial problem. And the old strategy, false because it was the outcome of a worn-out system of policy, if persisted in might easily end in an imperial disaster, beyond repair. The same plain moral could be drawn from the situation in India. In 1702 the two rival companies trading to the East Indies had been amalgamated. The English were now established at three presidential centres, Madras, Bombay, Fort William (Calcutta), with auxiliary factories at Surat and Patna. These three centres broadly provided three possible spheres of commerce and political influence, the Camatic, the Mahratta area, and the Ganges basin and Bengal. The French, who had replaced the Dutch as oui- leading rival 1756] FRENCH AND ENGLISH IN INDIA 113 were similarly established at three main points, Pondicherry, Chan- demagore, and Mahe. In 1707 the break up of the Mogul Empire, consequent on the death of Aurangzib, led to the foimation of the chief political ai-eas with which the French and the British in the eighteenth centuiy would have to deal — the Deccan and the Car- natic, the Mahratta confederacy, 1720-50 (the successors of Sivaji — the Peishwa, Sindhia, Holkar, and Gaikwar), the kingdoms of Bengal and Oudh with Rajputana lying beyond. The real struggle for supremacy in India between the representatives of European States begins in the Cai'natic in 1741, when Dupleix was governor of Pondicherry. Thanks to his genius and organising power the French in India as in North America were first in the field with clearly conceived principles and a plan. Dupleix saw that Euro- peans could create for themselves a political lever by judicious and decisive interference in the rivalries of the native rulers and states, that native troops under European officers and discipline could be made a potent instniment for building up organised spheres of influence. Furthermore, if the English could be ousted a com- mercial and political monopoly must fall to those who ousted them- It therefore was the duty and the interest of the French first to ci-ush the British company and then to expel the English and thus lay the foundations of a great French Empire. The French started with the great advantage of possessing in Mauritius outside the Indian peninsula a naval station, strategically situated to provide the government in Europe with means for supporting offensively and defensively the efforts in the East. What Louisburg was to the St. Lawrence, Mauritius could be to the Camatic. In 1746, with the aid of La Bourdonnais from Mauritius, Madras was captured. Though the attack on Fort St. David failed (thanks to Stringer 1748 Lawrence and Boscawen's fleet) the counter-attack on Pondicherry had been repulsed. And the peace of 1748 gave Madras back to the East India Company. But the struggle would not end with this drawn game. Dupleix was a man of genius ; his diplomatic ability in dealing with the natives, and his defeat of the Nawab's 1746 troops by trained sepoys, had brought great prestige to the French. His partial success proved that his interpretation and methods were sound and that a higher degree of combination and perseverance would bring moi-e substantial rewai'ds. As in North America, the gravity of the position for the British Company lay in their rivals' 8 114 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- scientific grasp of the problem as a whole, the extent and character of then- ambitions, and the skill with which their methods could be applied. Would the English be able to pit against the French equal ability and superior resources ? Clearly, as in North America, the purely local effort could not be decisive. The command of the sea must be settled by the home governments, and the command of the sea would decide the fate of the French and British in India. True, the mastery of the Carnatic or Bengal would not necessarily fall to the power that controlled the Atlantic and the Mediterranean ; but, as between European rivals for that mastery, the power that could prevent reinforcements of ships, men, and money reaching India and provide a superiority of force in the Bay of Bengal or the Indian Ocean could prevent any European country from dis- puting its right to establish itself in India. The character and ability of the men on the spot must then decide whether and how a European dominion could be built on the ruins of the Mogul Empire. The eight years that precede the outbreak of the wai- for Empire are great years in India and North America and in Europe, but they are not great in English political life. The plain lessons en- forced by the peace of 1748 were not grasped by the men at home, absorbed in domestic politics and the complicated and repellent intrigues for place and power. Some useful work in finance and legislation was accomplished, but for the most part the age of the Pelhams is a record of neglected opportunities and misused resources. The Empire evaded iireparable disaster by the fortunate accident that the Court of Versailles was still more completely corroded by intrigue, quite as incompetent to interpret the ti'ue interests of its subjects, and quite as ignorant of the essential facts. And in Great Britain the morale of the country was sound ; it had not been sapped by a profligate and extravagiint despot, a corrupt and persecuting Church, or a functionless, atrophied, and demoralised aristocracy. In 1763, as in 1870, France paid the price that is sternly exacted from nations devoid of the strength to endure their self-made vices, or to provide remedies for them. The blunders of her diploiflacy were significant rather of a bankruptcy of character than of a famine of ability in the ruling class. The three first-rate men she produced, Dupleix, Montcalm, and Choiseul, were not pei-mitted to save her. But the tale is diflFerent at Vienna and Berlin. With 1766] FREDERICK THE GREAT 116 1748 Kaunitz, pronounced by Frederick the Great to be so frivol* ous in his tastes, so .profound in his judgments, began the work which prolonged the rule of the Austrian Habsburgs into the twentieth century. And in Maria Theresa, Kaunitz had a royal collaborator who was a noble woman, as free as any eighteenth century iniler from the vices and defects of her age. The contrast between the courts of St. James and Versailles and the court of Berlin is dramatically complete. Lethargy, pessimism, bluiTed vision, are set in clear-cut antithesis against Argus-eyed vigilance and sleepless energy. Frederick was indeed earning the honour of being, as he asked to be, the first servant of his kingdom ; by his genius for self-sacrifice he created the historic mission of the House of Hohenzollem. That Pi'ussia preserved her independence against the coalition of Bourbon, Habsburg, and Romanov, and came to be one of the capital formative forces of the modem European world, was largely the work of the wonderful eleven years crowded 1745^6 with the scientific reforms, and inspired by the passionless patriot- ism, of her King. Frederick the Great is not a lovable character, perhaps, but his gospel, first farced on himself, proclaimed the creed of knowledge, self-denial, and national, discipline. He presents a rare combination of high statesmanship with military and adminis- trative abilities of the first order. He enriched Europe with a new and much-needed conception of kingship, the absolutism of the enlightened and royal expert, with a new ideal of national life expressed in a new type of State. That these were a challenge, then and since, to the ideals of liberty, law, and self-government, which Englishmen after their own fashion were struggling to realise for Great Britain, should not blind us to theu" intrinsic value nor to the comprehensive contribution that the Hohenzollem State, moulded by Frederick the Great, has added to the science of government and the civilisation of Europe. From 1748-54 the Ministry under Henry Pelhara enjoyed comparative quiet. Henry Pelham's main achievement was in finance. The credit of Great Britain was so good and the avail- able supply of capital seeking investment so abundant that the burden of the National Debt was considerably reduced by a con- solidation scheme. In 1750 the intei'est on fifty-four and a half millions of debt was reduced (to 3J per cent, up to 1757, and to 3 per cent, after that date). The total saving amounted to 116 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- rather more than a quarter of a million per annum up to 1757, and to rather more than half a million afterwards. Next year nine separate loans were formed into a consolidated stock at 3 per cent. The success of the proposal was seen in the rise of the three per cent, stock to 106|^. Thus within three years of a long war, which had crippled most European States, Great Britain proved that she could reduce her financial obligations and compel her creditors to accept a lowered rate of remuneration. Policy was chiefly controlled by an inner group of three, Pelham himself, his brother, Newcastle, and Hardwicke. To Newcastle, besides foreign affairs, fell the acceptable task of organising, within and without Parliament, the party which kept the Ministry in power. And Newcastle's energy (recorded in nearly six hundred MS. volumes) in arranging patronage and places, in caiiying on a vast con-espon- dence on eveiy conceivable subject, from the high issues of imperial policy to the most pettifogging details of the party machine, in registering every whisper and confiding every fear to paper, has stamped on him the character of the brainless busybody, always in the way and always out of it, which with all his defects is unjust to his real if second-rate abilities and his genuine devotion to the public service. So long as Henry Pelham lived the changes and events were singularly unimportant at home. Pitt accepted the administration. If in 1751, " being ten years older, he had con- sidered public affairs more coolly," he formally abandoned the views expressed in 1739 on the right of search,' he also permitted himself the luxury of voting with Lyttelton against the reduction of seamen from ten to eight thousand men, on the ground apparently that " the fleet was our standing army ". In 1751 the deaths of the Prince of Wales and of Bolingbroke broke the poUtical power of the Leicester House party. The intimacy of Bute with the dowager Princess of Wales, and that lady's deske to counterbalance the pi-edominant influence of the King's mistress. Lady Yarmouth, by continuing the Leicester House tradition, were significant for the future. But so long as the Pelhams kept the talents of the Whigs comfortably provided in the ministerial coach, Egmont, Lee, Cotton, and Bubb Doddington, who were the foremost of the Leicester House opposition, were not foimidable. The removal of the Prince of Wales, however, enhanced the » Pari. Hist., xiv., 7g8-8o3, and if. Hist. MSS. Comm. Rept., x., App. i., 212-21. WM] NEWCASTLE'S MINISTRY 117 importance of the Duke of Cumberland, who already had his " group " of which Henry Fox was the ablest, most unscrupulous, and most ambitious member. Newcastle also, long bent on getting rid of " the Bloomsbury gang," succeeded in 1751 in displacing the Duke of Bedford, and the Earl of Sandwich, personally profligate, and a mediocre head of the admiralty. These two henceforward were reckoned in the Cumberland party, which also included Albemarle and Hanbury Williams. Holdei-nesse succeeded Bedford as Secretary of State, and Granville came back to the Cabinet as Lord Presi- dent, holding the oflice until his death in 1768. The Reform of the Calendar introduced by Chestei-field, and Hardwicke's Marriage 1751 Act were useful legislative reforms ; ^ the foundation of the British 1753 Museum by Henry Pelham is also notable, but the repeal of the Act 1753 pennitting the natui-alisation of the Jews passed in the previous session was not unfairly described by Temple as due " to disaffection clothed in superstition ''. Fox had shown his debating power in his ciiticisms of the Regency Bill of 1751 ; and his strenuous opposition to the Maniage Act, sometimes held to be the one example of con- scientious conviction in his career apart from his determination to make a fortune and win a peerage, cost him Hardwicke's friendship. When Henry Pelham died in 1754 the King might well exclaim j^j^ " Now I shall have no more peace ". Pelham, like Liverpool later, without commanding personality or ability, had the gift of keeping together under his leadership colleagues of very diverse characters and conflicting ambitions. The selection of his successor was left to the Cabinet by George II., and by judicious and persevering management Newcastle engineered his own nomination. The Duke, who was the one colleague whom his late brother had never satisfied, succeeded to the First Lordship of the Treasury. He had three marked qualifications for the post, an unrivalled ofiicial experience of public business, a disciplined corps of Parliamentary janissaries, the devoted friendship of Hardwicke, a great lawyer with a sane judgment in political affairs. But Newcastle could not be in the Commons; his jealousy of his colleagues in the royal closet and cabinet amounted to a disease ; and he was determined to re- serve all patronage and control of the governmental machinery in his own hands. A lieutenant in the Lower House was indispensable. There were three and only three men who could adequately fill the ' See p. igi. 118 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [17«. place, Murray, Fox, and Pitt. Murray's ambitions were legal. A powerful debater and a fine intellect, he aimed at high judicial ofBce. Unpopular as a Scotchman, of dubious Whiggism, and on bad terms with Hardwicke, he now became Attorney -General. Fox, whom the political world regarded as the possible head of a Ministry, had been reoojlciled to Newcastle's promotion by an understanding that he was to be made Secretary of State; but though ready to waive the management of the Secret Service Fund "further than was necessary to enable him to speak to members without appearing ridiculous," he discovered that Newcastle in- tended him to be a complete cipher, and, indignant at the breach of faith, refused to accept the seals. This unnecessary afFront to a man of great ability, who neither forgave nor forgot grievances, was Newcastle's first serious blunder. Legge, who had mai-ked ability for finance, but was not comparable to Mun-ay, Fox, and Pitt as a debater, became Chancellor of the Exchequer, while Thomas Robin- son, a second-rate diplomatist whose principles in foreign policy commended him to the King, and who was willing to play the docile understudy to Newcastle, was given the seals refused by Fox, and required to lead the House of Commons. George Grenville was made Ti-easui«r of the Navy ; Lyttelton, Cofferer of the Household. Pitt was passed over, i.e. he remained Paymaster-General. New- castle and Hardwicke elaborately explained that the strength of the King's hostility was an insuperable bar to his promotion, and that by giving office to three of his " connection " (Legge, Grenville, and Lyttelton) they had done their best to meet his views, and Pitt was obliged to accept the explanation.^ For eight yeai-s he had worked as a supporter of the Pelhams; he was conscious of his powers, and this " painful and too visible humiliation " was a bitter mortification. Yet the general election showed how little the personal rivahies of the narrow political world affected the con- stituencies. If the evidence can be trusted, there was no lack of bribery and corruption, but only forty-two seats were contested and the Administration obtained a solid majority. George with Robinson as Secretary perhaps felt " himself in the very Elysium of Herrenhausen," but Newcastle speedily discovered that it was easier >"The weight," Pitt wrote, "of immovable royal displeasure is a load too great to move under ; it must crush any man j it has sunk and broke me. I succumb and wish for nothing but a decent and innocent retreat " {Chatham Car. i., 105). 1766] PERSONAL RIVALRIES 119 to vamp up an Administration than to caiTy it on. The ministerial ranii and file might be willing to vote as they were told, yet " a Minister in the closet for the House of Commons " was required, and with subsidy treaties ahead and foreign affaire daily grow- ing more critical, policy required defence more than votes. It is characteristic of Newcastle's " system " which made the House "an assembly of atoms," and the prevailing political conventions that Fox, the Secretary at War, and Pi1;t, the Paymaster-General, openly defied their chief. Fox, with Cumberland's powerful influence with the King behind him, and Pitt, who had begun to renew his sus- pended connection with Leicester House (where the Princess of Wales under Bute's direction desired to be a thorn in the flesh of the King's advisers and to checkmate Cumberland) informally allied to flout and jeer. , The unhappy Robinson, "the jackboot to lead us " of Pitt's contemptuous phrase, was made ridiculous, and Murray was severely handled, "else we should sit only to register the edicts of one too powerful a subject" The King, whose aversion from Pitt was strengthened by this cool mutiny, would have dismissed him, but Newcastle ipstead, after many palpitations, decided to sur- render to Windsor Lodge. Fox was brought into the Cabinet, Dec. 12, but, "with no special power or confidence outside the Ministers," "^754 shortly was made one of the Lord Justices, and eleven months later took Robinson's place as Secretary of State, Robinson returning to the Mastership of the Wardrobe with a pension. The Dukes of Marlborough and Rutland, two other members of the Cumberland group, were given the Privy Seal and Lord Stewardship respectively. Overtmes to Pitt failed. He demanded "an office of execution as well as of advice," " with habitual, frequent, familiar access to the Crown " (the very idea of which put Newcastle in a paroxysm of panic) and as the First Lox-d wanted " lieutenantsi" not "generals." Pitt curiously enough was permitted to continue to trumpet his se- dition. Newcastle had made his second great blunder. True he had separatedFox from Pitt — after May, 1755, the quairel between them was an open one — but he had allied with the man who must now "either be First Minister or ruined," a politician who, as events proved, would keep the recent bargain just so long as he judged it served his. interests. The famous comparison of the coalition to the junction of the Rhone and the Saone was as felicitous as it was true. Chesterfield's comment too hit the mark. Newcastle, he 120 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- said, had turned every one else out and now he had turned himself out. On Fox's part it was a blunder also. He showed himself a fine party organiser and a good administrator. But office gave him too little power to control policy in accordance with his and Cumberland's ideas, too much to escape responsibility for the disasters that wrecked the Administration. By union with Pitt, some patience, and more tact, he could have dictated his own terms and formed a strong Fox-Pitt Ministry. In Parliament, however, at first things went well. Despite Legge's revolt and growing public resentment. Fox with Newcastle's organisation secured the defeat of the amendment to the address (condemning the subsidy treaties to Nov. 13, Russia and Hesse) by 311 votes to 105. Newcastle's charity or 1755 cowardice had reached its limit The quarrelsome Legge, Pitt him- self, and George Grenville were dismissed. The rift in " the Cousin- hood " was made final by the acceptance of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer by Lyttelton, "who stumbled over millions and strode pompously over fai-things". Between Pitt and the Ministry there could now be no truce. His indictment of their continental system cut down to the quick of the imperial problem. Ministei-s as men might be competent, but their system and measures were in his view the root of the mischief. Pitt's immortal declaration later to the Duke of Devon- shire : " I can save this country and no one else can," sums up his unshakable conviction that, unless there was a radical revolution in the principles and methods and objects of ministerial action, " within two years his majesty will not be able to sleep in St. James for the cries of a bankrupt people". And by November, 1735, the imperial problem could no longer be burked. In India, Dupleix had pushed with gi-eat skill his plan of operations. By December, 1749, Dupleix's two candidates — Chanda Sahib to the throne of the Camatic, Muzaffar Jang to the Nizamship of the Deccan — held Jan., 1751 the field, and on the latter's death the French nominee, Salabat (^•^•) Jang, succeeded. Fiench influence threatened to control the na- tive States south of the Deccan. But precisely at the critical hour an Englishman of genius, Robert Clive, came forward. Born in 1725, the son of an impoverished counti-y squire, he had as a boy been " out of measure addicted to fighting " — a taste to be gratified pretty fully in manhood. In 1744 he went out to Madras as a wiiter in the Company's service, and twice, in a sullen despair, made 1766] ROBERT CLIVE IJIl attempts on his own life. In 1746 as a prisoner he had been paraded at Pondicherry, and had shown great courage undw Bos- cawen in the attack on Pondicherry and the attack on Devikota. 1748 He now made a diversion to relieve the siege of Trichinopoly by seizing Arcot and holding it triumphantly against Chanda Sahib's Aug. 3^ forces. The moral effect was immense, and the brilliant defence of °^' ^^ Arcot has been generally held to be the turning-point in the development of British power in India. It was followed by a victory at Ami, the recapture of Conjeveram, another victory at Kaveripauk, and the destruction of Dupleix Fatihabad. Clive and Stringer Lawrence then relieved Trichinopoly, and the sun-ender of Chanda Sahib's forces and the assassination of Chanda Sahib him- self left the British nominee, Mohammed Ali, undisputed Nawab of the Camatic. Two years later Dupleix was i-ecalled, a memorable act of stupidity and ingratitude, for neither Versailles nor the directors of the Fi-ench Company understood his greatness nor how much he had accomplished for France. The Governors of Madras and Pondicherry meanwhile had agreed for the time being to ab- stain from interference in the affaire of the native States. But the struggle was far from being over. Bussy, the able French officer who had assisted Dupleix, and who saw that the French might still succeed, had since 1751 made himself supreme at the Court of Salabat Jang at Haidarabad. In the coming wai' in Europe a blow for Empire might yet be struck. Clive had in 1753 returned to England and attempted to enter home politics. But the defender of Arcot was destined not to enter on the scuffle for place and power at St. Stephen's, but to become the ai'chitect of an Empire in the East. His excursion into politics swallowed up his savings, and Britain's good fortune provided that he should be un- seated on petition for St. Michael's in Cornwall.' Accordingly, he 1768 was ready to go back to India, where work that no one could do so well as himself awaited him. The situation in America was far more unfavourable. The French had been pureuing their plan of securing the line of the Ohio, in order to connect Louisiana with the Great Lakes and Canada, and in 1749 Celeron de Bienville's mission showed that they were in earnest. The formation of a British Ohio Company as ' One of the successful candidates was Simon Luttrell, the father of the famout and successful candidate against Wilkes in the Middlesex election. 122 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- a counter-stroke was spoilt by the mutual jealousy of Virginia and Pennsylvania, and in 1752 the French proceeded to attack the Miamis, on the Miami River, who traded with the British and sided with them. Next year the French planted two forts, one at Presque Isle (the modern Erie), the other Fort Le Boeuf, on the Alleghany River, thus commanding the sources of the Ohio and seeming the connection through Lake Erie with the French centres in Canada. Thence it would be the next step to push down the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers and by a chain of forts block Virginia and Pennsylvania from spreading west of the Alleghany Mountains. Dinwiddy, the governor of Virginia, was alive to the danger. In November he selected George Washington, who first steps into history as the representative of the imperial claims of the British Crown, to warn the French that they were intruding on a hintei-land claimed for the British flag. Following Washington a detachment was despatched to build a rival fort at the junction of the Mononga- hela and Alleghany ; but the French overpowered the colonists and established in its place Fort Duquesne, which was intended to hold the ground for Louis XV. Washington, established at Fort '754 Necessity in the Alleghanies, was attacked and obliged to sun-ender, while the French returned, conscious that they had driven their rivals back behind the mountains to the east. Nova Scotia had been as great a cause of anxiety as the Ohio valley. Louisburg, restored to France by the treaty of 1748, had been refortified more strongly than ever ;. partly to be a counterpoise, partly to help in maintaining British control of Nova Scotia, the town of Halifax, named after the President of the Boai-d of Ti-ade, 1749 was directly founded by the home Government and provided with colonists, financed from Imperial funds. From 1748-51 a boundary commission appointed to settle the long-disputed question of the delimitation of Nova Scotia wrangled and haggled at Paris to little or no purpose. The French established themselves at Fort Beau- sejour on the mainland, and under the guidance of Le Loutrei the Vicar-General of Acadia (Nova Scotia), aimed at seducing the AcadianSj who were British subjects, from their political allegiance. Fort Lawrence, on the Eastern side, was accordingly built to pro- tect the British territory. By 1764 the situation had become in- tolerable. The French and their Indians utilised every opportunity to harass the British authorities and to prevent the Acadians fi-om I7ae] THE AMERICAN QUESTION Ijes settling down as peaceable British citizens^ The English governors were obliged to prohibit them from emigrating to the French colonies, and it was clear that if opportunity occuned the French meant to oust the British from the tenitory ceded in 1718. In that momentous year 1754, under imperial inspiration, a conference was held at Albany, in which Franklin put forward a scheme of colonial federation. On its failure to secure colonial assent, Dinwiddy perceived that if the French menace was to be averted, and the future development of the British settlements safeguai-ded, direct help from the home Government was indispens- able. He therefore appealed to Newcastle's Ministry. The need was primarily colonial and local, but it raised far-reaching issues of Imperial and European policy. Under the pressure of the Cumber- land group, and Cumberland himself, the home Ministry decided to send out General Braddock, a " Cumberland man," with two regi- ments, whose duty was to win back the Monongahela valley and penetrate to the Ohio; and in January, 1755, the reinforcement sailed from Cork. The Governments at Versailles and St. James were at peace, and Newcastle's ministry claimed that they were entitled to aid British subjects in the defence of British territory and colonial fiontiers. This soothing fiction, not out of harmony with prevailing ideas as to the relations of rival colonies to rival mother-countries, could only work if, first, the French Government ilid not reply by a similar stroke with a similar plausible plea, and, secondly, if the British Ministry did really mean to do no more than they said. It broke down completely because neither British nor French in North America would acquiesce in a restoration of the status quo, even if that had been a possible solution, which, given the natural forces of French and British expansion, it was aot. The French quite legitimately meant to pen the British into the coast-line ; the British quite as legitimately knew there could be no peace until at least the enveloping chain of French forts in the Ohio basin was severed and disarmed. Able and vigorous heads in the British colonies — Shirley, Johnson, Dinwiddy, Frank- lin — with colonial sentiment behind them, were convinced that the French power must be broken in the north as well as in the west. Able and vigorous heads at home, with national sentiment on their side, had come to the same conclusion. Cumberland and his group, of whom Henry Fox was now a Cabinet Minister, desired to expel 124 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- the French neck and crop, and on strategic, political, and com- mercial grounds to make the war in America, so plainly inevitable. a purely maritime and colonial struggle. In the autumn of 1754 Braddock's expedition came to the war party in the Cabinet as a convenient opportunity to advance their policy and force the hands of the Newcastle group. When in the spring of 1755 the French Government prepared to reply by despatching a fleet of eighteen vessels and 3000 troops, and a new Governor of Canada, De Vau- dreuil, the strictly colonial struggle merged into the wider and comphcated problem of the relations of France to Great Britain, and the offensive and defensive powers of the two European States, as members of the European system. The issues wei-e joined in America. They might be resolved by diplomacy or by force. But in either case the result would not be determined solely by the local factors outside Europe. France and Great Britain had European allies, obligations, ambitions, and vulnerable points. Diplomacy and war cannot be separated into water-tight compartments. For England the imperial issue was primarily and ultimately a problem that went to the heart of her system of foreign relations in Europe. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had bequeathed two European problems — the struggle between Hohenzollem and Habsburg, sym- bolised in the struggle for Silesia ; the duel between France and Great Britain — and two well-defined groupings of the leading Powers. France and Prussia were united by a treaty of alliance, which would expire in March, 1756. In opposition to them was the historic connection of Great Britain, Holland, and the House of Austria. The equally historic enmity of Bourbon and Habsburg had been once more exemplified by the Wai- of the Austrian Suc- cession. Maria Theresa and Frederick were primarily interested in the Silesian question. Great Britain and Fi-ance in colonial and extra-European questions. But the existing diplomatic agi-eemcnts, resting on defensive alliances and reciprocal guarantees, involved France indirectly in the Silesian, the House of Austria indirectly in Britain's colonial complications. A colonial war which made France the aggressor in Europe of Great Britain would bring the Empress in on the side of England. Outside these Powers, Russia had broken with France, hated Prussia, and was friendly to Vienna and London. It could, therefore, by judicious diplomacy under the existing conditions, be made available against the Bourbon system. 175«] GREAT BRITAIN AND AUSTRIA 125 But the development of natural tendencies very soon pointed, so far as London and Vienna were concerned, to a readjustment of Austro- British relations. Maria Theresa smarted under the losses of 1748 ; she was convinced that Frederick, not Louis XV., was the irrecon- cilable and dangerous foe, and she felt that England was a selfish ally who had deserted her in the end as well as forced her throughout the previous war to a line of action humiliating, dishonourable, and costly. In short, as Eaunitz and othei-s saw, a reform of Austrian policy was as desirable as a reform of the Austrian machinery of government. Kaunitz had aheady urged the importance of securing the neutrality or friendship of Prance ; and though when he went to Paris as ambassador in 1750 the advice was academic, it rested on the sound principle that the Empress's engagements should be determined by purely Austrian interests. Kaunitz did not desire to dissolve the traditional connection with England, but, by weaning Prance from Prussia, to isolate the latter. To recover Silesia and re-establish the Habsburg hegemony in Germany — this was his ambition and Maria Theresa's also. There was nothing necessarily or pointedly anti-British in such objects. But Kaunitz forgot that Great Britain, too, was thoroughly dissatisfied with the results of the Austrian alUance. Her interests were peace in Europe, the balance of power, and the expansion of her colonial and commercial empire. France was the enemy. But against France, Austrian aid had proved a disappointment. Recriminations, suspicion, mistrust, tension had marred the co-operation of the allies. Continental engagements, Hanoverianism, subsidies leading to the conquest of Flanders by Saxe, stank in the nostrils of the British public. British statesmen felt, as Frederick said of his ally's (Prance's) efforts, that they might as well have been made on the Scamander. They expected Austrian troops, if financed from Parliament, to cover Hanover and protect the Netherlands. What was Silesia to them or they to Silesia ? In short, a clear divergence between the vital mterests of both States was now apparent which did not necessaiily involve a dissolution of the alliance, but eminently called on both sides for a redefinition of the terms and objects of the partnership. Unfortunately the British Ministers in power failed in the essentials of their task. Conscious that their country's differences with France were drifting into war, they did not see that a struggle also between Maria Theresa and Frederick could not be 126 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- indefinitely postponed. Clogged by Whig traditions, they assumed that the Austrian alliance would hold good, and that if they manoeuvred aptly so as to be the attacked, not the aggressors, in Europe, Austrian forces would, as of old, defend the Netherlands and withstand the French on the Rhine. They made no serious effort to remove by diplomacy at headquarters the colonial diflBcul- ties. Worse still, with the plain moral of the late wai- before them, they made no attempt to reorganise the military and naval forces of lie empire or repair the patent defects in the military machine. From 1748-51 Newcastle dabbled in a grandiose German scheme of buying the election of Joseph (II.) as King of the Romans by subsidies to Bavaria and Saxony, and thereby proving the identity of British and Austrian objects on the Continent. Yet how deep-rooted the British aversion from the subsidy system really was came out in 1755 as soon as a colonial war appeared certain. Peace had obliterated in Newcastle and his colleagues the lessons of Car- teret's fall and Pitt's gospel of English measures. And until 1755 the preacher was silent. He accepted the Bavarian and Saxon subsidies without a murmur. And France was equally quiescent — in Europe. But (it was not lost on the lynx-eyed toiler at Berlin) the Austrian point of view was altering, her objective taking shape. Kaunitz in 1753 became Chancellor. The Treaty of Aranjuez with Spain guaranteed the status quo in Italy. Russia was notoriously hostile to Prussia. Saxony could be won. The league against Frederick was already in the making, and if Fi'ance could only be detached the doom of Prussia might be sealed. Differences with Great Britain, over the Barrier Treaty and commercial privileges in the Netherlands, strengthened the Empress's interpretation of British policy and her reluctance to be embroiled in the Fi-anco- British struggle which would deflect her forces from the vital issue with Prussia. By despatching Braddock, ministers had taken a serious step. Mirepoix, the French ambassador in London, was engaged in endeavouring to maintain the peace, but while Newcastle was send- ing casks of beer and his humble duty to Madame de Pompadour, Fox, Granville, and the war party got the upper hand and his April 21 Government had taken a still more serious step. Boscawen was despatched on April 29th with instructions to stop and capture the French squadron convefying Vaudreuil and the French i«inforce- 1766] BRITISH DIPLOMACY 127 ments to Quebec. The Fi-ench ultimatum claiming the whole of the Acadian territory was rejected, and another fleet under Hawke was in preparation. Newcastle's absurd idea apparently was " to strike such a blow upon French trade as would make the whole kingdom ay out against war," as if a proud and undefeated nation such as the French would crumple up because in time of peace two or three hard blows were ti'eacherouSly struck without warning. War was now inevitable, and Minister, firmly convinced that Great Britain could not cope single-handed with France, pushed on their diplomatic negotiations. The day before Boscawen sailed, George, in agony for Hanover, defied his Cabinet and left for the Continent, where very shoitly an Anglo-Hessian Convention was arranged; while lavish bribery at St. Petei-sburg secured the Tsarina's prom- ise to protect Hanover by attacking Prussia if Frederick moved. It only remained to clinch a settlement with Vienna, and the ministerial plan of a great defensive ring of alliances against France, which would pass into an offensive confederation, if France moved. But the plan collapsed. To the British demands for 25,000 men, and the protection of Hanover and the Netherlands, the Vien- nese Court replied with an angry d^patch and an offer of 10,000 alone. There must be a new commercial treaty, and England must june la be responsible for the defence of the Netherlands. From this virtual ultimatum it was clear that Austria declined to make her quaii-el with Frederick subsidiary to the maritime struggle with France, and that Great Britain, by refusing these terms, declined to commit herself to extensive German operations for Austrian objects. Bos- cawen, too, failed to cut off" Vaudreuil. He captured two small June 9 vessels, the Alcide and L^s, and the rest escaped. In plain words, England incuired all the odium of the stroke and none of the advantages. Braddock's expedition too ended in disaster. The rough martinet, brave as a lion, trained in the pipe-clay tactics which might succeed at Fontenoy or Roucoux, was a child in backwood fighting. Badly supported by Vh-ginia and Pennsylvania in his march against Fort Duquesne he was entrapped on the Mononga- hela by the French and Indians, himself killed, and his forces cut to pieces. In the rout, as Washington put it, you might as well have tried to stop the wild bears of the mountains. "Another time," Braddock murmured before he died, " we shall know better how to deal with them." Washington, with 1500 Virginian 128 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- militia, was left to face a temble frontier war. Shirley's advance against Ontario succeeded only in gaiTisoning the important post of Oswego; while Johnson, advancing against Ticonderoga and Crown Point after repelling an attack in which Dieskau was taken prisoner, contented himself with establishing two forts, Fort Edward on the Hudson, Fort William Henry on Lake George. The French base at Ticonderoga for an advance southwards was thus left intact. In Acadia alone a decisive step had been made. Beausejour was captured and renamed Fort Cumberland, and the tei-ritory on both sides of the isthmus passed into British hands. To complete the stroke the Acadians were now deported, a cruel but essential part of the colonial policy of breaking the French power in North America. The deportation, depicted with a poet's pathos in " Evangeline," and also a poet's disregard of the whole truth, can only be defended on the ground that half-measures had hitherto failed, and that nations at bay in a struggle for supremacy, into which warring creeds of religion and race enter, will be driven to subordinate mercy to security. July 22 Mirepoix' recall proclaimed the open rupture between France and Great Britain. Hawke's fleet, which Newcastle had wished to use against French trade (" vexing your neighbour," as Granville put it, " for a little muck "), had put to sea with contradictory in- structions which " bound it to a violation of peace and were a travesty of war". If the result was a sweeping up of French commerce by the end of the year it did nothmg to solve the pressing sti-ategic and diplomatic problem. England must now come to terms with France or flght it out. But a settlement which would involve reparation for the " piratical " acts of Boscawen and Hawke and acceptance of the Fi-ench claims in America was impossible. Such terms could not have been enforced on the colonists, and the suggestion of surrender, in the temper of the nation, would have hurled the Ministry ft-om power. Ministers were aware that a continental system was becoming more and more unpopular.^ But in their sti'aits they procured the ratification of the Anglo-Hessian Convention, and pressed the conclusion of the Anglo-Russian Treaty. The Dutch had practically declined to move, so that continental support was a greater necessity than ever. 1 "Sea-war, no continent, no subsidy is the universal cry" {NewcastU Paptn, July 35th, B. M. Add. MS. 33,857). 1766] ENGLAND AND PRUSSIA 129 When in November ithe treaties were triumphs tly earned in Parliament, Pitt, Legge, and Grenville had been dismissed, and Fox was Secretary of State, the situation had further cleaied. Austrian overtures to France had resulted in secret conferences at Paris. At Paris, as at London, it was understood that Spain Sept. meant to remain neutral. \ Frfederick was still the French ally. What a stroke it would be to detach the Empi-ess from George II. ! But the vanity of Louis XV., the Pompadour's influence, and thfe incompetence of French diplomacy were no match for the Austriansi wlio had clear ideas of what 'they wantedr-^the security of the Netherlands and the isolation /of .Frederick ■ Frederick, "toujours en vedette," was rightly convinced that a great conspiracy was on foot. Austria (with Saxony) in the South, Russia in the East were his two formidable foes. He did notintendi as regards France, to be like the rulei" of Wallachia under the Porte, obliged to make war the moment he received ordei^. The struggle on the St. Lawrence and the Ohio was for Prussia only another futile scuffle of Greeks and Trojans on. the Scamander. When, therefore, Frederick learnedthat Great Britain was willing to suggest neutral- ity for Germany he was quite willing to listen. But the Anglo- Russian treaty submitted for his perusal was a sharp disappointment, [n its amended form the subsidised Russian 'troops were not to be employed in Hanover or the Low Countries. The Tsarina intended them to attack Prussia alone, as had been also the intention of Great -Britain in the spring. None the less Frederick promptly acceded to the Convention of Westipinster, by which in an Anglo- Jan. i6, French war Germany was to remain neutral. Although . the Low '756 Countries were explicitly excepted, the Convention was popular in England,^ for it seemed . to . protect Hanover without involving British troops and money; ' Pitt; however, with a strange ignorance of what'he.was'himself to doj regarded it as an additional German millstone round the Ministers' necks, iand asserted that he would not have signed it for all the five great places of those whose signa- tures were on the document. Probablyi neither Newcastle nor Frederick -intended it as a breach of the i traditional groupings lof the Powers. Yet its. effect wds decisive! ; Hanbury Williams had concealed the Convention from the Russian Court until the Anglo- Russian treaty was ratified, but in her anger at British duplicity the Tsarina declared hei readiness to march 80,000 men into, the Apcil 9 180 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- field to recover Silesia for the Empress. It swept France into Kaunitz's net. The French ambassador, De Nivemais, sent culpably late to Berlin, and still more culpably kept waiting for his instruc- March tions, failed to renew the Fnench alliance with Berlin. At Ver- sailles, Frederick's action was interpreted as a breach of faith. The conferences of the autumn of 1755 rapidly matured into, a formal agreement between Vienna and Versailles. Yet neither France nor Austria were quite ready to attack their former allies. Maiia Theresa was honourably reluctant to become an open foe of May I, Gi'eat Britain. The first treaty of Versailles was therefore purely '756 defensive. Yet Newcastle could say with truth that "the long- established system of alliances was now dissolved ", Two. events only were required to consummate the diplomatic revolution, and May they came quickly. Great Britain and France declared war. Frederick, unable to obtain anything but evasive replies to his Aug. 2g peremptory questions at Vienna, marched into Saxony. "Adieu, monsieur de la timide politique," had been his remark to his Minister Fodewils. His action, provided the Empress with the casm foederis. The Austrians must have the help of France. Thf Franco-British, Austro-Prussian issues which might have been kept distinct were now practically blended. The same war would decide whether Prussia was to be dismembered, whether France or Great Britain was to be the dominant Power in North America and Hindostan. The honours of the Diplomatic Revolution fall to Vienna and Berlin. Frederick had been preparing for eleven years, and with characteristic vigdiu' and insight he used diplomacy and war as twin instriiments. Rightly convinced that his ruin was planned^ he preferred to have time on his side and strike before his foes were ready. Unquestionably the Treaty of Versailles was a great diplo> matic triumph for the cool and patient Eaunitz. France was now going to fight for Austrian ambitions — to assist in restoring a Habs- burg hegemony in Central Europe. Since 1748 the French share in events convict her King and- her Ministers of every blunder a Govern- ment can make — vacillation, unceiiainty, blindness, negligence, and rash decision. The fatal Austrian alliance and the results that fol- lowed from it damned the Bourbon Monarchy until the Revolution • Kaunitz wrote: "with God's help we will bring so many enemies on the back of the insolent King of Prussia that he must succumb ". 176«] BRITISH POLICY 181 of 1789 swept it away. The verdict on the British Cabinet can scarcely be less severe. It permitted events in America to develop without resolute efFoi'ts either to remove causes that must issue in war, or to provide fpt the inevitable consequences if they did. Their diplomacy failed to penetrate the i-eal designs of the Viennese Court, and they lost the Austiian alliance because, as Napoleon said of his graierals, they made a picture and assumed it corresponded with facta. The neutrality of Spain was a piece of luck they scarcely deserved. They drifted into the Convention of Westminster, (which, in the summer of 1755 was no part of a seriously prepared policy,) and they entered into engagements with Russia and Prussia, which were contradictory and illusory ii In the autumn of 1754, when Brad- dock's expedition was deliberately planned, they had ample time to prepare.^ But when the time came the fleet was not adequate for the task imposed on it, the garrisons at Gibraltar and Minorca'and elsewhere were depleted, without stores, proper artillery or am- munition. The army in Great Britain was hopel^siy inadequate.' The Ministry were waiting for the wind " to blow them mercenaries from Europe," and the whisper of an invading fleet at Brest threw the Government into a panic ,which d^eranged the strategy of the first campaign with disastrous results. Pitt said with truth, " If he ^ ^^ saw a child driving a go-cart close to the edge of a precipice with 1756 the precious freight of an old King.and 'his. family, he was bound to take the reins out of; such hands". The responsibility for this pitiable state of things must fall mainly on the Newcastle-Haijdwicke group. Cumberland and Fox — the war party of 1764!^urged decisive and vigorous action. But Fox after his admission to the Cabinet was "scarcely suffered, to give an opinion". The New- castle papers make it clear that the Cabinet was rarely consulted. Control was in the hands of "the inner clique," "the conciliabulum," as Granville called it, in which Fox was only one voice. Had lie been wise he would have resigned before 1755 was out, and let the " gd-cart " rush to ruin. It has been said that the experts did not warn Newcastle. But it is notable that Ligonier, the most ex- perienced military chief in Great Britain, had been ousted from the • " As no natural enemy should be trusted, I hope the King's Ministers will not neglect the little time that is left for preparation" (CumberUind to Newcastle, Ifebruary nth, I755i B.M. Add. MS. 32,852). ' " There is not in all the west and north a single soldier " (H. Fox, Torrens, Hist, of Cabinets, 3, 273). 182 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [Vm- Master-GenefralsMp of the Ordnance to ^it Newcastle's shuffling of the party cards. (And if Anson, Hardwicke's silent son-in-law, held his tongue he was either culpably silent or culpably incompetent. Ably as he redeemed his' reputation under Pitt^' he seems to have- been affected from 1754 to '1756 by the liiea N^wcastlicmaji ike creeping party paralysis. Finally, the Ministry wholly misunder- stood the temper of the nation. Fos throughout his career despised public opinion. I'Not an aristocrat by birth; he had' an oligarch's contempt for "the mob/' and throughout he regarded Pitt's reliance on support outside the nai-row circle of thei represented: as a demagogue's appeal to the ighorant crowdi Newcastle seemed to think that popular agitation could' be appeased by shaking the nlinisterial kaleidoscope into a neV pattern but composed. of. the same 'pieces. Leadership was a synonym for party management aind Cabinet reconstruction. He was soon to be rudely undeceived.; Had the Court of Versailles been governed by a Frederick, had eveh VereaUles and Madrid been united, 1756 might have been a yekr of irreparable disaster for England. ' But it was serious enough By early spring the Ministry had worked first themselves and then the country into a panic over the possibilities of invasion, so that when in March the King announced that the contingent of Hessian troops had been sent for, an address from Lords and Commons ex- pressed a preference for'Htinoverians, and, despite Pitt's indig^iant protests against this unnecessary substitute for the efficient use of native resoufcbs; both Hessians and Hanoverians were brought over to guard* English hearths. ■ Pitt's countei-scheme of recruiting and reorganising the national militia, which he explained in a speech masterly for its insight into principles and gi-asp of detail; wa? rejected in the House of Lords, on the advice of Newcastle, Gran- ville, and Hardwicke, on the' ground that it^would breed a military spirit in a commercial nation. At last, on April 7th, the ill-&ted Byng was despatched with ten ships and some reinforcements to the Mediterranean. Two days later La Galissonniere, with twelve ships and ie,000 ttoops under Richelieu, Ifeft Toulon to attack Minorca. Blakeney, the Governor, now past 'ftigilty, was obliged by lack of officers and men to retire into Fort St. Philip, commanding Port Mahon. By May 8th, when the home Government decided to reinfoijce^ Byng, Blakeney was, already undei' siege. On May 19th Byng fought an indecisive action off Minorca, and, judging his fleet 1766] BYNG AND MINORCA 138 anequal to re-engage a superior eiiiemy, left Minorca to its fate, in order to defend Gibraltar, which was in no fit state for repellirig attack. On June 28 th the^ garrison surrendered, and' a howl of fierce indignation went up which centred on the admiral to whose "cowardice" the loss of the key of the Western Mediferraneia,n was ascribed. The Government had already sent out Hawke "with the little cargo of courage " to supersede Byng ; Newcastle went about saying, "Oh, indeed, heshall be tried immediately; he shall be hanged directly," and' his colleagues were quite Teady to make the admiral the scapeSgoat for their sins.'- Gourt-martialled and sentenced to death for neglecting to do- the Utmost to save the situation, Byng was shot on March' 14th, 1757, in Voltaire's famous phrase, "to en- courage, the bthei-s".^ Pitt generously endeavoured to save him, but in spite of numerous petitions foripardon the King was obdur- ate. To Pitt's representations that the Commons would welcome a pardon George made one of his' most celebrated remarks. "You have tailght me,'' he said, "to look for the. sense of my subjects elsewhere than in the House of Commons." Anson resolutely held his tongue. Fox fbught in the House of Commons to have the sentence carried out, and Newcastle's janissaries steadily, voted to cover up the responsibility ■ of ' the Ministers. The personal aspect of the matter is far from creditable to the political chiefs. The popular temper was well shown in a handbill: " Hang Byng or look to your King," aid Ministers gltidly " diverted " resentment on to a man who, at worst, was guilty of haindling his squadron badly in difficult circumstances. Byng was no coward, and, he was expressly acquitted of cowardice. The higher politica)! > direction j such as it was, had brought about the disaster. ' Ministers left Minorca unfit to defend itself; they despatched too weak a fleet; they selected the wrohg man, and they 'sent him too late.^ Under the pressure of the shipping trade, the necessity of covering the escort of the Hessians, the fear of invasion, the unpreparedness ;of the dock'; yards, Anson, who liiust be regarded as mainly responsible for the disposition of the ships available, weakened Byng's squadron in order; to keep' an unnecessarily gtrdngi fleet in the Channel. ;., It ■- ..i . Til .,. , ,,, , :.; i; See Appendix- XVI. ,.>- . ■t,]j ;, , ., ,:. ., . ,: • . ., "The Newcastle I^apers show that as early as December, 1755, Cumberland suggested reinforcements for Minorca. On February 3rd, and again on February 25th, the Gov-ftrtrtent' had explicit information as to the objective of the jekpeditioii at Toulon. On March 7th Fox pressed for aid. Byng sailed a month later I 184 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- may be that the French threat of invasion was genuine (after Minorca it was given up, which suggests it was a ruse to divert the. fleet from the MediteiTanean) ; but why, with two years' notice given by themselves, the Cabinet had not enough ships ready to secure both the Channel and the Mediten-anean admits of only Pitt's answer : " Ministers had provoked before they could defend, and neglected after provocation ". Pitt, Equally bad news came from America, where Loudoun had May II, ijggQ ggn^ ^.j, supersede Shirley, and Abercromby to command until Loudoim's arrival. Shirley had planned attacks on Forts Fi-ontenac and Niagara and on Crown Point. Loudoun, a tactless commander of mediocre abilities, found his troops inadequate, the preparations disorganised, and irritating obstacles in the jealousy and inexperience, of the colonial levies and officers. Abandoning the attack on Niagai-a, Loudoun focussed his main effort on Crown Point and Ticonderoga, \ug. 10 But he was frustrated by Montcalm,, who had been permitted by our Admiralty to get out to Canada in the spring, and now pounced on Oswego and compelled it to sun-ender. Retiring on Ticonderoga, Montcalm made himself too sti'ong for Loudoun to dislodge, and the British effort ended with nothing more than the strengthening of the defences of Fort Edward. The loss of Oswego was serious. " The barrier of the Six Nations "and "the curb of the powei' of the French," it cut the line of French communications, and was a gateway to the West and to the Indian trade. Its capture was a tribute to Montcalm's rapidity and decision, and completed the work begun in the Ohio valley the year before. Added to the news of June, that Calcutta had been captured by Suraj-ud-Daulah, it deepened the consternation in England and sealed the fate of the Ministry, which had also to contend with difficulties at home. May 25 Sir Dudley Ryder, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, died, and Murray not only insisted on succeeding him but on having a peerage as well (Baron Mansfield), so that a prominent supporter was lost in the Commons. On June 4th the future George. III. came of age, and the question of a separate establishment occasioned much in- trigue and negotiatioa The King desired to free the young prince from his mother's influence, but in the end Leicester House got its way ; Bute was made Groom of the Stole, which consolidated his power, and the new Court became a recognised centre of the new Oct. 4 Tory opposition. Fox, who had supported the prince's claims, 1786] PITTS ADMINISTRATION 135 thereby not improving his position with Newoastle and the King, now '^ put the linife to his colleagues' thi'oats " by insisting on Oct. 13 resigning. His position in the Cabinet satisfied neither his political ambitions nor his thirst for wealth. . Probably, too, he had never forgiven Newcastle's desertion of Walpole, and was not ' sorry " to repay good Loixl Orford's score ".^ Lady Yarmouth's intervention failed to shake his decision, and Newcastle recognised that to carry on with Fox and Pitt against him was impossible. A last appeal^ to Pitt, thi'ough Hardwicke, met with " an absolute, final negative "; Oct 19 Newcastle therefore resigned; refusing a pension, after being con- Nov. 13 tinuously in office since 1724, and was followed by Fox, Hardwicke, Nov. 13 and Lyttelton, who took a peerage. Granville, to whom Newcastle had previously offered the headship of the Government, with Hard- wicke and himself as his chief colleagues, had bluntly replied that " I will be hanged a little before I take your place rather than a little after ". Although the King was convinced that Pitt " would not do his business/' it was clear that the new Administration must include him. Pitt, moreover, intimated emphatically that he would not serve with Fox, but the Ministry formed by the Duke of Devonshu-e, with Pitt as Secretary for the Southern Department, was not the complete reconstruction that his speeches had de- manded. His brothei'-in-law, Templte, succeeded Anson at the Admiralty ; Legge became Chancellor of the Exchequer ; George Grenville Treasurer of the Navy. But against this little gi-oup of the cousinhood " Granville, Gower, and Holdernesse kept their plates, while Bedford, the new Viceroy of Ireland^ belonged to the Cumberland party. It is remarkable that Pitt now gave up the Newcastle " pocket seat " at Aldborough, which he had kept during his period of open opposition to its patron ; still more remarkable that he did not anticipate the action of his son twenty-seven years later, and endeavour to make himself independent by an appeal to the constituencies. There are in the manuscript sources for the period suggestive indications that the Newcastle Whigs feared a dissolution. Public feeling was so strongly moved by the failures of Newcastle's Administration, and Pitt was so evidently the marked man of the hour, that 1757 might have been a precedent for 1784, and the political world might have learned of "Fox's martyrs '■ > Hanbury Williams, October 28th. B. ftl. Stowe M^., 283. 136 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- two years before William Pitt the Younger was bom. , Six months ' showed that the nation, even without a general election, in- sisted on giving a mandate to the new Sera-etaiy o|_ Stftte.; But of the arts; of political atglanisation and party tactics: the eldet Pitt was as ignorant as tiie, younger was a master. . The Bevonshire-Pitt Administration was not in office long enough; to prove a success. In the. tedious inquiry into the Minorca fiasco ; Pitt pkyed a passive part. Forty years earlier it certainly . !>'>would have ledto an inipeachment, but the Newcasstle party under' ' Fox's able leadership were glad to construe the new Minister's in- difference as a further precedent that political failure was (as, New- castle at'least agreed) adequately punished by deprivatidii of office. The result was sarcastically summed up in Horace Wal pole's sen- tence. ' " To their great astonishment the late Cabinet is iiot thanked parliameritarily for having lost Minorca".' ThefGovem- ment started with vigorous metisures. Supply was taken foj i?8,S55,000, a million more than in the previous year. The army and inaVy were augmented and. eight battalions were sent tc America. The Militia Bill was introduced and passed. Highl^md regiments were formed by enlisting 2000 men for the American sei'vice— a fine vindication of lie Secretary's claim in opposition that Great Britain could provide as many and better soldiers thwii German princelings. Nor did Pitt fail to "find room in his virtue for Hanover". The proposed *ot? of ^200,000 for the Fiectorate was carried unanimously, and co-operation with Frederick by , an army under Cumberland was planned. Critics might with justice repeat Granville's remark; '"Pitt used to call me a madman, but t am not half so mad as he is" ; but the nation was quick to feel iks new spirit blowing life into the 'dead bones of the execiltive. \t did not ask for consistency but for leadership ; it waiited not politicians but a statesman. Yet statesmen obliged to work under representative institutions must have loyal colleagues^ th^ confiderice of the' Crown, and a majority. The Pitt-Devonshiie Ministry in reality had^ in Chesterfield's phrase, as many enemies as the King of Prussia. The floor of the rickety structure was strewed wilth gunpowder and the roof covered with thatph. DevQnshire was perfectly loyal^ but Pitt was never an easy colleague ;t9 work with. Temple's temper was the curse of himself and the Cabinet into which Pitt's devotion brought him. The support of Leicester 1756] PITT, NEWCASTLE AND FOX 187 House and the Tories* alarmed the orthodox Whigs, who longed to be back in office. The King resented having had Pitt forced on him, and Cumberiand on the'eve of leaving for. the continental cam- paign declined to serve under the Secretary of Stata On March 8th the King ordered Fox, in Consultation with Cumberland, to frame a new Administration, and before Fox could do it Cumber- land procured I Temple's and Pitt's dismissal. Legge and George April 5 Grenville then resigned, and for two .months and a half Great *"'*^ Britain was withoiit an Administration. , In the carnival of in- trigue and^ Ministry-making that followed (no less than six differ- ent combinations were tried and broke down) several points be- came clear, and ultimately facilitated the coalition of Pitt and Newcastle; s Pablic opinion insisted that Pitt must have what he would alone accept, a position of virtually supj-eme control. The " rain of gold ibdxes," when he resigned, was a warning to his rivals and a mandate to himself. ^Newcastle's power with the great Whig territorials and his solid phalanx of followers made his friendship or neutrq.lity fessential. Andr with Newcastle went Hardwicke. Bute and Leicester House could not be ignored. The King was old. And Bute, who wished to support Pitt, -coqld keep the Dowager, Princess and the Prince of Wales quiet, for his day must come, perhaps soon. Fox , had definitely decided to sacrifice his political, ambitions. He had had more than enough of high office without power; he would not be at the beck and call of Newcastle, or of Pittj who would ei tiler damn him again by their failure or rob him of the credit if they succeeded. As he could not be Prime Minister, he would at least be rich. He stipulated with the King for the Paymaster's office, (which as the war promised to be long and lavish in its expenditui-e meant to a skilful financier vast sums,) and he- would take it from the King and fro?n no one else. That meant that men might come and go but at the receipt of subsidies he would remain until some fj'esh seryicp brojight him a peerage. And Henry Fox won what he desii-pd,, the Pay office, without a, seat in the Cabinet. , JHe also earned, which did not trouble him at all, the cpntempt both of the honest an^ the dishonest For Englishmen, ' " Mr. Pitt is accused of si coalition with the Tories ; and it is certain that he has become the Cocoa Tree toast " (Lyttelton). " This new Administration has the Tories ^and't nothing but the Tories to support them" (Digby to Lord Digby, H.M.C., 8 Rept., App., 4, 333). 188 THE STRUGGLE FOB EMPIRE p748- with whom spirit will cloak a multitude of sins, will always despise a craven surrender of great abilities and justifiable ambitions to the lust for lucre. The gold amassed in these years of national glory completed Henry Fox's moral ruin, and ruined, so fai- as anything could riiin, the career and character of his father's idol, Charles James Fox. The gods, hard facts, and Chesterfield now brought Pitt and Newcastle together. Pitt consented to borrow the Duke's majority' and to permit his grace to make bishops and tide-waiters, and flutter in reams of manuscript through the labyrinthine back stairs that led to the Council chamber where the Secretary of State toiled to save and extend an Empire. Newcastle took the Treasury, Legge went back to the Exchequer, Hardwicke to the Chancellor- ship, Anson to the Admiralty. Temple, whom the King insisted should not have a place that involved constant attendance in the closet, became Privy Seal. Granville and Holdemesse kept their offices. It was a coalition, and a strong one, for it included all the impoi-tant front-bench chiefs. England, Beaconsfield said, does not love coalitions. But she was to adore this one, the most triumph- antly successful Ministry in our annals. Until the winter of 1756 Pitt had been given little opportunity to prove capacity for administration or constructive statesmanship. He had impressed himself on the House of Commons and public opinion chiiefly by three qualities: his remarkable oratory, his courage and vehemence as a critic, his indifference to the material rewards of success. When he became Paymaster, for example, he had renounced on principle the lucrative perquisites and percen- tages of the post, and this though he was a poor man.^ Although he always claimed to be a Whig of the Revolution school his political career had largely rested on a small famDy connection, dating from the Boy Patriots of 1735, and he had made no serioUs eflbrt to build up a distinct party, with an independent programme, under his own leadership. Many of his utterances were strongly tinged with Bolingbroke's ideas, which identified party with fac- tion and aimed at breaking up the prevailing system and machinery. To the end of his life he remained outside the official circle of the ' Dr. von Ruville's interpretation of Pitt's conduct as having been twice detriment- ally influenced by a legacy, the Duchess of Marlborough's and Sir W. Pyhsent'i, is purely hypothetical, and at variance with other well-established facta. 1756] PITT'S CHARACTER 189 great Whig aristocrats and their parliamentary connection. As a critic he had been unsparing in denunciation, and in notable in- stances (his treatment of Walpole, Carteret, and Hanoverianism) had shown himself ignorant, prejudiced, and unjust. The violence of these attacks, 'corresponding to well-defined phases in his cai'eer, had demonstrably hindered his advance, inspired his contemporaries with mistrust, and the Crown with justifiable resentment. Pitt's ambitions were high, his confidence in his own powers unlimited, his determination to obtain office obvious. But the political world, which saw him near at hand, could not forget the sudden trans- formation of the savage gueirilla leader of 1738-43 into the silent and docile supporter of the Pelhams, his equally sudden re-iy^^.j^ appearance on the warpath when disappointed after Henry Pelham's death, his strange omission to warn the country until the autumn of 1765, contrasted with his personal attacks on Newcastle and MuiTay, the vehemence of his denunciation of the subsidy system, and the ease with which he quietly swallowed his criticisms of the convention of Westminster and Hanoverianism, followed by his own lavish support of the war on the Continent. His close connection with Leicester House fi'om» 1786-44 had been snapped for ten years, and was resumed because, it was not unnaturally said, he wanted tools to break Newcastle as he had tried to break Walpole and Carteret, in order to get their offices and then carry out their policy. It is not surprising that many who knew him well and had been under the wand of the enchanter now and later (Walpole, Newcastle, Hardwicke, Granville, Fox, Horace Walpole, Shelbume, Burke, George Grenville), were in despair at his vagaries of judg- ment and temper. Indeed Pitt himself provided ample material for the portrait of an able adventurer, cursed with a domineering and capricious nature, of a colleague hyper-sensitive about his own feelings, callous to the feelings of others, a theatrical posewr, intoxicated by the exuberance of his own rhetoric. It must be admitted that Pitt's sun-ender to, and treatment of, Newcastle are difficult to explain «way, and that his political services were man-ed throughout the reigns of George II. and George III. by grave and avoidable errors of j udgment which singularly crippled his power for good. His deference to Temple was fatal more than once. Most serious of all, Pitt never seems to have assimilated into his political philosophy the vitalising secret (which Bui-ke strove to 140 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- teach his giBneration) that, under the ponditions- of pa,rliamentary self-gOTfemment the delibterate associatipa of public men for publip, ends is not a trick but a duty, that paity is not faction, but the realisation of that duty, and that without the charity that, hopeth, all things, endureth all things, statesmen who have , the gift of prophecy and jspeak with the tongues of tingels will be but sound;! ing brass and tinkling cymbals^ Pitt's strange neglect : of the machinery at his hand put him at the mercy of Newc£|stle ; it made him first the tool and then the victim of = George: III. The public, however, judged him more accurately than the politicians. Quali- ties gi-feater than his courage, his passionate love of liberty, his unshakable attachment to the cardinal tenete of the Revolution creed— a Protestant and constitutional Crown realising with the co-operation of a free people the union of freedom with; Iftw — appealed to their imagination,,and touched all that was bes,t of Great Britain and Prussia linked in a common purpose two very different types of States ; and, if the religious element was subsidiary, it remains substantially true that i^ main protagonists on the one side were Protestant and progres- sive and on the other Catholic and reactionary. Prussia represented on the continent enlightened monarchical absolutism,' essentially national, against the effete centralisation of the Bourbon autoa'acy and the dynastic non-na.tional empire of the Habsburgs. The magnitudfe wad extent of the operations were as striking as the apparent inequality of the combatants. The population of Prussia may be reckoned at five, that of Great Britain and her colonies at not more thail twelve, millions, while the numbers of France and her allies have been calculated at a hundred millions. Both in Europe and outside it the war was a test of systems, and the parlia- mentary government of Great Britain on the whole survived the strain as successfully as the military absolutism of the Hohenzollern -nonarchy. When the Pitt-Newcastle Ministry was finally formed, the second Treaty of Versailles had committed France to an annual subsidy, thte pay of 10^000 German troops and a French army Feb. 1757 of 105,000 men. The gi-eat European League was completed by the Treaty of St. Petersburg, which brought in the Tsarina with 80;000 men, by the Treaty of Stockholm, which added Sweden and 20,000, and by the adhesion of Bavaria and the Elector Pala- tine. For Great Britain the campaign on the continent was not July «e promising. Cumberland, pitted: with 40,000 against D'Estrees with 80,000 troops, was worsted at Hastenbeck, and retreated upon Stade, thus abandonijng the Electorate). In terror for Hanover, ©eorge, behind the back of his Ministers, and in his capacity as 142 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- Sept. 8 Elector, ordered negotiations to be opened. Counter orders were sent too late, and the humiliating Convention of Klosterseven im- posed neutrality on the Hanoverian army. George threw all the blame on his son, who returned to England to be greeted with the remark : " Here comes my son, who has ruined me and disgraced himself". The convention was subsequently repudiated, on the technical ground that the French had violated its terms, and that Great Britain was not bound by the Elector's obligations. Pitt, with courageous magnanimity, defended Cumberland's action, and showed that war in Germany and support to Prussia were part of his strategic scheme. He proposed to take the Electoral army into Sept.-Oct. British pay and utilise ib to guard the western flank of our ally. Meanwhile a diversion against Rochefort, under Hawke and Mor- daunt, proved a failure, and the expedition returned, having accomplished nothing, to the nation's indignation. The officers were exonerated on inquiry, the attack being pronounced imprac- ticable, which was not pleasant for Pitt. Nor had the operations in America gone as Pitt desired. A French attempt to sui-prise Fort William Henry in the spring failed, and Loudoun decided to concentrate his chief effort on June 2o Louisburg. The co-operating fleet under Holborne was delayed, and Loudoun started without it, only to learn that Louisburg was strongly ganisoned and reinforced by a fleet as strong as Holbome's. Nov. I The enterprise was abandoned and Holborne's ships were shattered by a storm off Cape Breton, while on the mainland Montcalm, col- lecting 7000 to 8000 men, surrounded Fort William Henry. Colonel Webb at Fort Edward was too weak to come to its rescue, and after six days' siege the fort surrendered. By the terms of the capitulation the geirrison was to be escorted to Fort Edward, but the French Indians broke out of hand, and despite Montcalm's efforts butchered some fifty and carried off two hundred more of the prisoners. The French then wound up their victorious cam- paign by a raid on the German Flats, a district between the headwaters of the Mohawk and Schenectady Rivere inhabited by colonists from the Palatinate. The moral of events was obvious. The British required abler commanders, and much stronger assist- ance from the mother country and the colonies. The blockade of the French coasts was not effective. Two squadrons had sailed for Canada, D'Ach^ got away for India and Eersaint for the West 1756] PROGRESS OF THE WAR 148 Indies. Until we could bring a superiority of force to bear on the strategic area in North America and prevent the reinforcements from reaching Canada the French power could not be" broken. And Frederick's campaign emphasised the pressing need for strategic science in the higher direction and for a more strenuous use of eveiy May 6 available resource. After a victory at Prague, Frederick had been June 20 beaten at Kollin and abandoned Bohemia. In East Fi-ussia his Aug. ao forces were defeated at Gross-Jagerndoi-fF, and Breslau the capital of Silesia fell to the Austrians. Cumberland's failure had exposed his western flank. Men in England began to think with Chesterfield " that neither we, nor our ally, can carry it on three months longer," when there followed suddenly Frederick's two most classic victories. Nov. 5 At Rosbach he routed the French and Imperial army. Hun-ying Dec. 5 back to Silesia, he inflicted at Leuthen an equally damaging defeat on the Austrians. Prussia was more than saved for the year and the menace of the coalition averted. Happily for both Prussia and Great Britain the lessons of 1757 were turned to good account. War on the grand scale was planned, and Pitt's despatches show how carefully the scheme had been studied, oflicers selected^ and the details of the organisation worked out: A vote for more than eleven millions was taken and the main blow was to be struck in America, " to eat up the French ". Loudoun was recalled and the attack on Louisburg was entrusted to Amherst with 12,000 men. Wolfe, picked after his service at Rochefort, was to be one of Amherst's brigadiei-s, and Boscawen, " old Dreadnought," (vas to co-operate with a powerful fleet. Aberci-omby with Lord Howe was simultaneously to move up the line of Lake George against Ticonderoga, while a third force under Forbes advanced April 11 against Fort Duqiiesne. A subsidy convention of ^^670,000 was concluded with Fi-ederick, while Great Britain also agieed to main- tain 55,000 men to operate on the Elbe and the Weser, the com- mand being given with Frederick's consent to Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. Equally important blockading squadrons were de- tached to seal up the French ports, and a reserve force of ships and 14,000 men was concentrated at the Isle of Wight ; By June 8th the Louisburg expedition had made a landing, and ten days later the siege began. It lasted until July 27th, when the fortress capitulated, lie St. Jean was reduced, and had Wolfe, " who shone extremely," had his way the original intention 144 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE rma- of striking the same year at Quebec would have been calmed out. But the stubborn defence of Louisburg had saved \he Canadian cajiitaL for that year. Amherst prefeiTed to reinforce Abercromby, who had failed against Ticonderoga. In the advance from Albany', Howe, described by Wolfe 'f as the very best officer in the King's Julys service," had been killed in a reconnoitring skirmish, and Aber- cromby's stupid frontal attack on the fort, where Montbalm had concentrated his'iorces, was repulsed with serious loss. Whereupon Aug. 27 the British expedition fell back on the southern end of Lake Sept. George. Bradstreet had succeeded in capturing Fort' Frontenac; Nov. and Forbes, despite a reverse to his advance party,' pushed on, only to find that Fort Duquefene had been evacuated and burnt by the French, i Next yeai- a British fort took its place, to which the name of Fort Pitt was given-*a name kept alive to-day in the roaring furnaces and forest of chimneys of Pittsburg. The tide in America had tuimed. If for lack " of a little isoldiership and a little patience" the central assault had failed, the French were struck hard on both flanks. The maritime provinces and the guard of the St. Lawrence had falleh to 1 the British. Superiority in the numbers, organisation, and determination of her foes placed Canada on the defensive. Montcalm was now left to himself. Tte absoi-ption of France in the continental war and the English command of the sea, together with the lavish support from Great Britain, must in the end focus the straggle in thehdart of the French colony. Pitt was learning from events. For generals Nov. who blundered Great -Britain had no use, and Abercromby was Feb. 15 recalled. Ferdinand, hbwever, had jastified his appointment. By June 23 skilful operations he drove the Fxench baJck behind the Aller and Aug. 21 |.}jgjj across the Rhine. At Crefeld he-won a signal victory. His purely German ai'my was now reinforced by a British contingent of six squadrons of cavalry and six infantry battalions, uilder the Duke of Marlborough.' Their despatch showed that the Ministry fiillyi recognised the importance of enabling Ferdinand to act las- a true containing force, to work in concert with Fi-ederick and pro- tect Hanover, Bmnswick, and Hesse,- if possible, against thei tiraiy of the Rhine under Contades and the.armyof the Main under Soubise. Bythe end of 1758 Feixlinand occupied a line from Miinster to Paderbom. Earlier in the year the' Spithead force, under Marl- borough and Lord George Sackville, had been employed against 1766] PITTS POSITION 146 the French coast, but St. Malo proved too strong and the expedi- May ao tion returned, having accomplished little but the burning of mer- chantmen and privateers. It was resumed under Bligh. The docks Aug. i ftt Cherbourg were destroyed and a landing made in the Bay of St. Lunaire. But the landed troops were driven to retreat, suffered a loss of 750 killed and wounded, and then were withdrawn by the fleet. The tale of captures was completed by the surrender of Fort Louis on the Senegal River and of the Island of Goree, which April 30 practically deprived France of her West African settlements. The ^'^' ^ year had been one of increasing difficulty for Frederick. The bloody battle of Zomdorf had checked the Russian advance in the Aug. 25 east, but a defeat by the Austrians at Hochkirch was a serious blow. Subsequently the Austrians were compelled to evacuate Oct. 14 Saxony, but with every year Frederick was at a gi'eater disadvan- tage. The superb army with which he had begun the war was being rapidly decimated ; his enemies were rapidly making up lee- way in skill and organisation, and their resources in men were far superior to those of Prussia, already exhausted by the drain of three campaigns. Nothing but the King's indomitable tenacity and mili- tary genius could hope to save his State from destruction. In Pitt he had an ally after his own heart. Great Britain recognised, as Frederick did, that after long travail she had at last produced a man. The country had shaken off the enervating and hysterical despair so conspicuous in 1756. Pitt had inspired every class with his own unconquerable spirit ; he had won at last the complete support of the King. " Give me yom* confidence, sir," he had said to George, " and I will deserve it ". " Desei-ve my confi- dence, and you shall have it," replied the King, and they both kept their woi-d. By 1758 Pitt was virtually a dictator. Newcastle spai-red and grumbled, but for the most part kept his fears, sus- picions, and humiliations to paper.' Bute was troublesome more than once ; Fox held his tongue and amassed money. The House of Commons listened and voted.* Pitt's system and conduct of the war are peculiarly interesting Dec. 25, 1758 1 " The Duke of Newcastle and Pitt jog on like man and wife, seldom agreemg, often quarrelling, but by a mutual interest upon the whole, not parting" (Chester- field). ' " You would as soon hear ' No ' from an old maid as from the House of Com- mons " (Walpole, Dec. 25th, 1758). " Mr. Pitt declares only what he would have them do, and they do it nemine contradicenU " (Chesterfield, Corr, 3, 1247). 10 146 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- as those of a Minister working under parliamentary conditions and a constitutional monarchy. But if his success was exceptional, the circumstances were still more exceptional. No other Minister in the modem epoch has come into power under such a unique con- junction of party forces. There was no organised Opposition. The coalition included and silenced all the front bench chiefs ; it had the advantage of Newcastle's unrivalled experience, and control of the party machine ; Leicester House, so long an element of em- barrassment to the Crown, accepted the Secretary of State. In India, Britain's good fortune provided her with a great genius in Clive, whose achievements converted a subsidiary phase of the war into the operations that laid the basis of an imperial structure. Nor has any British Minister, before or since Pitt, waged a great war in alliance with a single military absolutism directed by a single brain, and that a brain of genius in soldiership, diplomacy, and administration. Frederick the Great was his own Commander-in- Chief, and his own Foreign Minister. Compared with the difficulties of William III. and Marlborough, of the younger Pitt, Castlereagh, and Wellington or Aberdeen, the disadvantages of a coalition both at home and in Europe were thus for Pitt and Fiederick the Great reduced to a minimum. For four years Pitt gathered into his own hands the higher military direction and the central control of the machinery of the British Stata The technical constitutional forms wei"e, Pitt prided himself on the fact, strictly observed. The orders were the orders of the Crown through its customary and lawful organs. The King acted on advice, to the grounds and nature of which he was a party. An innei- Committee of the Privy Council, virtually a Committee of Imperial Defence (Hardwicke, Newcastle, Devonshire, and Pitt, aflbiced by Anson, Ligonier, or any other expert required), discussed and decided, while the wider issues of diplomatic business were submitted to the full Cabinet ; but in the determination both of the principles, methods, and objects of the operations, Pitt's supremacy was unquestioned. He availed himself freely of advice from those most competent to offer it ; Anson and Ligonier were peimanent naval and military chiefs of the staff, and the executive agents, such as Hawke, Saunders, Boscawen, were consulted, but the strategic initiative, the political higher direction, he unified in his own office. He demanded and retained the entire correspondence with the naval 1766] THE ORGANISER OF VICTORY 147 and military commanders; from his pen came both the instruc- tions and the covering despatches that regulated the business in hand. The civil authorities, working on pai'allel lines, were organised and directed by Pitt. Naturally much latitude had to be given to individual action, but the general scheme aiTanged at headquarters co-ordinated its results to a uniform purpose. Hence it came about that in practice Admiralty, Horse Guards, and Ordnance Board, commandei-s and subordinates looked to Pitt. They were responsible for executive action to him, as he was for the central control. Equally remarkable is Pitt's masteiy of detail. His despatches are singularly copious in the range, scope, and minute- ness of the pi'ovisions made, and the toil represented by these records will always remain as a wonderful achievement of work by one man. And through the dead and dusty files gleams the spirit which left an ineffaceable impression of demonic power on Pitt's generation. If ever we are tempted to believe that empires can be made and campaigns won, not by nights and days of sacred toil but by oratory and epigram, the documents of Pitt's Ministry will dispel the per- nicious superstition. They aie a fit complement to the PoUtische Correspondenz of Frederick the Great^ As an organiser of victory Pitt has no superior in British his- tory. In the higher direction his strategic conception is marked by clearness, decision, and gi-asp. At first sight, the campaigns of 1757-60 seem to justify the criticism that, while he condemned Carteret and the Pelhams for a wasteful and futile indulgence in continental schemes, no one spent more, or on a more extended scale, in continental opei-ations than himself. The millions spent on the Prussian subsidy and on maintaining Ferdinand's army are striking compared with the dole to Russia and Hesse and Hanover, the denunciation of which brought about his dismissal in 1755. But Pitt's " system " rested on a sharp distinction between conti- nental measures as an end in themselves and as a means to an end. For him, in the first three years, the strategic centre was North America, the strategic object the crushing of the French in a limited area. The problem, therefore, was how to bring a superi- ority of force to bear on that limited area, for he acted on Nelson's principles that numbers alone could annihilate. The command of the sea covering the concentration of a superior force could ensure victory and the political result desired — the expulsion of the 148 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748 French. But this result would bebairen if the Bourlxjn-Habsburg alliance achieved as decisive results in Europe as the British in North America. No one grasped more clearly than Pitt, (his policy towards Spain is an additional proof,) that Great Britain was not fighting with France alone, but with a Bourbon-Romanov-Habsburg coalition. To defeat France was only half the battle ; a France beaten in North America but in alliance with a victorious coalition in Eui'ope meant the isolation of Great Britain and the total destruction of the balance of power in Europe, without which the British Empire as a State system could not exist. Anne and Maiia Theresa must be beaten as well as Louis XV. ; and if Spain made common cause with this sinister conspiracy, Spain must be beaten too. Tactically, Canada was not won in Germany but in North America — at Louisburg, Quebec, and Montreal. But it is neither correct nor just to represent the Prussian War as a com- paratively unimportant element in Pitt's strategic conception. Without Rossbach and Leuthen, Crefeld and Minden must have been impossible. The capture of Quebec would have been a pool set-off to the loss of Hanover, the dismemberment of Prussia, Flanders in Austrian hands, and a hostile Bourbon sovereign at Madrid. Pitt saw plainly that Frederick's failure would mean that Great Britain also had failed in the strategic objects for which, he held, she was as an imperial Power bound to fight. And precisely as he perceived this, and as Frederick's capacity to execute his share diminished, so did Pitt's efforts extend. The Hanoverian army of observation is transformed into a containing force ; it is stiffened with British troops, the purpose of which is to relieve the pressure on Prussia. Correctly interpreted, therefore, Pitt's famous phrase implies that Canada may have been won in Canada, but it will be kept, and only kept, in Germany. To desert Frederick was worse than ingratitude or treachery — it was fatal to the true interests of Great Britain. Hence his insistence in the diplomatic negotiations that a separate peace with France, which did not also secure the status quo ante in Germany, would rob that peace of half its value The change in the character of the war, noticeable after 1759, which drove France into the necessity of recovering elsewhere and by other means what she had lost across the seas, was therefore promptly met by Pitt The soundness of his strategy and tactics were justified by this very change. The new military and diplo- 1766] THE YEAR OF VICTORY 149 matic problem was complicated by irrelevant but disturbing ele- ments at home. But the completeness of the victory in North America gave him the means of decisive intervention on the Continent; and his plan for the Spanish War, even in inferior hands, revealed his grip on the new strategic situation. Had George H. lived till 1763 it is almost certain that the answer to Choiseul and Grimaldi would have been given not merely at Mar- tinique, Havana, and Manila, but by another Minden, in which the victors of Quebec would have played their part. The feature of Pitt's strategy and tactics most vulnerable to criticism is the expeditions against the French coast, deliberately planned to relieve the pressure on Frederick and Ferdinand, and to employ the ai-my as " a sword of the fleet ". Fox wittily condemned them as breaking windows with guineas, and some experts since Pitt's day have seen in these eccentric raids a flaw in the strategic scheme which locked up at gi'eat cost forces that might have been employed more effectively elsewhere. But the place and use of eccentric diversions are a highly controversial part of modem military science, on which the layman may well hesitate to be dogmatic. And it is worth noting that Pitt's " error '' was shared by Fi'ederick the Great and Anson (strategic experts not lightly to be set aside), and that the effect even of ineflective diversions on the spirit and temper of our nation in the war is very remarkable. The next yeai' — 1769 — was the year of victory. A triple plan of 1759 attack on Canada had been planned to bring about a converging advance on Montreal and Quebec. For the main eflbrt up the St. Lawrence, Saunders was selected to command the fleet and Wolfe (with Guy Carleton as his quartermaster-general) the army. In the choice of this young general of thirty-three, a sandy-haired, chinless man, from youth a victim to gravel, Pitt showed courage and insight Wolfe's previous career marked him out as an officer of inex- tinguishable spirit and fertility of resource, who had patiently studied the science of his profession, and whose last campaign set the seal on his reputation. Amherst was to co-operate on land by striking north after capturing Ticonderoga and Crown Point, while R-ideairx, marching by way of Oswego, was to secure Fort Niagara and close in from the west. At sea the grip on the French ports was tightened ; Boscawen off Toulon, Hawke off Brest, and Rodney in the Channel were intended to deal with the hostile fleets. 160 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- The triple plan was not a complete success. The difficulties of the concerted operations had been underestimated, and the forces were not adequate to carry through in the allotted time so sweep- ing an enveloping movement. Amherst, on whom the burden of organising the preparations both for himself and Wolfe fell, found Ticonderoga and Crown Point abandoned, but was able to do little more than master Lake Champlain. By July 8th Piddeaux had reached Niagara ; and after his death his successor, Johnson, routed Jaly24 a relieving force and the fort sun-endered. The French line of communication with Louisiana by the Ohio was then cut; and Montcalm's detachment of Levis to defend Montreed, necessitated by Amherst's and Johnson's operations, was of signal advantage to Wolfe and Saunders, whose splendid co-operation exemplified what fleet and army could do under the right leaders working together.' "The prevailing toast" in the expedition, "British colours on every port, fort, and garrison in America," finely expresses the spirit which Pitt's genius had inspired. Despite the bad luck which May prevented Durell from intercepting a French squadron that ran safely up to Quebec, Saunders' seamanship had by June 26th accom- plished the dangerous task of bringing his fleet of battleships up the St. Lawrence to the Isle of Orleans. But for two months Montcalm's defence of an impregnable position baffled all Wolfe's July 31 efforts. A desperate attack on the Beauport lines partly spoiled by the ardour of the grenadiers, who got out of hand, ended in a costly repulse. Wolfe's health broke down, and it was not until the dis- Sept. 8 covery of the track up the face of the Anse du Foulon and the audacious transport of his army across the river on the immortal night of September 12th, and thence up to the Plains of Abraham that Wolfe succeeded in forcing Montcalm's position and com- pelled him to fight in the open. By this stroke of genius, executed to perfection, the failure which had threatened the whole expedition developed, as by magic, into a brilliant coup de theatre ; and in the battle of September 13th the fire-discipline of our infantry swept the French into rout. On September 18th, Quebec surrendered to Townshend and Saunders. Wolfe's victory had practically given 'Mr. Beckles Wilson, however, Fortnightly Review, March, igio, cites impor- tant passages from an unpublished and recently discovered diary of Wolfe's, tending to prove that the co-operation of Wolfe and Saunders was not as harmonious as is generally represented. See note p. 159. 17««] MINDEN 161 Canada to Great Britain. Fate decreed that neither the victor nor the vanquished general should survive. But both Wolfe and Montcalm could "die in peace". Montcalm was a type of the best of France ; he had done everything that a brave and capable soldier could to save Canada, and in the imperishable renown that Wolfe deservedly won, Saunders and the British fleet have full right to share.^ For Quebec was won as much by the British navy as by the British army. On the Continent, Minden had fitly prepared the way. De Aug. x Broglie had replaced Soubise, and Contades' plan aimed at concen- trating a superior force against Ferdinand and forcing him back on the line of the Weser. By July 10th Broglie secured Minden, while Contades secured Cassel, Lippstadt, and Miinster, so that the French had now 60,000 men against 45,000 led by Ferdinand. By able tactics, however, the commander of the Anglo-Hanoverian army succeeded in enticing the French into the plain of Minden and forcing a battle upon them, which ended in a much-needed success. The battle was as remarkable as that at Fontenoy for the splendid advance of the British and Hanoverian infantry across open ground against a cross artillery fire and three lines of cavalry. " Never were so many boots and sadmes seen on a battlefield as opposite to the English and Hanoverian guards." But the deplor- able conduct of Lord George Sackville, who ignored ordera four times repeated, kept hi? cavahy at the decisive moment out of action, and by his cowardice or pei-versity, or both, prevented the French from being annihilated. Sackville was justly condemned by court- martial and declared unfit to serve under the Crown. Unfortunately he was a favourite at Leicester House, and his subsequent career made his rehabilitation by George III. an unpardonable blunder, and justified the univei-sal reprobation of his conduct at Minden. Although the French evacuated Cassel, lost Marburg, and were defeated at Fulda, Ferdinand's operations were crippled by the necessity of detaching 12,000 men to Frederick's assistance ; and at the end of 1 759 the armies occupied practically the same ground as at the beginning of the year. The Prussian King had been hard pressed ; his defeat at Kunersdorf and the suiTender of Finck Aug. n ' It is notable that two of the greatest of French and British maritime explorers took part in the campaign — Bougainville as Montcalm's lieutenant. Cook as the master of the Centurion in Saunders' fleeti 162 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [17«- at Maxen, were serious disastei's. The repulse of the French in- vasion of Hanover probably alone saved him from destruction. On the blue water two decisive fleet-actions tightened the grip of sea power, offensively used on the strategic theatre of the war. Aug. 19 Rodney's bombardment of Havi-e had proved futile, but Bosca wen's Nov. 20 crushing of the Toulon squadron off Lagos was followed by Hawke's pui-suit of the Brest fleet, after months of weary watching, into Quiberon Bay. Neither the storm nor the danger of the coast stayed Hawke, whose relentless determination and fine seamanship were rewarded by the signal loss inflicted on Conflans' command. If the Brest ships were not completely wiped out as a result of the action, the French fleet ceased to be an offensive force. The war had also extended to the West Indies. The plan of seizing Mar- tinique was abandoned, but, thanks to Barrington and Clavering, Guadeloupe and Marie Galante were captured and kept — a brilliant bit of work, particularly creditable to the skill of the soldiei-s. 1760 Pitt's efforts for the next year were planned on a still larger scale. A sum of nearly sixteen millions was voted without opposi- tion ; reinforcements were sent to Ferdinand in Germany, bringing: up the British contingent to 20,000 men ; Amhei-st resumed the pin: 1 which made Montreal the objective of an enveloping combination. Great Britain, in fact, had some 190,000 men in her pay (100,000 on the British, 12,000 on the Irish, establishment, 20,000 embodied militia, and 55,000 GeiTQans) ; and Pitt's policy of preserving Han- over and maintaining Frederick by continental operations until the subjugation of Canada was completed, is clearly revealed. In Germany the Minister's hope of another decisive victory was not fulfilled. Ferdinand was seriously outnumbered by the French, whose two armies were nearly double the 80,000 men at his dis- posal. The straggle centred chiefly in Hesse and Waldeck. A July 10 defeat at Korbach was followed by a victory at Marburg. But July 31 the raid on Wesel was unsuccessful, and culminated in a revei-se at Klosterkampen and the retreat of the allies from the Rhine. The French maintained their hold on Hesse, and Ferdinand could at June 22 best only expect to prevent their invasion of Westphalia. For Frederick it was a chequered year too. The reverse at Landshut was made good by a success at Liegnitz j and after a temporary I}gg_ occupation of Berlin by his foes, the campaign closed with a bloodv victory over Daun at Torgau. Oct. 10 1766] THE CONQUEST OF CANADA 168 In Canada, MuiTayhad been left to defend Quebec in complete isolation. With the spring Levis and Vaudreuil made a desperate effort to retake the city ; and on April 27 th Murray, provoked into taking the initiative, was defeated in an action outside the walls. Until the dramatic arrival of a frigate, the forerunner of a relieving May g British squadron, his position in the beleaguered city, with a decimated garrison and exhausted stores, was critical. The ti-iple movement — Murray from Quebec, Amhei-st from Oswego and thence down the St Lawrence, Haviland from Ticonderoga — for the capture of Montreal could now be pushed with vigour. Amherst's genius for organisation was ably supported by the energy and skill of the column commanders, and punctually to the moment, all difficulties sm-mounted, the three leaders joined hands outside the doomed town. There was nothing for Vaudreuil and Levis but to accept Sept. 6 the inevitable, and on September 8th the capitulation was signed which ended the French powei in Canada and transferred a new colony to the British Crown. To Amherst in particular this crowning mercy was mainly due. The concerted operations of 1760, with their triumphant conclusion, stand on record as " one of the most perfect and astonishing bits of work which the annals of British warfare can show ". Choiseul's plan of averting the final disaster in America by an invasion of England had been effectually frustrated by Boscawen's s,nd Hawke's victories of the year before ; but in the autumn of 1759 the possibilities of the defensive had been neatly illustrated. Thurot had slipped out of Dunkii'k, and after wintering in Norway, now appeared off the western coast of Scotland. On February 21st he pounced on Cai'rickfergus, but eight days later he ran into the vessels despatched to intercept him; Thurot himself was killed and his thi'ee ships captui'ed. The contrast between 1757 when Britain cowered at the prospect of invasion, and 1760 when the French effort fizzled out in " a smart display of cruiser control," is certainly striking. The confidence of the country rested securely, as well it might, on the strategic science which had established and maintained the commtmd of the sea. Lagos and Quiberon made invasion by evasion little better than a mad raid, to which there could only be one end. And with Canada now conquered, forces were about to be set free whose employment might alter the whole character of the struggle for empire. 154 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- Equallj remarkable results had been achieved in the chief areas in which the struggle for supremacy in India was fought out. The contest in the Carnatic was virtually an open duel between the English and the Fi-ench, using the quarrels of rival pretenders within the native dj^iasties as the weapons of attack ; whereas in Bengal the British were brought into collision with a native power with which the French were not directly concerned. Between the Carnatic and Bengal stood Bussy at Haidarabad, controlling the Circars, with an excellent chance of intervening decisively in either sphere. But the real connecting link between Madras and Calcutta is Clive, whose iron nerve and strategic eye for the issues at stake were worth more than a squadron of ships and several regiments of men. On his return to the East in 1756 Clive found that the agi-ee- ment between the Governors of Madras and Pondicherry prevented as yet direct hostilities between the English and the French ; but aftpr suppressing, with the aid of Admiral Watson, a pirate sti'ong- hold on the west coast at Gheriah he was sent to Calcutta, where Julyai Suraj-ud-Daulah, the new Nawab of Bengal had captured Fort William ai.'d inflicted on his European prisoners the atrocity of " the Black Hole, wherein the greater part of them perished by suffocation in the narrow prison into which they had been thrust ". Clive and Watson arrived on December 15th, and next month the Nawab was driven back from Calcutta. To prevent the March 23 co-operation of the French with the Nawab's forces, Chandernagar was captured, and Clive then entered on a negotiation through a secret agent named Omichund with Mu- Jafar, the Nawab's Com- mander-in-Chief, the object of which was to displace Suraj-ud- Daulah as the ruler of Bengal and substitute a British nominee in the person of Mir Jafar himself. It was the policy of Dupleix applied in a new sphere, but unhappily, as far as Clive was con- cerned, stained by an act which was both a crime and a blunder. In order to secure Omichund's full support Clive, with the conniv- ance of the Council, stooped to forge Admiral Watson's signature to a document defining the rewards for Omichund's services. The real document, containing the agreement by which Clive and the Council intended to be bound, omitted these clauses. The treachery succeeded. Omichund, who might have revealed the scheme in which Mir Jafar was so deeply implicated, believed in the 1756] CLIVE'S ACHIEVEMENTS 156 good faith of the forged signature and held his tongue. CIiveJune23, then advanced to defeat the Nawab in the field, and at Plassey, '^''' with splendid audacity, risked all on a single stroke. The Nawab's army was routed. Suraj-ud-Daulah himself was murdered shortly June 27 after and Mir Jafar proclaimed in his place. Omichund was then simply thiown over. It was Clive's first and last act of treachery to native or European, but it cannot be condoned even by the gravity of the situation that tempted him, still less by the apparent success with which the deception was rewarded. Plassey marks one of the epochs in the history of British India ; it not only made Clive, through Mir Jafar, the ruler of Bengal, but laid the founda- tion of British political supremacy in the Ganges basin. The next two and a half years showed that the Victor was gifted with a per- sonality and administrative powers as remarkable as his genius for command. In Southern India Lally had been forced by the appear- ance of a British squadron off Earikal to abandon the siege of Tanjore. Summoning Bussy and his troops from Haidarabad he attacked Madras — the last oflfensive movement of the French in Feb., 1759 that quarter — but Kempenfeldt's squadron broke up the siege. Clive, in the north-east, meanwhile, grasped the situation, and sent Colonel Forde to the Cii'cars to secure the communications between April, 1759 Bengal and the Camatic ; and the capture of Masulipatam trans- ferred the Nawab from a French to a British alliance. In his own immediate sphere Clive, by another brilliant and audacious stroke, had tightened his grip on the territories under British influence- Rejecting Mir Jafar's advice to come to terms with the Nawab of Oudh and the Shahzada, the heir of the Great Mogul, whose forces beleaguered Patna, Clive, by a forced march, relieved the European garrison, scattered the Nawab's forces, and once more proved that ttie offensive, controlled by genius, was the true policy. The autumn of the same year saw British ascendency further strength- ened by the reduction of the Dutch settlement at Chinsurah and the capture of seven of their ships. In their jealousy of the glow- ing British power, the Dutch had entered on an intrigue with Mir Jafar and had seized British vessels ; but Clive, the greater portion of whose fortune was in the hands of the Dutch East India Com- pany, did not hesitate to use the opportunity to ruin, in the interests of his country, the one European rival that remained. His decisive action compelled the Dutch to pay compensation for 15fi THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- their aggression and to limit their troops to a military police for their commercial station. Recognising the critical character of the struggle in the Camatic where Pocock's fleet had fought an indecisive action with the French under D'Ache, Clive despatched Colonel Eyre Coote to command the British troops. What Plassey had achieved for the Jan. 21, north the victory at Wandewash over Lally now achieved for the '7^° south. Unlike Plassey, this battle was one directly between French Oct. and English, and Coote followed it up by investing Pondicherry on land, while Steevens, who had succeeded Pocock, blockaded it Jan. 1761 by sea. Its surrender was primarily due to Steevens' obstinacy and skill. The French fleet under D'Ache, fearing an attack from Europe on their base at Mauritius, (an attack contemplated by Pitt but diverted to Belle Isle,) were obliged to leave Pondicherry to its fate, and its capitulation was a triumph for the seamanship of the British admiral. Not without reason have naval experts held that Steevens' unprecedented feat of keeping the sea through the terrible cyclone season on that exposed coast must rank as one of the greatest feats of our sailors in the Seven Years' War, comparable to Hawke's great winter blockade off Brest. And there is a dramatic fitness in the fact that the fall of the chief station of the French in India should be brought about by the indirect operation of Pitt's wide-flung strategy, and the direct ofl^ensive of fleet and army work- ing in harmonious combination. If Clive had failed to persuade Pitt that an Empire in India, such as few in 1760 dreamed of, could be won, if only he would consent to divert troops and ships from the West to the East Indies, it remains true that the final victory of the British could not have been secured without continu- ous support from home. The steady reinforcement of the British squadron in 1758 and 1769, and the despatch of two British regiments, turned the scale. And our sea-power was asserted at precisely the moment when the land campaign had entered on a critical stage. Yet this patent fact need not detract from the sei-vices rendered by Pocock, Forde, Eyre Coote, a)id Clive himself To the latter, " the heaven-born general," Pitt paid a tribute fully Feb., 1760 deserved. Clive had left Calcutta before the last blow was struck. His work in India was not yet over.' But in Hindostan no less 'In a striking letter to Pitt, Clive urged the extension of the British conquest and the resumption of the direct authority of the Crown over the areas acquired. He 1766] SPANISH CLAIMS 157 decisively than in North America the French schemes had heen completely checkmated ; and if the much abused title of " Empire builder" belongs by right to any man it belongs to Clive, whose peerage, tardily granted in 1762, emphasised achievements as re- markable for the rapidity and insight with which they were accomplished as for the new epoch they opened for the British race in the East. Interest at home now centred on the diplomatic situation. In 1759 the accession of Charles III. (King of Naples) to the throne of Spain had substituted for the peaceful Ferdinand VI. a sovereign, hostile at heart to Great Britain, whose policy was based on the solidarity of the Bourbon dynasties and a desire to prevent a settle- ment detrimental in Europe and the New World to Spanish and Bourbon power. The loss of Canada and West Indian Islands by France involved in Spanish eyes a serious displacement of the colonial balance of power ; and Spain had, moreover, special grievances of her own against Great Britain — the alleged attacks of English privateers on Spanish ships, the illegal cutting of logwood in Hon- duras by English traders, and the maintenance of Spanish rights in the Newfoundland fisheries. A desire to end the war was growing with the combatants, and Spain was ready to offer her mediation. But these "dapplings for peace" came to nothing as yet. If Fiance was ready to discuss a separate negotiation with Great Bi'itain, both Maria Theresa and her Russian aUy were averse from the idea of a general congress. Pitt made it clear that Prussia must be included in any separate arrangement made by Great Britain with France, and the tentative proposals broke down be- cause Maria Theresa still hoped, by a continuance of the war on the Continent, to force Frederick into considerable cessions of terri- tory. Henceforward Spain is the chief cause of Pitt's diplomatic May, 1760 anxiety ; the reorganisation of her resources, the revival of her claims, the close connection between the Courts at Paris and Ma- drid, were additional elements of danger; and from the first the Minister grasped the new phase into which the war was necessarily also suggested that, if the British administration were consolidated under a single Governor-General, the central seat of power should be in Bengal, the youngest of the company's settlements. His influence and knowledge were mainly responsible for the terms with reE^ard to the French settlements in the treaty of 1763. In all these directions he proved his mastery of the conditions of the imperial problem of India 158 THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE [1748- passing — a struggle not for supremacy in America but one to compel France and her allies to acknowledge that in Europe their coalition had been as decisively defeated as the French in North America and India. Hence Pitt's determination at the outset, first, to indicate that Great Britain would not surrender her colonial con- quests ; secondly, that Frederick's cause was identical with her own. Already in 1759 the expedition to Belle Isle was under consideration ; its capture would be a valuable piece when the diplomatic chess-board was set up, and it would give om- fleet a convenient base for separating the French and Spanish navies, as well as place it astride the main routes from Western Eui'ope across the Atlantic. With victory Pitt's views of the scope and object of the war were inevitably extending. Martinique, and perhaps Mauri- tius might be wrested from France, and the Bourbon power " beaten not to her knees but laid upon her back ". The action of Spaia con- firmed the suspicion that she was ready to make common cause with France rather than see the kindred Bourbon dynasty capitulate to Great Britain. In the autumn Fuentes presented a peremptory memorial on the Spanish grievances, and intimated that the docu- ment had ah'eady been communicated to the Paris Foreign Office. Sept. 2o Pitt's reply not merely rejected the Spanish claims on the New- foundland fisheries and asserted the British right to cut timber in Honduras, but laid down in unmistakable language that the previous communication to the French Court was a breach of diplomatic conventions ; and that Great Britain would not tolerate the intervention of a third paily (Spain) in matters which solely concerned herself and France. At this critical point, while the ultimate success of Pitt's policy turned on tightening the wai- pressure on France, in order to Oct. 25 strengthen his diplomatic position, the sudden death of George II. altered the whole situation at home. The old King had been spared to see his kingdom triumphant in a gi-eat war, ajid had learned under the charm of victory to forget the resentment and distrust that he had so long felt for Pitt. While George II. was King the masterful Minister could rely on the Royal support in the Cabinet ; and if that support was essential to Pitt's system of con- ducting the war, it was doubly so for the conclusion of a satisfactory peace. Fortune dealt no more cruel blow to Great Britain than in removing a Sovereign with forty years' knowledge of public 17fi61 DEATH OF GEORGE II 159 affairs and taught by bitter experience the duty of acquiescence in the political conditions of a constitutional monarchy. George II. was neither a good man nor a great King. But he could appreciate both good and great men. He was never the victim of charlatans in character or intellect, and he knew when to yield. Hanoverian England learned to value his sound qualities more truly when the Crown passed to a young man, ignorant, obstinate, and eager to govern as well as to reigj. Note. — Oa Clive see the standard Life by G. W. Forrest, 2 vols. (1918) ; on Canada, Wolfe and the campaigns, G. M. Wrong, The Fall of Canada (1913) and the authorities there cited ; and the same author's Rise and Fall of New France (2 vols. 1928) ; on Foreign Policy consult R. Lodge, Great Britain and Prussia in the Eighteenth Century (Ford Lectures), and his articles in Eng. Hist. Review for Oct., 1923, July and Oct., 1928, April, 1929 ; for the Naval side of the War (1739-48) Sir H. W. Richmond, T/w Navy in the War of the Austrian Succession (3 vols. 1926). Prof. W. T. Waugh's recent Life of Wolfe is well worth consulting (1929). 160 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND (1714- CHAPTER IV HANOVBBIAN ENGLAND (1714-1760) IN 1714 the foundation and fundamental principles of the Protestant, parliamentary, constitutional State as defined by the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement were fii-mly laid down. The Whig theory of 1688 — ^the contractual origin of civil society, the forfeiture of the Crown on the violation of that contract, the tenure of a parliamentary throne and the regulation of the suc- cession on statutory conditions, the compulsoiy membership of the Sovereign in the Protestant State Church as by law established, the practical independence of the judiciary and the supremacy of Parliament in legislation, taxation, and administration — had origin- ated in a Revolution and involved the repudiation of the counter- theoiy and principles of the Divine Right Monarchy. With 1714 a new and instructive chapter of constitutional development opens. Between 1714 and 1760 important changes can be traced — the position of the monarchy, the extension of Parliament's authority, the extension of the party system, the evolution of the Cabinet and of the Prime Minister, and the working of the administrative machine — which in their totality give the epoch a character of its own, but they are the result of the logic of political facts and ideals for the most part, and not of statutory enactment or abstract theories of political science. The vitalising and enduring achievements in constitutional progress are not revealed in the scanty record of the legislation of the period. After 1714 there is a distinct cessation in the renovation of the structure of the State by great formative statutes. Even the Septennial Act, impoi-tant as it is, involved no new principles or theory. It is the inevitable outcome of piinciples already operative and an instrument to an end already defined. This period 1714-1760 synchronises with the domination of that great party which by 1714 had riveted the Revolution system into 1760] THE WHIGS AND WHIGGISM 161 the historic fabric of the Constitution. The Septennial Act in- augurates the true political supremacy of the Whigs. From 1688- 1714 we observe the gradual triumph of Whig principles ; two years 3t uncertainty and then in 1716 follows the triumph of the Whig party. As indicated elsewhere, the ability of the Whig leaders, the strength of their organisation resting on a so«ial solidaiity, the fixity of their purpose, the possession of a theoretical creed and a practical programme were reinforced by good fortune and the mis- takes of their opponents. Bolingbroke was at bottom responsible for George's accession as the nominee of a party, and Bolingbroke's policy turned a Tory victory in 1710 under Anne into an iri"etrievable Tory disaster in 1714. We can mark definite phases in the Whig supremacy — the Sunderland-Stanhope, the " llobinocracy " of Walpole, the Pelhams, the 'Pitt- Newcastle coalition — but through them run common and typical features which largely determine the trend and results of constitutional progress. The Koran of Whiggism is the . verbally inspired Bill of Rights and Act of Settlement, with their ex]Si.licit implications. The Law of the Whig dispensation is the Law of the land and Locke is the prophet. Orthodox Whig doctrine, so far as it professes to be a a'eed of political philosophy, starts from, and ends in, the Lockian social compact, of government by consent of the governed, expressing itself in a Lockian harmony and balance of conflicting powers. Hanoverian Whiggism, though intellectually reinforced by Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois, "which taught Englishmen to take a pride in their (balanced) Constitution " (the lesson was hardly necessary '), leaves its mark not so much as a creed 1726 of political science, but rather as a practical way of political life ; it is based on a series of attempts which start from principles beyond dispute and seek largely through compromise to realise a workaday reconciliation of the liberty of the subject with administrative stability, of economic prosperity with political power at home and expansion abroad. In opposition to the court, the Church and the squirearchy, the Whigs pressed into their pai-ty system three broad and distinct elements — the temtorial aristocracy, the commercial hierarchs (trade, banking, the city, the " moneyed men " of an expand- 1 " We are the greatest country in the world; our climate is the most agreeable to live in ; our Englishmen are the stoutest and best men in the world " (Defoe. The Comfleat Englishman, i., 369). 11 162 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- ing commercial State), and the Nonconformists. These respective classes broadly corresponded to definable strata in the society of the time. The combined interests of these groups, progressive but exclusive, inspired policy and the Whig interpretation of national well-being. Hence the necessity of " control " and " balance " in order to reduce and cool the friction of the machinery, central and local, of government, and to thwart the predominance of any single class. The direction inevitably fell to the great families whose power rested on their historic share in the Revolution, their intuitive apti- tude for government, their social status, their wealth and territorial influence, their majority in the Upper, and their indirect control of the Lower, Chamber. Aristocratic, even oligarchic in temper, the Revolution families stood for popular principles, government in accordance with the national wiU as expressed in lawfully estab- lished organs (but which they could poweifully influence).. They mystallised into a socially privileged caste which was roughly the re- sult of the existing social and economic organisation. Fear of the Crown and prerogative was their guiding maxim. But with the accessicM of the House of Brunswick statutory checks on prerogative are no longer their main object. The Whigs are the core and flower of the social world and are transformed into the Court party ; they disarm the legal prerogative of the monarchy by transferring its exercise to Ministers (chosen from their own ranks) responsible to Parliament, and by utilising plastic conventions to conceal the transfer. The growth and application of these conventions, framed by a fine intuition and experience — party Government, ministerial responsibility, the Cabinet system-^solved a problem of great diffi- culty and complexity and ai"e the great contribution of the golden age of Whiggism. The Revolution monarchy, for all its limitations, inherited from statute and common law and custom an undisputed supremacy in the executive and a wide discretionary authority ; it had yet to be reconciled with the legal authority and growing ambitions of Parliament. And when the Whigs had demon- strated the practicability and flexibility of these conventions, as well as their necessity, they had indicated how the monarchical principle could be harmonised with parliamentary supremacy, and executive efficiency with responsibility to representative in- stitutions. Their work was then done. In the accomplishment of this task Whig "rule" has been 1760] THE DEFECTS OF THE WHIGS 163 charged with three great faults. The Whigs were, it is commonly said, con-upt. Despite their parUamentary majority they failed to extirpate patent abuses and to give England the essentials of a really liberal Government — religious toleration, a free Press, a populai" suffi-age, a really representative legislature, a scientific and humane criminal code. Parliamentary government, it is often ar- gued, was the outcome of a series of happy accidents, and the Whig principles of 1689 were not a correct diagnosis of the problems left unsolved by the Revolution. The indictment is partly true. But the character and extent of Whig corruption has been greatly exaggerated ; it consisted in applying the influence of the Crown and the patronage of the Executive to sustain the balance between the monarchy and the popular element. Without some such trans- itional phase there must have followed in 1714! either a further statutory reduction of the Q'own's prerogative or a relapse to the pre-Revolution monarchy ; in other words, a fresh structural renovation or a counter-revolution. The indispensable condition of drastic progressive reforms (for which England in 1714 was not intellectually or socially prepared) was a Government whose pi'in- ciples and practice were accepted by thg whole nation. But in 1714 the Revolution state was still only the creation of a powerful and enlightened minority. Legitimate in law, it had yet to be legiti- mised by usage and sentiment. By 1760 this transition has been satisfactorily brought about ; and if Cabinet and party govern- ment were not foreseen in 1689 and 1700, their establishment put the coping-stone to the Revolution scheme, government by and through Parliament. The Whig supremacy, with all its defects, was an inevitable and beneficial stage in the long journey from 1689 to 1910. Under the domination of a proud, patriotic, and enlightened aristocracy, England proved to Europe the success of a gigantic constitutional experiment. The Whigs added an un- written code to the letter of the law ; and their success destroyed automatically the reasons for their own supremacy. Toryism, on the other hand, in 1714, was rent asunder. Al- legiance to the national Church collided with allegiance to a fallen dynasty ; and the triumphant Tory party of 1710-13 entered on its forty years' wandering in the wilderness. After ten years of futile and spasmodic opposition it found a Joshua in Henry St. John, under whose leadership the creed of Filmer, Rochester, Sacheverell 164 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [17M- and Atterbury, and the October Club, was transformed into the creed of Wyndham and Marchmont, and finally of Johnson, Gib- bon, and the younger Pitt. Bolingbroke, as a loyal subject of George II., proved indeed to be a far more dangerous foe to Whiggism than the Minister of Anne and the half-hearted rebel of 1715. He accepted the structure of the Revolution state and the conventional theory of a balance of powers ; he purged his party of its anachronistic belief in divine right ; by ceaseless de- nunciation of coiTuption he associated " party " with " faction," and he legitimised opposition by allying it with the heir to the parliamentary throne and with the rebel Whigs.' The new Toryism identified the interest of the tnily national state with the legal authority of an ideally intelligent and patriotic kingship, freed from caste selfishness and the bigotry of faction, blending all parties into one great union to achieve national ends by national means. Though Bolingbroke did not perceive it, at his death the promised land was near. He had captured the future sovereign and armed him with a plan of campaign ; outside the strongholds of Whig monopoly he had rallied the army which emerged as " The King's Friends " ; and he had vamped up for both a stock of ideas, tricked out in the trappings of the fashionable philosophy of the Salons, which could easily be applied as a panacea for misinterpreted de- fects, and still more easily mistaken for a progressive political faith. Aided by the social revolution in operation since 1714, by the reconciliation of the squirearchy and the Church to the House of Brunswick, and by the disintegration of the Whig party, the Toryism of Bolingbroke in 1760 opens a new chapter in its own history and in that of Great Britain. The Revolution settlement had laid down what the Crown must be and what it could not do ; it had said very little as to what the Crown could or ought to do. It left the prerogative, except where expressly limited, unimpaired and the discretionary powers of the Sovereign, as head of the Executive and the necessary partici- pant in every act of government, undefined. After 1714 there ' " All experience convinces me that ninety men out of a hundred, when they talk of forming principles mean no more than embracing parties " (Chesterfield, Worhs, i., log). " Every administration is a system of conduct : opposition, there- fore, should be a system of conduct likewise, an opposite, but an independent system " (Bolingbroke, Works, vii., 59). 1760] THE POSITION OF THE CROWN 166 is a slow change in the character of the Crown and its attitude towards its functions which ushers in the modernisation of the Monarchy. With Anne perished the indefinable prestige and at- mosphere of the Divine Right Sovereign. George I. and II. were in name kings by the Grace of God ; in fact they existed by Act of Parliament and (more important) by the goodwill of the Whig party. They might threaten to retire to Hanover, but they might not find it so easy to come back. The hei-editai-y quarrel between the King and his legal heir secured in a remarkable way the allegi- ance of the Opposition' to the continuity of the dynasty, although it diminished the respect of the nation. Unnoticed, the Whigs en- meshed the legal prerogative of initiation in a network of indirect checks, the breaking of which would lead to a breach of the law. It is significant that after Anne the Sovereign ceased to attend debates in the House of Lords ; and when George I. ceased also to sit in the Cabinet he made a far-reaching sun-ender to the solidarity of the ministerial system. The necessary approval by Parliament of every important act in home and foreign policy and the jealous scrutiny of the Crown's intentions, suspect because the King was avowedly German by blood, trainiog, and interest, fostered a geometrically increasing progress in the limitation of the sphere and objects of the royal will. The royal veto on parliamentary legislation was tacitly dropped, though in relation to colonial as- semblies it was carefully retained and exercised. The evolution of ministerial responsibility, the growth of administrative business, and the expansion of the code of conventions, materially strength ened the steady transition to the status of official royalty. Yet it would be a serious mistake to place the Hanoverian monarchy in the same category as the Victorian. The closer one studies the inner working of the mechanism of government the more convincing become the proofs of the reality and ubiquity of the power of the Crown in the person of the wearer of it. George I. and II. took a deep interest in Em-opean politics. Their knowledge made them formidable critics, their bias obstinate advocates. In foreign policy their assent, as the documents show, was essential and not easily gained. The judicial decision of 1718 made the King an absolutist in his own family. Despite the Mutiny Act the army was a jealously guarded presei-ve of an autocratic prerogative. " This province," George II. said, " I will keep to myself from your scoun- 166 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- drels of the House of Commons." In the disposition of the Civil List the royal will, uncontrolled by specific appropriation or effective audit, was supreme. The Crown lands and the hereditary revenues of the heir to the throne gave both to King and Prince of Wales powerful parliamentary and territorial influence. The careei-s of Walpole and of Carteret prove how invaluable, those of Boling- broke and Pitt how damaging, to political success the Sovereign's personal likes and dislikes could be. Queen Caroline and the Count- ess of Yarmouth are witnesses to the same conclusion. Indeed the Whig domination of the Couit and society, by intensifying the personal issues in political life, and by multiplying the opportunities for social intrigue, provided an ample field for the exercise of a varied patronage. Scotland and Ireland swelled the tale. Ribands and stars, pensions, peerages, colonelcies of regiments, boroughs and places, from the important offices in the Ministry and the Household to sinecures in the civil establishment and tide-waiterships in Ire land, were distributed according to the royal pleasure. The Diary of Lady Cowper, the Memoirs of Hervey, the Letters of Chesterfield and Horace Walpole, the Calendar of Treasury Papers, and the vast Newcastle Con-espondence, enable us to understand how Whig fear of the powers of the Crown even in the hands of foreign Sovereigns, personally unimpressive, was no idle shibboleth. Thanks to the unwearied organisation of the great Whig managers, such as Newcastle and Islay, these innumerable resources were marshalled, on the whole, to promote Whig ascendency, and to make the Cabinet and the House of Commons the working centre of government ; and it is worth noting that under an equally unwearied (but royal) manager, George III.) the same resources kept the Opposition at bay for twenty years and finally broke up the Whig party. The Upper Chamber of the Legislature had not yet assumed its familiar modem form. Composed of hereditary lay peers, and the official spiritual peers, and the sixteen representatives of the Scottish peerage added in 1707, it numbered at the accession of George I. one hundred and seventy-eight members, of whom twelve were minors. Previously to 1688 there had been considerable additions, as there were after 1783 ; but in 1760 its numbers (one hundred and seventy-four) were practically the same as in 1714, showing that the new creations made by George I. and George II. were substantially balanced by the steady and natural extinction of existing peerages. Nor was the Whig jealousy of the royal prerogative of creating 1760] THE HOUSE OF LORDS 167 peers, exemplified in the abortive Peerage Bill of 1719, wholly due to the exclusiveness of a privileged social caste. The power of the Crown to create peers lavishly at the bidding of a Ministry in a minority, seen in the famous twelve creations made to secure the acceptance of the Ti-eaties of Utrecht, had been fiercely resented. This right was, not without reason, regarded ■ as liable to abuse and provocative of retaliation — a power which might be employed recklessly to undermine the character of the House and endanger its constitutional privileges. The dominant theory of a balance of powers found its expression in the desirability of maintaining the House of Lords in practical independence alike of the Ci'own and the representative Chamber. The newer senatorial theory on which the younger Pitt seems to have acted in his wholesale addi- tions — the representation in the Upper Chamber of political and intellectual eminence, and of the great industrial capitalists — was not yet an accepted political practice ; nor did social and economic conditions and political exigencies as yet furnish powerful argu- ments in its favour. The peers represented personally a historic estate — the temporal peerage together with their spiritual brethren. Under George I. and IL they continued to be a great Council of the Crown, whose members were invested by law, usage, and the characteristics of national development with defined rights and duties. Their legal privileges, freedom of debate, the right of free criticism and advice, were bound up with their position as hereditary Councillors. Minorities could find influential expression ; and the established custom of Protests provided for a pei-sonal and permanent record in the Journals of the House of reasoned dissent from the collective action and views of the majority. These Pro- tests of Dissentient Peers in the eighteenth century (good examples are those on the Mutiny Bill, the Middlesex Election, the Regency Bill) are often weighty contributions to the fund of political ideas as well as a valuable source of information to the historical student. The right of initiating and amending taxation had been practicsdjy surrendered ; the claim to reject money Bills was not urged ; but the Upper Chamber regai'ded itself in legislation and discussion as a co-ordinate part of the Legislature, and not merely a revising body. True that, already in 1711 a Ministry, with a majority in the Commons, had disregarded a double vote of no-confidence by the House of Lords. But after 1714 the remarkable harmonv 168 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND 11714- between the two Chambers on the fundamental issues of policy prevented the precedent from being decisive. For the rejection of ministerial bills by either House was not in the practice of the day considered to require the resignation of their authors. But it was already quite clear that support by the House of Lords alone would not enable a Government to go on. The preponder- ance of peers in the Ministries of the time is striking. In the Cabinets of 1737 and 1740, of which we have official lists, fourteen out of sixteen, and eleven out of fourteen members, respectively, are peers, and this percentage is characteristic of the century as a whole. The House of Lords, in short, was an organic representa- tion of property, social power, and office. In practice it broadly represented the dominant Whig aristocracy; and its powers and dignity were enhanced by its judicial pre-eminence as the Supreme Court of Appeal for the United Kingdom and Ireland, and by its function to decide on impeachments preferi'ed by the Commons, though from 1725-60 we have no important example of this method of punishing an unpopular Minister.^ The record (from 1714-60) of the House of Commons does not offer the picturesque drama of the seventeenth century. Hence the Hanoverian Lower House is often represented either as the mere mirror of a stagnant Whiggism or the demoralised accomplice of a corrupt oligarchy, distinguished alone by its classic orators — Walpole, Pulteney, Wyndham, Murray, Fox, Pitt — speaking within jealously closed doors to an audience whose votes were already determined. In reality these fifty years permanently build up the English type of State, of which government by the regular meeting of a represen- tative body is the most striking feature. In the form and structure of the Lower House there is little change. After the large additions by the Stuart monarchy and the legislative union with Scotland, the next large influx does not come till 1801. Ninety-four mem- bers in 1714 represent the English counties, 415 the boroughs, four the universities, while Scotland sends thirty county and fifteen burgh members. The county suffrage is the forty-shilling freehold quali- fication of 1430 ; but in the boroughs the qualification defies scien- tific analysis, though a rough fourfold classification can be made out, based on the Scot and Lot, the Burgage, the Corporation, and the Freeman franchise. The extension of the Burgh franchise was finally closed by the Last Determination Act of 1729, and the next 'Consult A. S. Turberville, The House of Lords m the EighUenth Century (1937)1 paiticularly Chs. V,-X, and Appendix XIV, 1760] THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 169 change, a sweeping one, is delayed until 1832. By 1714 the Com- mons are able to utilise the fruits of the continuous struggle of the preceding century. The fundamental privileges — freedom of speech, a co-ordinate share in legislation, freedom from arrest (ex- cept for treason, felony, or breach of the peace), the right to impeach peers and commoners, the settlement of contested elections, parlia- mentary taxation — are no longer in danger from the Crown or its executive servants, and several rest on a statutory guarantee. The prerogative of the Crown to summon or extend the duration of Parliament is regulated by the Septennial Act, a model example of the legal sovereignty of Parliament The House italicises these privileges by additions essential to its self-defined functions and ambitions. The exclusive right to originate and determine the in- cidence of taxation, asserted against the peers in 1678, is not ques- tioned in the eighteenth century. The right to exclude strangers and prohibit the publication of debates, corollaries to freedom of speech, are expressed in Standing Orders, defended in 1738 by Pulteney against his colleague in Opposition, Wyndhara, with the eignificant argument that publication " looks like making members accountable without doors for what they do within ". Hence the claim " that to print or publish any books or libels reflecting upon the proceedings of the House of Commons or any member thereof for or relating to his service therein " is a breach of privilege punishable by the House ; and enforced as it was {e.g. in the case of Mist's Journal and others) virtually amounted to a special censor- i^a, ship of the Press. With this naturally was involved the right to punish its own members for breaches of discipline. In the case of Alexander Murray the judge held that the law coui-ts were not 1751 required to question the validity of a return to a writ of Habeas Corpus, stating that a prisoner was committed for contempt on a wairant issued by the Speaker. But essential as these privileges were to the maintenance of the dignity and efficiency of the House of Commons, they wei-e subsidiary to the grand end, the power to control the Executive. And for this purpose a formidable instru- ment had been created in the code of Parliamentary Pi-ocedure, a body of parliamentaiy " law," enforced by the Lower House in its long struggle with the Crown and the Executive. Parliamentary procedure is not, as we are tempted to regard it at first, a mosaic of technical antiquities, nor an interesting 170 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- compendium of rales of the oldest national debating assembly in modem Europe. It is one of the weapons forged by the repre- sentatives of a practical nation, by which they have conquered the problem of making popular government workable and efficient. And these rules, amended and strengthened by continuous ex- perience, have become the model for the legislatures given to our self-governing colonies as well as for those founded by European States in open imitation. Already by 1714 the characteristic ^ features of legislative procedure — questions, petitions, divisions, amendments, the functions of the Speaker, the Grand Committee ) of Supply and of Ways and Means — have been established. Based on the equality of all members, they provide the ordered methods of free and jealous criticism. The majority decides, but after every opportunity has been given to the minority to express its views. MembcM's of the Government as such have no special precedence ; they are simply representatives of a group of voters with the com- mon rights of such. Indeed a servant of the Crown by his position provokes a rigorous scrutiny. He cannot retaliate except by argu- ment if he is attacked, nor can he reverse elsewhere a refusal of his proposals. His fellow-members can be persuaded by superior argument or special information ; they cannot and will not be coerced by an authority extrinsic to themselves. The Hanoverian House of Commons drives the results of this system home. First they secui'e and improve the rules. Under i7a8-6i the guidance of an able Speaker, Arthur Onslow, parliamentary procedure is solidified, a noble and conservative tradition built up, the political ethos completed. Secondly, they employ the code to ') enforce Ministerial responsibility in policy, finance, administration, legislation. In a word the Minister who most freely invites the advice and support of the House will be the Minister it most freely trusts. Thirdly they elaborate the application of the system to all money grants. Finance, not legislation, is the chief function of Ministers. The rules which provide the fullest consideration for the amount, character, and incidence of the burden imposed on the taxpayer enforce a control from which there is no escape. In 1718 a Standing Order prohibits the discussion of any demand for public funds, except on the recommendation of the Qrown through its authorised agents. Ministers are thus indirectly ordered to make themselves responsible for all the financial proposals of the 1700] PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE 171 State. The specific procedure — Committee of Supply and of Ways and Means, with Ministerial explanation and Opposition criticism, embodiment of the Committee's conclusions in legislative forms and its proper stages, appropriation to defined purposes — show how the Budget is the main work of the session and how every step in the process is safeguarded to secure control. From 1689 the expansion of Great Britain, involving a continuous increase in expenditure and votes of supply, has to be financed. From 1688 the army and navy are the gi-eat spending departments. Du'ectly, the forces of the Crown are in this way controlled, indirectly, and more important, policy is reviewed, reversed, or approved ; and with each year the handcuffs on the arms of the Executive are provided with locks whose keys are in the custody of Parliament. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is virtually promoted to the first rank, for unless he can secure a majority Government is helpless. Year by year the politi- 3al centre shifts more surely to the floor of the House of Commons. A. Walpole, a Pelham, and a Pitt, in whom a majority believe, stand m marked contrast to a Carteret in whom they do not. True, the civil list is not yet included in this annual revision and this national audit. But presently royal and departmental debt, the growth in the civil needs of the State will compel the Crown to ask for more money and then the procedure, proved to be so efficacious, will be extended to regulate and appropriate this reserve of royal policy also. A distinction will be gradually drawn between expenditure on the apparatus of the monarchy and expenditure on the civil and public administration of the State, between national and purely royal finance ; and the distinction will be emphasised by the assertion of complete Ministerial re- sponsibility for everything that clearly belongs to the State as a national unit. We may note further that this extensive control is secured largely by indirect means. Annual Parliaments become a neces- sity because the Commons will only vote supplies for a year. And, thanks to the Revolution legislation, the power of Parliament can only be destroyed by a coup d'itat. But to be efficient Parlia- ment itself must be guided, advised, and managed. The direction falls inevitably to the group of responsible Ministers who, under the rules, are expected to provide the main business of the session and determine the chief topics for debate. Ministers also, to carry out 172 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- the will of the Commons, require a permanent not a haphazard majority. Disciplined supporters are a pai"ty ; and the system by which they work evolves as party government. It is the age of the great managers — Walpole who sees the advantage of a trades union to promote " the King's business " and of a united policy, and boycotts the non-unionists as " blacklegs " ; Newcastle and Islay who create cats with ninety tails. And so under the Hanoverians, the Pa- tronage Secretary and the Junior Lords of the Treasury become the party whips, salaried by the Legislature in the name of the whole nation to do the work of a party majority. The settlement of contested elections inevitably becomes trials of party strength. Failure to carry your candidate will count two votes on a division to your opponents, and will indicate to the leaders the rise and fall in the political barometer. Convei'sely behind The Craftsman Bolingbroke stiives not unsuccessfully to organise against His Majesty's Government, His Majesty's (or rather His Majesty's heir's) Opposition with a counter-progi'amme, and uses parliament ary procedure as its weapons of attack. His ambition now is not to engineer a counter-revolution but to get and to keep office. The Toryism of 1710-13, fought under a transparent mask and with ropes round its neck for a fallen system and a proscribed dynasty ; the Opposition from 1725-42 and afterwards only desires to make a clean sweep of the monarchy's confidential staff. The game is a great because a national one ; the rules are becoming rigid and the rival teams bom and trained in the same social system leai-n to play, as it behoves citizens who are gentlemen to play. We have passed from the spirit and methods of the seventeenth century, when it was a life-and-death struggle for fundamental principles, to the first chapter of the modem era. Three defects of this parliamentary machine are important for the future : (1) The Commons do not repi'esent adequately the constituencies, the con- stituencies do not represent the nation. The anomalous and moth- eaten suffrage law excluded large classes from the franchise, both in the counties and boroughs. The distribution of seats in the latter, as the electoral map shows, rested too often on the arbitrary creations of the Crown in the past, or on an economic organisation no longer corresponding to that of England even in 1714. Sai-um was already a sheep-walk, Dunwich half under the sea, Droitwich an abandoned salt-pit. A handful of Cornish fishing villages, each 17601 CORRUPTION 178 returning two members, could out-vote the representatives of the capital, the centre of the nation's finance and trade. Towns that modem trade had created had no recognition in the allotment of seats. The property qualifications, the political and religious dis- abilities, witnessed to a political theory and ideals that every year became more difficult to defend on political theory or expediency. (2) The restricted franchise and low ethical standards facilitated corruption and manipulation. Seats were bought and sold, and / the patrons of these nomination boroughs could aid in creating an artificial representation of opinion that existed only in a financial transaction. More than two hundred office-holders were said to sit in the Parliaments of George II. Chesterfield remarked of the " Court " or " Tieasuiy " boroughs that their electors would "obey were the person named the minister's footman". The Scottish representatives notoriously received " wages," and were controlled by the Administration of the day ; and we have noted above how the varied resources of Crown influence could keep to- gether a majority. The strength of the Pelham connection, the methods by which Henry Fox carried the Peace of 1763, are sinister facts beyond dispute. Yet Walpole, iq the plenitude of his powers, had to abandon his Excise Bill, and later failed to avert war with Spain and to keep himself in office. The Tammany Hall genius of Newcastle could not save his Ministry in 1756. Pitt, who had no wealth and scorned party connections, enjoyed for four years a parliamentary dictatoi-ship unequalled before or since. Neither wealth nor ability nor lack of scruple could make Henry Fox Prime Minister. Parliament also endeavoured to check a recognised evil by Place Bills, such as that of 1742, which disqualified the holders of various Crown appointments from sitting in the Commons. But ' , the remedy was timidly applied. It was not until an economic revolution and the slow growth of political theory made the elec- toral system and its abuses an intolerable anachronism that the reform of Parliament became a pressing public necessity. (3) This conclusion was clinched by the results on Parliament itself of the constitutional progress made under the Hanoverians. The Lower House enforced the responsibility of Ministers, but became itself irresponsible. It could ignore public opinion, save when profoundly stirred, partly because that very public opinion to be salutary and 174 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [17U- effective required to be organised, to be provided with adequate organs of expression, protected by the law and custom of the Con- stitution. We touch here on the intimate and necessary connection between the efficiency of a representative Legislature and the social and political system that it represents. The abuses of the one are correlative to the abuses in the other. The growth of political intelligence and the success of Whig rule were needed as an indis- pensable preliminary to the changes wrought by the great economic upheaval. By 1760 a new England is coming into being. The House of Commons, stereotyped in its form, clinging to the letter and misinterpreting the spirit of the law, after 1760 is forced into sharp collision with the new forces. The tinkering alterations in the details, not in the principles of the structure, are seen to be inadequate, then irrelevant ; and gradually as the century winds to a close political controversy returns to first principles. The cause of parliamentary reform, which half a century earlier had started with modest demands for the removal of patent anomalies and abuses in an accepted system and a time-honoured state structure, was by 1792 in reality a revolutionai'y programme. It involved an assault on the system itself, and a remodelling of the existing social and economic organisation, and not merely the reconstruction of the parliamentary machine. But the stage of development already reached in Great Britain in 1792, and the true nature of the issues, were first concealed and then arrested by the outbreak of the French Revolution and the smoke of the European conflagration that fol- lowed. The English party of reform were inevitably but falsely confused with the revolutionists of 1789, with whose principles and ends they had little or nothing in common. After twenty-three years of war and suffering Great Britain found herself once more at peace. And the State that had strained morsd and material resources to the uttermost, in order to keep the French Revolution at bay, startled Europe by proceeding shortly to carry out a long- postponed and inevitable revolution of its own. In that revolution the great Reform Bill of 1832, fundamental and imposing as it must always remain, is neither the first nor the last aiiicle of the programme. The revolutionary Whigs of 1832 were the explicit executors of the ideals implicitly formulated in 1792. y In this constitutional development the theory of Executive responsibility rested on three broad implications. The Crown is the 1760] THE EXECUTIVE 176 Executive, conveying its will and pleasure to authoritative agents, whom it appoints and dismisses. These authoritative agents are primarily responsible to the Crown for the execution of the business assigned to them by law and custom, while Parliament asserts slowly also a joint responsibility to itself. But neither theoiy nor practice have as yet defined with precision the fluctuating and ragged boundary line between these two conflicting spheres of re- sponsibility. Pai'liament, however, does not claim then nor since to appoint the Executive agents of the Crown. It can only aim at securing that on the whole they shall work in accordance with the wishes of the Legislature. Thirdly, law and custom, with increasing stringency of form and detail, prescribe the procedure of Executive action. The Crown and its authorised agents ai'e bound by the law of the land. Nor can the Crown in its Executive capacity act with- out advice. For every Executive act the agent, authorised by law or custom, is technically held responsible. The Executive, therefore is the body of Crown servants who through various organs cany on the administrative work of the State, and translate into the necessary action the commands of the Crown, as law and custom from time to time prescribe. « These Crown servants fall roughly into three groups — the great officers of the Royal Household, the heads of organised departments to which a definite sphere of administration has come to be assigned, the Privy Council and its committees. The impoi"tance of the first slowly diminishes, and the diminution is significant. After 1714 the chief officers — the Lord Steward, the Lord Chamberlain, the Master of the Horse, the Treasurer and Controller of the Household — are regai-ded as political, i.e. they change with the Administration. The first three named continue to be Cabinet appointments, and occasionally such offices as those of Groom of the Stole, Captain of the Band of Pensionei-s also bring theii- holders into the Cabinet. But they are held less and less by politicians of the fii-st rank. Shi'ewsbury, under Anne, is the last statesman of eminence who held the Chamberlainship- This change is partly due to the increasing importance of the strictly departmental chiefs and partly to the in- creasing distinction between the purely Court and the Governmental aspects of the monarchy, already noted. The offices which belong to the personal life of the Sovereign lose their administrative importance and become honorai'y and social. By 1714 a gi'oup of the modern 176 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- heads of organised departments is clearly recognisable. The func- tions of the Lord President of the Council are bound up with the Privy Council, but the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the First Commissioner or Lord of the Admiralty, the First Lord of the Treasury, the two Secretaires of State aie all posts of the fii-st rank and invariably in the Cabinet. The Seci-etaries are the authorised organs of the Royal will; their combined duties, apportioned according to a geographical division, cover both foreign and home affaii-s. The Secretary for the Northern Department dealt with the northern powere, that for the Southern with the other foreign States, with Ireland, the colonies, and the home sphere. In practice, the Lord Lieutenant, with the Irish Executive and the Committees of the British Privy Council, relieved the Southern Secretary of much of his pm-ely domestic work. But the Secretai-ial division was illogical and in- convenient, " as if," in the classic simile, " two coachmen were on the mail box, one holding the right and the other the left rein ". The Secretaries are Executive officers, invariably regarded as amongst the chief members of the Ministry, while the increase and political importance of their work prepai-e the way for the decisive change in 1782 which is the foundation of the modem Secretariat. Piom 1707-46 a thii-d Secretaiy, for Scotland, was, with one short interval, in existence. In the dramatic crisis of Anne's last days the historic oiSce of Lord High Treasurer was filled for the last time when the white staff was assigned to Shrewsbui'y. After his resignation, in October, 1714, the post became a constitutional antiquity, and henceforward the Treasury was continuously kept in commission. In the de- velopment of the Ti'easury Board thi-ee features of interest are prominent : (1) The position of First Lord is associated with the titular presidency of the Ministry ; (2) the rise of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and (3) the growth of the Treasury Depart- ment as the central organ of State administration. As regards the first, the long Ministry of Walpole, 1721-42, is the decisive epoch. The evolution of the Chancellor of the Exchequer from the position of a subordinate to that of an equal with the great Executive officers epitomises the expansion of a commercial State and the collateral growth of parliamentary government. By de- grees the Chancellor becomes the specialised officer, whose function ia to explain and defend in terms of finance Ministerial policy 1760] FINANCIAL CONTROL 177 and to provide, with parliamentary approval, the revenue essential to its execution. " A man," as Burke said of Walpole, " will do more with figui-es of arithmetic than figures of rhetoric." And behind the Chancellor necessarily gi-ow his administi-ative staff' and department. Every advance in the area and reality of parlia- mentary control indirectly involves an advance in the supervision of the Exchequer over the finance of the whole State. But between 1714 and 1760 the position of the modem Treasury is foreshadowed rather than realised. The organised expert staff', the comprehensive financial revision of all estimates and expendi- tui-e, the Chancellor, responsible for a complete Budget and a collective fiscal policy, are still a long way oft". The Hanoverian Ti-easuiy is not much more than an expanding book-keeping estab- lishment, which issues and accounts for public money appropriated by parliamentary authority. There is as yet no Consolidated Fund. Expenditure is met by separate taxes, assigned to separate votes, charged on separate items, and kept in a sepai-ate series of accounts, whose complexity and interlacing baffle those who, both then and to-day, would seek for a single balance-sheet of the nation's revenue and expenditure. The Treasui-y, in short, acts as a State trustee, whose duty is to see that these various moneys are paid into, and out from, the separate statutory reservoirs, as the law has determined. The control over expenditure is severely limited. There are no Civil List Estimates. The Admiralty frames its own Estimates, and deals directly with the Privy Council and the House of Commons. And though the Treasury exercises some revision of army expenditure, its powers ai'e weak and con- tested, and the system of audit intermittent and inadequate. For its executive work the original Treasury Boaid, presided over until 1760 by the King, met four times a week. The administrative reorganisation was to come in the next reign. Meanwhile the demands of Parliament for control, the gradual separation of royal fiom State expenditure, the increase in the debts of various execu- tive Departments, and the swelling cost of financing the expansion of the Empire paved the way for drastic changes, to be noted later. In 1708 the office of Lord High Admiral was put in commission, but the Hanoverian Admiralty diff'ered from the modern Board : (1) it had not the complete management of all naval business, for part was done by the Navy Board and the Victualling Board, while 12 178 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND the Treasurer of the Navy had a separate ofBce ; (2) the First Commissioner was not necessarily a civilian. The power and inde- pendence of the Admiralty, which wielded a general control over the policy of the navy, are striking facts in the administrative rigime, to be accounted for by the national recognition of the supreme importance of their duties. To Parliament and the country the fleet meant the frontier of Great Britain, the prospei-ity of sea-borne 1743 trade, the first line of offence and defence. The cases of Rex v. 1776 Broadfoot and Rea: v. Tvbbs, ratifying the power of impressment, show that public sensitiveness as to encroachments on the liberty of the subject, and the royal devotion to a shrinking and syn- dicated prerogative, which hindered so fatally the co-ordination of the administrative machineiy and the efficiency of the military forces of the Crown, were far less operative in the case of the navy. The Executive of the army remained split up into a conflicting medley of jurisdictions. A unified central War Ofiice did not exist The nation did not cease to fear, and had not learned to trust, in the army — a necessary evil and a modem innovation entii-ely lack- ing the historic prestige and atmosphere of the navy ; public opinion, both within and without Parliament, oscillated between recun-ent epidemics of panic — the dread of absolutism, and the loss of civil liberty, to be brought about by a hireling standing ai-my, and the dread of "popery and wooden shoes" imposed by the suc- cessful invasion of foreign foes from over seas. The Crown, too, was opposed to the supremacy of the civil power in military affairs, and resisted the harmonisation of the prerogative over the aiiny with the claims of ministerial and parliamentary control. As late as 1757 Newcastle opposed the Militia Bill, on the.gi-ound that it would breed a military spirit in an industrial and agiicultural people ; and the echoes of this fear, dating from Cromwell's rigime, still reverberate to-day. Thus it came about that the King, as Commander-in-Chief, ruled at the Horse Guaixls. The channel of his pleasure was the Secretary at (not for) War, defined by Pulteney in 1717 " as a ministerial, not a constitutional officer, bound to issue orders according to the King's directions ". Not till 1783 was his anoma- lous position reconsti'ucted on the basis of an acknowledged parlia- mentary responsibility. The Paymaster of the Forces dealt with the Treasury Board, and all moneys, including foreign subsidies, 1760] THE POSITION OF THE ARMY 179 voted by Parliament passed thi-ough his hands. In times of war the balances were always large, and the Paymaster, besides taking commissions on the totals, treated them as belonging to himself until they were paid over, often a matter of decades. Some of Henry Fox's accounts for the Seven Years' War were not finally closed until 1774. The commissariat was managed by the Treasury ; while the Ordnance Board, presided over by the Master General of the Ordnance, an office held by the chief military leaders of the day, which generally carried with it Cabinet rank, provided armament and stores both for the army and navy, with a separate pailiament- ary vote and a separate parliamentary responsibility. Briefly, the administrative work of the army exemplifies the recent origin of a permanent force and the piecemeal character of the machinery created to meet a need reluctantly admitted. The theoretical supremacy of the civil power and of the Legislature was secured by the annual Mutiny Act, which legalised for times of peace and within the Kingdom alone the existence of military courts and a special code of military law. Outside the Kingdom the rule of the army rested on prerogative ; and at home, in military administration, the Crown was virtually supreme. Parliament, in fact, by legalising and paying for a standing army, provided the Crown with one ot Its most undisputed spheres of discretionary authority. The prevail- ing theory of neuti-alising menaces to the Constitution by checks and balances was partly responsible for the illogical overlapping of the spheres of the various executive organs. Costly and cumula- tive experience proved that concentration in a unified War Officei under a single responsible Ministerial head, was the only sound method for securing a national force under national control. The eighteenth century system thwarted effective parliamentary super- vision, fostered political and social intrigue, financial waste, and Executive inefiiciency, with military and political results graven deep in our national history. And it left to the future a problem both in law and administration, which it required more than a century of effort, opposition, unfulfilled prophecies, and military failui'es, partially to solve. The Post Office was already a department providing the Gov- ernment with revenue. In 1710 a Postmaster-General had been created by Letters Patent. The office, usually held by two joint Postmastei-s, and disqualified by the Place BiU of Anne from being 1^05 180 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- represented in Parliament, was not treated as political and the statutory disability was not removed until 1867. The third great branch of the Executive was concentrated in the Privy Council, whose Lord President ranked with the highest oflScei-s of State. The gi-adual atrophy of its consultative functions, and the transference of its judicial work to other bodies, left its executive powei-s unimpaired ; and three aspects of these call for notice: (1) The regular attendance of the Sovereign at Council meetings, though not at Committees of Council, assisted the de- volution of business. In the eighteenth century the modem cus- tom developed that, when duties are assigned by statute to these Committees, the presence of the Sovereign may also be dispensed with. (2) The Council remained the formal body on whose ad- vice the royal pleasure, by orders and proclamations, in numerous matters of administration, is conveyed. Under statutoiy authority, or as custom prescribed, these took effect without parliamentaiy or other intei-vention. In sum, they amounted to a quasi-legislative and effective executive power, important both in their character and comprehensiveness. But for the most part they simply initiated or ratified the necessary departmental action. (3) The Standing or temporary ad hoc Committees dealt with assigned branches of executive business, e.g: Foreign Affairs, Ireland, the Colonies. These Committees provided the nuclei out of which in time the modem specialised depai'tments have grown. By 1660 the Secretariat had practically absorbed Foreign Affaire. In 1695 the Board of Trade and Plantations, which lasted till 1782, was set up to take over the work of a Special Committee. In 1784 the composition of the newly constituted Board of Trade shows how in theory it is properly a Committee of the Privy Council. Colonial affairs had akeady passed to a Secretary of State. Other great modern departments have a similar origin. Their growth has been -dependent on several elements, which illustrate the historic features of the Council. The importance of some specific sphere of administration firet calls into existence a temporary, then a Standing, Committee, to prepare and sift business for the Council ; which Committee in turn is transformed by Statute or Ordei- in Council into an Executive department, in turn practically to become an independent organisation under its own chief. The modem development of permanent expert staflfe, working under specified 1760] THE PRIVY COUNCIL 181 conditions as a branch of the State, gi-adually takes root, and is the foundation of the Civil Service. The original functions of the Council in administration, however, were partly consultative, i.e. with determining principles of policy. The comprehensive sphere of the Council's work unified the business of the State and brought it under the centi'al control of the Crown's legally authorised ministera and advisers. Uniformity in action was thus attainable. But the growth of administrative work on the one side necessitated, as seen above, the creation of specially organised departments in the place of Committees. On the other, the gi'adual reservation of the right to determine policy to a group of Ministers — the Cabinet — took the place of the previous connection between the consultative and executive functions of the Council. The Privy Council in the eighteenth centuiy dwindles before these two clearly marked de- velopments into its modern position of an organ whose advice and consent are required by law and custom to initiate or complete a series of acts whose policy hsis been determined, and whose executive action will be canied out, elsewhere. But in securing the legal aspects of Ministerial responsibility the Council had a historic im- poi-tance. Ministei-s, by custom Pri^ Councillors, belonged to a body known to the law whose share in executive action was sus- ceptible of legal investigation. A politician can be impeached qua Privy Councillor, but not qua member of the Cabinet. Here again, however, the decay of the process of impeachment for acts of policy follows the alteration in the council's functions. The Privy Councillor's responsibility could be enforced by depriving him of his head. The Cabinet Minister is punished by depriving him of his office. The change is partly the cause, partly the eflFect, of the growth of the Cabinet ; and is profoundly influenced by the slow re- volution in political ideas and the interpi'etation of political ends. Similarly, the absence in the Hanoverian England of many depart- ments to-day considered essential is not merely a proof of the complex social and economic differences that distinguish a nascent from a developed Empire, a commercial and agricultural community from the highly differentiated organism of the modem industiial State. True, the existence of these organised and statutory crea- tions — the Treasury, Home, Indian, Colonial, and War Offices, the Boards of Local Government, Trade, Public Works, Agriculture, and Education — can be primarily attributed to the imperious 182 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- pressure of a continuous political and economic expansion. But they also represent a fundamental revolution in the methods, and objects of administration, in the functions and ends of government, in the conception of citizenship. Behind the battlemented citadels of the modem Executive lie principles, dormant or undreamed of by Hanoverian England, that have passed from the philosopher's study and the scientist's laboratory into the commonplaces of political and civic life. From 1688-1760 the movement in political thought in England was languid, compared with the feverish epochs that precede and follow. So far as English minds were active they wei-e occupied with the problems commonly summarised under the name of the Deist Controversy, with metaphysics (Hume and Berkeley, Hutche- son and Butler), or with the ornamental frippery of thought that educated circles under the spell of the diluted optimism of Leibnitz and the shallow elegance of Bolingbroke mistook for philosophical science. Englishmen too were absorbed in securing the Revolution system at home and abroad and in pegging out the hinterlands of Empu-e. But under George HI. we note the renascence of an intellectual activity of the first order, led by three of the masters, Adam Smith, Burke, and Bentham, whose writings leavened the best minds of two generations ; and into the seventy years after 1760 are crammed the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, the career of Napoleon, the Irish Revolution and the Legislative Union of the British and Irish Parliaments, the British conquest of India, and the triumph of Parliamentary Reform. In the classic epoch of Whig rule the fear of the Crown and the Executive retarded the extension of the functions of the State both in theory and practice. The modern Englishman has learned to endure taxation ; he desires a strong Executive because his economic and political needs are complex, and because he knows that the Executive must work in harmony with the national will. If to-day there is tyranny, it is that of a majority over a minority. His eighteenth century ancestor had behind him fifty years of civil war and successful or thwarted coups cCetat. His needs were simple and he wanted to be let alone. He feared the tyranny of a minority over a majority. The first condition of political advance therefore lay in the reconciliation of the rights of the Executive with the contiol of an independent legislature, and with the libei-ties of the subject under 1760] THE CABINET 183 a free Constitution. The Cabinet, in Bagehot's phrase, was to be- come the hyphen between Executive and Legislature ; and by 1760 the buckles of the band were being slowly hammered into a work- able form. The modem Cabinet is not the Executive, though it is the motive power of the Executive ; it is not even the Ministiy in the strict sense of the term, for it does not include all the Ministerial heads of Executive departments. It is a gi-oup of the Crown's confidential servants including all the important holders of office. So long as these retain the confidence of Parliament and of their Sovereign they have a monopoly right to advise as to the exercise of the prerogative of the Crown and on the principles and details of policy. The head of the Cabinet is the Prime Minister, who is selected by the Ci'own, but who with its approval selects his colleagues ; and this Prime Minister is the main channel of com- munication between the Crown and the Cabinet as well as the Minister who enjoys the greatest influence both in the royal closet and in the country. Individually, the heads of the great Executive departments are responsible for the business and acts of their several bureaux ; collectively, the Cabinet is responsible for the policy of the Empire. In practice it is virtually a committee of the party which for the time has a majority in the Legislature and the members of the committee who represent that party hold homo- geneous views on the important issues of the politics of the day. So long as they command the support of a majority of the Repre- sentative Chamber as expressed in its votes or by the results of a general election, they will continue to hold office. The Cabinet, therefore, is the chief feature of a system, based not on statute law, but on customs, conventions, and convenience, whose raison d'Stre is to harmonise the exercise of the legal prerogatives of the Crown with the broad principle of Ministerial responsibility and with the powers and rights of a representative Legislature. It secures that the Sovereign through his authorised agents will govern in accordance with law and the national will. And apart fi'om the special marks of the institution — the sole right of the Ministei's who compose it to advise, collective responsibility for that advice, and its administrative results, the accepted position of the Prime Ministei' — it is tolerably clear that it implies a theory of pai-liamentary control accepted by Crown and people, a system of party organisation, discipline and 184 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [iTU- government, and the existence of constitutional machinery by which the national will can be intelligibly and forcibly expressed. Parlia- ment must not only represent adequately the constituencies, but the constituencies through the electoral system must adequately represent the nation. No less clearly it presupposes a theory and a practice on the part of the Crown in the discharge of its functions which together sum up the attributes of a Constitutional Monarchy in the strict modem sense. Hence until these fundamental im- plications are generally accepted it is futile to look for the modem Cabinet. In other words, in the eighteenth century only an ap- proximation to the system can be expected, though we can trace the gradual piecing together of the features that characterise the later development. The foundations were laid before 1714. (1) The prerogative of the Crown in notable directions had been limited and defined by two great statutes, the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settle- ment. Custom, almost more binding than statute, was stringently fettering the Sovereign by prescribing foi-malities and procedure for every expression of the royal pleasure. Thesejormalities en- Isured that the Crown must act upon advice, and that for that , advice a Minister or group of Ministers will be politically respon- sible. Generally, the new atmosphere created by the Revolution of 1688 completes this process; "according to the fundamental Constitution of this Kingdom," said Rochester in 1711, " Ministers are accountable for all". (2) Pailiament though it could not dictate policy nor the choice of Ministers, could and did veto the action of the Executive. Its financial power made annual sessions and its continuous approval of policy a necessity. Even if it did not vetoj it could and did most effectively harass unpopular or incompetent Ci'own servants in the performance of then* duties. As (the cases of Clarendon, Danby, Somers showed, by impeachment it * could indirectly remove Ministers regarded as impossible. And the Act of Settlement showed that Pailiament could and would close the loopholes of evasion revealed by experience In fine, Wil- liam III. and Anne found it more and more convenient to govern in accordance with the wishes of Parliament, distasteful as it might be to their own views of policy or their conceptions of their preiogative. (S) Since 1689 the system of defined and organised pai-ties had made great strides. Under Anne we see a continuous struggle 1760] THE GROWTH OF THE CABINET 185 between two parties, led by able and authoritative leaders, whose programmes on the issues of foreign and domestic policy made Whig and Tory intelligible distinctions alike on the floor of Pailiament and in the country. Contemporary evidence establishes the fact that the political world was already familiar with the term " Cabinet," as a " Council of the Crown," distinct alike from the Privy Council or its commit- tees, and applicable broadly to a group of Ministei-s holding high offices on confidential relations with the Sovereign, and defined by Lord Keeper Guildford as " those few great officers and courtiers . . . who had the dii'ection of most transactions of Government foreign and domestic ". In the reigns of William and Anne this body emerges with growing clearness as to its composition and functions. Its development from the time of Charles II. onwards had been attacked as unconstitutional. Both Whig and Tory critics, equally determined to secure Ministerial responsibility, saw in this nascent " Cabinet " an innovation which threatened to under- mine the recognised position of the legal Privy Council. By changing the onus of responsibility, ascertainable and enforceable by process of law, to an undefined responsibility of an undefined group in- capable of legal proof, the constitutional party felt it might desti'oy Ministerial responsibility altogether. For thirty years, however, the experiments in reconstructing the Privy Council and enforcing by Statute (as in the Act of Settlement) the legal accountability of Privy Councillors ended in failure. The attempted separation of Executive and Legislature in the Act of Settlement, which was part of the same policy, had to be repealed. The authors of the' policy, in fact, did not diagnose the problem correctly, and there- fore prescribed the wrong remedy. But their failure was helpful, because it convinced the men who worked the governmental machine that the reconciliation of Executive and Legislature could not be achieved by statutory means nor through existing constitutional machinery. It left the way open for further tentative experiments on different lines, but with the same grand object in view — con- trol by Parliament and the rule of Law. By 1714 a Cabinet, I then, is in existence, though not explicitly defined nor generally accepted. Its members have not acquired a monopoly-right of advice, nor are they collectively responsible. The choice of the Crown as to its confidential servants is but vaguely limited. The 186 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714 Sovereign still governs through Ministers ; Ministei-s do not yet govern through the Crown. The watershed, however, has been reached. The fifty yeara of unbroken Whig supremacy add new features and rivet the system into the machinery of parliamentary govern- ment. (1) As already noted, the character of the Monarchy alters. It is demonstrable that whatever may be the share in, and influ- ence on, government of George I. and II., they are not those of William and Anne, still less those of Charles II. (2) The Whigs are a party with a definite creed. They familiarise Parliament and the nation with the idea of a Ministiy whose first function is to secure the realisation of a party programme ; they create the atmosphere and the habit of thought essential to the Cabinet's existence. (S) The withdrawal of the Sovereign from presiding at Cabinet meetings weakened the initiation of the Crown and enor- mously strengthened the independence of Ministei's ; it makes the existence of a Prime Minister possible, and paves the way for collec- tive responsibility. (4) The management of Parliament for the execution of " the King's business " becomes indispensable. The Ministers who can manage it are the Ministers whom the Crown must practically choose. (5) The nature of Ministerial responsi- bility is more clearly understood. The Crown's servants will not face Parliament unless the policy they expound is their own, and not that of others. (6) The Cabinet is more closely connected with the Executive departments of Govei-nment. The ornamental offices drop out ; the true Executive chiefs come in. Parliament desires to control the Executive ; the control is found to be most efficient when the group of advisers is intimately connected with the main organs of the Administration. In this evolution the long Ministry of Walpole is, as in other directions, the most decisive epoch. Walpole's chai-acter and gifts, the circumstances which kept him in power, made a happy con- spu-acy. With a strong will, the determination to be senior partner in the Govei-nment firm, a patient and penetrating judg- ment of men, women, and affairs, a great power of work, he made himself indispensable to the Crown because he could manage Parliament better than any of his contemporaries. He was the leader of a well-drilled party ; his policy was a party policy. He courted the verdicts of Pai-liament ; and if he owed much of his 1760] WALPOLE'S WORK 187 influence and success to his two royal masters, he owed more to the House of Commons. With justice, then, he has been called the fii-st Prime Minister. Although he himself repudiated the accusation of his critics, that he was assuming the powers of a " prime vizier," the unconstitutional position of " sole Minister," he asserted in the Cabinet much of the pre-eminence and control which the modem Premier enjoys. After the resignation of Townshend he had the chief direction of policy, foreign, domestic, and financial. If it is true that he was never called upon explicitly to form his own Cabinet or directly nominate his colleagues, his power both of including and excluding was considerable. There were sharp struggles in his Cabinet for predominance, and he had ambitious rivals (familiar fea- tures even in the Victorian Cabinets) ; but he compelled dissentients either to yield or to resign. Before his day there were prominent leaders, yet Walpole first seems to have taught Crown, Parliament, and colleagues the difference between pre-eminence and primacy. The lesson was new, and in teaching it he not unnaturally aroused opposition and no little personal bitterness. The difference between the Cabinet system proper and the departmental system is vital. In the latter the Crown is the connecting link and the motor force in policy ; it is based on the equal light of eveiy Minister to advise, coupled with his responsibility solely for the executive action of his own department In the former. Ministers are co-ordinated through the Prime Minister, and the necessary consequence is col- lective responsibility. Walpole broadly aimed at a monopoly-right of advice, i.e. he refused to tolerate the Sovereign seeking advice from unauthorised councillors. But he was not long enough in power to effect collective responsibility. " A Minister must be a very pitiful fellow," he said, " if he did not turn out those who pretended to meddle with the civil government; and he would leave that advice as a legacy to those who would follow him." When he finally resigned it was because he had lost, not the confi- dence of the Crown, but the confidence of Parliament. But his long tenure of power had habituated George II. to a Ministerial system far in advance of that in existence under Anne, or even his father ; and, what is equally important, he had inoculated the leaders on the Treasury and Front Opposition Bench with the essential doctrines of Ministerial rights, duties, and privileges. During the next twenty years the advance is necessarily not so 188 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- rapid. Political practice in 1742 had virtually caught up political theory, whereas in 1721 it conspicuously lagged behind it. The position of Prime Minister, too, implies a peculiar combination of personal qualities ; and neither Henry Pelham nor Newcastle nor Pitt possessed them in the same degree as Walpole. Pitt's supre- macy, too, in his great Administration was exceptional, and due to exceptional circumstances. Secondly, the strong party colour was fading. The weaker is party the weaker will be the cohesion of an institution based upon party. The "Broad-bottom Administra- tion" attempted to fuse discordant elements and broke down. Carteret was got rid of; and till 1754 Henry Pelham anticipated the part played by Liverpool fi-om 1812-27. His successor, New- castle, essayed the same r61e but failed. The House of Commons refused to be led by a nonentity nominated by an over-mighty subject in the House of Lords. The importance of the Lower House is strikingly exemplified in the coercion of Newcastle by Fox and Pitt. But we note foin- interesting points in these twenty years: (1) The Pelham Ministry in 1746, by a collective resignation, forced the Crown to admit Pitt to office. Their success was due to their retention of a parliamentary majority and to their col- lective action. The Crown found itself unable either to form a rival Administration or to secure for it parliamentary support. George II., in two years, was thus compelled by Ministerial action to part with Cai-teret, whom he trusted, and to accept Pitt, whom he distrusted. (2) The continuation of an " inner " and " outer " Cabinet, between the titular and the real possessors of power. The nominal Cabinets numbered from fifteen to twenty, but within them existed a smaller group of Ministers who really decided policy. (3) Not merely the' absence of collective responsi- bility, but the assertion by individual Ministers of their right to speak and vote against Governmental proposals without prejudicing their official position. This not unnaturally was also claimed by subordinates, e^. by Pitt, when in 1754 and 1755 he denounced, though he was Paymaster, Newcastle's policy. Walpole had refused to tolerate such breaches of discipline. In 1733 he promptly punished by dismissal those who had openly opposed his Excise Bill. But Newcastle's endurance of Pitt's defiant mutiny gives the student a high opinion of his Christian charity and a low one of his 1760] THE CABINET SYSTEM 189 political courage. (4) Pitt's career taught Crown and Ministera the importance in hours of national crises of public opinion as a factor in parliamentary government. Pitt himself was both a binding and a disintegrating force. His studied contempt for the party system and his appeal to national union were reinforced by Bolingbroke's previous political theories and continuous attacks on the mono- polistic Whig regime. Pitt's genius for voicing the inarticulate demands of his countrymen proved the irresistible strength of the statesman who can win a nation's confidence. The Government- making power in 1756 and 1757 was not Parliament nor the Crown, but the public opinion of Great Britain.^ Briefly, to sum up, by 1760 the Cabinet is established in the sense of a group of Ministers who decide policy, are individually responsible and dependent on Parliamentary support. In selection the Crown is limited by their influence in Pai-liament and by their capacity to agree on a common course of action, and their readiness not to pursue political differences to open revolt. The leader of the Government, to whom the title of Prime or Premier Minister was frequently assigned, enjoyed a pre-eminence which varied with the confidence that he could win from the Crown, the quality of his own gifts and character, and his personal and political relations with his colleagues and his party. These results, however, were not due to any definite theory, and are not expressed in legislation or Orders in Council. The Cabinet was technically unknown to the law, and its development had not altered the legal powers of Crown, Privy Council, and Parliament, as Blackstone's Commentaries show. It rested on plastic conventions, and it was the outcome of fluctuating custom and convenience. Burke's Causes of the Present Discontent is the first attempt to state its nature in the precise terms of the politi- cal publicist. The Cabinet had in fact reached a stage when it had to reckon with counter-forces whose growth can already be detected : (1) The monopoly of the great Whig families had bi'ed a belief (mainly in their own hearts) in their divine right to compose and direct the Government. Grafton's Autobiography shows how they claimed the right virtually to transfer the selection of the Prime Minister fioni the Crown to themselves, as well as the nomination of that Prime Minister's colleagues. (2) Many of the old Whigs, such as Hardwicke, considered that the advance towards "demo- 1 See Appendix XIV. 190 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- cracy " had gone far enough.* Henry Fox attacked Pitt because he "encouraged the mob to t' 'nk themselves the Grovernment," and his autobiographical memoir attributes to the House of Commons a desire, unprecedented and dangerous, to compel the Sovereign to nominate the Ministers of their, not hia^ choice. (3) The revived Tory party looked to' a resumption by the Crown of its usurped powers in order to break the monopoly of the Whigs and give their opponents a share in the Ministerial direction of policy. (4) The Cabinet had advanced because the Crown had reluctantly accepted the Whig domination and the syndication of its prerogative amongst a group of Ministers who, with the aid of Parliament, could make any other Ministry impossible. But if a new Sovereign, relying on the revived strength of the monarchical principle and the desire to " unite by breaking all parties," insisted on asserting his legal rights to govern as well as reign, and used his great powers of corruption and influence against, not in favour of, Ministers, there would be a i"evival of the theory and practice of departmental government under the pereonal direction and responsibility of the Sovereign, The first twenty years of the reign of George HI. witnessed such a deliberate policy on the part of the Crown ; and they form the critical epoch of the history of the Cabinet. The important legislation of the period is singularly scanty; the most pressing needs of Great Britain at home and abroad were not to be solved by statutory enactment, but by patient administration or foreign policy. Nor was a legislative programme regarded as one of the chief duties of statesmanship, nor did re- jection of his legislative proposals involve a Minister's resignation. ,yij The defeat of the Peerage Bill, the vu-tual defeat of the Excise Bill, at most lowered the political and moral prestige of the Governments concerned. And it was part of the deliberate policy of Walpole to avoid raising unnecessary party strife. For this reason he de- clined, in spite of the advocacy of Hoadley and Kennet, to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts, though after 1727 an annual Act of Indemnity protected those who had technically violated the law. Otherwise, the statutory progress of the principles of toleration was almost nil. Stanhope had succeeded in repealing the Occasional > " The scale of power in this Government has long been growing heavier on the democratic side. . . . What I contend for is to preserve a limited monarchy entire, and nothing can do that but to preserve the counterpoise " (Hardwicke in 1753). 1760] LEGISLATION OF THE EPOCH 191 Conformity and Schism Acts; Jews and Quakers were exempted 171' from Hardwicke's Marriage Act, but the Act permitting the natur- 175a alisation of Jews occasioned such a violent outbreak of bigotry that it was repealed next year. One welcome advance however was made in 17S6 when the statutes against witchcraft were repealed and pi'osecutions for that offence forbidden. Astronomical science, too, found taidy acceptance in Macclesfield's Bill, promoted by Chester- field, for substituting the Gregorian for the Julian Calendar. In order to rectify the accumulated error due to the use of the old style eleven days between September 2nd and 14th were suppressed, which i75» gave rise to the popular cry of " Give us back our eleven days ! " Henceforward the legal year was to begin on January 1st instead of March 25th. The change met with the fierce opposition of ignorance and invincible prejudice. "The style it waa changed to popery." And the subsequent death of Bradley, the Astronomer Royal, who had worked out the calculations, was attributed to his alleged profane interference with the dates of the saints' festivals. " Hardwicke's Mamage Act " was an important social reform, long overdue. No court existed which could grant a divorce, i.e. dis- solve a marriage legally contracted, and the grave scandals arising from the ease with which men and women, often under age, could be duped into the indissoluble union of marriage were notorious. The parsons of the Fleet in particular drove a lucrative trade, responsible for a vast amount of fraud, misery, and immorality in aJl classes of the population. Under the Act of 1753, hence- forth, marriages could only be celebrated publicly by a properly qualified minister of the Established Church in a lawful place of worship. Due notice by the publication of banns, or by special licence, the certified consent of parents or guardians where the parties were under age, and the proper keeping of records formally witnessed, were made compulsory. Otherwise the marriage was null and void, and the pereon celebrating it punishable by trans- portation. Though the Act imposed a fresh disability on Non- conformists it was successful in exterminating the evil of Fleet mairiages ; and by implicitly enforcing the principle that marriage was a civil contract, in the conditions and maintenance of which the State was primarily interested, it paved the way for further legisla- tion and the subsequent legalisation of civil marriages, i.e. those in which there is no ecclesiastical ceremony. Bitterly attacked in the 192 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- Commons (notably by Heniy Fox, who had made one of the famous clandestine marriages of the day), as an unwarrantable invasion of the liberty of the subject, it also was held to violate feminine delicacy by prescribing public weddings — " the most shocking thing," Miss Burney asserted, " in the whole world ". The Royal Family was expressly exempted from its clauses and its operation did not extend to Scotland, Hardwicke thus created "Gretna Green'' and gave back to runaway couples and the historical novelist adequate compensation and the colour of romance for the facilities so drastically abolished. Somewhat earlier the famous Playhouse Bill had legalised afresh the principle of a censorship of the drama, by forbidding the pro- ''^' duction of plays unless a copy had been submitted to the Lord Chamberlain fourteen days before, and his licence for the production obtained. Actors, too, unless licensed by the same authority, were to fall into the category of rogues and vagabonds. Undoubtedly this legislation was political, and was aimed at plays in which the Throne or Government were held up to the abuse that masqueraded as criticism. It illustrates the maxim laid down in 1704 from the judicial bench that any speaking or writing calculated to bring the established Government into contempt was a libel and punishable as such. Published writings could be dealt with in the courts, but plays technically not published presented a difficulty for which the Act endeavoured to find a solution. Chesterfield, in a brilliant speech, unsuccessfully opposed its enactment as a resun-ection of the Press censorship, abandoned in 1695, as a new and more hateful " excise office" and a felon's fetter on the art of the draniati«st and the judgment of the public. Both the principle and the results of the licensing restraint evoked two centuries of controversial literature ; but the censorship of the drama has so fai' survived every effort to abolish it. In the sphere of constitutional law, apart from the Act of 1736 which provided that pleadings in the courts should be in English and not in French or Latin, the Riot Act of 1715 and the Militia Act are important measures. The former strength- ened the hands of local authority by making it a felony for rioters to refuse to disperse at the command of a magistrate ; it checked judicial extension of the treason-law by removing local riots trom its operation, and it left the common law powers of the 1760] THE MILITIA ACT 193 Executive as regards the maintenance of law and order unimpaired. The Militia Act, due largely to Pitt, reorganised a national force which had been suffered to fall into neglect. Starting from the accepted historical principle that all free subjects of the Crown 1757 were bound to maintain peace in their respective districts and to assist in protecting the kingdom from danger, the Act (1) vested the appointment of the permanent staff together with a veto on the selection of officers in the Crown ; (2) the quota for each county was defined and the choice made determinable by ballot ; (8) it placed the Militia during training under the Mutiny Act and articles of war (but not extending to " loss of life or limb " ) ; (4) it empowered the Crown, provided Parliament was informed, to call out the Militia in case of invasion or rebellion and place it under the officers of the regular army. The Act thus aimed at recruiting the Militia as a second line of defence without weakening its popularity as the national force or severing its connection with the historic features of English local government. Until the remodelling of the force in the latter half of the nineteenth century the Act remained the basis of the home military system ; though the stress of war changed what was intended as a reserve for defence into a feeding reservoir for the regular army. The Act of Settlement, by making tenure of judicial office dependent on " good behaviour,'' and not on the pleasure of the Sovereign, had established the practical independence of the Bench. The power of the Crown to secure an interpretation of the law favourable to its claims had thus been removed ; and this famous clause, combined with Bushell's case, which established the immu- nity of the jury from punishment for its verdicts, provided the 1673 nation with a system of justice with whose decisions it was beyond the power of the Executive seriously to tamper. Montesquieu, however, and others following his suggestion, who saw in the Revolution Con- Btitution the theoretical " separation of Powers," missed two essen- tial characteristics of the position of the English Judiciary. The Crown remained the fountain of justice, and to its initiative the judges continued to owe their appointment. Apart from the difficult question whether, in a case of flagrant misconduct, the Crown, without waiting for an address from Parliament, could or could not cancel the patent of appointment. Parliament is statu- torily invested with the right, by address, to compel the Sovereign 13 194 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714 to remove a judge. In plain words, just as with the Executive so with the Judiciary— the Legislature is the ultimate authority linked by its power to intervene effectively under circumstances of which it is constituted the sole interpreter. But the statutory independence of the judges was completed in 1760, on the initiative of George III. himself, by the Act which secured that judicial commissions should not determine on the death of the Sovereign who had appointed them, and which removed from the Civil List and assigned to a permanent charge that portion of their salaries hitherto paid from it. After 1701 the part that the Law Courts play in the evolution of the Constitution is governed by two distinct elements : (1) They are in principle the law-interpreting organs to whose decisions the nation can with confidence appeal. Their function in cases of dis- pute is to make the law of the land prevail ; to consummate that reign of law which foreign and home critics agree in regarding as one of the most notable features of the modem British Constitution. But law-interpreting bodies insensibly and of necessity become law- making bodies. Subject to the sovereign power of Parliament to alter the law, judicial decisions cumulatively tend to become addi- tions to the law, though they claim only to be interpretations of it. And cases such as Rex v. Tvbbs, Entinck v. Ca/rrington, Stockdale v. Hansard, and the numerous decisions on the law of libel in the eighteenth century, illustrate how much "judge-made law" can broaden or diminish, without legislative intervention, the liberty of the subject and modify or alter the relations between the Executive and the ordinary citizen ; (2) the decisions of the coui-ts from epoch to epoch exemplify the subtle influence on the judges of contem- porary or anachronistic constitutional and philosophical principles and the connection between law and public opinion. The eighteenth- century citizen compared with to-day enjoyed a very limited right of free criticism and free speech. The criminality of a libel (until Fox's Act in 1792) was determined, not by the jury, but by the judge, and even judges such as Holt, who defended (1701) popular rights against the tyranny of the House of Commons, stai-ted fix)m a theory of the functions of Government and the relations of the State to its members directly antithetical to the modera conception of the liberty of the Press and the right to criticise the established Executive. The revolt of isolated judges, such as Camden (1765), aided by an increasing force of public opinion against the principles 1760] IRELAND AND GREAT BRITAIN 196 of State action enforced by the courts, is part of the revolution in the theory of the State's functions, which was bound up with a new conception of civic liberty and with a demand for its recognition in the genei'al law of the land. '' The survey so far has been of a sound organism developing on healthy lines, but the constitutional, political, and economic relations of the United Kingdom of Great Britain with Ireland, provide a depressing study in morbid anatomy. If Whig policy and Whig ascendency are seen at their worst in the treatment of Ireland, it is only fair to add that the responsibility must be shared by the whole English people. Ireland, in fact, in English eyes, after 1688, threatened the Revolution system with a quadruple danger — racial, political, religious, and economic. Its geographical position forbade its being ignored or left to work out its salvation or its ruin with- out English intervention. Its previous history and the prevailing conditions demanded a policy clearly defined and unflinchingly ap- plied both as to ends and means. And in 1714 statesmen and the average citizen in England continued to view Ireland with the strange mixture of fear and contempt noticeable in 1641 and 1689. Three-fourths, perhaps four-fifths of the population were alien in race, were Roman Catholics, pledged to a creed proscribed by the British Legislature, which of necessity made the Irish Roman Catholic an irreconcilable rebel to the Protestant Constitution of Great Britain. The reign of William III. had shown that the majority of Irishmen by mere force of numbers might furnish the fallen dynasty of the Stuarts with a most fonmidable weapon for destroying, in alliance with Roman Catholic France, the settle- ment laid down in 1689 and ratified in 1713 after a vast expenditure of blood and treasure. Economically, Ireland must always be a more dangerous competitor than the colonies and plantations to the mercantile and agrarian interests of the powerful classes in England, whose union and whose prosperity were the mainsprings of Whig solidarity and the basis of the Revolution State. The machinery of government at Dublin, with its separate Executive and bi- cameral Legislature, and the necessaiy appai'atus for taxation, legislation, and administration could be easily transformed into the organs of a hostile independence. The true English interest was only represented by a small minority of alien administrators whose existence as the representatives of English religion, culture, and 196 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- independence depended unconditionally on British support. The Whigs, too, obsessed by dread of the Monarchy, feared that the Crown's resources in Ireland, and the utilisation of Irish revenues, if permitted to shp beyond the control of the British Parliament, might be employed to make the British Sovereign not merely In- dependent of, but positively dangerous to, English liberties. These dangers were aggravated by seven centuries of governmental ex- periments and failures and chi-onic rebellions against them, by a social and agraiian organisation which Englishmen neither under- stood nor wished to understand, whose history was a dreary epitome of social war blackened by savage reprisals, confiscations, counter- reprisals and counter-confiscations. Since the days of Henry II. and of John this tenible Irish question had baffled kings, statesmen, and people, both at Dublin and Westminster. And in 1714 the complexity of the conflicting interests made it a trackless labyrinth. It would be unreasonable, as well as impossible, to expect Whig or Tory in 1714 to apply to the most difficult problem that British statesmanship was called on to solve, modem principles of economies, toleration, public purity, even of Christian charity and racial sym- pathy. Whig and Tory did not wish to thi'ow over for Ireland's sake the principles of civil and ecclesiastical government they had successfully forged for themselves in England. They were saturated with economic selfishness ; to relax the grip of the mercantile system threatened economic paralysis and financial bankruptcy. They had no racial sympathy, and they were convinced that the loss of civil and political rights was the merited penalty of an ineradicable de- votion to a superstitious and dangerous religion, and of the pervereity of an inferior, debased, and conquered race. English statesmen were possessed by one fixed idea. To maintain the absolute supremacy of the English Cabinet over the Irish Executive and Legislature was a plain duty which admitted of no argument. To act otherwise was overt treason to the Revolution system and English freedom. For it was the devil's choice of evils. Better some injustice, even to Protestant interests in Ireland, than certain civil and social war, fomented by foreign foes and the imperilling of the whole fabric of 1689. The policy of relentless repression succeeded, indeed, so well that modem historical critics are tempted to add to the long charge- sheet against the Whigs the belief that the menace from Ireland yas no menace at all ; or as Chestei-field wittily put it, that the 176o; THE WHIGS AND IRELAND 197 beautiful Miss Ambrose was the only dangerous Papist he had found in Ireland. It would be fairer to admit that the danger was a real one, and that the safety of the English State was purchased at the cost of valuable elements of Irish national life. The true indictment against Whig statesmanship is not that it insisted on Ireland being welded somehow into the Revolution State of the United Kingdom ; nor that it failed to achieve the impossible by abolishing in the hours of crisis civil and religious disabilities, by endowing the Roman Catholic Church, and reconstructing the vicious land system ; but that its policy was false to the principles of Whiggism, and that it grievously neglected the duties of a national trustee. Ireland in 1714 was a poor, backward, and hostile country for the most part, degraded and rent asunder by racial, political, and social enmities for which the Whigs were not responsible. The task of statesmanship was to lay the foundations of unity, prosperity, and loyalty to the system to which necessity required Ireland must belong. Time, knowledge, and insight were the essential con- ditions of success. The Whigs were given the first. They had forty-five years of peace in Ireland, and they wasted them. English Ministers long after 1760 remained woefully ignorant of the un- happy island at their door ; and their ignorance was fortified by the prejudicial counsels of their advisers on the spot. Worst of all. Whig policy was a policy of anachronisms aggravated by despair. The apparatus of self-government, which might have been slowly adapted to teach that loyalty was profitable and that Irish interests were indissolubly bound up with English, shrivelled into the engine of a corrupt bui-eaucracy. In the end the Whig system failed to retain even the support of the minority in whose behalf it was so remoi-selessly worked. Two luminous sentences of Grattan's reveal the heart of the problem : " The Irish Protestant can never be free until the Irish Catholic has ceased to be a slave " ; " The question is whether we shall remain a Protestant settlement or become an Irish nation ". TTie movement and programme of reform in Ireland was mainly the achievement of Irish and Protestant leaders, to whom British statesmen had revealed the fatal secret that Eng- land could be bullied but not argued into justice and generosity. Two words sum up the Irish tragedy. The remedy for each of the debasing maladies from which Ireland suffered, was invariably ap- 198 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- plied, if applied at all, " too late ". For States as for individuals remedies that are " too late " invariably avenge themselves on the incompetent physician by aggravating the disease which in an eai'lier stage they could have cured. The eighteenth century handed on to the nineteenth, in the case of Ireland, an unsolved imperial problem and the damning heritage of a century of lost oppor- tunities. The failure is the more tragic because at bottom it is a failure of the British race, finding an instructive parallel in the loss of the American colonies, and brilliant contrasts in Scotland, Canada, and British India. Fitzgibbon later epitomised aptly the essence of the Whig system : " The only security that can exist for national concurrence is a permanent and commanding influence of the English Executive, or, rather, of the English Cabinet, in the councils of Ireland". And this principle found complete expression in the four great instruments by which Ireland in 1714 was manacled and mis- governed — the executive machinery, the Anglican Church, the penal code, and the commercial restrictions. The Crown was represented by the Lord Lieutenant — a gi-eat political officer, usually in the English Cabinet, who with his Chief Secretary and Privy Council constituted the central Government In the periodic absences of the Lord Lieutenant the Lords Justices exercised a complete control. The Parliament consisted of two Houses as in Great Britain, though the English Privy Council was " in reality the second branch of the Legislature ". The powei-s of Parliament were limited by important restrictions and by the defects of the Lower Chamber. Roman Catholics wei-e debarred from sitting; and the Test Act indii-ectly excluded Nonconformists, who could not belong to the borough corporations, which were largely the electoral bodies. In 1727 Roman Catholics were formally deprived of the franchise. The Irish constituencies were a demoralising parody of the representative principle. Of the 300 members of the Lower House it was calculated that 176 were the nominees of individual patrons, and that 63 peei-s nominated to 123 seats, while the bishops constituted about half of the working majority in the House of Lords. The hereditary revenues were vested perpetually in the Crown, so that the power of the purse was effectively clipped, since in 1714 the Legislature could not initiate a money Bill. Legislation was supervised by the English Privy 1760] THE IRISH CHURCH 199 Council; and the Irish Parliament could only originate heads of Bills for that Council, which could alter or reject them; whiles Bill laid before the Irish House, as amended by the English Council, could not be altered, but only accepted or rejected. In 1719 a British statute (6 Geo. I. c. 6) added to Poynings' Law (1495) by affirming the right of the British Parliament at Westminster to legislate for Ireland over the heads of the Irish representatives. In administration the object of the Government was simply to create and keep in the Irish Parliament a majority obedient to its wiU. The Viceroy, the Chief Secretary, and the Lord Chancellor were invariably English, as were the Primate and many of the Bishops. The Government rested frankly on corruption, chiefly by means of Government patronage and the nominee boroughs. SeiT- ing the Crown and sharing the spoils now came to be synonymous terms. So long as " The Castle " was prepared to keep its alliance with " The Undertakers " — the leaders from the great Irish families of the landed oligaichy — a majority could always be bought ; and this with the ample powers provided by the law enabled the Administration to caiTy out the will of the dominant English Cabinet. In this system the functions of 'the Anglican Church were as much political as religious. " A true Irish bishop," said Boulter, " has nothing more to do than to eat, drink, grow fat, rich, and die " ; and the main maxim of the rulers was " to get as many English on the bench here as can be decently sent hither ". The Episcopal Church in Ireland was not even the Church of a united Protestant minority, though it was largely paid for by tithes exacted alike from the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Non- conformist ; and it discharged the debt by copying the rich absentee landlords and so consistently neglecting its duties that it generally forgot it had any to perfonn, even to its own members. With some welcome exceptions, its annals reveal, in addition to the evils inevitable in an exotic institution in an alien soil, the same abuses that flourished in England — nepotism and absenteeism, pluralism, administrative pai-alysis, and spiritual lethargy. But in England these were the defects of a national establishment ; in Ireland they were the characteristics of the chapel in the conquerors' citadel. The ecclesiastical penal code, avowedly directed against the Roman Catholic population, " the common enemy," proclaimed, in the words 200 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- of a responsible historian, not the persecution of a sect, but the degi-adation of a nation. By depriving Catholics of all share in civil and political life, by forbidding the inter-marriage of Catholics and Protestants, by proscribing all Catholic education and religious worship, and by imposing severe restrictions as to the tenure, in- heritance, and acquisition of land and property, the code aimed at, and succeeded in being, a disruptive and demoralising social and religious force. The laws, it was said in 1759, did not presume a Papist to exist in the kingdom, nor could they breathe without the connivance of the Government. But neither the letter nor the spirit of this terrible creation of Protestant bigotry, panic, and selfishness were, or could be, completely enforced. The code was a failure, because the Roman Catholic was neither converted nor extirpated ; on the contrary, he continued to increase in a greater ratio than the Protestant. But in two respects its effects were calamitous and far-reaching. The maintenance of the code was on the one side confused with the membership of Ireland in the dominions of the British Crown ; on the other, its final repeal by the inexorable logic of facts came to be identified with Irish fi-eedom from the English yoke. For in this way the sins of the fathers are visited tenfold on the children. By keeping the Roman Catholic peasantry and their priests in subjection, poverty, and ignorance, it created an agrarian and social menace far more formidable, dis- ruptive, and lasting than the political danger of Catholicism ever had been. The commercial laws complete the picture. Economic was the countei-part to political and religious subordination. In principle Ireland was treated as a dependency, with the maximum of burdens and the minimum of favours that the colonial system allowed. Her harboui-s and her tradei-s were excluded from all imperial trade. Her farmers were prohibited from exporting, her capitalists from manufacturing, wool. The natural products of the soil — live stock butter, and cheese — were not allowed to be imported into England. In a word, Ireland was statutorily forbidden to compete either with the British shipper, the British manufacturer, or the British farmer • and if after 1743 some support was given to flax and the linen industry at Belfast, it was poor compensation for the deliberate destruction of budding manufactures and the drying up of rich natural resources. Smuggling, jobbing, pauperism and emigration, 1760] THE IRISH PARLIAMENT 201 and the sacrifice of the English in Ireland to the English at home, were the least of the evil consequences that dogged the working of the penal and commercial code. Poisoning the wells of national effort invariably proves more costly to the poisoner than the poisoned. When English politicians j ustly complained of the lawlessness, cor- ruption, thriftlessness, and ingi-atitude of the Irish of all classes, which sterilised for two centuries the belated efforts at reform, they forgot that gratitude, economy, and respect for law can be destroyed, but not created, by Acts of Parliament ; and that these qualities the mutilated and stunted national life of Hanoverian Ireland was neither encouraged to win from the Government nor was permitted to produce of itself. The Annesley case in 1719 led to the enactment of the famous 6 Geo. I., c. 6, by which the Bi-itish House of Lords was made the final Coui-t of Appeal from the Irish coui-ts, and appellate j mis- diction was emphatically denied to the Irish Upper House — an Act which completed the subjection of the Irish to the British Legisla- ture. In 1751 and 1753 came a sharp struggle over an Appro- priation Bill, earmarking a portion of the surplus of the national revenue to the reduction of the national debt. Though the Bill as amended by the English Privy Council was rejected and the sm'plus applied by royal prerogative, Kildare, Malone, and Boyle had taken a leading part in defeating the Executive ; and the Irish House of Commons saw for the first time an organised Opposition and a cleavage between the English Ministers and the chiefs of the gi'eat Irish families. The incident, intrinsically unimportant, was full of significance for the future. Since 1714 slow but steady progress can be detected in the conditions of the country. After 1746 the position of the Catholics demonstrably improved. The economic recovery led to an equilibrium in the national finances. In the capital particularly a growing political life was making itself felt, most notably in the rise of a middle class fired by nationalist ambitions. Some conspicuous names redeem the period — Swift, Berkeley, Hutcheson (till 1729), Archbishop Synge, and Molyneux, the famous pamphleteer of 1698 who had claimed complete legislative autonomy for Ireland. Of the Viceroys, Carteret and Chesterfield maintained theii- reputations won elsewhere, but Bedford was the fu-st to support a relaxation of the penal code. Two Primates 1757 figure prominently in the Administration, Boulter, by whose influence £02 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [17U- the Roman Catholics were disfranchised and whose policy aimed at the strenuous maintenance of English ascendency ; Stone, a notable pluralist but thoroughly capable, whose character has been assailed on public and private grounds, but whose leanings towards toleration indicate the new views in the hierarchy of politics. The abuses of the administrative system provided the material for a programme and a movement that slowly gathered strength. Ireland had no Septennial Act, no Habeas Corpus Act, no Annual Mutiny Act, no national militia; the judges were appointed " during pleasure " ; the pension list and Governmental patronage corrupted and demoralised every class of Protestant. Toleration and religious equality, the removal of civil disabilities, emancipation from the commercial restrictions and from the legislative and administrative control of the British Parliament and Privy Council, and the reform of the Irish House of Commons and the electoral system, were the necessary preliminaries to a-eating a sane, clean, and rigorous national life. Apart from these, the question of tithes and the whole agrarian economy cried out for reconstruction. It is significant that the demand for a legislative union with Great Britain, put forward in 1708 and rejected, had so completely died away that in 1759 the rumour that such a union was in contemplation pro- duced a fierce riot in Dublin. The next generation was to prove that there had grown up in Ireland leaders and followers both Protestant and Catholic who desired to gi-apple seriously with the constitutional, religious, and social evils that under George I. and II. throttled material and moral progress. The most picturesque events of Scottish history — the resistance to Walpole's fiscal policy, the Porteous riots and " the '46 " belong to the political history of Great Britain. There weie still two Scotlands. Until 1760 the Highlands, i.e. the area occupied by the Highland clans, remained a separate country in manners, morals, and (until 1746) in its feudalised tribal government. Wade's roads and the formation of the Black Watch, the " red " garrisons at Fort Augustus, Fort William, and Fort George were 1740 an assault on the barrier which the Disarming Act, the Abolition of the Hereditary Jurisdictions, the Commission of the Forfeited Estates, and the enlistment of the Highland regiments, completed far more effectively than Cumberland's dragonnades. South of the Tay and east of the Grampians, Lowland Scotland had not yet realised the 1760] THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCOTLAND 203 dowry secured by the Legislative Union. The triumphant vin- dication of that masteipiece of Whig statesmanship had yet to come. Down to 1746 the cry " Repeal the Union " made the national patriots and the oppressed Episcopalian clergy the most influential recruiters for the Jacobite cause. The English Govern- ment had been stung too often by the Scottish thistle to desire to control its growth ; and Scotland was left mainly to Scottish rulers acquainted with Scottish ways and sentiment. Argyll and Islay anticipated Dundas in the extent of their influence and corruption ; and if Scotland had surrendered its historic Legislature to forty-five representatives and sixteen peers at Westminster who were ready to sell their votes to the pai-ty managers of English affairs, she retained all the necessary organs for developing at home her own hard-bitten nationality. Scotland had a national system of law and courts, a Bench and Bar steeped in Scottish pride and inde- pendence, national schools, a national literature. Above all she had a national Church whose Greneral Assembly largely compensated for the empty Parliament House at Edinburgh. The ecclesiastical chronicle may be neither very edifying nor intelligible, unless studied in minute detail. Yet the fierce prqfests against Episcopalianism and lay patronage, the logomachies over dogma, the continuous cellular formation of Dissident communities, such as the Reformed or Cameronian Church and the Original Secession, witness to a moral and intellectual vitality and to the influence of religion on public and private lite, which lay bare the secrets of Scottish success and Scottish character. As Lowlander and Highlander proved, races that can fight for their convictions, even mistaken convictions, are the races to whom the future belongs. As yet Scotland was still desperately poor and backward. But the standard of comfort and refinement in the gentry and middle class was steadily rising. In two directions the marvellous trans- formation of the last half of the eighteenth century was ah'eady foreshadowed. The lairds, particularly in the Lothians and Ayi-shire, were turning their attention seriously to improvements in their estates, in farming and agricultura In the North, at Ferintosh in Ross-shire, had been laid the foundations of the Scottish whisky distilleries by the family of Duncan Forbes, to whom both Scotland and England in so many ways were indebted. In the West, Glas- gow had been practically created by the Union of 1707. By 1760 204 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- it was a shipping and commercial centre, capable of competing successfully with Liverpool and Bristol in the colonial and foreign trade. A linen manufacture abeady flourished and Bargarran thread was destined to make Paisley famous. Scottish banking, which supplied the Scottish people with capital of their own saving, had entered on its career of financial prosperity with the Bank of Scotland (1695), the Royal Bank (1727), and the Linen Bank (1746). The wealth in iron and coal underground was waiting to be discovered ; Lanarkshire and the basin of the Clyde were ready to be transformed into an industrial centre second to none. The next generation was to see the Industrial Revolution and with it the development of the Scotland of modern times. The same characteristics, somewhat more strongly emphasised, are revealed in the economic life of England. Defoe's travels in 1724 and 1725 point to a general diffusion of comfort and pros- perity, though the shifting of population and industry to the North and Midlands, and the concentration in towns, are not yet typical features. The reigns of the two firet Georges are a period of quiet preparation for the volcanic upheaval that set in from 1770 onwards. Of the staple industries the woollen trade continued to expand satisfactorily ; and the Methuen Treaty of 1703 gave a great impetus by throwing open Portugal to British manufactures. Some new industries such as silk weaving had taken root, but manufactures generally were marking time. They had reached their limits under existing conditions ; the advance of the future was to come from a seiies of mechanical discoveries. ITie growth of English wealth was chiefly derived from her commerce, the profits of an expanding shipping and the capacity to satisfy the home and foreign markets nursed by the mercantile system. After 1689, Parliament replaces the Crown in Council as the judge of economic interests ; and one of its main functions is to i-egulate industry accord- ing to the prevailing criteria. The Legislature aimed at maintaining a favourable balance of trade as a test of progress and profit and an index of the good and bad in the nation's economic life ; under Walpole and his successora it stimulated commerce by bounties and prohibited competition by tariffs ; it aimed at providing cheap and plentiful raw material and promoting the export of manufactured articles ; it regulated at home the quality and supply of matei-ial, the processes of the worker, the terms of employment. Politics 1760] AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS 206 and economics are closely linked. Fiance being the enemy, French trade must be scotched or killed. Bolingbroke's failure to caiTy the Commercial Treaty of 1713 was due as much to political opposition as to economic fears of its i7t4-x76o results. It is the era of parliamentary paternalism, striving to be enlightened, meeting with but moderate success. The bounties and tariffs congested trade into parliament-made channels ; the over- loaded book of rates was costly in collection, concealed the true incidence and amount of taxation, and fostered smuggling, jobbery, and corruption. Every student of the inner life of eighteenth century politics must be impressed with the amenability of the Legislature to the selfish pressure of jealous trades, and the debasing effects of this on private and public morality. Agriculture, on the whole, prospered. The epoch, indeed, has been called the golden age of the agricultural labour. Since 1 689 a bounty for the export of corn when above forty-eight shillings stimulated production ; and England was not only able to feed her own population but to send corn abroad. The British farmer was protected from Irish competition ; and even Whig political theory supported the promotion of the interests of a Tory squirearchy. The most formidable foe to prosperity was the system in vogue. Though enclosure proceeded steadily, three-fifths of the country were still under the open-field system with its ex- travagance in ploughing, its ignorance and neglect of scientific methods, its extensive cultivation and its rigid conservatism. Two brilliant pioneers, however, had pointed the way to new methods and ideas. Jethro Tull, at Mount Prosperous in Berkshire, Towns- hend, at Rainham in Norfolk, introduced the turnip, and taught the advantages of proper drilling and manuring, the treatment of soils, a more scientific rotation of crops, and the value of artificial grasses. Progress in agricultural knowledge was largely due to the big landlords, " the spirited cultivators " of Arthur Young — men of enterprise and business capacity, desirous of large profits, who showed the opening for capital judiciously applied on an adequate scale to fai-ming. But the advance as yet was local, accidental and halting. Not until the medieval rural economy and the self-con- tained co-operative village commimity had been broken up under the inexorable forces of the Industrial Revolution was the transition, and then with much suffering, effected. But in agi'iculture and industry the advent of the capitalist 206 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- rigvme is foreshadowed. As yet the common type of organisation, though not without expeption in both spheres, is the domestic, in which the workman owns his material and apparatus and sells the product of his labour. To the cottier spinning or weaving may be a by-industry ; to the village ai'tisan subsistence-farming is a by- occupation. Higher in the scale the yeoman is a freeholder ; the mastei'-weaver is the owner of his homeshop and looms. In many trades the domestic and the capitalist system (in which the capital- ist is the employer, owning the materials and the machinery, and paying the workmen by wages) existed side by side. The change from one to the other is slow and imperceptible. But the steady growth of capital, the profits from its organised application and business skill in an extended sphere, both in farming and industry, are making the competition between the two types of economic organisation more and more unequal. The Bank of England, the rise of joint-stock companies, the expansion of foreign trade, facili- tated the accumulation and profitable investment of capital. The continuous complaints, notably of Davenant and Defoe, as to the increase in Stock Exchange gambling, the South Sea Bubble, and the ease with which Great Britain borrowed for and met the interest on a mounting National Debt, prove the steady growth and diiFusion of available capital. As yet the unequal distribution of wealth was not a social menace. The problem of poor-law relief was simply quiescent. Against the fact that the cost had fallen from £819,000 in 1698 to £689,000 in 1750 must be set the conclusion that this had been attained by a remorseless application of the Caroline Settlement Law, and the fortunate absence of pronounced economic changes or strain. Adam Smith's tenable dictum that no poor man could reach forty years of age without suffering oppression under the Settlement Acts at some time or another tells its own tale. An Act of 1722 permitted the erection of proper workhouses and the provision of relief in these alone ; and Hay's Bill of 1736 proposed to make workhouses general, group them into unions, and provide guardians elected from the gentry to supervise the overseers — ^there- by anticipating some of the reforms of 1834. The landed interest stupidly feared a general poor rate, worked up a general panic, as with Walpole's Excise Bill, and procured the rejection of the measure. Hanoverian England tided over its poor-law diiKculties. But two 1760] THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 207 decades of economic crisis were more than enough to reveal the blots inherent in the system — the prevalence of out-door relief, the multiplication of parochial areas and overlapping of jurisdictions, the omnipotence of the justices, the tyi-anny, wastefulness, and jobbeiy of the overseers, the absence of central control, and the ignorance of sound principles in social and financial science. And by 1800 the Elizabethan system had really collapsed. The annals of the Church of England are memorable for two prominent features : (1) The volume and vigour of theological literature ; (2) the rise and marvellous progress of Wesleyanism. The Bangorian Controversy, occasioned by Bishop Hoadly's Pre- 1716 servative against the Principles of the Non-Jurors and his sermon on " The Nature of the Kingdom or Church of Christ," which were censured by the Lower House of Convocation, and the Deist and Trinitarian Controversies, caused a vast amount of ink to flow and brought out a number of prominent writers : William Law (who lives as the author of the Serious Call), Waterland, Sherlock, Samuel Clarke, Warburton, Berkeley, and Butler, Antony Collins and Matthew Tindal, who so much enjoyed making "the clergy mad ", Butler's Analogy of Religioh and Berkeley's philosophical (vork are permanent treasure-trove from the vast and dusty scrap- heap that sleeps undisturbed to-day in the lumber shelves of college libraries. The contrast between this literary fury and the aphasia and apathy of the English Church as regards its spiritual duties is striking. The general contempt for the pereons and morals of the clergy, found in contemporary literature, is justified in the numerous charges of the bishops, pathetic in their tone of querulous acquiescence and despair. The neglect of parochial work, the spiritual stagnation, nepotism, absenteeism, pluralism, are facts beyond dispute. But when leaders such as Butler were content to combine a bishopric with a deanery and a clerkship of the closet, or (as Seeker) a bishopric with a deanery, it is not surprising that the starved and imperfectly educated parochial clergy did well if they reached the standard of Parson Adams. There were, of course, some notable exceptions : Walker of Truro, " a Methodist before Methodism,'' Adam of Winteringham, Grim- shaw of Haworth, Berridge of Everton, William Romaine. Nor can the blame be shifted to the tepid Erastianism of Walpole, the latitudinarianism of Queen Caroline and the wicked Whigs. It HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- is true that the continuous prorogation of Convocation after 1717 for 135 years deprived the Church of a central organ and a repre- sentative life, but the Tories after 1770 must equally share the responsibility with the Whigs therefor. The rise of Wesley- anism, Evangelicalism, and Tractarianism show that spiritual and intellectual vigour could flourish in the absence of Convocation. Nor is 1714 a hard-and-fast line. Under the clerically-minded Anne the same defects are equally noticeable. The parochial clergy, by clinging to the worn-out creed of Filmer and Sacheverell, cut themselves off from the main current of national life, and proved their deplorable lack of insight into the needs of their generation. The work that England cried for in vain from its official spiritual pastors, and what great leaders could do, were proclaimed by John and Charles Wesley ; and in their careers lies the severest condem- nation of the Church under George II. The mistress of the rectory of Epworth, in the fens of Lincoln- shire, it has been justly said, was "the true founder of Wesleyan- ism ". To that mistress, their mother, the wife of Samuel Wesley the elder, her famous sons, John and Charles, owed, as so many other great men, the training, chai-acter, and moral inspiration which are the finest gift of a noble woman to her nation. John, born in 1703, graduated from Christchurch in 1724, and from 1729-35 was a fellow and tutor of Lincoln ; Chai'les, four years his junior, became a student of Christchurch in 1726. In 1729 both brothers joined with a few of their contemporaries in a strict rule of study and religious observance, which earned for the group the nickname of " Methodists ". Wesleyanism in one sense was an Oxford movement, begun at Oxford, led by Oxford men bred in the classic citadel of the Anglican Church, which a century earlier had bowed to the personality and ideals of Laud, and a centuiy later came under the spell of John Newman and John Keble. But while Laudianism and Tractarianism grew naturally out of Oxford studies and leavened two generations of academic | and religious thought, as did the Evangelical movement at Cambridge, the Methodism that founded the Wesleyan body owed nothing to Oxford teaching and left no legacy to the Univei-sity whose in- tellectual decrepitude and moral paralysis justly incurred the damning contempt of the greatest of English historians, Gibbon. So far as Wesleyanism had a spiritual genealogy it is to be traced 1760] JOHN WESLEY 209 in the perennial appeal of the writings of Thomas k Kempis, Jeremy Taylor, William Law, and the Moravian, Peter Bohler. It was not a new creed ; its power was not purchased by the scholar's laborious search for ti'uth ; it was a summons to the heart not to the head, a call to a new life, a warning to flee from the wratJi to come, a categorical imperative to the individual as a moral unit in communion with the unseen. Needed sorely enough but unheeded by Oxford common rooms, it found its readiest hearers in the neglected village, mine, and slum. Historic Methodism dates from the return of John Wesley from Georgia in 1738. For nine years the man had passed through the fires of a great spiritual struggle, without which no great reli- gious leader has ever climbed to the awful conviction of a divine mission. His "conversion" followed ; and in 1739 began the won- derful course of field-preaching which only ended with his death in 1791. The same year saw the establishment of the United Society and the Foundry in Moorfields. In 1740 Wesley broke with the Moravian body and formally renounced Calvinism ; and in 1743 " the rules " for the United Societies, which remain practically un- altered to-day, were drawn up. By»1791 he had laid down the broad lines of an organisation which numbered 60,000 membei-s in Great Britain; he had visited Ireland forty-two times, Scotland frequently, and his pleading voice had been heard throuuhout the length and breadth of England. The movement was powerfully aided by his brother Charles, despite sharp differences, both per- sonal and religious, and at first by George Whitefield, the leader of the Calvinistic Methodists. Charles Wesley was a prolific hymn- writer, actually composing more than 4000 hymns, some dozen of which rank with the best inspired work of any Church. White- field, a preacher more than equal in persuasive eloquence to Wesley himself, was supported by the Countess of Huntingdon, an original ■' converted " member of the first Methodist Society and the founder of "Lady Huntingdon's Connection". Unhappily, the quarrel over "free grace" between Wesley and Whitefield, after 1749, defied all reconciliation, and the two men parted company for ever. The Wesleyan Church was thus the creation of John Wesley, whose health and personal vigour would be incredible if not estab- lished beyond question. " I do not remember," he said of himself, 14 210 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714- " to have felt lowness of spirits for a quarter of an hour since 1 was bom." The personal ascendency noticeable at Oxford remained unshaken till his death ; and it made him the self-constituted anrf accepted autocrat of a mighty spiritual organisation. Great as a preacher, he was greatfer as an organiser and leader of men. His gifts for command stamp him as probably the most striking of eighteenth-century figures, and leave him in the select division of the first class of the gi"eat leaders of all ages. It is easy to-day to point out defects ; to dub him an intolerant and superstitious fanatic, a hard and self-centred character ; to belittle the value of enthusiasm and pronounce his life's work "heat without light". Wesleyanism had little charm for most cultivated minds. The powerful brain of Hume brushed it aside as in-elevant ; to the sahn- sated curiosity of Horace Walpole it seemed the spiritual antics of a rhetorical poseur. It produced no enduring literature. Never- theless, John Wesley's movement merits the abused epithet of " epoch-making ". Methodism and the French Revolution are the two most tremendous phenomena of the century. Wesley swept the dead air with an in-esistible cleansing ozone. To thousands of men and women his preaching and gospel revealed a new heaven and a new earth ; it brought religion into soulless lives and recon- stituted it as a comforter, an inspiration, and a judge. No one was too poor, too humble, too degraded to be born again and share in the privilege of divine grace, to serve the one Master, Christ, and to attain to the blessed fruition of God's peace. Aloof alike from poli- tics and the speculations of the schools, Wesley wrestled with the evils of his day and proclaimed the infinite power of a Christian faith based on personal conviction, eternally renewed from within, to battle with sin, misery, and vice in all its forms. The social service that he accomplished was not the least of his triumphs. For Methodism, as has been pointed out by a great critic, diverted into religious channels a vast volume of social discontent which in France swelled the tides that submerged Church and State in 1789. At a time when Bishop Butler asserted that Christianity was " wearing out of the minds of men," Wesley kept the English people Christian and shamed the Church that closed her pulpits to him into imitating his spirit if not his methods. No historian will venture to stake out the limits of movements whose most vivifying force works in the silence of the religious life of masses of men and 1760] THE AMERICAN COLONIES 211 women. But it is certain that into the moral fibi-e of the English people, even in the classes most anxious to repudiate the debt, were woven new strands by the abiding influence of Methodism. Wesley's Society sui-vived, and is a living force to-day. In the organised millions of the Methodist Churches amongst the English-speaking race in all lands has been built up the fittest monument to the greatness and achievements of John Wesley. Beyond the limits of Great Britain, for those who had eyes to see, the American question already existed in 1760. With the foundation of Georgia in 1732 by General Oglethorpe, the mystic number of thirteen colonies was now complete. Oglethorpe had been chairman of the Pai'liamentary Committee on Debtore' Prisons ; and the new settlement was intended to be a refuge for paupers and a barrier in the South against Spanish aggression. The founder succeeded in maintaining the colony against Spain ; but his pro- hibition of rum and negro slavery, and difficulties with the Wesleys and Whitefield, made Georgia not merely the youngest but also the weakest of the British settlements. By 1714 the constitutional development of the other twelve colonies was practically complete ; and henceforward their administrative and economic relations with Great Britain was the main question. Broadly, each colony had a constitution roughly modelled on that of the Mother Country ; and the inhabitants by race, tradi- tion, and institution were saturated with the political principles and ideals of self-governing Englishmen. Connecticut and Rhode Island were chartered colonies with extensive rights of self-govern- ment : Maryland and Pennsylvania were proprietai-y, i.e. the gov- ernment was vested in the representatives of the original proprietors, subject to special intei-vention of the Crown. In the remaining eight (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia, and the two Carolinas) the Executive was in the hands of the Crown, and exercised through a governor and council, while internal legislation and taxation were assigned to a represen- tative assembly. The Crown retained and exercised a prerogative of veto, the right to nominate the governor and judiciary, and to control the policy of the colonies in their relation to each other and in imperial affairs. The expenses of administration were met by local taxation. Except in Maryland, Virginia, and North Caro- lina, the governor and judges were paid by annual grants. The 212 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [17U- Home Government desired to make the Executive independent by securing a permanent appropriation, but was worsted in a sharp struggle with Massachusetts ; and after 1735 in most of the colonies the Assemblies steadily declined to surrender the control over the Executive, and the necessity of annual sessions which temporary grants ensured. The colonists thus were habituated to the practice of representative, though not responsible, government, to self- taxation, and to a general autonomy which the wholesome and studied neglect and ignorance of the imperial authorities, and their refusal to push '■heir demands, strengthened with each decade. The supremacy of the Imperial Parliament in legislation was tacitly acquiesced in; but even if the royal veto and judicial appeals to the Crown in Council be included, dii-ect interference from home, apart from trade regulations, was spasmodic and slight The i6g6 Board of Ti'ade and Plantations had been intended to act as a central organ in colonial afFaks, but it was not an Executive au- thority. It collected and digested information ; Executive action remained with a Secretary of State or the Privy Council. Responsi- bility was thus divided and the imperial machinery dislocated. War alone brought the colonies into continuous connection with the home Government, and war was an abnormal state of things. The normal life in times of peace was suffered to develop unimpeached except by chronic official criticism and abortive official suggestions. The steady volume of colonial papers that came to London was read and docketed, and answered. They form an encyclopaedic serial on the afTaus and growth of the thirteen settlements; but Cabinet Ministers and members of Parliament were isnorant ot o their contents, and they resulted in a meagre driblet of effective Executive action. The aphorism that George GrenvUle lost Great Britain her colonies, because he really read and acted on official despatches, is better substantiated by modei'n documentary research than most historical epigrams. Colonial trade was strictly regulated by a code of statutes made at Westminster as part of a comprehensive imperial polity. The essence and ideal of " the old colonial system " was to main- tain a self-sufficing Empire of customers by controlling production and consumption in the interests of the whole Empire. Its object was not so much to secure a favourable balance of trade or to raise revenue, (though there were useful subsidiary consequencts and 1760] THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM 21« tests of prosperity,) as to weld the dominions of the Crown into a carefully co-ordinated national State and through the reaction oi economic legislation to mould the institutions and life of its mem- bers in hai'mony with that ideal. The Navigation Act of 1660, with its later prolific emendations, accordingly " enumerated " the articles that the colonies were obliged to export to no other country than Great Britain ; and it provided that the trade must be can'ied on in British (or colonial) ships manned by British (or colonial) crews. It is now generally agreed that the system was also part of the theory of imperial defence and was not devised nor enforced solely to enrich the home at the expense of the colonial producer and consumer. By elaborate schedules of tariffs, bounties, preferences, and drawbacks, the monopoly of imperial trade was divided between colonies and mother country, from which the foreigner was effectively ruled out. Sacrifice on both sides to the common weal was an im- plied statutory duty. If the colonial manufacture of hats, woollen goods, hardware, or manufactured articles generally was crippled in the interest of Great Britain, the home citizen could smoke only colonial tobacco, and consume colonial coffee, sugar, and rice ; sub- stantial preferences were given to colonial lumber, hemp, raw silk, naval stores, iron and copper ore, beaver skins, spirits, and molasses. True, the Molasses Act of 1733 prohibited a lucrative colonial trade with foreign ports ; but in 1730 rice, and in 1739 sugar, could be exported direct to other than British ports south of Cape FinisteiTe. The measure of the political and economic success, the compara- tive loss and gain of this policy are still matters of controversy on which even with the help of much patient research most scholars would shiink from a dogmatic verdict. The system clearly involved the principle of indirect taxation imposed by the imperial Legisla- ture ; Adam Smith, its most exhaustive and influential critic, ad- mitted that it was more liberal than that of any other European country ; it is demonstrable that the colonies grew rapidly in wealth, trade, and population, and that down to 1765 serious ob- jection was not taken to the commercial restrictions. It is even arguable (though doubtful) that under a different system colonial prosperity would not have been more highly developed. But it is equally clear that the system was artificial, the product of con- ditions which since 1660 had greatly altered ; it was neither quickly nor easily readjusted, and was neither completely developed nor 214 HANOVERIAN ExNGLAND [1714- rigorously enforced. It involved considerable smuggling and eva- sion both of provincial and imperial laws, which debased the respect both for colonial law and imperial authority. It locked up capital in congested channels, and gave a dangerous preponderance in profit to the British merchant. The balance of trade was steadily against the colonial, who could only meet it by profits made in an illegal trade with foreign settlements ; and it acted as a continuous drain on the coin and bullion of the colonies. The system confused the idea of settlement with that of possession ; and there is much indirect evidence that the economic dependence of the colonies on Great Biitain chilled rather than fostered imperial sentiment and weakened political solidarity. By 1760 the necessity of a fiscal reconstruction on wholly differ- ent principles is apparent. The colonies were not a single economic unit with a common economic interest. The latent contradiction between the principles and practice of colonial autonomy and the commercial code more than once had already come to light. The Sovereign British Parliament was neither a scientific, nor a well- informed, nor an imp6u:tial judge of interests, intiinsically conflict- ing and selfish, and the colonial view was not directly represented in it. But could fiscal reconstruction be cai-ried out without shattering the whole imperial fabric ? That fabric as an effective machinery for administration and defence was partly worn out, mostly non-existent. Competent observers had repeatedly exposed its defects, and placed on record ideas, duly pigeon-holed in Lon- don, for its amendment. Pownall dreamed of " a gi-eat commercial marine," " a great commercial dominion," a real imperial Zolherem, in place of the rusty, loosely-jointed, decentralised organisation he had a share in working ; Franklin and Shirley desired federation and parliamentary union for the separate colonial units ; Dinwiddy urged direct imperial taxation to solve the financial difliculty and teach imperial duty. But Ministers at home, who were slowly abandoning the belief that men can be taxed into prosperity, could not as yet bring themselves to believe that Englishmen could be taxed into loyalty. A memorable congress at Albany, in 1754, formulated a plan for colonial union, but it was rejected by the separate assemblies. The colonies proved once and again that "they were a rope of sand, loose and unconnected," "one in promises to pay, thirteen when peiformance was due ". The great 1760] THE IMPERIAL PROBLEM »16 war of 1756 italicised these conclusions. British officers and states- men were irritated by the disunion, reluctance, and miserliness of the colonial assemblies ; British criticism and condescension annoyed the ultra-sensitive colonial. Pitt sternly rebuked and endeavoured to check the persistence of the colonial trader who smuggled stores and rations (at vast profit to his unpatriotic pocket) to the advan- tage of the common enemy. The conquest of Canada removed the strongest ai-gumeat for imperial protection, but did not destroy the menace from the Indian or the hope of revenge at Paris and Madrid. Thus every factor in 1760 combined to create a situation demand- ing on both sides sympathy, knowledge, tact, and, most difficult of all, a common political end and outlook. The temporary causes of friction were trumpery, but behind them and aggravated by the success of the war lay the fundamental problem of imperial govern- ment and unity. The chaotic administrative, fiscal, and military ortjanisation had broken down in 1756 ; a treaty of peace and a return to the status quo would not fill in the cracks. How were the weakness of the imperial Executive, the parochial outlook of the colonial assemblies, the jealous particularism, the financial ob- stacles to be amended or removed ? „ The logic of the principles hitherto prevailing was easy to draw — enforce the sovereignty of the imperial Parliament, tighten up the imperial tie, strengthen the central Executive, bring the colon- ial Legislatures to a sense of their shortcomings, and work the commercial code up to the hilt — in a word, make the letter of mercantilist imperialism correspond with the theory. But two generations of colonial growth ran dead against such logic. Of sentimental loyalty to the British Crown" there was in the colonies plenty ; but the duty of self-sacrificing loyalty to the Empire, as represented by the British Parliament and the British Cabinet, was neither recognized nor acted upon. The constitutional rights long enjoyed, the resentment at imperial interference, an expanding political and commercial life, the unbridged estranging ocean, made for extended not restricted powers of self-government. We can see now, though it was not seen in America or England then, that the old colonial system by 1760 had crumbled away under the dis- solvent action of forces created and fed by itself. All the economic and intellectual currents, running stronger each year, in the life of the Empire, were working against, not for, its continuance. The 216 HANOVERIAN ENGLAND [1714-60 colonist had unconsciously grown into the American. Just because he could not get rid of his English blood, his English traditions, and his English ambitions, he was stretching out towards a freer, wider life ; iand he would reach it in the same illogical but effective way that his forefathers had done in Great Britain. He had not yet learned to express his needs in articulate language ; but it only required a false stroke o{ policy to fire him into speech and action. The true task for British statesmenship was not to underpin a tottering and cramping structure, but with faith in the binding cement of a common liberty and common ideals realised through different methods, to rebuild for the new Empire to come. Be- tween a fundamental reconstruction and colonial independence there could be no halfway house for a race true to its political heritage ; and it was in the best interests of the political and moral future of the whole English-speaking peoples that the Time-Spirit had so decreed. NoTE.^For recent research and results on the topics discussed in this chapter, see the following Appendices : XIV., XX., and XXi. On the " Hanoverian " Church of England, N. Sykes' Life of Edmund Gibson (1927), ;s indispensable. P. C. Yorlce, Life of Lord Hardwicke, 3 vols., 1913, throws a ntagg of light on the Walpole-Newcastle period. THE REIGN OF GEORGE III CHAPTER I THE NEW MONARCHY (1760 ■ 1770) GEORGE III., bom in 1738, was now in his twenty-third year. His accession in the middle of a victorious war and aided by the steady gi-owth of monarchical sentiment in the nation was hailed with enthusiasm. Born and bred in England, he was free from his grandfather's damning devotion to Hanover, (the wits said he could not find the Electorate in the map,) and could rightly claim " to glory in the name of Britain," while the demoralisation of Prince Charles Edwai'd and the decay of Jacobitism made his hereditary and parliamentary title popular in the best sense. His youth, sincere piety, and attachment to Protestantism, his high standard of kingly duty, simple tastes and unblemished morals, his national pride and patriotic convictions appealed, as such qualities in a prince always will, to the loyalty of all classes in the State. That throughout a reign of exceptional length which began and ended with the two most critical phases of the titanic duel between Great Britain and France, George HI. retained the affections and devotion of his subjects was largely due to the hold that his private life and domestic virtues had on English men and women. A nation con- vinced of the necessity and value of monarchical government readily and not unjustifiably condoned the political errors of the Sovereign, errors set in sharp relief against the moral and political vices of the heir to the throne and his brothers. And contemporaries with few exceptions were not able to measure accurately the grave con- sequences of the King's superstitions and prejudices. Like his granddaughter, George HI. mu-rored many of the most striking "7 218 THE NEW MONARCHY ri7«0- qualities of the middle class — courage, sense of duty, decorum in family life, pride of race, insular patriotism and ingrained conser- vatism. He also shared their bigoted Protestantism, that intel- lectual indifference that so easily stiffens into hostility to ideas, and a narrow and self-satisfied mental and moral outlook. Sympathy, the first condition of statesmanship, he lacked as completely as he lacked charity. The fuller air, the larger light which great charac- ters, great principles, the formative forces of new hfe in a people must find or be stifled were rigorously shut out fi'om the earth on which the King worked and the heaven tor which he hoped alike for himself and his subjects. In the mediocre mind or the sub- servient political hack — a Bute, a North, a Sackville, a Thurlow, an Addington — he was happy to discover his most congenial ally and instrument. With the exception of Wan-en Hastings, to whom the caprice of party prejudices made the King for once generous and just, it is questionable whether George III. under- stood or wished to understand the gi'eat men and the causes for which they stood that made his reign memorable, despite the disintegra- tion of the empu-e for which the Sovereign was more responsible than any one else. Chatham and Burke, Grattan and Fox were as much beyond his naiTOw vision as were Wilberforce, Adam Smith, Bentham, Gibbon, Malthus, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shei'idan. Even in the younger Pitt, as the proposals for Roman Catholic emancipation and the abolition of the Slave Trade showed, the finer issues to which that proud spuit could be so finely touched were hidden from his master, who only saw in him the indispensable dyke between the throne and the hateful flood of opposition rebels, and the bulwai-k of a perishing social order against anarchy and revolution. His education, " in which the mother and the nursery had always prevailed " had unhappily not improved a character by nature stubborn, resentful, and parsimonious. Nourished in the atmosphere of the women of the bedchamber and pages of the backstairs of an opposition Court, his head stuffed full of obsolete ideas of the prerogatives of the Crown, and of his mother's injunc- tions "to be a King," he had grown to manhood, foolishly secluded from bracing contact with the world of statesmen and high affairs, and dominated by the influence of the Dowager-Princess of Wales, an ambitious, intriguing, petty-minded, and disappointed woman. It is not suiprising that in 1760 the young Prince was, as he confesses 1770] THE EARL OF BUTE 219 in his conespondence, ignorant both of men and public business. Hard work, bitter necessity, and dogged ambition in time supplied him with adequate rule-of-thumb knowledge ; but to the last George remained obstinate, ungi-ateful, vindictive, and resentful of all op- position, obsessed by his own views, and capable of any meanness, trickei-y, or intrigue to achieve the ends he had framed for himself. Since 1756 his chief adviser had been his Groom of the Stole, the / Earl_of,Bute, who zealously co-operated in saturating his pupil with Bolingbroke's Idea of a Patriot King, enforced by the black- letter legalism of Blackstone's as yet unpublished Commentaries. Bolingbroke thus came to teach the same pleasing lesson as John- son's comfortable maxim that the devil was the first Whig. Bute certainly was not the Machiavellian arch-conspirator of popular satire against the liberties and institutions of Great Britain. But he was a royal favourite, whose Scottish birth and close intimacy with the dowager-princess exposed him to coai'se invective and damaging insinuations. His intentions were excellent, his ambi- tions lofty. Handsome, pompous, and conceited, " he would have made an admirable ambassador in any Com-t where there was no- thing to do ". But he was cursed* from the outset by third-rate abilities, vanity, total lack of real administrative experience, and the pathetic persistence with which he mistook aptitude in intrigue for political insight and statesmanship. With a young and opinion- lited sovereign, a gi-eat war on hand and a critical international situation requiring consummate skill and tact, the advent to power of this untrained amateur was a serious public misfortune. The note of coming discord was struck at once. Pitt was obliged to insist on the description of the war in the first royal speech being altered from " bloody and expensive " to " expensive but just and necessary"; but though Bute as yet declined the King's offer to make him Secretary of State his admission to the Privy Council and the Cabinet, and George's plain hint " that my Lord Bute will tell you my thoughts at large," were profoundly significant Two not unimportant measures marked the commence- ment of the reign. For the first time the Sovereign surrendered | the hereditary revenues of the Ci-own in England, and in retun/l was voted a Civil List of ^800,000. Although the sources of royal income from Scotland, Ireland, and the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster were not affected by this statutory arrangement, the «20 THE NEW MONARCHY [1760 surrender and the legislative vote register a further stage in the extension of Parliamentary control over the expenditure of the Sovereign. On the recommendation of the Crown, the statutory March 3, , independence of the judges was beneficially extended. Hence- '^^' 1 forward (1 Geo. III., c. 1) judicial commissions were not to be terminated, as previously, by the demise of the Crown, and ade- quate salaries were assigned to the judges. In the autumn of the same year, as arranged by the Princess-Dowager and Bute, alai-med at the King's attachment to the lovely Lady Sarah Lennox,^ George Sept. 8 was married to Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and the Sept. 22 royal coronation followed the marriage. The Queen was as richly blessed as her husband with the domestic virtues, and proved a loyal and submissive consort, though her married life was much embittered by the undutiful conduct of several of her sons and, later, by the incurable insanity of the King. The appearance at Court of Tory peers, and the appointment of six Tory Grooms of the Bedchamber, together with a remarijable pamphlet, Seasonable Doubts from an Honest Man (by John Douglas, subsequently Bishop of Salisbury), conectly indicated the inauguration of a " new system ". The conversion of the Tories, it was ai'gued, into loyal supporters of the Revolution dynasty made their continued proscription unjustifiable. With their help govern- ment by the Sovereign could now take the place of government based on connection, party, and the coiTupt usurpation of the rights of the Crown by a handful of territorial families leagued together to keep the King in bondage. Restore to the Crown its proper place, harmonise the exercise of the prei'ogative with the unquestioned theory of the constitution and the letter of the law, and you would dissolve the elaborate apparatus of corruption, in- fluence, and control by which " a confederacy of Ministers " dictated to the nation, in the name of the King, the policy of a selfish ' Previously to 1760 George was said (on slender evidence) to have fallen in love with the beautiful Quakeress, Hannah Lightfoot. The romance of Lady Sarah (daughter o( the Duke of Richmond and sister-in-law of Henry Fox) can be read in her Letters (ed. Stavordale) and Walpole's Memoirs of George III. It may be doubted whether a broken leg really prevented her from becoming Queen. She lived to marry (i) Sir C. Bunbury, who was compelled to divorce her ; and (2) G. Napier, her three eldest sons by whom were famous for their personal beauty and achievements, viz. Sir Charles, the conqueror of Scinde ; Sir William, the historian of the Peninsular War; and General Sir G. Napier. 1770] THE KING'S SYSTEM 221 oligai'chical caste. An independent Sovereign, framing his own policy, choosing and directing his Executive sei-vants, iiTespective of party, and dispensing his own patronage, would extirpate corruption at its source, and restore to the Legislature its long-lost indepen- dence. In brief, the programme and system of George III. had in their favour a plausible analysis of constitutional theoi-y, a widespread dissatisfaction with prevailing methods and abuses, (the great Min- ister, Pitt, was notoriously averse from government by party or connection,) and the disorganisation of the Whigs, who had split up into a cluster of cliques, united only by a belief in the divine- right monopoly of office vested in " the Revolution families ". The broadening conception of a national State, fostered by the triumphs of the war and new-bom visions of empire, strengthened also the vague desire that a rehabilitated and national monarchy should employ the powers entrusted to it to work out a more complete expression of nascent national ideals. Unhappily, the new policy, as interpreted by George III., failed to distinguish between the inevitable and beneficial results of the growth of parliamentary government and the accidental defects of the Whig rigime. The hiatus between the letter of the law, as expounded by a lawyer such as Blackstone, and the accepted con- ventions which reconciled theory with the requirements of free government, was real, if concealed. George's ambition to restore the personal share of the Sovereign in the exercise of the preroga- tive could not be achieved by simply substituting the Crown for a dozen Whig peers ; nor could the King, without violently straining the letter of the law, take the place of " the confederacy of usurping Ministers". An "independent Parliament" must prove to be absolutely incompatible with " an independent Crown ". The Cabinet, in truth, was merely the central piece of machineiy by which Paa-liament, through Ministerial responsibility io the Legis- lature, had tightened its comprehensive giip on the royal preroga- tive. For legislation, finance, administration, policy, a parliamen- tary majority was now indispensable. A Sovei'eign, legally irrespon- sible, and imposing his own measures on a group of departmental Ministerial servants, could only carry on the King's govemmen+ either by accepting (as before) the will of the majoiity expressed through its trusted representatives or by enslaving and debauching Parliament to his will. The inevitable result of George's experi- 222 THE NEW MONARCHY [1760- ment was the organization of the system of " the King's Fi-iends," i.e. a body of members, created by influence and induced by corrup- tion to vote always and only for the King's measures, even against the King's Ministers. In a word, the King's finger would be found to be thicker than the loins of the Whigs. The demoralising ag- gi'avation of the evils of the previous regime, the dislocation of machinery, the fostering of faction and the fatal identification of national policy with the interest of a single individual, disagree- ment with whom was "desertion" and opposition to whom was '■ sedition," were not the least deplorable results revealed by the first twenty yeai"s of the reign. Two advantages, however, indirectly accrued. The successful rout of the Whigs proved to be only the first phase of a struggle which in the end created, under Rockingham's leadership and Burke's inspiration, a more scientific synthesis of constitutional principles. Burke's Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Dis- content was a noble vindication of parliamentary and Cabinet government and a seai'ching reply to the flimsy philosophy of Bolingbroke and Douglas. To the " King's Friends " was opposed party, the union of public men for public ends, and the indispens- able organ of pai-liamentary sovereignty; with "influence, dead and rotten as prerogative," was contrasted the power of Ministers, i-esponsible to the Legislature that represented the national will ; in place of the departmental system was set a Cabinet, bonded by collective solidarity on the fundamental issues of the day. The debdcle of the royal policy in the American War gave the victory to the new Whiggism. But fortune ultimately decided that the younger Pitt, the son of "the trumpet of sedition," should reap the fruits of twenty years of Whig Opposition, and base a new, constructive, and truer Toryism on the sound foundations of party iiscipline and creeds, and on the Cabinet and the authority and office of the Prime Minister as the most effective instruments for harmonising the national will with the prerogative of the nation's Sovereiga The gradual introduction of the King's system required first and foremost a satisfactory peace. The growing conviction in the nation that peace could now be obtained on honourable terms was strengthened by Maudit's pamphlet, Cmisiderations on the Ger- num War, which, under circumstances broadly resembling those of 1770] THE PROGRESS OF THE WAR 228 1710, influenced public opinion almost as pi'ofoundly as Swift's Conduct of tlie Allies. The writer argued that England's interest demanded an exclusively colonial and naval war, and emphasised the ruinous cost of subsidising Frederick, and the futility of fighting France for German ends on the continent. His criticisms of Pitt's methods and the " Continentalists '' were italicised by the supplies voted for 1761 (£19,616,119 — an advance of four millions), the alarming increase in the National Debt, and the exhausting de- mands for men. To Bute, opposed on principle to the German War, peace was the first step towards ending Pitt's and the Whig war, and shattering the power which the conduct of military operations gave to the great War Minister and his political allies. The successes of 1761 considerably strengthened the peace-party. Frederick had lost Schweidnitz and most of Silesia; his eastern border was open to Russian attack ; and he was only saved from disaster by the timely death of the Tsarina and the accession of jan. 5, Peter III., as ardent in his friendship to Prussia as Elizabeth had ^7^' been irreconcilable in her enmity. In Western Germany, Ferdinand drove the French out of Hesse, defeated at Vellinghausen thejuiyij combined armies of Broglie and Soabise, to the success of which the British contingent under Granby again signally contributed. The French, however, retained Cassel, and a renewed invasion of Han- over was certain for next year. Across the seas Dominica was captured, while, nearer home, the Mauritius expedition was diverted against Belle Isle. The first attempt failed, but Keppel and Hodg- son, under Pitt's dii-ections, persisted, and on June 7th the garrison capitulated, and the British flag triumphantly floated over French soil close to the French coast. The general election at the end of March was remarkable for the amount and extent of corruption in the constituencies. Thanks to the new policy of employing the resources and patronage of the Crown for royal ends, the nucleus of a prerogative party w j.s created, consisting of members pledged to the Court and not to the Whigs. So far Bute had skilfully supported Pitt against his colleagues, whose jealousy of " the dictator ." played further into the favourite's hands. At the request of the Whigs, Holdernesse was now pen- sioned, Bute became Secretary of State, Barrington replaced Legge March m as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and George Grenville was bi'ought into the Cabinet Newcastle, however, soon found, to his intense 224 THE NEW MONARCHY [1760 chagrin, how he had been duped. He had ah'enated Pitt, while Bute steadily withdrew the patronage which alone made office endurable, and used it against him. The conundrum debated by the wits whether the King would employ Newcastle, Scotch (Bute), or Pitt coal rapidly became a crisis in foreign policy and in the Council Chamber. Bute had already, through Viri and Solar, the Sardinian Min- isters at London ' and Paris, begun secret ovei'tures to France. With the despatch of Hans Stanley to Paris, and De Bussy to London, direct dealings between Pitt and Choiseul were opened. To the French proposals of July 15th, Pitt replied with an ulti- Aug. 15 matum granting limited fishing rights in Newfoundland, requir- ing the restoration of Frederick's territories in French occupation, and reserving the power to help our Prussian ally if war continued on the Continent. He had already peremptorily rejected the memorial on the Spanish claims, presented with the French draft, as " wholly inadmissible," and haughtily intimated that future attempts to blend the Spanish and French claims would be re- garded as an unfriendly act. Despatches from Lord Bristol, our am- bassador at Madrid, and intercepted letters of Fuentes and Grimaldi, the Spanish ambassadors at Paris and London, convinced Pitt that Choiseul was insincere and was planning further mischief. Tha suspicion was quite correct. The Third Family Compact, linking the Bourbon Courts of Paris, Madrid, Naples, and Parma, with hostile intentions against Great Britain, had been signed on the same day that Pitt compelled a reluctant Cabinet to accept his ultimatum. A series of no less than twelve Cabinet meetings culminated in the ci-itical day of October 2nd, when Pitt demanded instant war with Spain, on the plain ground that the intercepted papers showed that Charles IH. intended to join with France. The Cabinet, sceptical as to the prediction, clinging to the resources of diplomacy, and convinced by the experts that our army and fleet Qgj , did not justify provocation of so formidable a coalition, refused the demand. Pitt, supported by Temple alone, at once resigned, de- clining " to continue without having the direction ".* His popu- larity, dashed for a moment by his acceptance of a pension of £3000 for three lives and a peerage for his wife — unsolicited honours, inadequate to his imperishable sei-vices to his country — rose higher 'Sea Appendix V. 1770J RESIGNATION OF PITT 225 than ever ; and his superb self-restraint, under misinterpretation and envenomed invective, in refraining from trying to overthrow the Ministry, mai-ks the zenith of his career. His resignation was a public calamity. It played Choiseul's game to a nicety ; it de- prived the Administration of the one great master of the higher leading ; it estranged Pitt from the old Whigs when a strong Opposition was essential ; it convinced Frederick that his betrayal was at hand, and it left the self-willed King, the inexperienced Bute, and the headstrong Bedford to manipulate the situation as they pleased. At the same time the sons of Zeruiah were too strong to permit Pitt to secure the peace he regaided as indispens- able. If resignation marked his isolation and failure, it saved his reputation from being tarnished with the sins and blunders of the royalist tools. Egremont succeeded Pitt, Bedford replaced Temple, and George Grenville became leader in the Commons. Pitt's prediction was shortly justified to the hilt. The safe return of the Spanish Dec. 25 treasure ships and the publication of the Family Compact necessi- jan. 2, tated a declaration of war. Charles III. had thus gained three ^762 valuable months and England had lost her invaluable War Minister. Newcastle, subjected to continued affronts and alarmed by the determination of the Cabinet to stop Frederick's subsidy and with- May 25 draw our troops from the Continent, at last resigned. "The Duke's political character has received unduly hard measure ; but his resig- nation and refusal to accept either pension or reward for services extending over nearly forty years of public life were a worthy close to a career of exceptional industry. His abilities were second rate ; his defects easily lent themselves to exaggeration and ridicule ; but in the single-hearted devotion of his life and fortune to the Hano- verian dynasty and the Revolution State he is a tjfpical example of the best of the Whig aristocracy. The Ministry could now be further reconstructed on "King's Friend" lines. Bute became First Lord of the Treasury, Grenville, Secretary of State, while ] Anson (who had died) was succeeded by Lord Halifax ; and a still I poorer exchange was effected when Sir F. Dashwood, the owner of 1 the famous-infamous Medmenham Abbey, an incompetent libertine | who " blundered over pounds and strode pompously over farthings "/ was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. The progress of the war helped Bute beyond his deserts. 1A «26 THE NEW MONARCHY [1760. July 10 Catherine had succeeded her mui-dered husband, Peter ; but despite her neutrality, Frederick, by delaying the departure of the Russian army, whose neutrality was not yet known, virtually recovered July 21 Silesia by the last of his great victories, Burkersdorf. A month June 24 earlier, Ferdinand had defeated the French at Wilhelmsthal ; and after complicated manoeuvres, brilliantly repulsed, at Briicken Sept. 2 1 Miihle, the French attempt to relieve the blockade of Cassel. With Nov. I its fall the Hanoverian war ended. The invasion of our ally, Portugal, by Spanish forces was also repulsed by the despatch of a British contingent under the Count of Lippe-Buckeburg and General BurgojTie, who won a brief reputation that was destroyed later by the disaster at Saratoga. On the seas, England struck hard at both Bourbon Powers. Rodney and Monckton captui'ed Feb. Martinique, while Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent were also taken. Anson's last service was to send the Cuban expedition under Pocock and Albemarle unexpectedly through the dangerous Junes Bahama Channel, with the result that Havana was surprised, Albemarle's generalship was imfortunately not equal to Pocock'a seamanship ; and not until August 12th, after a hideous and un- necessary waste of life. Fort Moro and the city suiTendered. " Havana stopped Grimaldi's cackle." The blow to Spanish pres- tige, commerce and wealth, and the lessons of organised sea power and amphibious war, were driven home by the storming of Manila in the Philippines, summarily effected by an expedition from Madras under Cornish and Draper. Truly enough it was the star of Pitt that had conquered at Martinique, Cuba, and in the Pacific. Bute had it in his power to put Crown and Cabinet in a position of unassailable strength by making a great and honourable peace. It was not to be. The refusal to continue the Prussian subsidy, clumsy overtures to Austria behind Prussia's back (which met with a humiliating rebuff), and secret negotiations (thi-ough Viri and Solar) with France revealed the Minister's incompetence. Fi-ederick, with characteristic cynicism developed his sepai'ate understanding with Russia and intrigued to bring about Bute's downfall, an exasperat- ing interference in our home politics which provided Bute and Bedford with their strongest arguments for scuttling the Prussian ship. Amidst increasing signs of unpopularity on all hands, Bedford was sent as special envoy to Paris. The fear of Pitt's return coerced Bute, the fear of worse disasters coerced Choiseul who coerced 1770] THE PEACE OF PARIS Grimaldi ; and the preliminaries were signed at Fontainebleau. Nov. j Ministers, alarmed by Pitt's scathing criticism and their own un- popularity, appealed through the young Lord Shelburne to Henry Fox to save them. " We must," said the King, "'call in bad men to govern bad men." The Paymaster, in return for a peerage, entered the Cabinet and became the King's representative in the Commons. With cold-blooded efficiency and unflinching corrup- tion he promptly set to work to break once and for all the Opposi- tion led by Newcastle, Hardwicke, Devonshire, and Pitt, once his colleagues, but whom he had neither forgiven nor forgotten. "Now my son is King of England," the Princess-Dowager cried when the terms of the peace were earned in the Commons by 319 votes to 65 and in the Lords without a division. The victory was a triumph for Fox, the King, and the resources of the prerogative ; but it was a sinister prelude to the policy of substituting " purity and patriotism " for the selfish corruption of the Whig oligarchy. Fox now went "to the general rout". Devonshire, whose name had already been stnick off the Privy Council Roll by the King's own hand, was stripped of his Lord-Lieutenancy, as were Rocking- ham and Grafton of theirs. A vindictive expulsion of Whig place- men high and low completed the claims of Fox on the King's gratitude, which he deserved but failed to win. On Februai'y 10th, 1763, the Peace of Paris was signed, and five days later the Treaty of Hubertusburg between Prussia and the House of Austria ended the Seven Years' War. The unpopularity of Dashwood's budget clinched Bute's desire to escape from the odium of his position. A war loan raised on costly terms was corruptly distributed amongst the supporters of Government ; and a new excise on cider provoked riots in the cider counties. Thoroughly disillusioned, Bute resigned on April 7th. If he had repeated Bolingbroke's achievement of 1710 of breaking up an apparently all-powerful administration, he had also made himself the most hated Minister since Strafford's day. The firat phase of the reign of George III. was closed. By the treaties of 1763 France ceded to Great Britain Canada, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, restored Minorca, and acquiesced in the retention of Grenada, St. Vincent, Dominica, Tobago, and Senegal. She also agreed to evacuate Hanoverian, Hessian, and Prussian territories, and to dismantle Dunkii-k. England withdrew 228 THE NEW MONARCHY [1760- her troops from Germany, restored Belle Isle, Guadeloupe, Marie- galante, Martinique, St. Lucia and Goree, as well as the French commercial stations in India, and the fishing rights (with St. Pien-e and Miquelon) in Newfoundland. Spain ceded Florida and the log- wood rights in Honduras, receiving bacii Havana and Manila. France transferred Louisiana, as compensation for Florida, to Spain. For Portugal and Prussia the status quo as before the war was re- established. These terms register a notable landmai-k in the development of two great States. Prussia emerged exhausted but undiminished ; and this simple fact proclaimed the decisive defeat of the great coalition to undo the work of the Hohenzollerns, and the rise to the first rank in the European system of the Frederician kingdom, a power with a future of immeasurable significance. For Great Britain the Seven Years' War gave a new definition to her imperial structure, character and outlook. Striking as are her gains, the moral of the struggle is still more striking. She had fought the Bourbon- Habsburg combination with three weapons — finance, (the National Debt leapt from £72,000,000 to £132,000,000), conjoint sea and military power, nationality that drew its sustaining strength from free institutions. But the unbribed judgment of public opinion agreed that the terms were not adequate to the victories and .sacri- fices of the war. Bute's diplomacy, indeed, is beyond defence. He negotiated as if Choiseul was the friend, Frederick, Pitt, and the Whigs the enemies of England. The interest of the Crown, not of the Empire, was the dominating consideration. The real glory rests with Pitt who had placed Great Britain beyond the power of amateurish incompetence to rob her of considerable reward ; to a less degree with Grenville, Halifax, Granville, and Egremont, who fought in the Cabinet against Bute and Bedford's incomprehensible haste to buy peace at any price. Martinique, Havana, and the West Indian Islands were surrendered for inferior gains or no com- pensation at all. With criminal recklessness Manila was flung away ; not even the ransom bills of the inhabitants were honom-ed by the Spanish Government. Prussia, it is true, was not "be- trayed," for the integrity of the kingdom was purchased by costly British concessions ; but the stupid and unnecessary alienation of Fi-ederick merits the severest condemnation. If Bute had rightly refused to bleed France white — a policy alike in 1709, 1762 and 1770] A NEW AGE 229 1814 neither wise nor practicable — he had done nothing to reduce, and much to aggravate, the hostility of French, Spaniards, and Austrians ; he had poisoned the political atmosphere at home and abroad with distrust of the sincerity and methods of the Biitish Crown, and he had thrown away the friendship of the one ally we possessed. Twenty yeai-s later the fruits of these fatal months of the favourite's supremacy were reaped to the full. As it was, Bute in April left office on the morrow of the most triumphant war we had ever waged, discredited and detested, and his country isolated and hated. The supreme lessons of the Peace pointed forward. If Pitt and Clive had saved the future of British expansion in North America and India, scarcely more than the bases of the new Empire were laid. The task of healing the material exhaustion and of political architecture and scientific consolidation, inspired by a sane inter- pretation of the new needs, was the inevitable heritage of success. We can see now that in 1763 Great Britain and Europe stood on the threshold of an epoch that rings with the imperious challenge of new ideas and aspirations, but one in which the familiar political and economic strata were shifting sftid crumbling rapidly. Wal- 1764 pole's Castle of Otranto, Peixiy's Religues, Chatterton's Poems, Gold- 1765 smith's Vicar of Wakefield, are the stray swallows of a spring to 1766 dawn in our literature ; they are followed in 1768 by Sterne's Sen- timental Journey, the year that saw the Royal Academy founded, in the golden age of Reynolds and Gainsborough and Romney ; and in 1775, which saw the first blood shed by kinsmen at Lex- ington, comes Sheridan's Rivals preceded by Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, two years before. The Stamp Act, and Watt's steam engine make 1765 memorable, while the Industrial Revolution dates from Hargreave's spinning jenny. In 1768 James Cook started on 1770 the ten yeai-s of heroic exploration ' that added a new woi"ld to re- dress the balance so grievously upset for Great Britain by American independence. In the sphere of thought the age is richest of all : Rousseau's Social Contract, whose final editions were bound with 1762 the skins of the French aristocracy, precedes Blackstone's Com- mentaries: Barke's Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discon- ij6s • James Cook's ideal is best summed up in his own words : " I . . . had am- bition not only to go farther than any man had been before j but as far a» it was possible for man to go " : see Appendix XVIII. 230 THE NEW MONARCHY [1760- 1770 tents lead up to the Annus Mirabilis of 1776 — the year of the Declaration of Independence, of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, of the first volume of Gibbon's Decline and Fail, of Bentham's Fragment on Government, of the Common Sense of a dissipated and revolutionary stay-maker, Tom Paine. Three aspects of the new problems were of immediate im- portance : (1) imperial administration and finance, essentially a question of imperial defence ; (2) foreign policy, based on the new gi'ouping and interests of the European States which upset the traditional conceptions of the balance of power ; (3) domestic — how to adjust the working of parliamentary government to the new policy of the Crown. With 1763 we enter on a period of continuous Ministerial failure, culminating in a supreme disaster, the disruption of the Empire. But if history can teach one lesson, it is that disasters are never inevitable. They are always the result of blunders that need not have been committed, of omissions which might have been made good. One plain moral, as so often in our annals, was in 1763 forgotten or ignored — the home truths of a gi-eat war. By 1778 our navy was inadequate for its functions ; and nothing had been done to remove the patent danger to an imperial country, vulnerable in every quarter of the globe, of relying on an army and military system improvised in the hour of need. The respon- sibility for the lack of military organisation in 1775 lies on the Crown and its advisers, Tory and Whig alike; and it was the nation that connived at their blunders which suffered justly merited punishment. George Grenville now took Bute's place as head of the Govern- ment, combining it with the Chancelloi-ship of the Exchequer; Dashwood going to the Lords with a peerage. Grenville's inde- pendence and protests against the continuance of Bute's influence " behind the curtain," and the unpopularity and weakness of the Ministry, shortly necessitated a further reconstruction. Three points emerge in these wearisome negotiations : the determination of the King to escape from a Cabinet based on solid party obligations ; the jealousies in the groups of the Whig Opposition; the desire of the leaders to suppress the unconstitutional influence of the ex- Minister, Bute. Bedford (with whom Pitt refused to serve) finally consented to become President of the Council, with Grenville as 1770] JOHN WILKES 231 leader in the Commons, while the Earl of Sandwich became Hali- fax's colleague as Secretary of State. Shelbume was replaced at the Board of Trade by Hillsborough, and now joined the small group that followed Pitt. The Government had meanwhile come into shaip collision with one of its many virulent critics — John Wilkes^— and raised the first of a memorable series of issues connected with the name of a skilful and profligate demagogue. Wilkes was member for Aylesbury. In the famous No. 45 of his paper, The North Briton, phrases in the speech from the Throne on the Peace of 176S were described as false. The King, ignoring accepted conventions of ministerial responsibility, ordered the writer's prosecution, on the ground that the criticism was a personal insult to the Sovereign. Halifax accordingly issued a general warrant for searching, an-esting, and seizing persons and papers, not specifically named, but suspected of being connected with the alleged libel ; and under it some fifty per- sons, including Wilkes, were arrested and their papers seized. On a writ of Habeas Corpus, Wilkes, who pleaded his privilege as member of Parliament, was set at liberty amidst vociferous demon- strations of public approval. Temple, whose money and brains were freely used to support insolent attacks on the Crown and its Ministers, was now as Lord-Lieutenant ordered by the King to deprive Wilkes of his colonelcy in the Bucks Militia ; and on trans- mitting the order with a compliment to the ofifender was himself dismissed from the Privy Council and his Lord-Lieutenancy. Min- isters promptly sought for parliamentary support In the Lords the prosecution of Wilkes was demanded, and his an-est ordered on the singular plea that as the author of an obscene parody of Pope's Essay on Man, entitled An Essay on Woman (dedicated to Sandwich, but not published), with notes parodied on those of Bishop Waiburton to Pope's poem, he had committed a breach of privilege. Sandwich's advocacy of the cause of decency and morality at once struck the public as a piece of ridiculous and treacherous hypocrisy ; for the Secretary of State was a notorious libertine and formerly a fellow-member with Wilkes of the de- bauchee Medmenham brotherhood. The apt application of a quo- tation from the " Beggar's Opera " fixed on Sandwich the name of " Jemmy Twitcher ". In the Commons a large majority voted : first, that No. 45 was > Spe Appendix XVIL 288 THE NEW MONAKCHY [1760- a false and seditious libel, then (concun-ed in by the Lords) that privilege of Pariiament did not extend to such libels, and, thirdly, that No. 45 should be bumed publicly by the common hangmaa The Opposition attempt to pronounce general wanants illegal was defeated, but only by a small majority (234-218). Wilkes, seriously wounded in a duel, had retu-ed to Pai-is, and was now expelled Jan. ig, the House. Having failed to present himself for sentence in the '^ "* King's Bench for reprinting the famous No. 45, he was outlawed. Crown and Ministera had apparently won a victory, emphasised by lavish prosecutions of various printers and by the dismissal from their military appointments of three members of the Com- mons — Conway, A'Court, and Barre — who had voted against the Government. It is significant of the temper of the House that this characteristic refusal of the King " to forget defaulters " did not evoke the resentment stiiTcd by the similar dismissals in 1733 and 1735. Still more significant was the widening breach between Parliament and public opinion. Wilkes' popularity was not a mere craze of the mob. The ci-owds which threw jackboots, Scotch bonnets, and petticoats, symbols of the hated Bute and the King's mother, on to bonfires, or cheered a bookseller driving to the pillory in a coach numbered 45 expressed much more than detestation of Scottish favoiuntes and their high-placed patrons. " Popularity," Burke well said, " was to be rendered if not directly penal at least highly dangerous." There was, in truth, an end to Ministerial responsibility if the speech from the Throne was the personal de- claration of an in-esponsible Sovereign, enforcing his own interpre- tation of libel by general warrants. The expulsion of Wilkes by the Commons was admittedly within the powers of the House ; but both Pitt and the seventeen protesting peers pointed to the danger of relying on parliamentary resolutions " applied ex post facto to a particular case and used to justify a judicial decision, contrary to law and usage". The action of the majority, in fact, recklessly prej udged a matter awaiting the proper investigation of the Comis, and was vindictive in its haste and unjust in its procedure. Such methods, if persisted in, might involve a dangerous collision between the Legislature and the Law Courts. And presently a series of decisions put a new complexion on the acts of the Executive. In Wilkes V. Wood ^£"800 damages were given against the Under- Secretai'y of State ; confirmed six years later when Wilkes' suit 1770] THE STAMP ACT «33 against Halifax brought him ifi'iOOO damages ; in Leach v. Money, 176J the printer of the North Briton obtained ^"400 for the execution of the waiTant ; finally, in Entick v, Carrington, Lord Camden con- demned general warrants as illegal, and demolished the argument of State necessity and droit administrate, " because the common law does not know that kind of reasoning ". Camden's judgment reaffirmed the principle, essential to the liberty of the subject, that the highest office in the State will not protect the holder from the consequences of breaking the law ; and that the Courts will provide adequate remedies and damages for rights violated by the Executive. The judicial extirpation of general wanants from the armoury of Government was not the least of the results that our Press and individual liberty owed to the courage and obstinacy of Wilkes. But in 1766 neithei- King, Parliament, nor mob had heard the last of the outlaw. Concurrently in the sphere of imperial administration George Grenville had unwittingly precipitated a still more serious collision between the Legislature and public opinion across the Atlantic. If the importance of events in history is measured by their conse- quences, the Stamp Act of 1765 and the summoning of the Estates- General in 1789 are the two greatest events of the eighteenth century. Grenville's famous measure was the outcome of a grind- ing necessity. The late war had been essentially " a colony war " ; it had laid on the mother country a bxu'den of debt and administrative expenditure, cruelly crippling her exhausted resources. The serious Indian invasion of Virginia in 1763, and the fear of French insun-ec- tion in Canada made a force for the internal defence of the colonies essential. Grenville accordingly proposed to maintain in America a permanent establishment of 10,000 men, and to meet one-third of the cost (about .£100,000) by stamp duties imposed by the im- perial Parliament on all written agreements having legal validity in the colonies. "It is just and necessary," ran the preamble "that a revenue be raised in your Majesty's dominions in America for defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same." The Act was, therefore, one item of a policy whose object was to eliminate the defects in imperial finance, administra- tion, and defence, revealed and aggravated by the war. The im- perial authorities already were enforcing the Navigation Laws more stringently, so as to increase the Customs revenue by checking 284 THE NEW MONARCHY [1760- smuggling and suppressing contraband ti'ade. At the same time April, 1763 the port dues were revised and a new molasses duty (1764) imposed. The Mutiny Act, too, was extended to America, laying on the colonies the provision of quarters and necessaries for the troops. On Maich 22nd the Stamp Act (to come into force on November 1st) after a languid debate received the royal assent. Grenville had explained his plan a year previously ; but, in order to give oppor- tunities for alternative suggestions from the colonies, deferred, with more kindliness than statesmanship, its execution for twelve months. In the furious controversy provoked by this ill-fated scheme certain points are clear. To represent it as a cold-blooded attempt to exploit the colonies for the benefit of the home taxpayer, and to filch from the colonial subjects of the Crown rights long enjoyed, and to reduce them to a slavish and impoverished subjection, is a legend exploded by none more effectively than by American his- torical scholars. The equity of the proposed contribution to im- perial defence is admitted. The colonies were flouiishing ; the shai-e demanded was trifling compared with the burden borne by Great Britain. Not one penny was to be expended elsewhere than in America or for plain colonial needs. But unquestionably in me- thod, if not in principle, the policy was new, perhaps unprecedented. The plan of du'ect taxation had been repeatedly recommended by experienced colonial authorities as the only practical method for securing a just colonial contribution to imperial needs. The late war emphasised the indifference of the colonies to their duties, and the extreme difficulty, if not impossibility, of uniting thirteen jealous and short-sighted provincial assemblies in agreement as to allotment or the punctual payment of their rateable proportions. Neither Grenville nor the colonial agents anticipated the strength or the reasons of the fierce opposition to the proposal, which surprised both the mother country and probably the colonials themselves. Already the stringent execution of the Navigation Laws, the new molasses duty, and the employment of the royal navy in suppressing contraband trade were very unpopular. Although in 1761 the legality of " writs of assistance " had been in vain dis- puted by Otis, it has been well said of his speech that " the child Independence was born on that occasion". The extension and enforcement of Admiralty jurisdiction were denounced as an abuse 1770] THE COLONIAL PROBLEM 235 of authority, tending to the subversion of the common law rights and liberties of the colonists. The ungrounded suspicion that the English Episcopal system would shortly be planted in America was a further irritant to inflamed colonial sentiment. The Stamp Act at once kindled into a blaze all the smouldering embei-s of discon- tent. Under the leadership of Samuel Adams in Massachusetts, of Patrick Hem-y in Virginia, protests against taxation without repre- Nov, 7 sentation were passed ; and a Congi-ess of nine colonies at New York submitted joint grievances to King, Lords, and Commons, Riots in Boston, New York, Rhode Island, and Connecticut made it im- possible to execute the Act. The weakness of the Executive, one of the most conspicuous defects of the imperial system, was thus glaringly revealed. With the constitutional agitation, stiffened by mob violence, came retaliation. Associations sprang up to boycott British imports and substitute colonial goods until the Act was withdrawn. The gravity of the issues involved was not yet fully appreciated on either side of the Atlantic. The Stamp Act was the logical result, as Franklin saw, of the failure of the Albany Congress of 1754. It was not merely pervei-se legal pedantry nor a blind lust of predominance that found in the imperial Parliament the only possible sovereign and unifying authority for the empire To question the right to legislate for, and to bind the trade of, the emph'e as a whole was to impugn the nature of sovereignty and to shatter imperial unity by snapping its one uniting bond. It was held to be impossible to draw a valid distinction, in theory or prac- tice, between the legislative and taxative functions or to separate the direct internal taxation of the stamp duties from the indirect and external taxation of the Customs, the legality of which was un- questioned.^ In brief, that the imperial Parliament had the legal right claimed for it is now generally conceded by the most com- petent British and American authorities. The strength of the colonial Opposition lay in a subtle blending of principles, hallowed by usage, with inextinguishable dreams of ' " The English Statute-book furnishes many instances in which the legislative power of Parliament over the colonies was exercised so as to make regulations completely internal, and in no instance that is recollected was their authority openly controverted " (Marshall (perhaps the highest legal American authority), Washing- ton, a, 84). See Appendix XX, THE NEW MONARCHY [1760- the political future of the Colonies. " No taxation without repre- sentation " was both a working hypothesis and a potent ideal of libei-ty. Pitt's view that the power of the purse was inherent in a representative body, that to deny it was to ignore the nature of taxation and to annihilate the basis of self-government, that to resist taxation imposed without the consent of the taxed was both a right and a duty, drew its inspiration from immortal struggles for liberty at home, and appealed to the ineradicable English instinct for freedom and self-government. If lawyers could not distinguish between the legislative and taxative functions, Englishmen had done so in the past and must do so in the future if they wished to remain free. Like Walpole, Pitt had resisted the temptation to override by direct internal taxes the most important function of the colonial assemblies. And to the colonist there was a vital difference between taxation of the home citizen by a Legisla- ture in which he was, imperfectly perhaps, represented, and taxation of the colonists by a Legislature 3000 miles away in which the colonies were not represented at all. For the Colonist, also, submission to such taxation was a surrender of the one master principle by which colonial development could achieve in time the responsible self-government won by its means in the mother country. It was not idle rhetoric, therefore, to call that sun-ender treason to the future of the colonies. In brief, the logic of English history and colonial sentiment contradicted the logic of imperial unity and legal theory. And the clash of waning con- stitutional principles had already sounded a challenge more preg- nant still in its illimitable consequences. Camden in this country, Henry, Otis, Adams, in America appealed from the Caesar of man- made positive law in the Statute-book to the eternal decrees of humanity, as such. The essential interdependence of taxation and repi'esentation was proclaimed in the last resort as a law of natuie. The authority of Parliament, the obedience of subjects, were boldly claimed to be limited by the natui-al rights of the colonists as men. As in 1789, so in 1776, theories of natural rights in- herent and inalienable in man as such and superior to all othere which they necessarily condition and define, may be met by counter-theories of a like chaiacter, but the only effective answer is shot and shell, the only effective vindication is a successful revolution. 1770] THE IMPERIAL ISSUE 2S7 Unhappily the logic and supei-ficial reasonableness of Grenville's measures are no justification of its statesmanship. As an act of policy the stamp duties deseiTedly stand condemned. Burke's profound aversion from arguments in politics deduced from the naked " metaphysical rights " of the schools was sound ; his distinction between intellectual acquiescence in an abstract legaUty and the expediency of exercising it was a criticism of Ministerial methods that cut to the quick of the problem, though it failed to disentangle the underlying factoi-s that governed the situation. The imperial fabric required not readjustment but reconstruction. Grenville's aims ignored the disagreeable truth that the old colonial system had broken down before the resistance to the Stamp Act revealed the collapse. To tighten the imperial tie and rivet more strongly the obsolescent bonds of a worn-out mercantilism i-an directly counter to the forces underlying the economic and con- stitutional expansion of the colonies. The attempt was certain to be resisted and resistance spelt worse than defeat — disruption and disintegration. The blunder of direct taxation, avoided by Wal- pole in 1730, became therefore a crime in 1765. Worst of all, the mischief wrought was in-eparable. A claim had been deliberately asserted and as deliberately repudiated. The imperial Parliament was defied and its authority was now at issue. By the same argu- ments that denied the power to tax directly, the power directly to legislate or to bind trade would be questioned and resisted. What was to be the next step ? Surrender to resistance and shatter the whole imperial fabric ? Maintain the rights by force ? A remedy more disastrous than the disease it could not cure. And in the background lurked the spectre of independence. True, the weight of evidence supports Frankhn's assei'tion that in 1765 independence was not the avowed goal of the colonial champions. But the opposed ideals of colonial autonomy and British authority, the absence of a true imperial sentiment in America, the embittered and democratic atmosphei'e of the New England settlements, had at once thrown to the front chiefs, able, unscrupulous, ambitious, determined to pare down to a minimum imperial control. Mateiial economic interests silently and swiftly gave a selfish substance to the demand for complete freedom. The cry for independence would not be stifled if the colonists were once convinced that " the tyranny anticipated not the tyranny inflicted " was the real danger. On 288 THE NEW MONARCHY [1760- public leaders at home lay now the burden of averting such a tragic conclusion. The friction between the King and "the Triumvirate" in- creased. George III. wished to control his Ministers, the Mini- sters wished to control the King. And the constitutional lectures of his advisei-s caused the King to say that he would rather see the devil than George Grenville in his Cabinet. The King's illness and some symptoms of his later insanity made provision for a regency desirable. Legislation was proposed by the Ministers, restricting the regency to the Queen and the members of the royal family. Bedford, in order to strike at Bute's influence, prevented, before the bill was read in the Lords, the name of the Pi-incess-Do wager from being included ; and the King, persuaded that otherwise the measure would not pass the Commons, was tricked into accepting the ex- clusion. But an amendment, inserting the name of the Princess, was at once carried in the Commons ; and the King suffered the mortification, first, of consenting to a slur on his mother, and then to its removal being forced on the Ministry, apparently against the wishes of the Crown. Such underhand tactics justified the King in choosing a new Administration. The Duke of Cumberland, whose relations with the great Whig families had always been intimate, now approached Pitt at the King's instigation. But Pitt refused to act without Temple, and Temple was obdurate. The Trium- virate triumphantly imposed fresh concessions on their master. The King was compelled to give a pledge that he would never again consult Bute and to break his word to Bute's brother in a matter of patronage. Appeal was again made to Pitt, and again Temple's obduracy prevented him from accepting. Julyi6, Cumberland now fell back on the great Whig families, and '7^6 George with ill-concealed reluctance consented to lie formation of a Ministry under the Marquis of Rockingham, which included the Duke of Grafton and Conway as Joint Secretajries, Dowdeswell as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Newcastle as Privy Seal, and a group of the King's nominees, Henley, Egmont, and Banington. The weakness of the coalition was obvious. The witty and fickle Charles Townshend, the spoilt favourite of the House of Commons, who had replaced Lord Holland (Heni-y Fox) as Paymastei-, de- scribed it with truth as "a lutestring Administration fit only for summer wear ". The King withheld his confidence, which meant 1770] THE ROCKINGHAM MINISTRY 239 that the Court party were directly encouraged to undermine the Oct. 31 position of the Ministers in the Commons. Cumberland's death deprived the Cabinet of a staunch friend, while the Whigs them- selves were more imposing in name and social prestige than in ability, industry, and experience. To Rockingham belongs the credit of bringing his secretary, Edmund Burke, into Parliament; but though he had sound judgment and the gift of political friendships, Rockingham was not a leader and was useless as a speaker. The partiality of his friend, Horace Walpole, failed to convince the world or Conway himsfelf that he was at best anything more than an amiable and second-rate politician. Grafton, by far the ablest of the three, gave to the turf and his mistresses (of whom one, Nancy Parsons, thanks to Reynolds and Junius, won a flash of immortality) the hours and the gifts which in politics might have achieved an enduring reputation. Crown, Ministers, 1765-1770 and public alike recognised that the fate of the Administration lay with Pitt. And unfortunately Pitt's acts at this critical epoch re- quire a charity of judgment which repeated attacks of severe gout cannot wholly justify. In yielding to Temple's obstinate perveraity Pitt was guilty of a grave eiTor. Though importuned he declined to serve with Rockingham and Newcastle ; nor would he give the Ministry, anxious to carry out his wishes, generous support. It was in his power to unite the Whigs under his leadership on broad principles of reform and he threw the chance away. His mysterious aloofness, dictatorial temper, and shortsighted identification of party connection for public ends with oligarchical faction wrecked the Rockingham Ministry. It separated Pitt from men whose political creed was at bottom the same as his own ; it vetoed the future organisation of a strong Opposition, and it left Pitt himself without a party, at the mercy of the King, of the King's Fiiends, and the Grenville and Bedford gi-oups. During its brief tenure of power the Ministry endeavoured to undo some of the mischief. The cider tax was repealed ; general wan-ants were condemned by pai'liamentai-y resolution. But the American question pressed for decisive action. The mercantile interests, hai'd hit by the colonial boycott, clamoured for the repeal of the Stamp Act. Pitt in a great speech supported the demand. At the same time he asserted the right to legislate and to bind colonial trade. Ministers, however ready to repeal as a measure of 240 THE NEW MONARCHY [1760 policy were not united on the legal point — the right to tax as well as to legislate. They had to reckon with the avowed determina- tion of the Opposition and the Court party to resist repeal, and with the intrigues of George III. The King assented to his Minis tei-s' policy, while behind their backs he privately encouraged the King's Friends to resist the Ministerial measures. The Cabinet compromised by proposing repeal of the Stamp Act and accom- panying it with a declai-atory bill asserting the right both to tax and to legislate. Both were successfully carried, in spite of the opposition of Pitt and Camden to the declaratory statement. The temporajy effect on America was excellent. The repeal was re- ceived with loud demonstrations of approval and protestations of loyalty ; and it appeared as if the storm clouds had dissolved as quickly as they had arisen. But the Ministerial policy was a mis- take and a signal proof of weakness. The Cabinet had a choice of two straightforwai'd alternatives — to maintain the rights claimed, restore the impugned dignity of Parliament and the Executive and enforce the Stamp Act — or to repeal the Act and renounce frankly the claim to direct internal taxation. The first required great courage and men of determination ; and in the face of Pitt's op- position and mercantile pressure would have been difficult but not impossible. But it was dead against the convictions of the Whig group in the Cabinet. Unconditional repeal would have secured Pitt's whole-hearted support, and would have been a real message of peace and goodwill to America. It would have cut away the ground from any further attempt at direct taxation, and provided time for opinion on both sides to ripen into an understanding on the scope and incidence of indirect taxation. The commercial grievances of the colonists were bound to become a pressing matter before long ; but time and economic forces were on the side of a gradual modifica- tion, if the problem was not first aggravated by embittered feelings. But the Ministerial policy evaded the difficulties by a dangerous compromise. It surrendered with one hand what it studiously reserved with the other. It admitted the victory of defiance, while it asserted that the right was against those who resisted. Such a concession was neither graceful nor dignified nor sincere. Nor was it statesmanship. In reality it settled nothing but the success of the agitation, and it was naturally taken at its face value in America. The reluctance with which compensation was voted to 1770] WHIG DISUNION 241 the sufferers from colonial riots was profoundly significant. The plain truth seems to be that Ministere could not have carried any- thing but the compromise. In that case they would have done better for themselves and the empire had they insisted on repeal and renunciation, and made it clear to the King that unless they had the confidence of the Crown, and the support of the King's Friends, they would resign. Rockingham's and Conway's tolei'ance of the King's dishonest tactics encouraged royal duplicity and con- firmed the impression that they preferred office to their convictions. The whole episode is instructive, because it reveals the ci"ude desire for coercion in the Opposition, the real sentiments of the King who was already, though not recognised, the most formidable opponent of the colonists, and the fatal division of opinion amongst the Whigs themselves. The chaos of views amongst public men was reflected in the temper of the nation, injured by the economic loss, indignant at the defiance of law and order, puzzled by Pitt's ex- clusion from office, and anxious to patch up a quarrel on the rights and wrongs of which it could not make up its mind. The Rockingham Ministi-y slowly broke in pieces, sapped first by Grafton's, then by Northington's resignations. Pitt, again appealed to by the King, threw over Temple, and delighted the public by agreeing to form an Administration. He came in with high ambitions to justify the confidence of the nation in a stable Ministry under the greatest of living statesmen. The colonial ghost seemed to be laid ; but Ireland, India, finance and foreign policy, and the strained relations of Crown, Cabinet, and Pai'liament called for fiimness, insight, and continuity of policy. But his Admini- stration was a failure. The allotment of posts justified Burke's description,* Conway (Secretary of State), Saunders (Admiralty), and Townshend (Chancellor of the Exchequer), were taken over from the Rockingham Ministry ; Grafton (First Lord of the Treas- my), Camden (Lord Chancellor), and Shelbume (Secretary of State), were "Pittites"; Northington (Lord President) adhered to the ' " He made an Administration go checkered and speckled ; he put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed ; a cabinet so vari- ously inlaid ; such a piece of diversified mosaic ; such a tesselated pavement without cement ; here a bit of black stone and there a bit of white ; patriots and courtiers, King's friends and republicans, Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and open enemies, that it was indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch and unsure to stand upon " (Speech on American taxation, April 1774). IB 242 THE NEW MONARCHY [1760- King — when the King's interests coincided with his own. Temple remained outside, with ample means and inclination for mischief. Pitt himself damaged his reputation for independence by accepting a peerage as Earl of Chatham ; and his removal to the Upper House left a vacancy badly filled by Conway and Townshend, cursed by an iiTesponsible thirst for popularity. JKven before he was finally prostrated by gout, Pitt's dictatorial arrogance and reserve con- firmed the verdict of all who sat with him in Council that a genius could be his own worst enemy. The assumption that he was the King's Minister, called as in 1756 " to defend the closet against every contending faction," ignored the fact that 1766 was not 1756, and that George III. was not George H. Without the sup- port of the collective co-operation of colleagues united by a common creed a King's Minister must either become the King's tool or the King's enemy, fighting alone a hopeless battle. Chatham misinter- preted the King as fatally as he misinterpreted the working of the parliamentary system. It was not in his power to convert George III. to his views. But it was in his power to leaven the old and the new Whiggismwith his inspiring imperialism, his passion for free- dom and reform, his contempt for the ignoble vulgarity of the party huckster. Rockingham,. Conway, Grafton, Shelburne, Burke, Camden, craved a leader. In Chatham, for all their despair at his exasperating defects of temper and judgment, they recognised the master. And it was Chatham who failed them. TTie Prime Minister's high-handed dismissal of Lord Edgecumbe from the Treasurership of the Household caused a breach with the Rockingham group, the chief membei-s of which, with the exception of Conway, promptly resigned. Their places were filled from the Court paa-ty. In order to deal with a scarcity of corn, due to bad harvests. Ministers exceeded their legal powers by an Order in Council prohibiting exportation. Corn riots had broken out, and it was necessary to quiet public fears. Chatham's defence on the ground of necessity expressed the bare truth ; but it was a peculiai" pleasure to the fine intellect of the Tory Mansfield to unwhig his rival Camden for boasting that the prohibition was at most " a forty days' tyranny ". In the sphere of foreign policy Chatham had hoped to in- augurate a new system. He viewed with profound anxiety the dangerous isolation of Great Britain. The Family Compact of 1770J FOREIGN POLICY 1761 had closely united the Bourbon Coui-ts ; and, under Choiseul at Paris and Grimaldi at Madrid, Spain and France were pursu- ing common ends — the humiliation of England and the recovery of lost prestige and possessions. The re-organisation of their fleets, the removal of defects in administrative machinery re- vealed by the war, went on steadily. The Austro-French alliance of 1756 was another danger ; and in 1765 the association in Govern- ment of the ambitious Joseph II. with his mother Maria Theresa^ opened a new epoch in the aims of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, Governed by his essentially Whig dread of Bourbon supremacy, Chatham desired an anti-Bourbon system. This could only be found by a cordial understanding with Russia and Prussia, which, by including Holland and the Scandinavian States, would control the Baltic and the Levant as well as Central and Northern Europe. To Frederick therefore Chatham turned ; for the intimate relations between Berlin and St. Petersburg would secure Russia, if Prussia consented. But Frederick still nourished his resentment at Bute's " perfidy ". Nor would he risk the interests of Prussia on the uncertainty of a Chatham to-day and another Bute to-monow. Fredei'ick's attention was focussed, moreover, on the East. He did not fear the Bourbon Powers, but he had a wholesome respect for Catherine and Joseph II, To secure the one and checkmate the other was his ambition. Poland was his Naboth's vineyard and it was Catherine's also. He therefore coldly declined to consider the scheme of a comprehensive anti-Bourbon league. Had Great Britain retained the alliance of Prussia in 1763 it might have been , made the basis now of a system which would have prevented the nullity of Great Britain in European affairs fo±" the next twenty years. But the blunders of the past and the incompetence to come made the Boiu-bon intervention, if a suitable opportunity ai-ose, both safe and certain. Before Chatham could work out for Ireland and India the plans in contemplation, he was prostrated by gout, pgj,. 1767 which for two years clouded his intellect and practically removed him from politics. Grafton, now nominally chief, &om indolence and absorption in the turf, Euripides and Nancy Parsons, allowed the Cabinet to degenerate into a debating syndicate, in which the majority had theii' way and the minority skrugged their shoulders and protested on paper for the benefit of posterity. The one man who knew his own mind and worked hard was George III. The 244 THE NEW MONARCHY [1760- ascendency he had established by 1770 was the honestly won triumph of a personality, narrow but sincere, and of a system coherent in principle and method over the parody of both. After overtures to the Rockingham group had failed Grafton joined forces with the " Bloomsbury gang," the followers of Bedford, of all the gi'oups the most opposed both to his own views and those of Chatham. Gower became President of Council, Weymouth re- placed Conway, (who remained in the Cabinet to the satisfaction of Horace Walpole alone,) and a third Secretaryship of State for the Colonies was created for Hillsborough. This infusion was a fresh source of division, though it provided the King with zealous allies. Ministers now slipped or were pushed into a series of false steps and blundei-s. Townshend's proposal to continue the land tax at four shillings had been defeated by a coalition of the Rockingham and Grenville groups, the first defeat of a Minister on a money bill since 1688 ; but, unabashed, the Chancellor kept his boast that he would raise a revenue in America to pay for the troops, and recklessly ripped open the half -healed wound of colonial taxation. In addition to the rigorous enforcement of the trade regulations, duties were imposed on glass, paper, paints, and tea, and the receipts strictly June appropriated to American purposes. Having thus accomplished the easy task of translating the Declaratory Act into practice, and apparently impaling the colonists on the dilemma, either of i-esisting a customs duty or of paying money not imposed for the benefit of trade but for revenue, Townshend died. Humorous to the last, he left to his successor the duty of seeing that the colonists found a satisfactory answer to the conundrum. The colonial reply was what Ministers shoiiid have anticipated. The new taxes were denounced as a plain violation of the spirit and practice of the trade regulations, already sufficiently galling, as a fresh encroach- ment on the rights of self-taxation, and a proof that the imperial Pai'liament intended to snatch a treacherous acquiescence in its contested legal powers. Dickinson's " Farmer's Lettei-s " voiced the colonial protests ; and Samuel Adams found growing suppoii in his efforts to unite the colonies in combined action. The Massachusetts Assembly took the lead. It refused to withdraw a circular letter issued by Adams ; the law and the imperial Executive were openly defied. The division in the Cabinet was fatal to the success of any 1770] THE MIDDLESEX ELECTION 246 policy, The Bedford group, with the King behind them, were for the maintenance of the taxes and coercion if necessary. Grafton Camden, Granby, and Conway were for repeal. North (who had succeeded Townshend) was for total repeal, but gave way to the King, and consented to the compromise of the majority — the repeal, save of the duty on tea. And so the Ministers retained both their conflicting convictions and their offices. Bernard, the unpopular Governor of Massachusetts, was replaced by Hutchinson, and half the troops sent to overawe Boston were withdrawn. Bernard put his finger on the blot in the Ministerial policy. Unless the im- perial Executive was vigorously supported it was folly to threaten coercion which came to nothing. Such weakness only made the Government abettors in the defiance of the law. Either the principles laid down in the Declaratory Act must be enforced or the relations between colonies and mother country must be dras- tically revised. Had the King in 1768 dismissed Gtafton, and de- liberately maintained the righ't to tax at the point of the bayonet against total repeal and renunciation of the right, the royal policy might have succeeded ; but coercion and conciliation were alike damned by the vacillation of the next eight years. A regimen of periodic purges blended with palliatives was not statesmanship but political quackery. By 1768 the Administration had become Grafton's in name. Chatham resigned, and he was followed by Shelburne. Weymouth and Rochford now became joint Secretaries of State. The general Oct election of this year, notable for the increase in con'uption and the increased support to the King's Friends, was still more notable for a renewed collision with Wilkes. Having been defeated for the City of London, he was triumphantly returned for Middlesex. His reappearance in politics roused all the former enthusiasm and violence ; and when he surrendered to his outlawry a great mob on May 10th, the day of the meeting of Parliament, demanded his release from prison in order to attend the House. Weymouth, with the King's consent, had prepared to use military force, and in St. George's Fields the troops fired and killed several of the vast crowd. Wilkes, whose outlawry was reversed on technical grounds, had been condemned to twenty-two months' imprisonment ; he published Weymouth's letter to the magistrates, which he called a ■'bloody sa'oll," and charged him with planning a "massacre". 246 THE NEW MONARCHY [1760- Undeterred by previous experience, the Commons voted Wilkes's remarks a seditious libel, and expelled him on the ground that his Feb. 3, former conduct rendered him unfit to serve. Twice Wilkes was re- "^7^9 elected and twice the House quashed the election. The third time a Ministerial candidate was found in Colonel Luttrell, (brother to Mi-s. Horton who man-ied the Duke of Cumberland), but he only received 296 votes to 1143 recorded for Wilkes. Nevertheless the Commons with magnificent effi-ontery resolved that Luttrell " ought to have been returned," and declared him the duly elected member for Middlesex. The gravity of this extraordinary decision far exceeded that in the North Briton affair. The Commons had the right to expel a member on grounds of unfitness, of which they must be the sole judge. By law and custom they were the sole authority for de- ciding disputed elections. But both these privileges rested on the assumption that they would be exercised in accordance with law, and to vindicate the dignity of the House as a repi'esentative body, and not to indulge the capricious spleen of a temporary majority. By expelling Wilkes for acts for which he had already been punished, the Commons were acting vindictively. And now, by the resolution of a single chamber, they had created an incapacity unknown to the statute book ; and they had deprived an undisputed majority of the electora for Middlesex of a freehold right, secured by the law, whUe they had awarded the seat to a candidate with an undisputed minority of votes. This intolerable usurpation by a single chamber of legislative power for party purposes, and the cynical violation of legal rights was, as the protest of the peers pointed out in an unanswerable indictment, an assertion of a dis- pensing power and the subversion of representative government un- precedented and indefensible in law or policy. In vain Grenville and Burke in the Commons, Chatham, Rockingham, and the Opposi- tion in the Lords, fought for sanity and legality against the wishes of the King and his submissive majority. " Wilkes and liberty !" was no longer the cry of a demagogue with a grievance. It be- came the watch-word of all who valued constitutional government, and who saw what would follow if the King's victory was not chal- lenged until it was reversed. The widening breach between the nation and an irresponsible Crown, supported by an irresponsible Parliament, threatened to develop into a situation &om which a 1770] JUNIUS AND BURKE 847 cmip d'dtat or a revolutionary reform would be the only way ot escape. The acts and temper of the King and the Ministerial majority were a sinister comment on their attitude towards the general problem of government which was not lost on the American colonies. It was dawning on ardent minds on both sides of the Atlantic that the trusteeship of the heritage of self-government had fallen to the constitutional Opposition, who had a common interest in decisively defeating the policy that menaced the future even more than the present. The ferment and violence engendered by the Middlesex election found their bitterest expression in the famous letters of the anony- mous "Junius". Like the Man in the Iron Mask, Junius has become one of the unsolved riddles of history ; ^ and the mystery of the author's identity, coupled with his peculiar and intimate know- ledge, added spice and weight to his envenomed and polished invective. The lapses in taste and savage pei-sonalities of the letters add to, rather than detract from, then- value as historical documents, for they reproduce the dust and dirt of the brief age of Grafton. In the heat without light of Junius's indictments still glow the ashes of dead and forgotten quarrels. But while Junius was nailing the men he hated to a perishing pillory, the issues be- tween Crown and Opposition were stated in the Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontent ; and Burke at once carried the controversy into those bracing and purifying uplands of literature and political philosophy which aie a permanent school of states- i^y^ men. At the commencement of 1770 Camden, who had weakly bowed to the majority in the Cabinet, was encouraged by Chatham's fierce attack on the Ministry openly to declare against his colleagues, and was dismissed. The Great Seal was offered to Charles Yorke, son Jan- »7 of Lord Hardwicke, who accepted; and then, overcome by remorse and the reproaches of his friends, died, it was thought by his own hand. Grafton, filled with misgivings at his isolated position and J*"- 2° a policy opposed to his convictions, was driven to resign, and Con- !*"• *7 way and Granby retired with him. Lord North became First Lord of the Treasury, retaining also the Chancellorship of the Exchequer ; the Great Seal was put in commission, Mansfield presiding over the Upper House ; while a new Ministerial recruit was found in Thurlow, ' See Appendix VI. 248 THE NEW MONARCHY [1760- whose robust and coarse intellect and high views on prerogative made him acceptable to the King. The reconstruction of the Administration beneficially cleared- the situation and opened a new phase. By 1770 the King's tactics of pegging away had been rewarded by a steady consolidation of Tory- ism, i.e. of the classes opposed in sentiment to change, disgusted at the violence of the left wing in the Opposition, at home and in America, and rallying to a strong Crown, controlling policy and the Executive. George's hold on influential sections of the public had grown as his grip on the machinery of administi'ation tightened. The action of the majority in Parliament cannot be explained as simply the result of coiTuption, powerful and many-sided as that was. It would be unjust to represent the King as imposing a de- tested rigime on an unwilling nation. The significant vote in 1769 of half a million of money, without inquiry, to pay the debts of the Civil List (mainly incurred in swelling the corrupt influence of the Crown) corroborates inferences derivable from many sources, as to the temper of large classes. The vote was a deplorable sun-ender of parliamentary control, vainly protested against by the Whig leaders. Yet Mansfield, Thurlow, Weymouth, Holland, North, Gower, Sandwich, Samuel Johnson represent points of view defen- sible in principle and endorsed at the time perhaps by a majority in the country. No little of the contradictions in the acts of such men as Shelbume, Grafton, Conway, even of Chatham himself, weie due to an ill-concealed respect for the claims of the prerogative in the government of the empire. Political creeds from 1763-1793 were floundering in a dis- integrating flux. Until 1770 the Whig families fought against what they denounced, not always justifiably, as innovations in practice and custom. Toryism, growing under the leadei-ship of the Crown, took the offensive and pinned the old Whigs to the defensive. The Grafton Ministry roughly marks the date when the Opposition was reluctantly driven to a counter-offensive. This involved an embarrassing alliance with the nascent radicalism, which was beginning to demand not a return to an impossible status quo, but far-reaching reforms, and a structural renovation of principles, law, and machinery, with corresponding conventions to secure these in practice. Parliament, the Press, the sufirage, Church and State, taxation, corruption, Ministerial responsibility and the 1770] THE KING'S "SYSTEM" 249 connection of the Executive with the Legislature were fitted by degrees into the expanding programme. The adoption of a vigorous offensive along the whole line also involved the sloughing off' of much that was characteristic of the old Whiggism ; and, still more distasteful, a complete reconsideration by the great territorials as a class of their creed and attitude. The necessary synthesis of the old and the new was made more difficult by the series of crises in national policy and the break-up of the ecohomic and industrial organisation of society. But for the thirteen years after 1770 the Crown and its supporters are being pinned down in turn to the defensive. George fought to maintain what he had won, the Op- position to wrest supremacy fi'om him and substitute a different theory and a wholly different policy which would extirpate from law and custom "the system of George III.". The Toryism of 1770-83 came to be reactionary just because it was conservative. It was blind to the new needs ; it refused to recognise that revolu- tion would be the result of persistence in the principles of the King. Violence begot counter-violence ; the leaders on both sides doubled and redoubled their opponents' declai'ations. Hence the monaichy \\y 1783 was on a lee shore with a revolutionary gale blowing ; but it was Pitt, not George III., who weathered the storm with success more enduring than the opposition to the fierce hurricanes of the French Revolution epoch. Pitt in 1783 once again made Toryism a progressive creed. The deepening distrust of the aims and methods of the Crown in powerful intellects and influential sections was the most disquiet- ing feature of the situation in 1770. Nations, many of whose best minds and characters are driven to defy and defeat the convictions of a majority of their countrymen, are on the eve of disaster. By 1770 one great reputation had been established where so many had been maiTed. In 1766 Burke made his first speech in Parlia- ment on the colonial problem. On American, Indian, domestic, and foreign questions his trenchant exposition was stamped with the wealth of ideas, grasp of principles, and passionate energy that characterised every utterance of his pen and tongue till his death. Unhappily, defects of manner, temper, taste, and judgment prevented his influence on Parliament and public opinion from equalling (until the French Revolution epoch) the quality of his work as a writer, speaker, and political thinker. But on the circle, fit though few, «60 THE NEW MONARCHY [1760-70 of his intimates his influence was profound' and permanent. Garrick, Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds were as much in his debt as the Opposition leaders. Like Adam Smith, Burke was a master for the best minds of two generations. No one owed more to him than Chai'les James Fox, the third son of Lord Holland, who had entered Parliament as a minor in 1768. Until 1774 the young Fox revelled in " the wander years " of reactionary Whiggism. As yet he was simply a typical example of the gifted and dissipated young aristo- crats to whom politics was a game that might be as exciting as gambling away a fortune or making love to fashionable demi- nwndaines. It was the American question of the next thirteen years that brought Fox and the Whigs into open revolt, and un- mistakably set the battle in array between the system of Georgie in. and the system of the Opposition. The careers of Burke, the inspu'ed apostle of the old, of Fox destined to be the champion of the new, Whigs, illustrate most aptly the forces and ideals that underlay the disintegration and renovation of the Whig party. NoTK. — The six volumes of the Hon. Sir J. W. Fortescue's Correspond- ence of George III. are indispensable on the period from 1760-1783 and should be compared with the Letters oj Horace Walpole (16 voIh. £ Afghan military settlers recently established in the region north of Oudh. 290 THE DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIUE [1778- Council quashed the treaty and drew up another with a rival claimant. War with the Mahrattas followed, marked by military failures, and at this point France stepped in ; French officei-s ap- 1778 peai'ed at Poona, and were inspiring Haidar and the Nizam, who had been alienated by the incompetence of the Bombay authorities. A great alliance of the Mahiattas, the Deccan, and Haidar Ali, was coming together, whose object was to expel the British from India. The French fleet was expected, and Great Britain was not able to spare money, men, or the necessary ships. British rule had to be saved by the resources and brains on the spot, and British prestige had been lowered in the South and the West. " Acts," said Hastings, "which proclaim confidence and a determined spirit in the hour of adversity, are the surest means of retrieving it." He sent Goddard to aid the weak Bombay government. Ahmeda- bad was captured and Sindhia defeated. Popham captured the fortress of Gwalior. The Nizam and the Gaekwar were detached fe'cm the alliance. In the South Haidar, fully prepared, burst on the Carnaticand the unprepared Madras authorities, defeated (4ieir forces at Pollilur, took Arcot, and threatened Madras. Hastings suspended the Govemori and despatched the veteran Sir Eyre Coote, July, 1781 who by a series of victories at Porto Novo, Pollilur, Solingarh, Jan., 1782 and Vellore added to his reputation and restored the damaged credit of our arms. I'ondicherry and Mahe had already in 1778 been seized, and the Dutch stations at Trincomalee and Negapatam captured ; when in 1781 a superior French fleet under the Bailli de Sufiren appeared, and fought five indecisive actions with the British commander Hughes. Cuddalore fell, and Trincomalee was recaptured. Suffi-en's skill had given the French the command 1783 of the sea. Peace was then made with the Mahrattas, which enabled our efforts to be concentrated on Haidar in the Camatic. Tippu, Dec, 1782 Haidar's son, succeeded to his father ; and when the Treaty of Vei-- sailles withdrew France from the war, he made peace with the March ii, Madras Goveniment on the basis of mutual sun-ender of conquests. 1784 In the terrible strain of this contest two episodes subsequently figured conspicuously in the impeachment of Hastings. In 1781 Cheyt Singh, the Rajah of Benares, one of our vassals who refused the demands made upon him, was heavily fined, himself reduced, and his estates confiscated. The Begums of Oudh, mother and widow of the late Nawab, refused to restore the ti-easure of the 1782] CHARGES AGAINST HASTINGS 291 State to the ruling Nawab-Wazir, who was thus unable to meet his obligations to the Company. In each of these cases the financial aid to the embanassed treasury of the Company may have played a part in Hastings' policy. But fai- more than finance was at issue in the transaction. Hastings was determined, and entitled, to enforce the obligations of " protected " dependents to the para- mount Power. In Oudh two grave issues were at stake. The treasure illegally seized by the Begums did not belong to them — but to the Nawab-rWazir, our ally and dependent. There was unim- peachable evidence (produced at Hastings' trial) that the Begums were concerned in a conspiracy with other rulers, the avowed object of which was to root out the English from India. So long as the Begums held the treasure good government in Oudh was impossible ; and the State was a dangerous menace to British authority as well as to its neighbours. Hastings, on broad grounds, was determined to disarm the conspiracy and place the Nawab-Wazir in a position not merely to can-y out his obligations, but to ensure that Oudh should be an efficient, well-governed, and " subsidiary " buffer State be- tween Bengal and the turbulent North-west The vindication of the Wazir's authority was therefore essential, and Hastings did not shrink from the measures necessary to achieve this. He rejected the counter-policy of the Opposition in Council — to leave Oudh impotent, misgoverned, the prey alike of the Company and its greedy and powerful native foes. Neither then nor since did he waver in his conviction that his policy was both politically expedient and morally right. And the, subsequent examination of the evidence at the impeachment, confirmed by modern historical critics, ended in a verdict of acquittal from charges inspired by the fiendish animosity of Francis and the exuberant ignorance of Sheridan. In both cases British rule benefited by the result, and Hastings had to suffer the penalty. Similarly in the ti-agic fate of Nandu Kumar (Nuncomar), an unscrupulous and dangerous intriguer, impartial investigation has cleared Hastings of an unjust indictment. Nandu Kumar had charged Hastings with corruption, and the Governor-General had brought a counter-charge of conspiracy against him. On a private March, charge of forgery Nandu Kumar was tried, condemned, and executed. ^775 His death relieved Hastings of an opponent, formidable because he was supported by the Opposition in Council ; but there is no proof that Hastings insphed the charge of forgery or thought Nandu 292 THE DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE [l778-8j Kumar innocent, or made the law by which he was hanged, or in any way manipulated the trial. The judges were unanimous — a striking fact in Hastings' favour ; and, still more sti'iking, a bitterly hostile Council refused to intervene or prevent the sentence from being earned out. During the most critical period of his rule Hastings was thwarted by his Council with inscrutable perversity. From 1774 to 1776 his opponents, led by Philip Fi-ancis, who has the best title to be regarded as " Junius," had a majority which they used to blacken the Governor-General's character and to revei-se and nullify his policy. After the death of Monson, one of the Council, Hastings' supremacy until 1782 rested on his casting vote ; and so bitter was the struggle that in 1780 he deliberately risked his life to fight a duel with Francis (who was guilty of a gross breach of faith), in order to end the opposition one way or another. After 1782, and until his retirement in 1785, he was much hampered by the directoi-s at home. Nevertheless he worked to consolidate, by internal reforms, the dominions he had saved for the Crown. The administrative system that he organised in Bengal marked an epoch ; " it remains essentially the system of the present day ". Nor were his efPurts confined to finance and administration. In 1764 he had attempted imsuccessfully to establish a Professorehip of Persian at Oxford; he promoted topographical surveys, founded the Asiatic Society and the Calcutta Madrisa for encouraging Mohammedan culture. In foreign policy his insight and mastery of the facts stamped his measures with that quality of statesmanship which solves the problems of the day on principles that can be adapted to the needs of the future. His object, he said, "was to make the British nation paramount in India, and to accept the allegiance of such of our neighbours as shall sue to be enlisted among the friends and allies of the King of Great Britain ". In other words, by inaugurating the system of " subsidiary alliances," through which the native rulere became allied and protected States of the para- mount power, he created the instrument by which political ascend- ency could march hand in hand with internal reform. And when he retired he could proudly plead that he left " the provinces of my immediate administration in a state of peace, plenty, and security ". During his impeachment the numerous and spontaneous addresses from native communities testifying to the gratitude that 1782-84] THE CROWN AND THE WHIGS his sei-vices and character had inspired, long after he had ceased to hold power, are the most telling evidence of his ideals and record. But both his difficulties, his mistakes, and his splendid achievements combined to point an unmistakable moral. A legislative recon- struction of the fabric of the government of India and a revision of the powei-s of the Chartered Company were mattera that states- men at home could no longer burke. * § 8. The Crown and the Whigs. Maech 20th, 1782 — March 25th, 1784. The brief duration of the Rockingham Ministry illustrated the aims and zeal of the Whigs. In Fox's words they wished "to give a good stout blow to the influence of the Crown ''. The revenue officers, whose votes were reputed to turn seventy boroughs, were disfranchised ; contractors were prevented from sitting in Parlia- ment. Economic reform was promoted in a Bill which cut down secret-service money and the pension list, abolished various sine- cures, and saved the public funds about £72,000. But for the strenuous objections of the King, whonfound two valuable allies in the Cabinet — Thurlow and Shelbume, Burke's Bill would have con'esponded more exactly with the sweeping changes advocated by himself in Opposition. Burke himself set a noble example by the self-denying limitation that he imposed on the bloated emolu- ments hitherto enjoyed by the Paymaster- General ; but the grant of pensions to the Chancellor, Dunning, and Col. Ban-e did the Ministry no little harm. The dangerous and unconstitutional proceedings of the Commons in the Middlesex election were deliberately reversed. Wilkes, who since 1774 had taken his seat for Middlesex, had annually moved that the disqualifying resolution of February, 1769, be expunged from the Journals of the House ; the motion was now earned and the record solemnly erased.^ The wider ques- tion of parliamentary reform — of the franchise and the redistribu- tion of seats — which went to the root of Crown influence and the relations of the Legislature to the over-represented and the non- represented, was raised by Pitt's motion for an inquiry into the existing system. Though cordially supported by Richmond in the ' See Appendices VIII and XXII. = Wilkes died in 1797 in the odour of Toryism, " reconciled to every reputable opponent from the King downwards "- 294 THE DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE [1782^ Cabinet and by Fox in the House, the Ministry treated it as an open matter and it was rejected by twenty votes (161-141). Coerced by Grattan, the Cabinet conceded with considerable reluctance the demand for the legislative independence of Ireland. Resolutions, subsequently expi-essed in statutes, swept away Poyn- ings' Law and the Declaratory Act (6 Geo. I.). A later Renun- '783 ciation Act due to Flood reiterated "the exclusive right of the Parliament and courts of Ireland in matters of legislation and judicature," and restored the appellate jurisdiction of the Irish House of Lords. A limited Mutiny Act was also passed. This legislation completed the unconditional freedom of the Irish Parlia- ment fi'om the British Legislature and established a dual system of government. The Crown apparently was left the sole link be- tween an independent Great Britain and an independent Ireland. Grattan's question " whether we shall be a Pi-otestant settlement or an Irish nation," was not answered. The new regime starteo with a Parliament at Dublin, endowed with powei-s of taxation and legislation and uncontrolled by the formal fettere of the previous restricting statutes. But the gravest evils of Ireland — a corrupt and non-representative Legislature, political and religious disabili- ties, an unjust and complex agrarian economy — were as yet un- touched. Burke's comparison of the Revolution of 1782 to that of 1688 was superficial and illusory. In 1783, Ireland, unlike the modem colony, was not dowered with responsible self-government The heads of her Executive were not responsible to the Irish Par- liament ; they were appointed by and obeyed the British Cabinet and carried out the policy of the party with a majority in the British Parliament. This fundamental contradiction between a supreme Legislature and an irresponsible Executive could only be harmonised, either by further drastic changes, or by " influence," i.e. by permanently securing a parliamentary majority organised to accept without question the policy of that Executive. Hence the Revolution of 1782, so far from diminishing British "influence," of necessity intensified the motives and increased the sum of its degiading and sterilising efforts. Though futile under the circum- stances, the reluctance of Shelburne and Fox to grant uncondition- ally the programme of the volunteers was intelligible. For in 1782 one of the golden opportunities rarely offered by Fate, and never twice, was let slip. Had a sane, liberal, and cleansing measure of 1784] PEACE NEGOTIATIONS 296 parliamentary reform been made the necessary preliminary to the Repeal and Renunciation Acts, the record of "Grattan's Parlia- ment" would not have been one of accumulated failm-es, culminating in the red ruin of 1798. The formative and healing forces of the new Ireland had grown up and attained maturity outside the walls of Parliament. At Dungannon, not at College Green, were most truly voiced the aspirations of a nation's new spirit. But " the Revolution of 1782" by the mockery of legislative independence shut the door on the life outside and imprisoned the future of Ireland in a Legislature, the corrupt control of which it was the interest and determination of the British Executive to maintain. The sequel showed how Pitt was driven by a logic he could not master to the extinction of the Irish Parliament, and to an incor- porating union as the least disadvantageous remedy for an intoler- able and apparently insoluble situation. The making of peace was the most critical of the Ministry's tasks. The French conviction that at Yorktown the sun of British power had set had been rudely shaken by Rodney's victory ; and the am- bition of Spain to add the capture of Gibraltar to that of Minorca was again foiled by the skill and adamantine resolution of Eliott. De Crillon, the victor of Minorca, made a supreme eifort to destroy the fortress by an overwhelming bombardment from the sea ; but the attempt failed with great loss to the besiegers, knd Howe's sept. 8-25 masterly relief of the gallant garrison was the finishing touch to Oct. 12 Eliott's heroic defence. Negotiations were already being actively pushed. Had the Ministry taken full advantage of the distressed and disorganised condition of the Americans and the improvement in quality and number of our ships the diplomatic position might have been made more favourable ; but the Whigs had come in to grant independence, and the Americans were pledged not to conclude a treaty without their allies. Two difficulties hampered the British Cabinet. Colonial Affairs belonged to Shelbume as Home Secre- tary, Foreign Affairs to Fox. At Paris, Oswald negotiated with Franklin, while Thomas Grenville represented Fox's dealings with Ver- gennes. Shelbume desired to make the concession of independence the condition of a concurrent settlement with France, in which he was supported by the King. Fox wished to separate America from the Bourbons by conceding independence at once, which would have left us free to concentrate on the European coalition and also 296 THE DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE [1782- transfer the whole negotiation to the Foreign Secretaiy. The difference as to method was aggravated by Fox's distrust of Shel- burne's sincerity and ultimate aims — a distrust shared by eveiy one who was brought into intimate political relations with the Home Secretary. Shelbume's ability, knowledge, and industry are un- questionable. He kept closely in touch with the best minds of the day ; he was the first political leader to assimilate the ideas of Adam Smith ; his patronage of Bentham, of learning and the fine arts, proved the breadth and variety of his intellectual interests ; but his nickname of "Malagrida" and "the Jesuit of Berkeley Square" testified not merely to his general unpopularity, but to a conviction among politicians that as a colleague, for all his remarkable gifts, he was impossible. Pitt's marked omission of him from his Cabinet next year, after he had sei-ved under him, confirms a verdict first pronounced by Henry Fox in 1762. To Shelbume indeed might be applied Canning's remark about Sidmouth. He was like the measles. Every one had to have him once ; no one would have him twice unless he could not help it. Rockingham alone could keep the party together ; and his death on July 1st brought the rupture between the two Secretai'ies of State and the divisions in the ranks of the Whigs to a head. Many of the Whigs, including Fox, held strongly the view laid down by Grafton in 1765, that it was for the Cabinet and the party to choose Rockingham's successor, and their principle was reinforced by their determination to pare down the influence of the Crowa But on the purely constitutional point they were cleai-ly wrong. The selection of a Chief or Prime Minister belonged by right, usage, and convenience to the Crown, and the evolution of a true Cabinet system required that it should be retained as part of the royal prerogative. Fox had already quite correctly pointed out tliat Rockingham's Administration really consisted of two parts, " one belonging to the King and the other to the public " ; and when George III. now invited Shelbume to form a Ministry he declined to serve under him. His decision was sound. Shelburne's views on prerogative and the influence of the Crown were diametrically opposed to his own ; he had virtually quan-elled with him over the peace negotiations, and he had no confidence in the policy, aims, and sincerity of the new Premier — a title that Shelbume signifi- cantly repudiated. Even if he erred in his interpretation, it was 1784] THE PEACE OF VERSAILLES 297 his duty not to sei"ve under a leader whom he thoroughly distrusted. Fox's resignation was followed by those of Portland, Lord John Cavendish, Burke, Sheridan, and later by Keppel and Grafton. Unfortunately, Fox's conduct had all the appearance of being in- spired by factious pei-sonal jealousy ; it puzzled the public, angered the King, and alienated Pitt, who at the ajre of twenty-three now became Chancellor of the Exchequer. The political rivalry of Pitt and Fox, repeating the rivalry of their fathers forty yeai-s before, dated from that day. Pitt, though he had sided with the Whigs in their attacks on North, had to the full Chatham's ambition, pride, hatred of "faction and party connection," and already his views on public policy differed vitally from those of Fox. The separation of the two leaders was inevitable if regrettable. Hence- forward every year only made the gulf between them wider. Shelbunie's Ministry pushed the peace negotiations with vigour and skill. The preliminaries with the Americans were settled by November 20, 1783. The Ti-eaty of Versailles then definitely Sept closed the war. A new epoch for the American continent, for Europe, and for Great Britain, opened with the frank recognition of the sovereignty and independence of the United States. The Mississippi was taken as the boundary of the West, and a line drawn through the Great Lakes sepai'ated Canada from the new Republit The French obtained concessions, but not as many or as valuable as they had expected. Tobago in the West Indies, a re- definition of the right to the Newfoundland Fisheries with the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon in sovereignty, Senegal and Goree in West Africa, the restoration of her commercial stations in India, the abandonment of our claim for the destruction of the fortifica- tions at Dunkii-k were her chief gains. Spain received from Great Britain Minorca and East Florida, but restored the Bahama Islands (already recovered), and admitted the right to cut logwood in the Bay of Honduras. But though the cession of Gibraltar was dis- cussed in the Cabinet, and the King was not unwilling to barter it for some valuable compensation, the firmness of Pitt and Shelburne retained the key to the Meditenanean in our hands. With Holland a mutual restitution of conquests was aiTanged, save that England retained Negapatam. The prior recognition of American independ- ence much assisted our diplomacy, thereby proving that Fox's plan had been the sound one. But while the grant of independence came 298 THE DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE [I78t- dii-ect from Great Britain and not as a gift fi-om France and Spain, the methods of the American diplomatists left much to be desired. Pledged not to make a treaty apart from their ally, France, to whose intervention in the war they owed so much, the Americans did not hesitate to aiTange privately with Great Britain everything but the formal conclusion of the treaty; nor would they in the hour of triumph concede to the " Loyalists " more than a vague recommenda- tion to Congress that their claims should be considered. The complete disregard of this futile reference, probably foreseen by Franklin and his colleagues, placed the supporters of Great Britain at the mercy of vindictive victors. To the honour of our Govern- ment, and the dishonour of the United States, British Minister were obliged to provide for the many thousands of men and women to whom the defeat of their cause meant misery and ruin. The establishment of the United Empire Loyalists brought some ten thousand "Tory" settlers from the American colonies under the British flag, subsequently to become the backbone of the mai'itime provinces of Canada. It is remarkable also that the great colonial struggle produced singularly little change in the principles and practice, administrative and economic, of our colonial system. If any moral was di'awn, it was not that drastic reform was needed, as that reform was useless. Colonies would, in Turgot's phrase, drop off like ripe fruit from the parent tree, and it was idle to try to avert what was inevitable in the nature of things. For the dawning of a new epoch and the adoption of new principles, we have to wait half a centuiy for Papineau's rebellion and the epoch- C840 making Report of Lord Durham, which appealed to a generation saturated with the economics and the political thought that took their rise in Adam Smith, and the victory of reform at home. As a whole, the terms of peace were as satisfactory as could be expected ; but the Opposition was determined to desti-oy the Ministry. Shelburne, aware of the weakness of the Government, desired to come to terms with North, but the Cabinet preferred through Pitt to sound Fox, who adhered to his refusal to serve with Shelbume. Fox then made the cardinal blunder of his life. He united with North, defeated the Administration in the Com- Peb. 24, mons, and Shelbume resigned. After six weeks spent in vain by '783 the King in desperate efforts to escape the triumphant junction of the man whom he most hated wili the ungrateful "deseiter" I7M] THE COALITION MINISTRY 299 from the Crown, the famous Coalition Ministry of Fox and North, who became Foreign and Home Secretaries respectively, under the nominal leadership of the Duke of Portland, came into office. The AprU a other important members of the Cabinet were Lord John Cavendish (Chancellor of the Exchequer), Carlisle (Privy Seal), Stormont (Lord President), and Keppel (the Admiralty). It was significant that Thurlow, the King's most trusted representative, disappeared, and the Great Seal was put in commission. The majority of the Administration in the Commons was irre- sistible, and Fox intended to use it to establish the supremacy of a responsible Cabinet and of Parliament, and to caiiy out a far- reaching programme in finance, Indian affairs, and foreign policy — to destroy piecemeal the system of personal government by an iri'esponsible Sovereign. Parliamentary reform was left an open question ; but the composition and terms of the coalition confirmed the King's worst fears that he had fallen bound hand and foot to the mercies of Fox and the new Whiggism. It was North who had surrendered to Fox, not Fox to North.^ But if the objects of the coalition are creditable to Fox's earnest sincerity and prin- ciples, the new Ministry was an unpardonable and incomprehensible blunder. No one had condemned North with more vehemence and effect than Fox. Unless ends justified means the coalition seemed to proclaim the determination of two unscrupulous opponents to seal an artificial union by office obtained by any methods and at any price. Fox had quarrelled with Shelburne and broken with Pitt. He now apparently obtained a personal revenge by turning them out and syndicating their offices between himself and the statesman whom he had threatened with impeachment. Fox, in fact, supplied chapter and verse to the critics who called him a dissipated gambler, to whom politics were a game the only purpose of which was to score the odd trick. He defied the public as well £18 the Crown. And the plain man had this in common with George III. — he neither wished for nor could understand an ex- planation of conduct that perhaps could be, but sorely needed to 1 " If you mean there should not be a government by departments, I agree with you. I think it is a very bad system. There should be one man or a Cabinet to govern the whole and direct every measure. Government by departments was not brought in by me ; I found it so . . , the appearance of power is all that a King of this country can have " (North in Fox'i Memoirs, 2, 38). 800 THE DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE [i78i be, explained. Worst of all, Fox shattered the instrument — a united Whig party based on popular support — on which his sole hope, not of success in the narrow sense, but of enduring and bene- ficial reforms, rested. In the spring of 1783 the trump cards were in his hands. Shelburne was disliked by the King and unpopular with his colleagues. Twelve months of the tactful neutrality of the candid friend would have rallied the forces of Whiggism within and without the Administi'ation to Fox's leadership. Like Mirabeau he had to purge the sins of his youth. Unlike Mirabeau he would have been in a position before long to dictate his terms without sacrifice of consistency, principles, or popular approval. Nothing now but success could justify so audacious and be- wildering a shake of the party kaleidoscope. And success was what George III. intended the Ministry should not have. It was wittily said that when the new Ministers kissed hands the King put back his eai-s with the air of the vicious hoi-se determined to throw a detested rider. To the King Fox's industry in office, deference, and wonderful pei-sonal charm were only the devil's gifts to a political lago. And to destroy the " tyrants '' George III. was ready to use every resource that the Crown could provide or devise. The rejection of Pitt's motion for parliamentary reform, though supported by Fox, and the compromise over the allowance from the Civil List to the Prince of Wales, who followed the Hanoverian tradition in giving the warm support of the heir to the throne to the political opponents Nov. 18 of the reigning Sovereign, were mere preliminaries. Fox took his fortune in both hands when he brought forward his two India Bills to deal with the problem of Indian government. The way had been prepared by the reports of two Committees in 1781, by the deadlock created by the refusal of the proprietors to recall Wan-en Hastings at the request of the Secretary of State, and by the dropping of Dundas's private Bill to reform the govern- ment of India. Fox's comprehensive measures were largely inspii-ed by Burke, who since 1765 had taken the deepest interest in Indian affaii-s. He proposed to transfer the political, administrative and patronage powers of the Company to seven Commissioners nomi- nated in Parliament, holding office for four years, and conti-olling as trustees the property of the Company. For commercial business and the management of the property a subordinate Council of Directors was to be created, acting under the conti-ol of the superior 1784J FOX'S INDIA BILLS 801 Board and selected by Parliament fi-om the proprietoi-s of £2000 stock. Vacancies in this subordinate Board were to be filled up by the Court of Propiietors. After four years the superior Com- missioners were to be nominated by the Crown, i.e. on the advice of its confidential sei-vants. The second Bill dealt with the chief abuses of Indian administration — monopolies, presents, the employ- ment of mercenary troops, and so forth. But criticism fastened at once on the first Bill, which vitally affected the vested interests of a powerful company with great financial and political influence. It seemed to shift a vast patronage, worth it was calculated £300,000 a year, not from the Company to the Crown, but to a political pai-ty who, it was asserted, would use it to debauch Parliament, and gild the chains of a new political slavery. The fact that the seven Commissioners nominated were all supporters of Fox's party lent plausible colour to the charge. Thurlow, Pitt, and Dundas saw their chance and at once made the measure a party question. Pitt voiced both the interested attacks of the Company and the unjust assertion of political opponents that Fox aimed at placing "the diadem on his own head". He ignored the object of the bill, which was to secure the resumption of imperial rights, to remedy on the sound principle of parliamentary control the anta- gonism between the accidentally-acquired political power of the Company and its commercial functions, the abuses to which this had led, and the necessity of co-ordinating policy in India with policy at home. There is no reason to suppose that the predicted abuses would have followed ; there is every reason to suppose that the measure would have been beneficial to the government and peoples of India. The bill was a sincere and statesman-like effort to deal with a great problem on comprehensive lines ; but George III., Pitt, Thurlow, and the East India Company did not consider nor appai-ently wish to consider it on its meiits. Every effort to inflame popular feeling and the prejudices of the vested interests was em- ployed. Fox, not the imperial problem, was made the issue. And, what was most regrettable, Pitt by lending himself to these unscrupu- lous tactics tied his own hands for the future treatment of imperial administration in India. Foiled in the Commons, where the Bill was caii'ied by a large majority, the King stooped and stooped low to conquer. He authorised Lord Temple to influence votes in the Lords by informing waverei-s (ti-uly enough) that any one voting for 802 THE DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE [1782- the Bill " would be considered as a personal enemy to the Crown ", Pitt was probably cognisant of this unconstitutional and dishonour- able expedient.^ Sixteen years later in the matter of Roman Catholic emancipation, George III. taught him as he taught Fox now what mischief superstitions and fixed ideas could work; and unhappily the King succeeded now as he succeeded in 1800. On December 17th the Bill was thrown out in the Upper House by nineteen votes. The next day the King, with giaceless haste, dis- missed by a message the Secretaries of State; and at the age of twenty-four Pitt accepted the invitation to form a Ministry and defy the Opposition. The new Cabinet, with the exception of Pitt, who combined the offices of Fii-st Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, was drawn from the Upper House — Thui'low (Chancel- lor), Gower (Lord President), Rutland (Privy Seal), and Caermarthen and Sydney (Secretaries of State). Shelburne, as already noted, was significantly passed over. The Opposition, however, were con- fident of a speedy return to office, for their maj ority in the Commons was overwhelming, and they affected to treat Pitt's experiment as a boyish freak : A sight to make surrounding nations stare, A kingdom trusted to a schoolboy's care. But under the mature leadei^ship of Fox mistake was piled on mistake. Fox should have been content to place on record the solemn protest of the House at the dangerous and unconstitutional action of the Crown, and then given the new Minister a fair chance. It was his duty and his interest to demand an appeal forthwith to the nation, to convince every moderate man that he cared more for principles than for office, to give time for the heated feelings aroused by the India Bill to evaporate in the larger air of the constituencies, to prove that he could be just and generous if his opponents could not. Instead, he showed that a dissolution was the one thing that he feai-ed, a return to office the one thing that he desu-ed, and he used his majority to throw oUt Pitt's first India Bill and to force motion after motion, making all government impossible. He forgot that the King was fighting also for a principle — the prerogative to ' See the letter of Pitt to Rutland of December 6th (Rutland Correspondence, p. 5) ; Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, 3, 393 ; Grafton's Autobiography, p. 383 ; and cf. Salomon's Pitt, i., 134. 1784J THE CROWN AND THE WHIGS 308 select and dismiss Ministers — and that the final verdict lay not with the Commons,, nor with the Crown, but with electors and public opinion. Pitt's conduct was as faultless as his rival's was faulty. His serene courage on the Treasury Bench and his refusal of a rich sinecure, the Clerkship of the Pell?, repeating his father's supei'b contempt for the material rewards of royal favour, inspired a glow- ing admiration. He broadened the issue at stake into one which raised the rights and place of the Crown in government. By a stroke of rai'e intuition he claimed to be the champion of a sane Toryism against a coalition of renegade Whigs (under North) and factious Radicals (under Fox). He thus evaded the issues on which Fox might have fought with advantage and challenged battle on ground where Fox was compelled to fight with every disadvantage The hostile majority leaked steadily away; public opinion rallied daily to the young Minister, and on March 25th, 178-1, Parliament was dissolved, and with it was also dissolved Fox's party. The election cost the Opposition 160 seats — "Fox's Martjn's" they were not unti'uly called. It was not a defeat ; it was a rout But the nation voted not for the King's system as he understood it, but for Pitt against Fox, and also for what with sound instinct the nation divined were Pitt's principles and the use he would make of supremacy.! The struggle between the Crown and the Whigs is not an edifying episode. During no other period of his reign was the King's behaviour so unworthy of his position and his duties. His pei-sonal conduct revealed the worst side of a narrow and bigoted nature. Nor in order to gain his ends was it necessary to sacrifice the grace, dignity, generosity, and sincerity that so easily would have won sympathetic admu-ation. His interpretation of his official duties is even less defensible. George III. invariably expected his Ministers to behave in their relations to the Crown like honourable gentlemen ; while if he disliked either their character or their policy, however unreasonably, he considered himself entitled to a plenary absolution from the code that remained binding on them. Resent- ment at the methods or steps taken to prevent the public sei-vice being hampered by royal insincerity or intrigues he regarded as a personal affront and an additional reason for further loading the dice or queering the cards. Neither Rockingham, Shelburne, nor Fox expected the King's pei-sonal confidence ; but so long as they ' See Appendix XXII. 804 THE DISRUPTION OF THE EMPIRE li782. were the confidential servants of the Crown, accepted by the Sove- reign, the King abused his powei-s and failed in his duties if he publicly assented to their policy and then behind their backs tra- duced their charactei-s, thwarted their measures, and intrigued with their opponents to overthrow them. For two years this is what George III. did, relying on the obvious inability of the Ministerial victims of his royal code of ethics to retaliate with like methods. If the King disliked the India Bills he was entitled to dismiss the Ministei-s who insisted on introducing them. If Pai-liament refused its confidence to the new Ministers he was entitled to dissolve. If the nation placed that Ministi-y in a minority the Crown must give way. Had George III. dismissed Fox and North in the autumn of 1783 and then dissolved, his conduct could not be criticised. Instead he assented to the introduction of the Bill and then fomented the opposition to it secretly, invited the advice of mesponsible critics^ and finally — an act for which he was well aware he could not bs made responsible — consolidated the royal plot against his own servants by the authorised use of the royal name. Such conduct, intrinsically dishonourable, was destructive of any sound system oi constitutional monarchy and parliamentaiy government. It was 4 menace to the Ministerial system from the consequences of which the Crown was only saved by the tactical blundei's of the Opposition and the skilful leadei"ship of Pitt. The issue of the struggle brought out many points of great historical interest. We are still a long way from the Victorian Cabinet system, and the Victorian conventions and customs with regard to the place and functions of a constitutional Crown. Pitt's Pai'liamentary duel and the general election, when compared with the action of William IV. and Peel in 1834, illustrate not merely the astonishing power of the Crown in 1784, but the strong if vague desire of the nation that the Sovereign should not be rele- gated to the position of the Peishwa. How this position was to be reconciled with parliamentary supremacy was left to the future. Fox's ci'ushing defeat conclusively proves how public opinion once aroused could override all the limitations and defects of the fran- chise, and make even the unsatisfactory representative system of 1784 an organ of the nation's wishes. Walpole's and Chatham's careers had also shown the same result ; Pitt learned it again in 1791, and it was enforced up to the hilt after 1793 It was facts 1784J DEATH OF ARISTOCRATIC WHIGGISM 305 such as these which furnished the opponents of reform with their strongest arguments ; whether their standpoint was like that of Buiko, a reasoned and philosophic dissent from the principles and objects of the Reformers, or like that of the King and the King's Friends, hostility to change simply because it was change, and be- cause reform would destroy the basis of their power and influence. Yet the situation in 1784 was not a return to that of 1770. Pitt was not a North, nor had he any intention of playing North's pait. If like Bismarck in 1862 he had rallied to the Crown and defied a Pai'liamentary majority, like Bismarck he desired to use the forces and resources of the Crown not to cany out the Crown's policy but his own. Like Strafl^ord in 1628, he attacked from 1780- 82 a weak, blundering and incompetent Monarchy, working thi'ough a vicious system as a public danger. With genius astonishing in a young man of twenty-four, he understood that he had in 1784 now received a mandate to go forward not to go back. His power would continue so long as he fitly interpreted national feeling. Territorial and aristocratic Whiggism was dead. Liberalism under Fox had its forty years of wandering in the wilderness to fulfil. With 1784 we cross the threshold into the Age of the new and constructive Toryism of which Pitt is the prophet. George III. had hunted with teai-s for another docile instrument, and he had found instead a master. A great place was now vacant and Pitt proved his greatness simply by filling it. Note. — For the General Election of 1784 see Appendix XXII. On George III. : Hon. Sir J. W. Fortescue, Correspondence of George III. (1760- 1783), 6 vols., 1928. This entirely replaces the earlier book by Donne. The editor's comments and interpretation can be separated from the letters. Dr. Holland Rose's Life of Pitt (1912) is the most recent and critical biography ; vol. i. deals with Pitt down to 1789. ZO 806 PITT AND THE NEW TORYISM [1784 CHAPTER III PITT AND THE NEW TORYISM (1784-1792). 'T'HE nine years that precede the formation of the Fii-st Coalition against Revolutionary France have an interest and quality peculiarly then* own. They are years of unbroken peace for Great Britain, inserted between the seven years of war in which the empire was disintegrated and the twenty-two yeai-s of the Titanic struggle with the Revolution and Napoleon, in which the British State fought rather for existence than for supremacy. It is the period in which the basis of the Industrial Revolution is laid ; of consolidating internal reform and successful foreign policy, ruth- lessly cut short by the unforeseen revolution in the Europe of the ancien rigirm. Above all the decade from the autumn of 1783 to March, 1793, is unified by the pei-sonality and achievements of the young Minister, heir to fulfilled renown. Across the record is written in each session the name of William Pitt. The need for a new departure, for a healing and constructive policy, was absolute. Great Britain was without allies, and her prestige and place in the councils of Europe had sunk to a lower ebb than had been touched since the Hanoverian dynasty ascended the throne. Abroad, it was commonly believed that our sun had at last begun to set, and that the British State was doomed to sink to the second rank. Ireland and India called for legislative tieat- ment. Our national finance was demoralised and disorganised. The balance sheet showed a deficit of .£12,500,000 ; the 3 per cents, stood at 57 and the National Debt had risen to ^^224,000,000 of funded, and ^£"20,000,000 of unfunded, obligations. The gangrene of extravagance, maladministration, and corruption was coiToding every organ of the body politic. Economic reform had been proved by Burke to be not a controveraial issue between warring parties, but an imperative political and financial necessity, a categorical 1792] WILLIAM PITT 807 precondition of any iiope of restoring a sicli and dispirited nation to a clean, healthy, and growing life, The parliamentary machine, clogged by the personal system of George III., had lost the national confidence. Commerce .was strangled by an antiquated fiscal code that fostered smuggling and bred administrative incompetence and jobbery. Great Britain needed a new way of life. The popular voice with unemng instinct repudiated by its votes in 1784 alilie the King's Friends and the old orthodox Opposition ; it expressed a conviction that the new ideals and the new methods would only come if at all fi-om a new man, and it looked to the son of Chatham to be that man. The career of William, the younger, Pitt is exceptional in evei-y feature. On the boy, born in the year of victory, 1759, had been centred from the first his father's dearest affections and ambitions. Chatham's son naturally inherited a great name and a great tra- dition ; he roused great expectations. And when he made his maiden speech in the House of Commons men pronounced with a thrill that this was not a chip from the old block, but the old block itself. In our political annals it is not easy to find a parallel for a father and son so unquestionably endowed with the genius that brought both into the first rank of statesmanship, while father and son alike stamped on their generation the same indefinable and ineffaceable impression of power. Pitt was bom into the purple of the PremiM-ship. Chancellor of the Exchequer at twenty-three, he was Prime Minister before he was twenty-five. When he died in 1806 he had been at the head of Government for a longer period than any statesman save Walpole. No political figure of the first rank before or since his day has spent so brief a period of his political life out of office. Charles Fox, also a i-emarkable case of hereditaiy ability, presents a dramatic contrast ; for he passed a longer part of his career in Opposition than any other statesman save perhaps Bolingbroke, or Pym. It is difficult to frame with confidence a sound comparative esti- mate of statesmen as of generals who have never had to conduct in the plenitude of their strength a retreat with broken forces against a victorious foe. But Pitt's intellectual qualities stand out in clear relief. He inherited from his father the gift of oratory, a patriotism that could bum white hot, the serene confidence in his capacity to 808 PITT AND THE NEW TORYISM [1784- lead, the proud spirit that neither feared nor flattered flesh. Events proved that if he was a gi-eat financier, he was neither a great administrator nor a great War Minister. But as the leader of a pai"ty, as a parliamentary master in the eighteenth century, he is equalled but not sui-passed by Walpole alone. His private life was singulai'ly pure. He drank too often and too much ; but beyond an incomprehensible and culpable extravagance in his pereonal expen- diture he had no vices. Even more conspicuously than Chatham he despised the material and decorative rewards of success. The creator 'of the modem House of Lords, the lavish distributor of peerages, ribands, and pensions, he was Men distmgui in his gen- eration by his haughty indifl^erence to all such honours for him- self. His ambition was unlimited, and he loved power with the same demonic passion that inspked his devotion to parliamentary life. From fii-st to last he gave all that was best in his nature and intellectual strength to the service of his country, and its inter- ests as he conceived them. We may quaiTel with his reasons and his conclusions, but it is impossible to impugn his motives. Save Dundas, WUbei-force, Wellesley, and perhaps George Rose, he had few intimate friends ; from Canning he won and retained the affec- tion and reverence of a son ; but Pitt dominated Parliament as he dominated the Ci'own and country by that sheer force of character and ability which placed him in a lonely class by himself on the Treasury Bench. The tears of human things, of pathos and tragedy, haunt the career of this solitaiy man, dwelling apart on the heights of gi'eat afFaii-s ; who never knew the love of wife or child ; who worked so hard in the golden premise of his political apprenticeship for peace, retrenchment, and reform ; who in the maturity of his powei-s constituted himself the champion of & cause that linked con- tinuous war abroad with repression and reaction at home, with swollen debt and bloated armaments ; who died in the bitter know- ledge that popular liberties had been suspended, the National Debt more than doubled, taxation strained to the breaking point, a quarter of a million of human lives sacrificed, and that peace and refonn were further out of sight than ever- ; bitterest of all, that the old order in Europe had perished and that Napoleon, the incarnate spirit of the piinciples of the French Revolution, was ti'iumphant over two-thirds of the Continent. Pitt's fii-st ten yeai-s have often been claimed as his Whig period, 1792] PITT'S PRINCIPLES 509 which pi-ecedes his desertion from Liberalism, or his converaion to a reactionary Toryism in 1793. In reality, as is the case with Burke, there was neither desertion nor conversion, but a simple and intelli- gible evolution. With each statesman the later development is im- plicit in, and the logical outcome of, the principles of his creed and the pressure of events. Pitt was never a Whig, as Fox or Burke or his father were Whigs. His premiership therefore emphasises a double depai-ture — the re-creation of the Tory party, the slow evolu- tion of a new Whiggism through puzzling and halting phases into modem Liberalism. If Fox is the founder of the party of Holland, Grey, Melbourne, and Palmerston, Pitt is the creator of the Tory- ism of Castlereagh, Canning, Wellington, and Peel. In 1783 Pitt deliberately came forwai'd as the saviour of the Crown from the Whigs. It was his genius that extricated the monarchy from a dibdcle and made its cause intelligible and attractive to the average man, who is by instinct conservative. Henceforward his policy set the battle in airay between himself and the Opposition on strict and definable two-party lines. Fox, Burke, and Sheridan coirectly opposed him, not because he had stolen theii" measures, but because both his principles and objects, if sucgessfully i-ealised, involved the final defeat of Whiggism. Pitt repeated in fact Bolingbroke's work. He re-created the Tory party by sloughing off the false tenets which had grown up round it ; but, unlike Bolingbroke, he harmonised the claims of the Crown with the best and progi'essive ideas of the day, such as those of Adam Smith in economics. Whatever the prob- lem may be — in home or foreign politics — it is not enough, in Pitt's eyes, to prove an abstract principle or a distinct grievance. It must be shown that the need is really felt, that public opinion is ripe, above all that legislative action will strengthen not dislocate the central organs of government, and that the remedy can be inti'o- duced in gradual doses. It is not a new order that is required but the progressive revivification of the old. In no single instance was Pitt the creator of great ideas or the unrequited pioneer of new causes. In finance and economic reform he applied the ideas of Adam Smith, Burke, Shelbume, Price; Chatham, Savile, Wilkes, Richmond, Fox, taught the nation the programme of electoral re- form ; the splendid failure of Fox and Burke was the basis of his India Bill; to the making of his Irish policy contributed many workers — Grattan, Comwallis, Castlereagh ; he learned the abomi- 310 PITT AND THE NEW TORYISM [1784- nations of the slave trade from Wilberforce and Clarkson ; his later foreign policy was profoundly influenced by Granville ; as a " Wai Minister " he was dominated, to England's cost, by Dundas. And this assimilative quality had its conspicuous disadvantages. It forced him into the dangerous fictions which disfigured his solution of the Regency questioa Only once, in 1800, in his career did he sacrifice office for a principle ; and it is significant that the aboli- tion of the slave trade was advocated but not effected by the Min- ister who was in power for seventeen years, but carried by his rivai who enjoyed office for half as many months. Similarly in 1791 Pitt abandoned the threat of war for a principle with Russia in a humiliating hurry, when he discovered that public opinion was with the Opposition not with the Ministry. But perhaps the gravest omission in the programme after 1783 was Pitt's continuous blind- ness to the need of financial, administrative, and professional reform in our military organisation. The starvation of army and navy, and the disregard of the lessons of the American war during the ten years of peace, cost the country many thousands of lives, many millions of public money, and contributed in a signal degree to the failuie of the Ministei-'s foreign policy after 1793. But Pitt had correctly diagnosed one cause of mischief; the Monarchy quite as much as any branch of the constitutional ma- chinery called for rehabilitation. In its own interest it requu^ to be weaned from the woi-ship of false gods and a false ritual ; and from the fii-st Pitt set quietly but decisively to cut down the groves and break the images that had been set up by the priests and idolaters of A Pbtriot King. A crop of legislative measures facili- tated the work of purification. Crown and Court learned that the son of Chatham would not tolerate the treachei-y against which Rockingham and Fox had fought in vain. The thought of Fox in power, of Pitt alienated and in Opposition, was sufficient for the next ten years to keep the King on the path of a workable political sanity. The Cabinet as a Council of the Crown was restored ; if the King's Friends did not wholly die out, they were reduced to submission; Ministerial responsibility was revived and the depart- mental system noiselessly put on the self. Pitt was a ti'ue Prime Minister. He led the Government in the Representative Chamber, which like Walpole, Peel, Palmerston, and Gladstone (but unlike Chatham and Beaconsfield), he steadily refused to leave. He was 1792] PITT'S ADMINISTRATION 811 the mainspring of Governmental action. The dismissal of the traitor Thurlow in 1791, the recall of Fitzwilliara in 1795, clinch conclusions derivable from copious cumulative evidence. His per- sonal relations with George III. are equally instructive. The note of affectionate intimacy which marks the royal intercourse with North and A.ddington is absent. Dignity we find on both sides ; in George III. a growing confidence that deepens into genuine admiration. Pitt had his father's reverence for the Monarchy and a sincere sympathy with the wearer of the crown, but the King never penetrated or disarmed the Olympian reserve of his Prime Minister. It is the same with his colleagues. Even where there is friendship they write of and to him as of a power living apart in an austere atmosphere of his own. To his Cabinet as to the House of Com- mons he was always the Chief sans phrase. His personality, as of a Dantean angel, was something to be felt. How different the sunny human weaknesses and strength, the friendships of Fox, feared and hated as a politician, loved as a friend as no other character in our political record. Fox's passion for justice, liberty, and humanity, for the causes to which the future belonged, and the far-off mountain tops where dwelt the spii'its of freedqm and the dawn, were as un- intelligible to Pitt as were Fox's love of gambling and of women, and his amazing blunders in the strategy and tactics of parlia- mentary life. Curiously enough, Pitt's first action met with a smart rebuff. After a fiercely fought contest. Fox had been elected as the second member for the great borough of Westminster, but the High Bailiff, instead of making a proper return, granted a scrutiny, and thus depiived the electoi-s of their representation. Fox, who had also been returned for Kirkwall, petitioned the House to order an immediate return, but the petition was opposed by Pitt, who used the Governmental majority to inflict a malicious humiliation on his rival. After eight months had been wasted Pitt, against the King's judgment, still persisted, only to find his majority turned into a minority, and the return was duly ordered. "The defeat in no way affected the Minister's position. Pitt had mistaken the temper of the Commons, and the rebuke administered to his un- generous chicanery was fully justified. Fox with all his faults was incapable of such childish spite to a defeated opponent. The India Bill, revived from the previous Parliament, was passed 812 PITT AND THE NEW TORYISM [1784- with ease. Drafted after consultation with the Directors, it was avowedly a compromise. The political authority was handed over to a Boai-d of Control, six members of which were appointed by the Crown. Patronage was retained by the Directoi-s, but tha Uovernor-General, the Governors and membei-s of Councils and the Commander-in-Chief were chosen subject to the pleasure of, and could be dismissed by, the Crown. The supremacy of the Governor- General in Council over the presidencies of Madras and Bombay was assured. Various regulations checked administrative abuses; and a special court was provided for inquhy into such offences. The measure, in short, aimed at combining the vested rights of the Company with the prei-ogatives of the Monarchy ; it made no at- tetnpt to solve the problem of Indian government on scientific principles. The system of Dual Control which it set up lasted until the Act of 1858 resumed for the Crown the sovereign rights acquired by the Company. And the future showed that the Board i)f Control under Dundas could exemplify all the defects so freely Hrged against Fox's scheme. Scotland, his party, and himself, were the three passions of Dundas's life ; and under the protection of Pitt find his majority he exercised the powers permitted by the Act to indulge all these up to the hilt.^ In the session of 1785, Pitt made his last attempt to CEirry a measure of parliamentaiy reform. The leading features of his scheme were : (1) the disfranchisement of thirty-six rotten boroughs Iknd the transfer of the seventy-two members they retui-ned to the rounties with London and Westminster ; (2) the extension of the franchise to copyholders in the counties and to householders in the boroughs ; (3) the compensation of the extinguished vested interests by a million of public money. The King, of course, was opposed to the proposal, and Pitt obtained with difficulty his con- sent to its discussion by the House. Leave to introduce the Bill, however, was refused by 284 to 174 votes, an illustration not merely of the temper of the representative Assembly, but of the difference between the constitutional conventions of that day and modern practice. The defeat of the head of the Government in no way affected his authority. But it is significant that Burke argued against the upsetting of the traditional balance of interests, and that Fox anticipated the principle of the Reformers in 1832, when ne attacked the proposed compensation on the gi-ound that electoral » See Appendix VIII. 1792] FINANCES 818 rights were a trust not a vested property. Pitt seems to have re- garded the decision as final. He had salved his conscience and he now left the cause to the Whigs. Yet it is difficjlt to believe that a popular Minister could not have canied a moderate scheme in the next eight yeai-s, had he really been in earnest and devoted his authority to educating his party and to genuine co-operation with the champions of reform inside and outside the House. Great Ministei-s can always find time for causes they really have at heart ; and Pitt's speech was the best proof of the sti'ength of the case for reform, a statesmanlike instalment of which might have spai-ed Great Britain some of the worst features of the black yeai-s after 1793. The main work of the sessions of 1784, 1785, 1786, and 1787 was financial. Here Pitt was thoroughly in earnest, and the varied field was thoroughly congenial to a mind saturated with the ideas of Adam Smith. " We," he had said to the great economist, "we, are all your pupils." The chief characteristics of the Budget of 1784 were : the raising of revenue and the crippling of smuggling (in which it was calculated 40,000 men and 300 vessels were em- ployed) by a scientific rearrangement of the tariff; the duty on tea was reduced from 119 per cent to 12^ per cent. ; the excise on home produce was raised ; the duty on imported brandy was lowered ; the deficit in revenue was met by a vaiiety of new taxes — on win- dows, hats, raw silk, licences, and by grouping a variety of other items under the Assessed Taxes which shifted the burden on to licher classes ; ^£"6, 500,000 of floating debt were funded, and a new loan was put up to public competition at the lowest tender, and not (as had been the practice under North) allotted amongst the supportei-s of the Ministry to the degradation of Parliament and the public loss. Next- year the deficit had dropped to ,£'1,000,000, which Pitt met by a loan from the Bank of England and by throwing the net of taxation still wider. Ten millions more of floating debt were consolidated. These measures led up to the famous Sinking Fund of 1786, which the nation was led to believe would by an automatic magic extinguish the National Debt in twenty-eight years. The idea was bon-owed from Dr. Price and consisted in the establishment of a Board of Commis- sioTiers, independent of Parliament and the Ministi-y, to whom annually i?l,000,000 was assigned for the purchase of stock. Each 814 PITT AND THE NEW TORYISM [1784- million would thus accumulate at compound interest, and simple arithmetic seemed to prove that only a limited period of time was requu-ed to amortise the total deadweight of debt. The scheme certainly was effective when taxation could provide the annual ^1,000,000 from surplus revenue ; but when it became necessaiy to provide the ^1,000,000 by borrowing, at a higher rate of in- terest, larger sums than the amount extinguished, the result was a dead loss and in principle pure financial quackery. The nation was cozened into the delusion that if the Sinking Fund were only kept up, it did not matter what reckless or high-priced additions were made by loans to the capital obligations of the country. The plain fallacy was not fully exposed until 1816 ; but it is probable that Pitt himself had discovered the truth, and maintained the Fund as a device for reconciling the taxpayer to the gigantic ex- penditure of the French wars. If the supposition be coiTect ^ it is creditable to his financial penetration, but leaves a gi-ave slur on his reputation as a statesman. Neither doctors nor financiers are entitled to credit for dosing their patients with soporifics, cumula- tively injurious and incapable of curing the disease for which they are prescribed. Pitt's masteiy of principles and details was exemplified to the full in his Budget for 1787. The Bill for the Consolidation of the Customs and Excise laid the basis of the Consolidated Fund which is the core of our modem financial system. The whole of the tarifi', a labjrrinth of antiquated, conflicting and injurious rates, was re- vised, and no less than 3000 articles dealt with on a reconstructed schedule. A single tax was laid on each item. Simplicity in inci- dence, efficiency and cheapness in collection were the features of the new rate-book. The whole of the revenue thus raised was then brought into a single (Consolidated) Fund on which all the public liabilities were secured, and any deficiency was to be met by special taxation. The result was not merely beneficial to commerce, and public economy (by reducing the cost of collection and abolishing sinecures and jobbeiy), but made possible a national balance sheet over the revenue and expenditure over which Treasui-y and Pailia- ment could exercise an effective control. Specially blessed by Burke, •It is noticeable, however, that as late as October 2Sth, 1797, Pitt believed ia the Sinking Fund (see the Financial Minute, Dropmore Papers, iii., 382), 1792] IRISH AFFAIRS 815 this masterpiece of detailed worii set the seal on the financial fame of its author. I'he session of 1785 witnessed Pitt's first effort to cope with the Irish problem. Apart from the constitutional and administrative difficulties created by the Settlement of 1783 the two most pressing problems of Ireland were the disabilities of the Roman Catholics and parliamentary reform — twin aspects of a single malady. The Irish Executive under the Duke of Portland was opposed to any serious concessions, and the defeat of Flood's proposals for reform on a Protestant basis and the dissolution of the Volunteer Con- vention under Charlemont and Flood administered a temporary quietus to the agitation. But as the violent conduct of the Bishop of Derry, Lord Bristol, showed, the forces of discontent were either being driven underground or passing under the control of dema- gogues very different in temper and aim fi'om the leaders, Charle- mont and Grattan, the creators of the patriotic Volunteers. In the democratic fanaticism of the Presbyterian north and the reli- gious and agrarian grievances of the Catholic peasantry two storm centres were developing which, once united, might shake the whole fabric of Irish society and government to its foundation. The criminal folly of postponing a remedy for ills so patent and unjus- tifiable was eloquently expressed by Grattan, but the Irish Parlia- ment, controlled by the Iiish Executive, shut both its eai-s and eyes to the warning. As yet Pitt neither contemplated nor was con- vinced of the desirability of a legislative union, and it is character- istic that he fu'st dealt with the economic relations of Great Britain and Ireland. The proposals of 1785 aimed at making the two islands, though under separate and independent Legislatures, a single fiscal unit. The Navigation Act was to be suspended and the colonial trade thrown open to Ireland, with the exception of the East India Company's monopoly. All goods were to be in- terchangeable, free, or at equal duties ; woollen exports from England were forbidden, and Irish exports, in raw produce might be prohibited. In return Ireland was to contribute half a million to the imperial navy. The eleven resolutions, embodying these proposals, accepted by the Irish Legislature, met with violent oppo- sition from the strongly represented mei'cantile classes in the British Parliament. The Opposition snatched at the opportunity and fanned the agitation. The interests of English commerce were 816 PITT AND THE NEW TORYISM [1784- to be bartered for the slavery of the Irish Legislature. " That," said Fox, " is not the price I would pay, nor is this the thing I would purchase." Concessions to a vested and prejudiced mercantilism whittled away the terms of the bargain ; and when the mutilated scheme was resubmitted to the Irish Parliament, Grattan made it clear it would be rejected, and it was promptly withdrawn. This lamentable miscaniage must have endoi-sed in Pitt's mind the political evil that can be wrought, not by " a nation of shop- keepers, but by a nation dominated by shopkeepers," as well as the difficulty of governing Ireland thi-ough an Executive in no way representative of, or responsible to, an independent Legislature. The proposals of 1785 were never revived. For some yeare Pitt put Ireland out of his mind, and when it forced itself again on his attention the hour for a great healing policy had all but passed. From 1785 to 1793 the opportunity lay at the door of Downing Street and was unheeded. And the gods had decided that Pitt, " the spoiled child of fame and fortune," should be called happy before the end had been seen. The Commercial Treaty of 1786 with France provides a welcome contrast. In this connection it is not without interest to note that Adam Smith had recommended compensating for the lost American monopoly by developing our European and, above all, our French trade. The treaty of 1783 had provided for the futui-e revision of the commercial relations of France and Great Britain ; and Pitt, pressed by a French threat of the complete prohibition of English goods, threw himself in 1785 with ai'dour into the negotiations. In April, 1786, Eden, afterwards Lord Auckland, was sent as a special commissioner to Paiis, and on September 26th the treaty was signed. On the British side the main object was to open fresh markets, strengthen the cause of peace by economic bonds, and by promoting industrial prosperity to increase taxable capacity at home. Pitt, fi-om careful evidence collected at the Board of Ti-ade, was convinced, as were our manufacturei-s, that given a reasonable tariff we could compete successfully in the French market. Thus armed with statis- tics furnished by our trade he negotiated for a revision of the duties. The difficulty presented by the Methuen Treaty was surmounted by an arrangement that French wines should not be taxed higher ' than Portuguese, the duty on which might be lowered by one-third. Fox attacked the treaty with the aimament of the traditional 1792] A GREAT IMPEACHMENT 817 Whig political economics. Fi-ance was our natural and eternal foe. To strengthen her power to injure us by increasing her trade was the blunder of a Utopian idealist. Pitt's reply met both argu- ments. National enmities were neither perpetual nor irremovable. We had the best of the economic bargain, but even without this the greater the exchange between two countries the greater the benefit to both. Through the speech of Pitt, dandled in the anti- BoUrbon mercantilism of his father, ring the spirit and science of Adam Smith and the new Toryism ; and it was not his fault that the Fi'ench Revolution wrecked the beneficent consequences he had a right to expect from the treaty. Arthur Young's Travels m Fra/nce and the statistics of our commerce bear out Pitt's conviction that British manufacturers were on their way to capture the French market. The growing superiority that scientific inventions, new processes, and organised capitalistic production on the grand scale — the Industrial Revolution, in short — were conferring on our chief industries is already apparent. The same session saw the initiation of the proceedings which culminated in the impeachment of Warren Hastings. Since Hast- ings' return from India his implacable fae, Francis, had aided Burke in Feb., 1785 collecting evidence, and in 1786 and 1787 the Opposition formally identified itself with a demand for a public prosecution. Three main charges were preferred in connection with the Rohilla War, the Raja of Benares, and the Begums of Oudh, moved respectively by Fox, Bui'ke, and Sheridan.* The first was rejected, but the second, which to the consternation of his party was supported by Pitt, and the third were adopted ; and the impeachment was opened in Westminster Hall on February 13th, 1788 — an event, it has been pithily said, which "occasioned more eloquence (including Macaulay's) than any event in history ". The trial proved long, and financially ruinous to Hastings ; very soon the inflamed rhetoric of the prosecutors wore out the ephemeral interest of the audience of intellect and quality collected to witness not a judicial investiga- tion but an exhibition of oratorical gladiators. Not until 1795 was judgment pronounced, acquitting Hastings on every count in the indictment Modem research has fully endorsed the justice of the verdict and absolved the accused's character and rule from the charges, mostly untrue and needlessly envenomed by ignorance and ' See Appendix viii. 318 PITT AND THE NEW TORYISM [1784- party prejudice. Hastings' trial was the last (for that of Melville in 1 806 was unimportant) of the great impeachments, and enshrines the principle that in the High Court of Parliament exists the one tribunal from whose jurisdiction no servant of the State, howevei' highly placed, is exempt. All such machinery must be judged not by individual instances of its working but by the cumulative effects and the bracing reaction on public opinion and public administra- tive morality as a whole over wide periods of time. In the creation and enforcement of severer standards in the financial and political administration of Indian government a trial such as that of Warren Hastings taught both an educational and deteiTent lesson which went far beyond the individual or the transactions concerned. Nor did the inevitable disadvantages ever prevent our country from obtaining for India or elsewhere the services of the best of her sons. But it would be foolish to ignore the lack of charity and gratitude so conspicuous in the Opposition's and Directors' treatment of a gi-eat public ofHcial. The trial brought Hastings to the verge of 1813 bankruptcy and embittered beyond reparation the closing yeare of his life, not wholly compensated by the subsequent recognition in Parliament and at Oxford of his signal achievements. 'The quin- tessence of foi-tune's irony lit up the old man's later days. He lived to see his prediction fulfilled that his official enemy, Dundas, would himself be impeached ; and at the precise moment when the Court of Du-ectors was voting a statue to Hastings, Wellesley, whom India had taught bitterly to regi'et his former vote for Hastings' impeachment, was returning to England, condemned by his masters and menaced by a similar public prosecution for services second only to those of Clive and Hastings himself. After an interval of a year and a half, in which the government was carried on provisionally by the senior member of Council, Macphei-son, Lord Comwallis was sent out as the fii-st Govemor- Guneral under Pitt's Act Comwallis's ability and vigour made his 1786-93 tenure of power a fitting appendix to that of Hastings. Valuable reforms in administration, in the police, in the judiciary and code of procedure were carried through. And though Comwallis was not the originator of the Permanent Settlement in Bengal, his name is rightly associated with its successful completion. Equally decisive were his dealings with Haidar's son, Tippu Sultan. In 1789 the danger from Mysore was anticipated by the formation of t792] FOREIGN AFFAIRS 819 an alliance with the Mahrattas and the Nizam ; and in 1791 Com- wallis took the field in person. The first campaign ended in a retreat, but next year peace was made at the gates of Tippu's capital, Seringapatam. One-third of his dominions was sur- rendered ; an indemnity of £3,000,000 imposed, and Coorg was brought under British rule. Tippu thus received an impressive warning, but the problem of Mysore and other Native States was necessarily left by Comwallis (promoted on his resignation to a marquisate) to his successor. Pitt, in the meanwhile, had turned from domestic to foreign affairs, which until 1787 had been left mainly to the Secretary of State, Carmarthen. The Prime Minister's previous indiff^erence to foreign policy was probably delibei'ate, and can be largely explained by his absorption in finance. Not that Pitt did not recognise that the isolation of Great Britain was a serious danger, but with ad- mirable self-restraint he saw that there were more important things than alliances and the recovery of om- prestige abroad. In a strong Ministry, annual surpluses, a diminishing debt, restored credit and confidence lay the surest basis of a successful foreign policy. He was perfectly right. Great Britain found allies without difficulty when her alliance was worth the having, and the door for a new departure was opened by the success of the French Commercial Treaty. Yet a spirited foreign policy was far from Pitt's wishes. Peace was necessary to complete the convalescence into which Great Britain by 1787 had been sedulously nursed, and the identification of our interests with the preservation of Eur'opean peace is the key- note of his action. The Prime Minister's suspicion and caution as to all but the most carefully safeguarded engagements are enforced in despatch after despatch. Our foreign relations are watched with the eye of an anxious financier^ Like Walpole, Pitt desired a foreign policy that would prove a remunerative investment, an aid to retrenchment, not a source of incalculable and unproductive expenditure. Three different systems — the Bourbon Family Compact, the Bour- bon-Habsburg Alliance, the entente (since 1781) between the Em- peror Joseph II. and the Tsarina Cathei-ine-— governed the European situation; and outside them stood Frederick the Great, watching the Emperor, determined to keep the line between Berlin and St. Petersburg open, and coldly hostile to England. At London a 820 PITT AND THE NEW TORYISM [1784. British system to counterbalance the formidable Bourbon alliances was regarded as absolutely necessary. One school of diplomatists would have a-eated it by an understanding with Prussia, another by weaning Austria from France and a consequential agreement with Russia. In either case the Minor States — Holland, Sweden, Den- mark — might be attracted into the new combination. Carmarthen at the Foreign Office shai-ed to the full the traditional fear of ubiquitous French intrigues against Great Britain. In every Euro- pean event he read the mysterious wire-pulling of relentless Bourbon hands. But up to 1786 Carmarthen's counter-eftbiis produced little. By making common cause with Russia and Denmark, French diplomacy in Swedei) was checked, but the direct overtures to Russia, Prussia, and Austria were a failure. The attempt of Joseph II. to reverse the Barrier Treaty of 1715 and open the Scheldt to naviga- tion — a policy that vitally affected British interests and threatened to involve Europe in war — was foiled curiously enough by the French at Versailles. Thanks to the Treaty of Fontainebleau, Nov., 17 5 j.jjg Emperor renounced his demands, and an alliance between the Dutch and France, ominous for Great Britain, rewarded Vergennes' mediation. Another cardinal project of the Emperor's, the ex- change of the Austrian Netherlands for the Electorate of Bavaria, was checkmated by the League of Princes (Fiirstenbund), under the auspices of Prussia. George III., indeed, joined the League as Elector of Hanover, but his adhesion in no way committed Great Britain, and his first approval of the scheme was given without the knowledge of his British Ministers, a remarkable instance of the anomalous dual position of the English Crown. But the hopes that this step would lead to a renewal of an Anglo-Prussian under- standing proved vain ; and further overtures to St. Petersburg only produced the insulting condition that in the interests of Catherine's ally, Austria, the Fiirstenbund must first be given up, to which Greorge III. very rightly refused to listen. Aug. 17 l*^® death of Frederick the Great and the rapid development of ^786 a crisis in the Netherlands ushered in a momentous change. The Republican party, " the Patriots, " aided by Fi-ench gold and diplo- macy, were bent on compelling the Stadholder, William V., whose wife was the sister of the new Prussian King, Frederick William II., to resign his hereditary office. If they succeeded, Holland would become a province of France in all but name. The maintenance of 1792] THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 321 the Dutch constitution was, therefore, a prime principle in our di- plomacy, and Harris, our representative at the Hague, an earnest advocate of an anti-Bourbon system, had long been striving to defeat the Republicans. Summoned to London where he explained May, 1787 his views, he was liberally provided with secret sei-vice funds. The arrest of the Princess Stadholder by a Republican free corps at the June 25 frontier fired her brother at Berlin to demand reparation and an apology, failing which he would intervene with armed force. Pitt, who had now taken over the direction in foreign policy, worked hard for a joint mediation, while his agents, Ewart at Berlin, Harris at the Hague, zealously strove for an Anglo-Prussian under- standing. War loomed into sight, as the French announced their readiness to support the Dutch. The Court at Berlin vacillated ; but after the outbreak of the war in the East which made Austrian aid to France impossible, the Prussian troops crossed the frontier and the Republicans collapsed. Han-is succeeded in getting the Dutch demand for French aid rescinded, and Montmorin at Paris, hampered by bankrupt finances and pressed by British diplomacy, agreed to abandon his previous promise of aid to the Republicans. "Die Stadholdership was re-establish|^, the Orange party was triumphant, and the Court of Versailles was so publicly discredited that Napoleon reckoned its humiliation as one of the causes of the Revolution. Very shortly the separate Treaties of England and Prussia with the Dutch were converted into a triple alliance which April 15, brought Great Britain into a powerful European combination and ^788 marked the end of her perilous isolation. The credit was not wholly Pitt's. Harris had fully earned the peerage which made him Lord Malmesbury ; but it was Pitt's first big international problem, and he had solved it with the first big diplomatic success that British statesmanship had won on the Continent since Chat- ham and the Seven Years' War. Domestic events once more absorbed the Minister's energies. The proposals in 1787 and 1789 to repeal the Test and Corpora- tion Acts were supported by Fox, but opposed by Pitt and two- thirds of the episcopal bench, and rejected. In 1787, and again in 1791 and 1792, the indefatigable Wilberforce, aided by Clarkson and Shai-p, and the newly-founded Society for the Abohtion of the Slave Trade, found eloquent support from Pitt, Fox, and Burke. But the opposition of the King, of powerful members of the 21 PITT AND THE NEW TORYISM [1784- Cabinet, such as Thurlow and Dundas, and the strength of the mercantile interest in a lucrative traffic, prevailed. Even Dundas'g compromise, providing for gi-adual abolition, proved illusory, thanks to the obstructive tactics of the Upper House, aided by the Bishops and the Crown. Though Pitt became lukewarm, Wilberforce and his allies kept pegging away, but it was not till 1807 that the dying Fox drove the business through. A further instalment of relief to Roman Catholics, conceding freedom of worship and education, was passed in 1791, and here Pitt and Fox were at one, though Fox would have considerably extended the conces- sions. But on the Regency question of 1788 the two leadera were set in the sharpest antagonism. Unfortunately the exalted posi- tion of the heir to the throne and the influence exercised by his conduct and character make it impossible to omit altogether the unedifying chapter of his personal relations with his parents. George, Prince of Wales, bom in 1762, unquestionably had con- siderable abilities and a singular personal charm that exercised a powerful spell on the men and women of his intimate circle. The Phoebus Apollo of dandyism, he won for himself the strange title of the Fii-st Gentleman in Europe, one that in this case surelj pai-odies to perfection the qualities required from gentle blood. Apart from his undoubted capacity to pose as a princely Tmveydrop, it is difficult to detect in his character or conduct a single lovable trait or worthy feature. A finished rake — his mistresses were as numerous and varied as those of Chai'les II. — a drunkard, a spend- thrift and a gambler, he was also an undutiful and ungrateful son ; a traitor alike to his friends and to the women whom he dis- honoured ; the vindictive and faithless husband of the unhappy girl, Princess Caroline of Brunswick, condemned in 1795 to be his wife. He posed as a Whig from perverse opposition to his father rather than from serious conviction, and his alliance with the Opposition was a serious stain on the Whigs and their leaders. Fox, Sheridan, and Moira. As Regent, his championship of Toryism discredited the principles of the party to which he deserted in 1810, and he succeeded as a ruler in making himself, not unjustly, the most un- popular sovereign for two centuries, and in reducing the prestige of the monai'chy to its nadir. Fi'om first to last his cai-eer is an epitome of unsavoury scandal, and his personal influence wi'ought 1792] THE REGENCY QUESTION 823 infinite moral mischief and conferred no compensating benefit on any class of society in the kingdom. In 1787 he was deeply in debt ; moreovei-, two yeai-s earlier Dec. ai (December 21st, 1785) he had privately manied a widow, Mrs. '^^^ Fitzherbert This marriage was a fraud on an honourable woman, for it was invalid under the Royal Mai-riage Act, and, even if valid, as his " wife " was a Roman Catholic it incapacitated the Prince from inheriting the throne. Fox, however, was deluded into denying publicly in the House of Commons that the maniage had taken place, and then Sheridan was instructed to contradict, unin- telligibly enough, Fox. It is heartily to be wished that the rupture which this prevaricating trickery brought about between Fox and the Prince had been permanent. ■ But it served its purpose. The royal debts were arranged for by Pitt and Dundas ; nearly d&SOO.OOO were voted, and the King added J'10,000 from the Civil List to his son's income. A temporary reconciliation followed, the Prince agreeing to a pledge in the royal message to Parliament that he would not get a second time into debt — a pledge which, of course, he had no intention of keeping ; and in 1795 his debts amounted to je650,000. The question of a regency became urgent when, on November 5th, 1788, George III., whose health had been failing, was pros- trated by a serious attack of insanity. Pitt's policy in the crisis was governed by three main considerations : the certainty that the Prince of Wales would dismiss the Ministry and summon Fox to office ; a belief, supported by the best physician, Dr. Willis, that the King would recover ; the desirability of limiting the Regent's powei-s. Against Fox, who boldly asserted that the Prince of Wales had an inherent right to assume the prerogatives of the Crown, Pitt maintained that it was for Parliament to nominate the pei-son and define the powers of the Regent He thus " un-Whigged " his rival and appeared as the champion of the Legislature against the prerogative. But this position involved some grave constitu- tional difficulties. After much bitter controversy a Bill was brought in establishing the Prince of Wales as Regent with restricted powers, while the royal assent to the measure was to be provided by placing the Great Seal under Commission, with directions to affix it when the Bill had passed both Houses. This grotesque and clumsy fiction enabled a parliamentaiy majority to vamp up a puppet and 324 PITT AND THE NEW TORYISM [1784- phantom royalty, clothed with authority solely to obey the dictates of its creatoi-s. Fortunately the recovery of the King by Mai-ch 10th, 1789, rendered the procedure unnecessary, though the fiction had necessarily been employed to open and validate the Parliament in which the Regency Bill was introduced. The Irish Legislature, with wiser judgment, avoided the mistakes made in England by adopting an address which simply invited the Prince to assume the Regency without restrictions ; it thereby provided the requisite legal machinery for any subsequent and limiting legislation on the Regent's powers. The parliamentary episode bristles with suggestive points. On the purely constitutional issue Fox certainly had the worst of it ; and as usual his tactical blunders and verbal indiscretions, skilfully utilised by his rival, made him his own worst enemy. But if Pitt is not to be blamed for straining the machinery of the Constitution to retain power, it is difficult to condemn Fox for his eagerness to regain it. Burke's violence and lapses from taste in debate mamed, but did not destroy, the strength of the Whig argument against Pitt's methods for providing the royal assent to the proposed legis- lation. The Ministerial lawyei-s had in fact shown how a disput- able legal fiction could be extended to supersede the Crown, and had established a dangerous and unnecessaiy precedent, by which the monarchy itself could in the name, and by the process, of law be legislated out of existence by a Parliament determined to caiTy its point. Unquestionably, Whig society was bitterly dis- appointed at the King's recovery. Fox and his colleagues were so confident of their return to the Treasury Bench that the list of the new Ministry was already drawn up. And had the King remained insane the certainty of the transfer testifies to the extraordinary power of the Crown as late as 1788 in making and keeping a Minister in office.^ An exchange of Fox for Pitt might have proved beneficial in many ways, but the country was mercifully spared the substitution of George, Prince of Wales, even for George III. Pitt's popularity was much enhanced by the firmness with ' A Private Paper of May ist, 1788, gives an analysis of the Commons. " The Party of the Crown, i.e. all those who would probably support His Majesty's Govern- ment under any Minister not peculiarly unpopular," are placed at 185 ; " the inde- pendent or unconnected members " at 108 ; the Foxites, 138, and the Pittites at 52, of whom only 20 would be returned if Pitt resigned. Pitt's precarious parliamentary position if the support of the Crown were withdrawn is therefore intelligible. 1792J FOREIGN POLICY 825 which he fought for his Sovereign and the privileges of the Queen, and his conduct earned the deep gratitude of the King. After 1789 there comes into his relations with George III. a new note of cordial personal esteem. Pitt, too, had discovered the ti'each- ery of Thurlow. The Lord Chancellor arranged with the Prince and Sheridan to retain his post by ratting from his colleagues and betraying Cabinet secrets ; and though Fox detested the com- pact, made in his absence, it was impossible to go back upon it. But with the King's recoveiy Thurlow re-ratted. His appeal to God to forget him if he forgot the King's favours drew from Wilkes the just retort: "Forget you! He will see you damned first ! " But not until 1792 was Thurlow properly punished. The Chancellor's opposition in the Lords over two sessions to Fox's Libel Bill, which had been supported by Pitt, coupled with an attack on his chief's finance, caused Pitt to insist on his dismissal. The supremacy of the Prime Minister in the Cabinet and the prin- ciple of collective agreement on fundamental political issues were thus enforced by a salutary lesson. After six months' delay Thur- low's place was taken by Lord Loughborough (Wedderbum), who now definitely threw in his lot with the Tory paiiy. Foreign policy, disturbed by the Regency crisis, again became prominent Pitt, profoundly convinced that war would shatter the results of years of patient work (from 1788-92 the budget showed an average surplus of half a million), was determined to use the Triple Alliance to maintain peace. It was a defensive not an offensive weapon, and Pitt resisted steadily the efforts of the restless and vacillating Court at Berlin, no longer guided by the selfish and lynx-eyed patriotism of Frederick the Great, to exploit the treaty of 1788 for the aggrandisement of the allies. The increasing and substantial divergence of aim between Berlin and London finally by 1792 drove England and Prussia apart. In the North, Sweden, allied with the Turks, had invaded Finland. In- vaded in turn by Denmark, and repulsed' by Russia, Gustavus III. was saved by the intervention of Prussia and Great Britain, who compelled Denmark to accept terms that maintained the balance of power in the Baltic. The failure of Joseph's Turkish War, and revolt?, in Bohemia, Hungary, and the Netherlands, caused by the Emperor's passion for precipitate and logical reform, offered Prussia a splendid opportunity. Frederick William caressed a compi-ehen- PITT AND THE NEW TORYISM [1784- sive scheme for recognising the insurgent Belgians, uniting them with Holland, restoring Galicia to Poland and annexing the Polish Danzig and Thorn to Prussia. Pitt was willing to use the Triple Alliance to impose a peace on the basis of the status quo, but refused to commit England to offensive operations beyond her strict treaty Feb. «o, obligations. The death of Joseph II. left the Austrian State in the '^^ most dangerous dilemma she had faced since the accession of Maria Theresa. Had Prussia, as Hei'zberg desired, broken from the Triple Alliance and struck for her own hand, Pitt could not have prevented a general conflagration. But thi.: new Emperor, Leopold II., was a consummate diplomatist, and Frederick William II. could not make up his mind. British influence at Berlin was small ; Prussia was out-mancEuvi-ed by the Emperor and sullenly agreed to the tei-ms July, 1790 agreed on at the Conference of Reichenbach. The Austrian 1791 Netherlands were restored to Habsburg rule ; the Treaty of Sistova made peace between Leopold and the Turks ; Catherine, fearing a joint Anglo- Prussian intervention on behalf of Sweden, concluded peace at Werela with Gustavus III. Pitt's policy of peace had so far prevailed. It only remained to coerce Russia into the accept- ance of a similar settlement. Pitt's hands in these complicated transactions had been partly tied by a short, shai-p, and decisive dispute with Spain. The Span- April, 1789 iards had evicted a British settlement at Nootka Sound, hauled down the British flag, and made the British settlers prisoners.' Pitt peremptorily rejected the Spanish claim of previous discovery on the ground that not discovery but settlement confen-ed a valid title, and demanded an apology and adequate reparation. Appeals to our allies the Dutch and Prussia, the equipment of a big fleet under Howe, and a vote of credit for a million proved that the Prime Minister was in earnest. Florida Blanca in turn appealed to the hereditaiy ally, France. But the Revolution had altered the situation, and the National Assembly rejected the Family for a National Compact and was both reluctant and unable to give ade- quate assistance. Florida Blanca had no alternative but to submit ; and the convention of October 28 th, 1791, secured for England complete reparation, the retention of Nootka Sound, and the sep- aration of Spain from Fi-ance. The retention of the Sound se- cured for the Canada of the future a window, little valued at the time, into the Pacific of profound importance to her national and 1 See Appendix XVIII. 1792] GREAT BRITAIN AND RUSSIA S27 economic expansion. Contemporary opinion, indeed, prized more highly the dissolution of the Family Compact, so long a nightmaie to our Foreign Office. But the laurels of this fresh triumph for Pitt were sadly tarnished by an unexpected rebuff in the East, Catherine, successful in her Turkish War, was detei'mined to extend her position along the northern littoral of the Black Sea, and to extort Ochakov and the line of the Dniester as the price of victory. Alike the suggested Anglo-Prussian mediation and a peace based on the statiis quo were rejected as inadmissible Pitt, anxious to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empijie against the menacing Russian expansion and to save Prussia from a second disappointment, convinced himself that coercion, so successful elsewhere, would be equally effective at St. Petei-sburg. An ulti- March 27 matum was sent to the Tsarina. But Pitt had seriously miscalcu- '79' lated every element in the situation — the importance of Ochakov, the temper of Catherine and of public opinion at home. The Cabinet was shai-ply divided ; Fox and Burke, supported by the mercantile classes, convincingly attacked the Minister's policy, and Catherine, well aware of English feeling, refused to give way. It must be either war or sun-ender to her demands, and Pitt sur- rendei-ed. The ultimatum was hurriedly countermanded, and the April 16, definitive Peace of Jassy, made without the mediation of the {79i allies, gave Russia the line of the Dniester, It was an important episode in every way for Pitt. The per- sonal prestige of the Prime Minister was seriously shaken. The haste with which the suiTender was made suggested truly enough that the Minister attached more importance to the retention of office than to the maintenance of his principles. The resignation of the Foreign Secretary, the Duke of Leeds (Carmarthen), whose place was taken by Lord Grenville,* revealed the rupture in the Cabinet. The Triple Alliance was silently broken up and buried, Fredei'ick William, disgusted at the double "desertion" of his ally, at Reichenbach and in the East, turned to Russia and Austria — thereby embai'king on the policy which led to the Second Partition of Poland and the War of the Three Monarchies against Revolu- tionary France. But the quarrel with Russia has a historic im- portance of its own. It ushered in the modem phase of the Near Eastern Question in our foreign policy. The development of ' H. Dundai succeeded Grenville aa Home Secretary. 828 PITT AND THE NEW TORYISM [1784-92 British power in India, and the expansion of Russia into Europe and Asia were ah-eady transforming the geographical, strategic, and political features of the eighteenth centui-y Eastern problem. Be- tween the principles at issue in 1791 and those of 1853-54 and of 1876-78 exists a striking identity, while the modernity of the arguments employed in the debates by Pitt, Fox, and Burke will strike every student. Burke in particulai- anticipated the language of Gladstone and the modern Liberals. He protested against war on behalf of an anti-Christian, barbarous and alien race, whose partition or expulsion " bag and baggage " would be a public benefit. Fox, too, desired a close understanding with Russi* in the interests of peace, our trade, and as a counter-balance to the Bour- bon system in the West. War with Russia on behalf of the Ottoman Empire, he argued, almost in the historic language of a great modern Foreign Minister, was " to put our money on the wrong horse ". Pitt, on the other hand (unlike his father who was a Pro-Russ), opposed the Whig point of view. He desired to stand for the integrity of the Turkish Empire as a bulwark against the establishment of a Slav Power, dominating the Black Sea and aim- ing at Constantinople, which would place it on the flank of our Mediterranean route to the East. But at this point the significance of these issues was abruptly obliterated. Pitt was now summoned to deal with problems of foreign and domestic policy far more vast and complex than anj that had yet been thrust upon him. The meeting of the Estates- General at Versailles on May 4th, 1789, had inaugurated a new era. With the spring of 1792 France and Europe had already crossed the threshold of the baffling labyrinth that for lack of a better name history has agreed to call the French Revolution. Note. — For additional autkorities see the Supplement to the Biblio- grapliv, p;> 560-dfi2. 1770-18161 CHANGES AFFECTING CULTIVATION 329 CHAPTER IV THE INDUSTBIAIi BEVOLUTION^ A BRIEF summary of the capital features of the inner dynamic evolution in the social and economic organisation of the British State since 1760 is a necessaiy preliminary to the prolonged struggle with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. For the In- dustrial Revolution is the true prologue to the European upheaval. Even a superficial comparison of the economic structure and needs of Great Britain in 1792 with those of 1760 lays bai'e an astonish- ing qualitative and quantitative difference. Ignorance or misin- terpretation of this difference partly accounted for the prevalent continental view that Great Britain in 1783 was a decadent Power ; whereas the increasing supremacy and volume of our trade was the result rather than the cause, as was commonly supposed, of a vital- ity whose roots lay deep in national character, oi'ganisation, and resources. By 1793 England was already a generation in advance of the Continent in the science, machinery, and processes of produc- tion, and of the distribution and organisation of industry, while the coincident reaction affected the whole political and social fabric. The forces that had brought a new Great Britain into existence were continually operating in the ensuing epoch of unrelieved war, nor were the inevitable evils of the transition from the commercial to the industrial state as yet intolerable. Shifted and aggiavated by the absorbing strain of the struggle, they were only fully revealed in the era of suffering, dislocation, and repression that would have marched to revolution had it not been appeased by Reform in 1832. Changes that affected the tenure and cultivation of the soil came first. The continued advance of scientific farming and the enclosures are partly connected, partly independent. The work begun by Townshend and Jethio Tull was continued by numerous public-spirited and progressive landlords, notable amongst whom I See Appendix XIX. 330 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION [1770- were Coke of Holkham, Rockingham, Bedford, and the Kiiig him- self. The cultivation of artificial grasses, of clover and rye, of seeds, beans, potatoes and roots, of horse-hoeing, scientific and eco- nomic ploughing, the study of soils and manures, and the rotation of crops {e.g. a five-course husbandry) advanced steadily. The intro- duction of leases with conditions as to the methods of farming, of improved machineiy, and of the expanding market provided by the growth of population stimulated powerfully the application of capital and the increase of profits on its application. In another direction, the stock-breeding experiments at Dishley in Leicester- 1725-95 shire made " the Leicester long-horns " and " the new Leicesters" famous in Europe, and placed Robert Bakewell in the front of the agricultural pioneers. His object especially was to breed sheep as meat-producing rather than as wool-producing animals, and his success was astonishing. Competent experts have pronounced that his principles and example wrought a veritable revolution in th« graziers' art and laid the foundation of the flocks and herds thai brought wealth to their breeders and food to an expanding nation. Amongst the many writers and workers Arthur Young, himself 1741-1820 cuiiously enough a failure as a farmer, staxiAs out facile princepi as the indefatigable missionary of the new age. His encyclopaedic pen insti-ucted his own generation and bequeathed to the historical student a series of pictures, Uen docwnentis, as vivid as those oi Defoe, and reinforced by the thirst for knowledge and saturated with the personality of a traveller, the rival of John Wesley in (zeal and the faith that can move mountains. The establishment of the Board of Agriculture in 1793, under Sir John Sinclair and Young himself, is an event of economic and historic importance which fitly crowned the labours of three generations. The enclosure movement, a topic of perplexing controvei-sy at the time, is still complicated by disputes as to the interpretation of evidence not yet exhausted by the researcher. It was not a new feature. Much land had been enclosed in the sixteenth centmy, and the process had continued since the Tudor epoch with varying degrees of languor and activity. Hanoverian England witnessed a mai'ked revival, accentuated in the last half of the eighteenth century to an astonishing extent, for which various causes may be held responsible. The consolidation of smaJl into large farms and estates, due partly to social reasons, independent of the advance in 1816] ENCLOSURES 3S1 agricultural science, appealed with special force to the progi'cssive agi'iculturist anxious to reduce the cost of production and benefit by the law of increasing returns fi.-om scientific agi'iculture on the large scale. The wasteful farming and the very existence of the common fields system were the most serious obstacles to the illumi- nated empiricism of the new school. The demand of the new England in process of creation for a gi-eat increase in the quality and quantity of food absolutely necessitated the extension and im- provement of cultivation and the introduction of new methods and new conditions. Even if there had been no gieedy landlords and no new agricultural science it is tolerably certain that the industrial revolution would have in time swept away the common fields and the mediaeval village community which they typified and perpetuated. In this historic change, two different kinds and three different processes of enclosure must be distinguished. The enclosure of commonable waste, implying the extension of cultivation, is distinct from the enclosure of arable common fields, which generally, but not necessarily, led to a more intensive and scientific tillage, or to the conversion of arable into pasture. The change could be effected either by the common consent of the «o-owners, or by the buying out of commoners' rights by a single purchaser or group of pur- chasei-s, ratified in each case by the Court of Chancery or by royal licence, or brought about by Act of Parliament. The percentage of enclosures effected by the first two methods is one of the most difficult to determine, for the evidence and statistics are either not forthcoming, or incomplete, or open to vaj'ious interpretations. The statistics of enclosures accomplished by legislation, however, are very impressive. Between 1702 and 1750 there were passed 112, between 1750 and 1810, 2921 such Acts, including the General Act of 1801, and affecting approximately about 2,500,000 acres of common fields, and 1,750,000 acres of waste. Nor do these figures, of course, include enclosures achieved by means other than legis- lation. Yet in 1794 it was calculated that the open field system still obtained in 4500 out of 8500 parishes. It has been pointed out that there is a rough but calculable connection between the price of wheat and the number of Enclosure Acts in the century One or two other features are also worth noting. There are no Acts for Kent, only one for Essex. In Lancashire, Devon, and Cornwall only commonable waste is legislatively enclosed, and the process is 832 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION [1770- vii-tually completed by 1798. To a large extent in Durham, Cum- berland, Westmoreland, Northumberland, the counties on the Welsh border and Hertfordshire, enclosure took place at diffei'ent dates without recourse to Parliament. Hence the " Parliamentary belt " broadly covers a band from north-east to south-west, i.e. a line di-awn from Southampton to Norwich, from Bristol to Durham and from Bristol to Portland, in which the enclosure is mainly, but not wholly, an eighteenth century movement, continuing until 1846, While the magnitude of the change is not in dispute, the results cannot be summai-ised without many modifications in detail, and ai-e still subject to the collation of future research with the older evi- fidence. That as a whole enclosure was inevitable, the indispensable condition and the result of more scientific and economic agriculture ; that in the long run it added enormously to the productive resources of the nation ; that without it the new population could not have been fed, the industrial revolution stimulated, and the strain of the great war endured, is generally accepted. But unless we set aside the testimony of witnesses so competent as Young, Eden, and Marshall, corroborated by details from many sources and localities, the revolution was, perhaps inevitably, accompanied by much suffering, and no little injustice to the small, weak, and ipoor commoner. The rapidity and area of the change gave an undue advantage to the strong and the rich, the capitalist, the big landowner, the scientific reformer, intolerant of ignorance, ob- scurantism, or vested interests that baiTed the road to an increased totality of national wealth and to scientific progress. This infer- ence is no doubt most applicable to the enclosure of arable common fields. Enclosure of commonable waste, tantamount to reclamation, was for the most part beneficial, creative of employment and organised production, and more usually than not resulted in an increase of small holdings. Yet it would be unfair to suggest that the suiFering and injustice in most cases were the work of landlords, capitalists, lawyers, deliberately preying on the poor and helpless. The pathos of the new hedges and the deserted village does not lie in the wickedness of the strong but in the passive and unrecorded misery of the many, evicted or maimed by the community in the cause of the community, in its remoree- less march to a new life and a new order through the wreckage of the old. 1816] THE GREAT INVENTORS In the industrial world three features are conspicuous ; the number and variety of inventions, the substitution of machinerj- for human power, the transition to organised production on a large scale — la grande Industrie of the modern epoch. These affected especially the textile trades, mining, iron and steel and hardware, and then reactively almost every form of manufacture. The second half of the century is the age of the inventors. Starting from the flying shuttle of John Kay, Paul and Wyatt's roller spinning, 1733 we pass to the spinning jenny of Hargreave, Arkwiight's water ^^L frame, Crompton's mule, Cartwright's power-loom, the wool- 1767 combing machines of Toplis, Hawskley and Wright, and Murray's im- 1788 proved spinning frame and carding engine, which are perhaps the ^^5° most striking in a long list ; while the application by Tennant of Glasgow of Scheele's and Berthollet's discovery of chlorine to the 1800 bleaching process, and Bell's machine for cylinder printing, con- tributed powerfully to the revolution in the cotton, linen, and, ultimately, the woollen manufactures. No less remarkable was the advance in metallurgy and mechanical engineering. The blast furnace of Smeaton at Roebuck's Carron Iron Works, the con- 1760 tinuous improvements made by three genei-ations of Darbys at the famous Coalbrookdale Works, Huntsman's discovery for casting steel, are synchi-onous with the application by the brothers Cranage of the reverberatory furnace to smelting, and Henry Cort's patents for rolling iron, and for puddling, notable because a century's 1783 progress, if it has added much to our knowledge in metallurgical ^7*4 chemistry, has added little to the principles and methods of the inventors. Their discoveries, steadily improved by the brains and practical experience of numerous competitors, achieved one trans- cendant result. By enabling pit coal to be substituted for charcoal 1 as the fuel of the furnace, they added at a stroke the extraordinary j mineral resources of British coalfields to the productive wealth of 1 the nation, and called into existence a new, if a black, world in South Wales, the Midlands and Northern Counties of England, and the southern basin of the Clyde. Coal mining, iron and steel, no less than the textiles, became the reinforced cement that bonded into a cohesive structure the new industrial empire of Great Britain. In the china and earthenware trades Derby, Chelsea, Worcester, and Birmingham have the firat place. Planch^, Dunsbury, Wall, 3S4 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION [1770 Sadler created flouiishing centres of activity ; but the master of them all was the modest and indefatigable J osiah Wedgwp od. His works at Burslem and then at Etruria are a red rubric in the histoi-y of pottery and porcelain. Great as a worker and organiser, he was greater in his artistic intuition for quality and design. A study of the Wedgwood collection in the Birmingham Museum only emphasises the debt due to his eye for form, and his deter- mination always to combine the best material with the skill of the best workmen. It will be noticed too that in this wonderful epoch Great Britain owed little to foreign help. The most striking results are the products of British brains and energies ; and in the long Ust the place of honour belongs to James Watt, one of the finest and most fertile scientific minds that our country has pro- 'duced. The invention by which he transformed the atmospheric machine of Newcomen and others into the steam engine was theo- retically completed in 1765. But it was not till Watt's partner- 1774 (fhip with Matthew Boulton, the founder of the Soho Works, that Ithe discovery was turned to practical use. The alliance of a genius in mechanics with a genius in business inaugurated the age of steam. The consequences of the invention were as remarkable as the invention itself. Improved by Watt himself with the assistance of such able coadjutors as John Rennie, Pickard and Murdock, steam power was rapidly applied to, and finally conquered, the industrial world. Steam pumps and hammei's were followed by steam mills for sawing, sugar, flour, silk, cotton and wool. By 1800 the new power had triumphed, and it was only a question of time when it would be applied with similar success to transport by land and water, and take a new form in the steam train and the steam ship. Nor is it uninteresting to remember that the steam engine and The Wealth of Nations were both gifts to the nation from Glasgow Univer- sity. The grant of a laboratory for his experiments to the one genius, and the professorial chair of the other, enabled the two greatest Scotsmen of the eighteenth century to be the pioneers of a twin revolution in the world of mechanics and the world of thought For twenty years after 1760 the conditions of communication and transport were deplorably bad. Turnpikes had been authorised as early as 1663, but except in a few cases covered by special Acts the making and maintenance of roads were left to the parishes and grossly neglected. 4i±1uie— Xjowig's vivid description of his 1816J ROADS AND CANALS 335 experiences appears incredible to modern readers ; but with the extension of the home and foreign markets the peremptory need of replacing " what it would be a prostitution of language to call turn- pikes " by efficient lines of communication brought about a steady improvement. From 1760-1774, 452 Acts were passed, and in 1773 a general measure affecting the public highways came on to the statute-book. Men like Blind Jack of Knaresborough, an unedu- cated but practical genius, were pioneers ; but the application of engineering science as distinct from a felicitous empiricism came much later with Telford, Macadam, and their school. To commerce, the cheap transport of goods in bulk was more important even than sound roads — safe from highwaymen and smugglers. The need was met by the making of canals. It is characteristic and discreditable that until 1759 England, unlike France and Holland, had ignored the value of artificial waterways. The famous Bridgewater Canal, from Worsley to Manchester, however, constructed by James Biittdley for the Duke of Bridgewater, proved at once a commercial success, and was promptly connected with an extension to Runcorn, thus linking the growing Liverpool into the system. It is notice able that the primary object of the^canal was to bring coals to ^manufacturing and distributing centres. Brindley, likt Blind Jack, was whoUy uneducated, but in sheer ability he has seldom been surpassed. His connection with the Duke of Bridgewater is another striking example of the invaluable help given by enlight- ened members of the aristocracy to the application of science to industry. Brindley planned in all some 350 miles of canals, in- cluding the Grand Trunk, which connected Runcorn with the Humber and brought Birmingham and the Potteries into touch with Northern, Eastern, and Southern England. From 1770 on- wards the passion for canal making anticipated the feverish railway mania of the next centvu-y ; and by 1800 hundreds of miles had been completed, with benefits to trade as difficult to estimate as to gainsay. The results of these extraordinary and many-sided activities fui-nish mateiial embaiTassingly rich for anaJysis. Statistics are valuable in this connection because they supply the numerical pre- cision and graphic illustration necessary for grasping the significance of the forces in operation. In 1720 our exports were valued at £•6.910,899; in 1760 at ^14,694,970 ; in 1800 at .£'34,381,617; in 836 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION [1770- 1815 at ifi'58,624,550. At the same dates the imports are figured at ^6,090,083, J'9,832,802, ^28,257,781, ^32,987,396. In 1781, as compared with 1764, the imports of cotton show no increase, being under 4,000,0001b.; in 1800 they are 56,000,000 lb. ; in 1815 nearly 100,000,000 lb. In 1740, 17,350 tons of pig-u-on were produced ; in 1788, 68,300 tons ; in 1796, 125,079 tons ; in 1806, 256,206 tons. In 1760, 471,241 tons of British shipping were cleared outwards; in 1800, 1,269,329 tons. And the numerical tests for every one of our staple industries tell a similar marvellous tale. It is unfortunately impossible to measure with the same precision the volume of home and internal trade, but the evidence available sug- gests that its increase was even greater in percentage than that in the foreign trade proper. This gigantic advance in national wealth and productive power explains how the country raised and endui'ed a National Debt which leaped from ^130,000,000 in 1760 to £250,000,000 in 1783, and was swollen by more than £600,000,000 during the great war ; while the permanent charge on the public revenue rose from .£'4,750,000 in 1763 to £30,500,000 at the peace of 1815. The statistics of population in England and Wales can only be given approximately before the census of 1801 ; but it has been calculated by experts that from 1720 to 1760 the increase was about 1,250,000, i.e. from 5,500,000 to 6,750,000. The figures for 1801 work out at just under 9,000,000, and by that time the full effect of the industrial changes is felt ; and in 1811 we have census totals of 10,000,000, and in 1821 12,000,000, an addition of over 3,000,000 in twenty years compared with 2,250,000 and 1,250,000 in the two previous periods of forty years respectively. It is not surprising, therefore, that the views of thinkers exhibit a remaikable change also. To the previous feai" of depopulation suc- ceeded the fear of over-population. The Napoleonic era in England was not concerned with the defidency of men ; the men were there ; and the problem was how to secure them for the service of the State ; but it was seriously concerned with the problem of food supply. The figures correlated to the statistics of food production enable us to understand how the famous essay of Malthus, first pub- lished in 1798 and republished in 1802, fermented in the brain of every economist and politician, and ultimately coloured till it warped the public mind. But some further disengagement of the figures is necessary to iNGLAND. Distribution of Population in 1700 D v«C«itJU shire, Ox-^ri, iqia 181 s] GROWTH OF POPULATION 337 interpret the fiill significance of the growth in population. An economic statistician, indeed, might have predicted a priori froan the industrial changes the geogi-aphical distribution and stratifica- tion of the movement in population. A comparison of a popula- tion map for 1700 with that of to-day reveals two wholly different Englands. In 1700 no county outside Middlesex and Suney has on the average more than sixty inhabitants to the square mile ; and the zone of chief density lies in a triangle, the apex of which is the Wash and the base is the Bristol Channel. But iij 1801, outside the London area, Lancashire, the West Riding, and Staffordshii-e are the most thickly populated, and the map as a whole reveals in distribution and relative density the same features as that for 1901. In both cases population has tended to concentrate in two areas the counties immediately aflTected by the monster gi'owth of London and the counties west and north of a line drawn from the mouth of the Severn and the Humber, i.e. the districts directly affected by the new industiues. But while for 1801-1901 the distribution is simply an accentuation of accomplished results, for the eighteenth century it was a revolution. The change had not begun in 1701, it is a faintly ti-aceable tendency in 17^1, it is completed by 1801. The true commencement and the consummation lie in. the thirty years after 1770, rather than in the half-centmy after 1750. Quite recent modem history pi-ovides an approximate parallel in the internal evolution of the German Empire after 1870 ; but for the eighteenth-century England the change was neither foreseen nor could have been predicted in 1750. And both the character and results of the transformation that Great Britain underwent in little more than a single generation were and remain unprece- dented and unique. The new populatipn in its new distribution, which upset the long-established balance of South as against North, was also a different population in methods of life. In 1801 we are already far from the economic picture pieced together with such convincing and painstaking detail in Adam Smith's classical master- piece. The influx from, the country into the towns, the concentra- tion of men and women in towns is all the more mai'ked because so many of the centres are new towns. London retains, it is true, its marked ascendency, and remains the capital in every sense ; but Norwich has sunk from the third to the tenth place by 1801, while Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Oldham, 22 838 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION [1770 Stafford, Bradford, Burnley, are the creations of the industrial revo- lution as conspicuously as Glasgow and Lisinarkshire. The new England must be sought in Lancashire and the West Riding, in the coal-pits of Durham, Northumberland, and South Wales, in the Black Country and the Potteries. The industrial town partly creates, is partly created by, the industrial area. The division of labour, the concentration of population followed inevit- ably the localisation and distribution of the raw material of manu- factures. Men and women, more and more penned into the towns, are dependent for their earnings not on the sun and rain, on the soil and seasons of the home-land as was the England of 1701, but on the brains of engineers, the commercial capacity of capital- ists, on imports from East and West, on the bowels of the earth, and on specialised skill and mechanical powers. Three things they must have or perish — the raw material of their ti-ade, food, and expanding markets. Every year the application of machinery and motor power, fii-st water and then steam, stimulated enterprise on the large scale, and increased the profits of scientific organisa- tion. The volume of the product outstripped the most sanguine estimates. Every new invention facilitated the rate at which the total output could be increased, while it demanded a correspond- ing organisation for distribution, exchange, and consumption. The object of the British manufacturer was not so much to win or [maintain a superiority — that had already been achieved — as to 'create and control markets and make their consumptive capacity as elastic as his capacity to produce. England as "'a workshop for the world" involves a world ready to absorb the products of the workshop, and the crux of the problem did not lie in the [Certainties of production but in the potentialities of exchange and consumption. Hence the new economic data necessitated the re- writing of old and the addition of new chaptei-s to the theory of Political Economy, and the school of Ricardo is bom out of the school of Adam Smith. The centi'e of political gravity slowly shifts with the shifting of the centre of economic gravity. The political and economic needs and interests of a vast class of industrial workers and consumers, divorced from the land and linked with the Citpitalist and manufacturing entrepreneur, become more and more opposed to the interests of the landowner, which were not essentially identifiable with those of his tenants and the iNGLAND. Distribution of Population in 1801 6 '^{ 1^ < a / >. ? N . R 20-40 People to Square 40-60 60-80 80-/00 100-150 Abeve/50 » Mik :e.:R:. ;?'LINC0LN1 :P:K:i>go:«s:Er.iQ> iV.C1t(uUb>SK/ire, Oxf.r<<See Appendix x. 'J. W. Fortescue, History of British Army, vol. iv. 1802] ARMY AND NAVY 375 of inadequate resources dispersed in conflicting directions, expedi- tions dropped here and picked up again, and a series of half-hearted dabs at the enemy's coast-line ; the navy, disorganised to convoy them there, to stand by and take them away, and the army, badgered into believing its true function was to create futile and weak diversions — to land if it could — to fight and run away. Not without reason our continental allies came to regard Great Britain as perfidious moneylenders and shopkeepers, unfit to fight on shore. The five yeai-s "of filching sugar islands," which we could not hold, cost a hundred thousand lives and made service in the army a more terrible penalty than slavery in the galleys of Algiers. Lord Gren- ville complained that he could only find " some old woman in a red riband " to command ; but Abercromby, Charles Stuart, Cornwallis, Moira were first-rate officers. The materials of Wellington's Penin- sular army were in England long before 1808. It was the " old women in red ribands " in the Cabinet and at the Horse Guards who failed to discover the fact or to employ the resources at their disposal. The creation of a Secretary of State for War — a step in the right direction — was marred by Dundas, who held the office from 1794-1801, and whose record justifies the criticism that " he knew as much of war as a monthly nurse ". Pitt appointed Dundas and kept him in office for seven years ; and it was Dundas, the tyrannical " satrap " of Scotland, who was matched against Camot and Napoleon. The navy fortunately fai-ed better. The Admii-alty enjoyed a comparative administrative independence ; its action was not dissi- pated over half a dozen jealous departments ; it was far freer than the Hoi-se Guards from the demoralising claims of the prerogative. The sailor chiefs were scientific students of strategy and tactics, with a great tradition behind them. Ministers, too, were aware that an army failure meant at most a penitential confession, an unpleasant debate, and plenary absolution by a docile majority; but a naval catastrophe would mean impeachment. A rope round the neck, as the French Revolution proved, is a healthy stimulus to intellect in high quarters, and a fine deterrent to incompetence. Yet down to St. Valentine's Day, 1797, the Admiralty record was disappointing. Howe, whom Nelson judged to be "the first and greatest sea officer the world had produced," was worn out by 1794; Hood did not justify his reputation and abihties. Officers Bucb US Rridport, Hotham, Mann, Colpoys, were guilty of culpable 376 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789- slackness, and of fumbling and hide-bound tactics. Lord Spencer, however, was a happy gift from the Whigs to Pitt, and his record 8 1 the Admiralty was a marked contrast to that of his Ai'my col- league, Dundas. And shortly the patient study and work of the Howe-Kempenfelt school which had striven to combine the best of the Fi'ench theorists with the experience and ideals of British seamanship, made itself felt. With 1797 began a new era, lit up by great names, Jervis, Duncan, Comwallis, Nelson, and "the Nelson touch ". Finance was one of our chief weapons, and finance was Pitt's department. The cost of the war was tremendous. By 1801 ^292,009,604 had been added to the National Debt. The actual sum borrowed was £334,500,000, but the Sinking Fund reduced it by some £42,000,000. Yet so strained was credit that Pitt, who operated mainly in 3 per cent, stock, only raised about £200,000,000 in actual cash. Subsidies to foreign Governments accounted for about £9,000,000, a poor investment compared with the return on the £2,500,000 that Frederick the Great made in the Seven Years' War. Nor did the loans represent the total cost of the war. Pitt showed fertility of resource in taxation. The assessed taxes were trebled ; succession duties were introduced and increased ; the stamp duties were doubled. In 1798 an income tax, novel and graduated, was imposed, and in 1798 and 1799 the Minister appealed for voluntary contributions, a dubious expedi- ent which infringed the parliamentary control in finance. A more high-handed act and wholly inexcusable was the guarantee of £1,200,000 to the Emperor in 1796 without the previous assent of Parliament. By 1800 it was calculated that the charge on the National Debt absorbed 10 per cent, and taxation 20 per cent, of the total income of the nation. In 1797 the strain culminated in a grave crisis. The drain on the available specie made it im- possible for the Bank of England to meet its note issue with coin. Cash payments, except in sums below £1, were promptly sus- pended, and Bank of England notes became an inconvertible paper currency. Pitt's financial policy and measures have been criticised and defended by authoritative expeiis in cun-ency and banking. Sta- tistical computations make it very doubtful whether loans at a high rate of interest, and raising the ratio of cash received to the 1802] NATIONAL FINANCE 877 nominal liability, would have proved less costly. The Sinking Fund operated at an increasing loss, but the confidence it inspired is not quantitatively comparable with the cost of maintaining it. Pitt has been severely blamed : (a) for not raising more by taxation and less by loans ; (6) for not imposing the Income Tax as early as 1793. Pitt's conception of the war probably affected his Budgets in the first four years, but questions of taxation cannot be decided by pure economics. Subsequent criticism is often more successful in the exposition of principles and the analysis of in- cidence than in re-creating the political conditions and atmosphere of a period of terrible strain. And the due weight assignable to Pitt's deliberate judgment and decision is not easily determined. The best expert opinion, however, agrees that the suspension of cash payments until 1819 was wholly unjustifiable. But Pitt's responsibility for this ends in 1806, and the worst effects were felt after 1808. It is probable, too, that Pitt would have grasped, as Canning did, the arguments of Horner, Ricardo, and the Bullion Committee of 1810 more intelligently than did Castlereagh, unversed in economics, and the woolly-headed Vansittart At the outset the war was popular, but the operations in 1793 were badly planned and feebly executed. Disorganised France offered a fine opportunity for a vigorous blow at the heart, but our Government chose to scatter its inadequate resources in four areas, linked by no single strategic scheme. (1) In Belgium the British and Hanoverian army, under the Duke of York, co-operated with the Austrians under Coburg. Conde and Valenciennes were taken ; jujy j- but instead of a united march on Paris the Duke besieged Dunku'k, and 28 while the Austrians pottered over frontier fortresses. Houchard's victory at Hondschoote, and Jourdan's at Wattignies caused the sept. 8 siege of Dunkirk to be abandoned. Camot's reorganisation of the oct. 16 Revolution armies had saved the north-eastern frontier. Hoche, too, on the Upper Rhine, had driven the Imperialists across the river and seized the Palatinate. (2) The expedition sent out under Moira to aid the revolted Vendeans sailed too late, and returned ^ec. i without any results. (3) The 12,000 men thus uselessly employed might have proved invaluable to Hood, despatched to Toulon ^^ ^^ to aid the Royalists there. Soldiers were badly wanted, and after the fall of Lyons the Republicans pressed the siege in which the young Napoleon Bonaparte made a brilliant ddbiit. Hood was 878 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789- Dec. 19 ■ obliged to abandon the harbour. Nine French vessels were burnt, but the arsenal was not destroyed and fifteen of the Toulon fleet remained intact to form the nucleus of a serious squadron. (4) Small successes elsewhere were the sole comfort of the Government. PondicheiTy, St. Pierre, Miquelon, and Tobago were captured with ease, although the attack on Martinique was foiled. The Cabinet now planned operations on a large scale in the West Indies, which for the next four years absorbed half our effective force in a pesti- lential climate and handcuffed our efforts in the European sphera April ig To keep Pmssia in the Coalition, Malmesbury was sent to Bei'lin with the bribe of a heavy subsidy. But the sequel showed that the money paid to maintain 62,000 Prussian troops in the field was diverted to maintain the Prussian forces in crushing an in- surrection in Poland, while the Austrian Court, with its eyes too on Poland, and disgusted that our gold had flown to Berlin, not Vienna, was ready to thi-ow up the game in the Netherlands. The British forces in the Netherlands were tenubly deficient in April 30 numbei-s, training, and equipment After the capture of Landrecies May 17 the allies united at Toumai, but were defeated at Turcoing, where the Austrian failure to support the overwhelmed British troops was a fresh cause of mutual recriminations. The French now June 20 turned both flanks. Coburg, defeated at Fleurus, fell back on Maestricht. The Duke of York, evacuating Ostend and abandon- ing Antweip, was driven from the Maas to the Waal, and sur- Nov. 2j rendered the command to Harcourt and Walmoden. A hard frost made all the Dutch water and marsh defences useless. The Fiench Dec. 27 crossed the Maas, and oui- demoralised army, cut off from the Austrians, who had retired across the Rhine, made a disastrous retreat to the Yssel and the Em& " Your army," wrote Walmoden, " is destroyed. The officers, their cai-riages, and a large train are safe." In April, 1795, the shattered remnants were shipped home from Bremen. The French had overrun Holland, sent the Stad- holder helter-skelter to England, and captured the Dutch fleet frozen up in the Texel. A Batavian Republic, dependent on Paris, May 16 was shortly declared. The insurrection in Corsica under Paoli was May 20 aided by Hood's fleet and the capture of Bastia (where Nelson, previously marked out by Hood as an officer to be consulted on Aug. 10 tactical questions, lost his right eye) and of Calvi, effected the con- quest of the island. In the Atlantic, west of Ushant, Howe's 1802] THE FIRST COALITION 379 famous victory of " The Fii-st of June " was the culminating point of four days' exhausting manoeuvres against the fleet of Villaret- Joyeuse. Howe endeavoured to break the enemy's line, ship by ship, and by engaging to leeward make the action decisive. But this daring conception was imperfectly executed, and the battle resulted in the capture of six ships only. The bulk of the enemy's fleet made good their escape, and the important convoy which Howe had desu'ed to cut off^ escaped also. Actoss the ocean Jervis and Grey, working together admirably, captured Martinique, March 33 St. Lucia, Guadeloupe, with Marie Galante. More serious for the April 2 future was the seizure of hai'boui-s in St. Domingo, which com- ^*^ " mitted us deeply to that centre of malaria and negro revolutions. And the slackness of observation in Europe enabled French rein- forcements to reach the West Indies and recover Guadeloupe. The Dec. 10 mastery of the sea, the destruction of French trade, the defeat of the French armies, were not to be achieved by eccentric raids and isolated expeditions, but by a superiority of force properly em- ployed at the strategic centres. The break-up of the First Coalition was the outstanding feature of 1795. Tuscany and Spain deseiised the alliance. Prussia, deserv- edly deprived of our misused subsidy, capitulated (Treaty of Basle) to the Revolution and surrendered its territories west of the Rhine. It April 5 was then able to complete the Third Partition of Poland. Gorged Oct. with the spoil, and flnancially bankrupt, the Hohenzollern State em- braced the policy of nullity, miscalled neutrality, which in ten years brought it to Jena and dismemberment Catherine at St. Peters- burg astutely confined herself to good wishes, doles to Vienna, and the lion's share of Poland. Pitt and Gienville proceeded to bolster up the Emperor by guaranteeing a loan of ^4,500,000, raised at 7 per cent. Pitt's speeches illustrated his persistent belief that the French were too exhausted to continue much longer their efibrts, but the successful establishment of the Dii-ectory in the autumn ushered in a new phase of the Revolution. And slackness before Brest enabled the Toulon fleet to be reinforced from their Atlantic squadron, while Hotham threw away two chances of destroying the enemy in March 13 the Mediterranean. His immortal "We have done very well," J"'y ''' which stirred Nelson's wrath because only two ships were captured, has passed into history. The failure to secure the command of the sea, more than the Austrian defeat at Loano, made Bonaparte's Nov. 23 epoch-making- campaign next vear possible. 880 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789 In the Atlantic, too, Bridport showed how things should not be done. With superioi" force he engaged the Brest fleet off the Ile- de-Groix, and instead of wiping it out, was content with taking three prizes. Earlier in the year, however, Cornwallis — " Blue Billy," as the sailors called him — had signalised himself by the capture of a French convoy and the safe-conduct of it to Plymouth before su- perior numbers. Another expedition to the Brittany coast, com- posed of French imigri regiments, joined later by the Comte d'Artois, was despatched, too late, as usual, to co-operate with the Royalists, and the Quiberon expedition collapsed in shame and ruin. Quarrels broke out between the 6migri leaders and the Chouans on shore; the scanty British naval force, reduced to impotence on the rocky island it had seized, could only take away some 4000 from the peninsula and leave the remainder to be shot down by the victorious army of Hoche. To save the Dutch colonies from Sept. 15 falling into the hands of the French the Cape was successfully seized, ■ '5 and next year Ceylon, Malacca, Amboyna, and Banda in the East, Demerara in the West, fell into our hands. In the West Indies insurrections in Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and Jamaica aided the deadly climate in sapping the moral of the decimated ti'oops. St. Lucia was evacuated, Grenada all-but lost. Undeterred and impenitent, Dundas despatched in 1796 a big expedition under Abercromby which crushed the rising in Grenada and St. Vincent and recovered St. Lucia, but at a terrible cost. These thi-ee years killed or disabled 80,000 troops, "exceeding the total cost of Wellington's army from the beginning to the end of the Peninsular War ". The supei-stition that ports commanded the sea was still nourished both by the French and ourselves. Had the men and ships wasted in the West Indies been employed in Europe, in the Netherlands, and off Brest and Toulon, the results might have been far different. Hotham, whose squandered opportunities had wrought irreparable mischief, was strangely rewarded by an, Irish peerage, and gave way to Sir John Jervis, who inaugurated a new era of strenuous discipline and vigilance. But Bonaparte's cam- paign in North Italy crushed Sardinia out of the coalition, shut the Austrians up in Mantua, and drove Naples and the Papacy Aug. 19 into neutrality, while Spain concluded an alliance with the Du'ec- tory. The closing of the Italian ports and the threatened addition of the Spanish to the French fleets necessitated the oi-der to evacu- 1802] A BLACK YEAR 881 ate the Meditenanean. Corsica was abandoned, and for eighteen months the French were left masters of the inland sea. The war was no longer popular at home.^ Repeated failures, the strain of taxation, and the prospect of the Emperor's desertion coerced the Cabinet into the repellent task of negotiating with the revolutionary Government. Overtures in the spring were rejected, but despite the opposition of the King, the extremists in the Cabinet, and of Burke, whose Letters on a Regicide Peace breathed fresh fire and slaughter, Malmesbury was sent to Paris. Instead of a France ruined by the Revolution he found unwelcome signs of prospei'ity and growing confidence. The desire for peace in both the English and French people was genuine, but the negotiations broke down over the proposed restoration of the Austrian Nether- Dec 19 lands, and Malmesbury was ordered out of France by the Duectory. The ensuing eighteen months were the blackest that a British Government has yet had to face. Spain and Holland were in alliance with France ; Bonapai-te forced our ally, Austria, to accept the Preliminaries of Leoben subsequently converted into the Treaty April 18 of Campo Formio, by which Venice was suppressed and handed to oct. 17 the Emperor, the French securing the Netherlands, the left bank of the Rhine, and the Ionian islands. Poitugal made peace with France. Aug. 10 Ireland was marching to the Rebellion of '98, and a double invasion was planned — of Ireland from Brest, of England by the Dutch fleet in the Texel — the wings to a central stroke to be delivered by the united French and Spanish fleets in the Atlantic. There were fierce dissensions in the Cabinet, general discontent bred by high prices, scanty food, and severe taxation. The suspension of cash payments witnessed to the financial exhaustion, and the loan of .:^18,000,000 was only raised by an appeal to the unexhausted loyalty of the nation. At a critical period our naval power was crippled by the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore. It is not sur- prising that Pitt's health never recovered from the cruel strain of these terrible months, but the haughtily serene courage with which ' Cf. Sheffield to Auckland, September 12th, 1793 : " If something very extra- ordinary does not happen, he (Pitt) and the war will be in a damned hobble " (Auck- landMSS., xli., 68). Again, January 5th, 1794: " You would all be kicked out before the end of the session if there was a suitable man to put in the place of Pitt " (Auck' land, Correspondence, iii., 168). Sheffield had written, January 23rd, 1793 : " I like it much (Grenville's reply to Chauvelin) ; it seems to show that war is inevitable " (Prothero, Private Letters of Gibbon, ii., 362), 882 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789- the Prime Minister confronted the situation made him a worthj incaraation of the national spirit. Hoche's expedition to Ireland was a serious affair. Some forty ships with 15,000 troops were shipped out of Brest, the greater part Dec. 21 of which reached Bantry Bay. There was no effective force to dis- pute their landing, but luckily Hoche had been separated from the main body and Grouchy trifled with time and a fair wind. A heavy gale blew the armada from the coast, and, after losing five vessels in the storm and seven to British wai'ships, reached Brest again, on January 17th. Bridport's slackness made this daiing sti'oke of in- vasion by evasion memorable. " The grand fleet " was at Spithead, instead of lying off Brest ; Bridport was not at sea till January 3rd, and he failed to intercept the returning expedition. Though the French had not secured the command of the sea, 15,000 men imder a leader of Hoche's genius, in the Ireland of 1797, denuded of troops and ripe for rebellion, and with the mutinies in our squadrons im- minent, might easily have put the British Executive in a dangerous dilemma. The moral of a tighter grip on the hostile harbours was Feb. obvious. The subsequent landing from two Fi-ench frigates of 1200 ruffians, mostly liberated convicts, at Fishguard, who surrendered at the first summons, was an incident of no importance except in further alai-ming public opinion. To Jervis fell the honour of re- storing our nerve. On St Valentine's Day, with fifteen sail of the line, he came up with the Spanish fleet, twenty-seven sti-ong, off Feb. 14 Cape St. Vincent. England, as he said, needed a victory. The junc- tion of the Spanish fleet with the French squadron at Brest must be stopped, no matter what it cost. It was quality against numbers, and quality won. Better still the battle brought Commodore Nelson at a bound to the front The enemy had been cut into two divisions, and at the critical moment Nelson, disobeying an order, wore his ship The Captain out of the line, and, gallantly supported, pre- vented the divisions from uniting. Four prizes were taken, two of which were boarded and captured by Nelson himself Jervis was content to let things stand at that, and the Spaniards escaped into Cadiz, where they were closely watched. Jervis was made Earl St Vincent, and Nelson a Knight of the Bath. A new epoch had dawned. The self-confident commodore had begun to teach the lesson that he rammed home in Aboukir Bay, that " not victory but annihilation " must henceforward be the ideal. The right wing of the invasion scheme, the Dutch fleet in the 1802] MUTINY AND VICTORY Texel, watched by Duncan, still remained intact, and at this point occurred the mutinies in the fleet. The Spithead division was the first affected ; a revolt precipitated by the undeniable grievances April ij of the sailors — scandalously low pay, bad food, degiading punish- ments, no proper medical service, administrative injustices. After a short struggle the Admiralty conceded the main demands of the crews. But delay in voting the increase of pay and proclaiming the royal pardon caused the mutiny to break out again ; and not till May 7 Howe had been specially despatched to convince that there was no breach of faith was discipline restored. The outbreak at the Nore May la was more serious, and under Parkei-'s leadership spread to Dun- can's fleet at Yai-mouth. The mutineers demanded revision of the Articles of War and virtual control over the officei-s. When these were peremptorily refused the crews endeavoured to terrorise Ad- miralty and country into submission. Yet the mutineers behaved more as strikei-s than as traitors. No attempt was made to desert en bloc to the enemy. The Spithead fleet refused its sympathy, and the resolute steps taken by the Admiralty broke up the revolt. By June 14th the last ship, Paiker's, sun-endei'ed, and Parker with eighteen othei-s was hanged. Symplloms of a similar spirit at the Cape and off Cadiz were sternly repressed by Macartney and St. Vincent. And shortly the navy splendidly vindicated its character. Neither French nor Dutch utilised the crisis to strike. The French were partly handicapped by the renewal of peace negotia- tions, for Pitt had again sent Malmesbury to treat at LUIe. Pitt's desire for peace was proved by the concessions offered — recognition of French conquests in the Netherlajids, Luxemburg, and Savoy, the restoration of our colonial captures, save the Cape. Carnot and his party were anxious to accept these terms, but the covp d'itat of 18 Fructidor put the war party in power, and Malmesbury for the second time was ordered to leave France. But the hopes of the reorganised Directory were now frustrated by the skill and iron will of Duncan. During the crisis of the mutiny the Admiral watched the Texel with two vessels only, resolved, if need be, to fight and sink with his flag flying. But the Dutch did not come out till October 6th ; and on October 11th Duncan, with sixteen battleships to fifteen against him, after a general chase, signalled, without waiting to form a line, to break the enemy's line and en- gage \jo leeward — a daring order, for the Dutch ships were in 584 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789- shallow water only five miles off the land. But Duncan was of the stuff of Hawke ; he wanted a smashing victory and saw how it could be won ; and he was rewarded by a greater success than Jervis had obtained at St. Vincent. A pell-mell engagement, concentra- tion on the Dutch rear, and ding-dong fighting on both sides resulted in nine Dutch ships being taken. The invasion project was ruined. No admiral better deserved his viscountship, and the handling of the fleet at Camperdown, which gave him his title, put " Keppel's Duncan " into the first class of our great sea officers. The secondary naval operations were not uniformly successful. In Feb. the West Indies Abercromby and Hai-vey captured Trinidad, July but an attack on Puerto Rico failed. Jervis detached Nelson to attack Santa Cruz de Tenerife. But two attempts to carry the July 22-25 town and harbour failed disastrously, and Nelson, having lost his light arm and nearly his life, was oblio-ed to return. With 1798 the war entered a new phase. The determination of the Directory to make the issue one between a France victorious on the Continent and an isolated Great Britain, rallied the national forces on the side of our Government. Although Pitt still clung to his idea that the revolutionary power at Paris might be upset, the main purpose of our policy now was to maintain intact our national independence. It was a struggle in 1798 essentially be- tween a great land and a great sea power, and for Great Britain the result would be settled on the water. Bonaparte, appointed to the command of " the army of England," recognised that the pro- ject of flinging a force across an uncommanded Channel was too hazardous ; yet the expedition to Egypt was a subtle and gigantic development of the scheme of invasion. Since the abandonment of the Mediterranean in 1796 that sea had been a Fi'ench lake, but May 2 Nelson was now sent to reconnoitre Toulon where a formidable armada was known to be in preparation. Nelson missed the great armament of Bonaparte and Brueys, which sailed on May 19th, June 13 captured Malta and then left for Alexandria. Reinforced with the pick of Jervis's ships, Nelson, hot in pursuit, again missed his enemy Jane 22 ^J some sixty miles and reached Alexandria two days in advance of the French. Convinced that their destination was Syria, he sailed off'; Napoleon slipped in behind him, landed, and was able to conquer Lower Egypt. But Nelson was presently back again, to be rewarded with the welcome sight of Brueys' tlurteen battleship? 1802] NAVAL AND IRISH AFFAIRS 885 in Aboukir Bay. The battle of the summer night of August 1st was a masterpiece of decision, tactics, and seamanship, and deservedly set the seal on Nelson's fame. The wind was blowing down the Fi-ench line and both fleets learned that they had to deal with a man who trifled neither with time nor wind, and whose favourite signal was " Engage more closely ". By doubling on the French van and containing the centre Nelson showed that annihilation was his object, and, had not a serious wound in the forehead prevented his control- ling the action to the bitter end, it is probable that not a single French ship would have escaped. As it was, only two battleships and two frigates got away. The rest were either captured or de- stroyed. Nelson's peerage was the fit recognition of the most decisive victory as yet recorded in our naval annals. Bonaparte,, who had narrpwly escaped being destroyed at sea, was now shut up in Egypt. At home the foolish secession of the bulk of the Opposition from Parliament, which marked the session of 1797, left the Government with a comparatively free hand. Fox, however, continued to agitate outside Parliament, and the repetition at the Whig Club of a toast, "To the sovereignty of the people," provided George HI. with the pleasure of striking the Opposition loader's name from the roll of the Privy Council. In the Commons, Tierney had taken Fox's place. Accused by Pitt of obstruction he sent him a challenge, and the two statesmen satisfied their honour by exchanging harmless shots on Putney Heath. But Pitt's task was more seriously aggravated May 27 by the prolonged crisis in Irish affairs. The constitutional and political difficulties inherent in the settle- ment of 1783, exemplified in the failure of the commercial proposals of 1785, had been re-exemplified in 1788 when the Irish Parliament -proceeded in the Regency Qnestion by methods in shai'p contradiction to those adopted by the Ministry in London. The determination to maintain an unbroken control over the Irish Legislature involved in practice the concentration of power in the hands of the Lord- Lieutenant and the Castle Junto, i.e. the Executive group controlled by the English Cabinet. Hence the worst feature of the existing situation was to place the English Cabinet necessarily at the mercy of the small official circle, bent on preserving by every corrupt method the bigoted and reactionary Protestant ascendency. The two ablest representatives of this system were Fitzgibbon, who be- came Lord Chancellor in 1789 and Lord Clare in 1795, and John 2fi 886 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789- Beresford, First Commissioner of Revenue; both were strenuous opponents of Catholic emancipation, and their advice and influence fatally dominated the Irish Government and the British Cabinet. The eleven years from 1782-93 offered golden opportunities. Had the problems of religious disabilities, of tithes, of the endowment of the Roman Catholic priesthood, of places and pensions, of an extended franchise and a redistribution of seats, and of the land system, been handled with sympathy and constructive statesman- ship, the deep-rooted causes of agrarian disorder and political discontent might have been effectually extirpated. The remark- able decline in sectarian fanaticism, the increase in material pros- perity dating from 1783, traceable to the awakened national spirit, the removal of trade restrictions and the encouragement of industry, pointed the plain moral that Ireland was ripe for, and would profit immensely by, reform. But in vain Grattan and the Whig party pleaded for a removal of the most patent evils. Under the corrupt and unjust representative system the majority of the Legislature could be controlled by the Castle ; the Castle opposed reform, and the Cabinet at London took its policy from the Castle. The duty of converting a Protestant settlement into a prosperous and loyal Irish nation was burked or denied to be a duty at all. Outside the Legislature three well-marked sections can be broadly traced — the Catholic nobility and gentry, the Catholic democracy, and the Presbyterian north. But Catholic and Presbyterian had in the Legislature neither direct representation nor du-ect political influence. They could only proclaim and press their grievances through associations outside Parliament, in whose action the ti-ans- ition from agitation to disaffection, from a programme of drastic reform to revolution, was easy. The chronic lawlessness was seri- ously aggravated by three potent causes — the weakness of the Executive, the absence of respect for the unj ust laws of a minority, the vices of the agrarian system. The success of the Volunteer movement had impressed Irishmen with the dangerous conviction that the Government would not yield to argument, but to organised force alone. By 1789 many thinking Irishmen ai'gued that, imtil the Castle Junto had been broken up, there was no future for reform. " If," said Sir John Moore in 1798, " I were an Irishman, I should be a rebel." Such a sentence explains the cai-eere of Wolfe Tone, Ai-thur O'Connor, and Edward Fitzgerald. 1802] IRELAND 887 The French Revolution altered the whole situation. The sovereignty of the people, the principle of nationality, the abolition of tithes, the removal of religious disabilities, equality in civic and political rights before the law, the destmction of a privileged land system — these and other features con-esponded to a nicety with the programme of ardent Reformei-s in Ireland. The Roman Catholic had long demanded emancipation, the Presbyterian urged political reconstruction with annual Parliaments, manhood suffrage, aboli- tion of tests, and equal electoral districts. The Catholic as yet was not disaffected. He could be controlled through the priesthood, the prelates and the gentry, classes to whom much in the French Revolution was hateful. And with Canada before their eyes British statesmen, could they have thrown off the fettering superatitions of Fitzgibbon's faction, might by justice, sympathy, and toleration have reconciled the Roman Catholic population, at least threes foui-ths of Ireland, to British rule. The danger of uniting Roman Catholic and Presbyterian in a common hostility had long existed and been emphasised by keen-sighted observera of Irish conditions. And now in 1791 the pamphlet of A Northern Whiff (Wolfe Tone) advocated strenuous co-operation b^ween Presbyterian and Catho- lic, in order to force through a common programme. Its populaiity was significant. Equally significant were the writei-'s open con- tempt for the settlement of 1782, and for the Irish Parliament, his plain hint that salvation would be found in political separation and democratic independence. The foundation of the Society of United i-g, Irishmen laid the basis of a revolutionary organisation. Next year the Catholic Convention began a fresh lease of vigorous life. The alienation of the Catholic from British ascendency had begun. In 1793 pressure from London forced the Irish Executive to pass a large measure of relief. The disabilities on property were removed ; Dublin University and commissions in the army and navy were thrown open ; the franchise was conceded on terms of equality with the Protestant. But this long-delayed act of justice was fatally marred. Parliament was not thrown open to the Catholic, and the leadership of the enfranchised Catholic vote was deliberately withheld from the loyal Catholic nobles and gentry. Nothing was done to remedy the rotten borough system through which the Government maintained its reactionary majority. The deciding voice lay with the Castle Executive as before, and religious relief 388 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789- without Parliamentary reform, and the abolition of tests were an aggravation rather than a mitigation of Irish grievances. But it is clear that when the Cabinet at London was determined on a measure it could compel the Irish Executive to give way. The ultimate responsibility both in 1793 and later must and can only lie on Pitt and his colleagues at Whitehall. By 1793 Great Britain was at war, and the creeping paralysis of panic had smitten the directors of policy at London. Grattan, detesting republicanism and revolution, supported the war, but Grattiin had lost much of his influence. And the leaders of the United Irishmen, having broken away from constitutional Whig- gism, were contemplating the overthrow of the Government with the help of France. Defenderism, secret organisations for the abolition of tithes, and the Peep of Day Boys, a counter Protestant organisation, showed how on both sides the elements of a tenible civil war between races and creeds were being steadily piled up. And the successful landing of a French force might at any moment precipitate the crisis. The last chance of averting disaster came Jan. +, with the viceroyalty of Fitzwilliam, whose appointment was due '795 to the junction of the Portland Whigs with Pitt in 1794. Fitz- william, convinced that the completion of Catholic emancipation was urgent, dismissed Beresford and negotiated with Grattan. The Viceroy thus cleai'ly foreshadowed a change both of policy and system, which had the enthusiastic support of Catholic and Whig, but was a menacing challenge to the party entrenched in the Castle. But the hopes that he had raised were speedily dashed. Feb. 23 Disavowed by the British Cabinet, and recalled, Fitzwilliam left March 25 Dublin, lamented as no other Viceroy in the century. His place was taken by Lord Camden, a weak and colourless puppet ; the Catholic Emancipation Bill was shelved, Beresford was restored and Fitzgibbon made Earl of Clare. The Castle Junto was thus re- endowed with its old supremacy. The evidence in a matter bitterly controverted then and since supports the conclusion that Fitzwilliam misinterpreted his powers and his mission. He made the fatal mistake of acting with prema- ture haste and not on explicit written instructions, but on a verbal understanding. He was not authorised to dismiss Beresford ; he gave pledges precipitately which went 'beyond the policy contem- plated by the British Cabinet, which was not prepared for a change 1802] REBELLION AND REACTION of system. His recall, concurred in by his Whig colleagues, was therefore justified on the naiTow merits of the case.^ But both Pitt and Portland shared the responsibility for the initial misunder- standing. Their neglect of urgent messages from the Viceroy, and their failure to appreciate the gravity of the crisis were inexcusable, and contributed in no small degree to the wrecking of Pitt's later policy. On the broader issue, it is at least arguable that Fitz- william's scheme of reform by a reformed Administration, resolutely supported from London, could have been carried, and that it alone at the eleventh hour could have kept the Roman Catholics loyal and have saved Ireland three years of horror and degradation, and a ce^tmy of memories that no subsequent statesmanship could obliterate. It was not to be. Camden's viceroyalty inaugurated a period of lawlessness, disorder, outrage, flaming finally into the inferno of religious and racial civil war. Haunted by the fear of invasion, of ai-med Jacobinism within, reinforced by armed Jacobinism from without, obsessed by spies and informers, the Irish Government, in the absence of regular troops sufficient to defend the country and maintain peace, had recourse to yeomanry and militia raised locally. At the Diamond in Ai-magh, Defenders and Peep of Day Boys Sept. came to open conflict The Orange Society was founded, and Ulster was ravaged by Protestants bent on driving the Catholics "to hell or Connaught". The United Irishmen attempted to organise a counter-resistance. But the Insurrection Act of 1796 provided the Executive with unlimited powers, and " martial law " was virtually proclaimed and enforced up to the hilt. After Ulster the midland and southern counties were taken in hand, and the yeomam-y and mUitia, aided by the magistrates, let loose on the Catholics. During 1796 and 1797 the licence of the undisciplined and uncontrolled "troops," the tortures, burnings, floggingsi shootings in cold blood, in which women and girls were not spared, make a sickening record. In the name of law, security, and religion the anti-Jacobin government of Ireland and its agents showed that it could match the excesses of a Com- mittee of Public Safety or the Revolutionary Tribunal at Paris. Feb.-M ay In 1798 the United Irish movement was broken by the arrest of ' Sec especially the correspondence in Dropmort Papers, vols. ii. and iii., and references in Introduction, iii., xxxv. 890 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789- its leaders — Arthur O'Connor; Robert Emmet and McNeven, Edward Fitzgerald (who died from the wounds received in an attempt to resist alTest), Henry and John Sheai'es. A rising had been planned for the summer, but the rebels were now leaderless. Ulster gave little trouble ; Munster and Connaught were quiet ; in Leinster alone was there serious civil war. In Meath, Kildare, and Caiiow the insun-ection was easily suppressed. But in Wexford a force formidable in numbers was mustered. It swept the country- side, headed by fighting priests as generals, won some successes and signalised its temporary triumph by the murder of a good many Protestants, notably at the massacre on Wexford Bridge. The June 5 failm'e to take Waterford, a severe repulse at Arklow, and the ^al June 9 defeat of the main body and the capture of their camp at Vinegar June 21 Hill by General Lake shattered the rebellion. The smouldering embers were then quenched in a final orgie of exultant vengeance which sought its excuse in the recent excesses of the rebels. The leaders of the United Irish movement planned to overthrow the Government with the aid of Fi-ance, and the French made serious efforts to provide assistance. The checkmating of the schemes of invasion was more the sailors' than the soldiers' affair, and after the failure of Hoche, French help proved futile. Humbert reached Aug. 20, Killala Bay, landed with a small force, and routed pai-t of Lake's '79^ force at Castlebar (The Race of Castlebar), the militia and yeomamy running away in a panic, but was obliged to surrender at Ballina- muck. Hardy's expedition was effectively blocked at Brest until Oct. lo September, when it slipped out and reached Lough Swilly, only to be cut up by a British squadron. Wolfe Tone, on board one of the French ships, was captured, but he prefen-ed to cut his throat before sentence of death could be executed. A third attempt by Savary Oct. 12 brought his ships to Killala Bay, whence they promptly returned, not without difficulty, to Rochelle. In fact, unless the French could land in adequate numbers the troops, and probably the ^ps, were a gift to their enemies ; a formidable armada made evasion more difficult, and was threatened by disaster at sea unless the fleet prepai'ed to dispute its passage was first dispc^ed of. Nor did suc- cessful evasion confer the command of the sea. The repeated efforts to prove the contrary from 1795-1801, provided by Ireland and Egypt, taught our Admiralty valuable lessons for the later wai- with Napoleon. 1802] THE IRISH REBELLION S91 Wolfe Tone's scheme of a united Irish insurrection was wrecked when Protestant turned on Catholic. The Catholics who rose in 1798 did not fight for an Ireland of both religions, united on a democratic basis, but rather to save themselves from extermination. No civilised Government can palter with conspiracy and treason, overt or concealed. It is claimed that the barbarities, euphemistic- ally termed " severity," during the two and a half years that pre- ceded the rebellion proper broke the back of a gigantic scheme ; that the rebels, particularly in 1798, were guilty of indefensible excesses. Literally, both claims ai'e true. But the first argument would absolve Alva and the authors of the September massacres. The true indictment against the Irish Executive is that it employed methods calculated, perhaps deliberately, to provoke the innocent into resistance, and such as no civilised Administration can ever be entitled to employ. The enforcement of obedience to law and order by butchery and torture is a crime as well as a blunder. The Irish Executive forgot the first duty of a Government, that it is responsible for the future no less than the present. And the weight of the evidence supports the conclusion that the barbarities of the rebels were trifling compared with those of the victors, and were largely reprisals when Catholic Ireland had been maddened by the fanatic savagery of magistrates and yeomanry. The en- couragement and protection of those who did the worst things remain a blacker stain on the men in authority than even the ghastly cruelties perpetrated. A Government, for example, that rewarded the ruffianly official, Thomas Fitzgerald, the High Sheriff of Tipperary, with a baronetcy is beyond defence. Abercromby and Moira were soldiers who knew the horrors of war ; the former was compelled to resign because he told the truth in a pro- clamation ; the latter was voted down in the British House of Lords because he had the courage and the humanity publicly to protest. Comwallis, also a soldier and experienced administrator, who succeeded Camden, was horrified at the state in which he found r^^^ , ^^ Ii-eland and at the tone of bloodthu-sty bigotry prevailing in Dub- lia But after Abercromby's resignation not till Cornwallis's arrival was a serious attempt made at headquarters to discounten- ance and check the atrocities committed in the name of law. Nor did Pitt think fit to intei-vene, though a few lines from the Prime Minister might have done 0>uch. Yet on Pitt the doctrine that ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789. the end, the legislative union, justified the means took a stem revenge, and a still sterner retribution on Protestant Ireland and England. The formation of the Second Coalition against Prance was the indirect result of the victory in Aboukir Bay. Great Britain's resources were further strengthened by the courage of Colonel Maitland, who evacuated St. Domingo on his own responsibility and left Toussaiht L'Ouverture the master of a black republic which for five yeai-s had crippled our military power in Europe. The seizure of Minorca by Stuart imposed a fresh strain on our Nov. depleted army and overworked navy. Nelson, too, in an evil horn- for his fame, had sailed for Naples, where he fell under the demoral- ising influence of Lady Hamilton, the bosom friend of the debased Queen of a debased Court For the next eighteen months his genius was in eclipse. Yet the omens were favourable for a renewal of the European struggle with Finance Napoleon was shut up in Egypt. The corrupt Du-ectory was unpopular. Its aggi-essive action in attacking Switzerland and Piedmont, substituting a re- public at Rome in the seat of the aged PontiflF, Pius VI., driven into exile, and its domineering claims in the settlement of German affairs had roused the fears and indignation of Eui'ope. Pressed by Russia, the Sultan had declared war on France, and the half- mad Tsar Paul, who had succeeded the Tsarina Catherine in 1797, deeply mortified at the French capture of Malta, now allied with the Turks, and was ready to co-operate with Great Britain and Austria. A vigorous league, which had struck hai-d in the autumn of 1798, might have extinguished the Directory. But delays and the damn- ing lack of unity of purpose ruined the cause of the dynasties. Prussia refused to abandon its neutrality. Austria was more jealous of Prussia than of France, suspicious of Russia, and at loggerheads with England over money and military plans. Naples, as Nelson said, was a Court of fiddlera and harlots. The Anglo- Russian Treaty was not concluded until December 29th, and Austiia did not declare war until March 12thj 1799. Six months earlier, Naples, with Nelson's consent, foolishly attacked the French. Ferdi- nand entered Rome but was promptly driven out ; his ai-my under the Austrian Mack was routed and the Bourbon Court imder Nelson's 1802] THE SECOND COAUTION escort fled to Palermo. On the mainland the French established the Parthenopean Republic. In the north the House of Savoy took refuge in Sardinia, and Piedmont was overrun. Against these French successes the allies could only place the capture of Minorca, Dec. 9, the blockade of Malta by British forces, and the seizure of the Ionian '79* Islands by a Russian squadron. The terms of the Second repeated those of the First Coalition. The main military operations in North Italy, Switzerland, and the Rhine were allotted to Russian and Austrian armies, subsidised by Great Britain. Our naval supremacy in the Mediterranean was to be employed in assisting the Italian campaign. The avowed object of the allies was to crush the Revolutionary Government at Paris and reduce Fi-ance to the limits of 1792. Pitt laid down the restor- ation of the Bourbons as the unalterable object of British policy ; nor so long as he was in power was this object abandoned ; and he still cherished the idea that the resources of the Revolution were nearing exhaustion. Pitt's British courage, tenacity, and singleness of aim might have saved th^ League of which England was the heart and soul ; but our allies, the Courts, had not changed their character nor improved their methods ; Bonaparte, by a stroke of luck, returned to France and revealed a genius in statesmanship and administration as formidable as his genius in war ; and the military direction in Great Britain showed that it had forgotten and learned nothing. The initial successes of the allies were remarkable. Jourdan was driven across the Rhine by the Archduke Charles ; Suvorov in command of the Russo- Austrian forces won the victories of Cas- sano, the Ti-ebbia, and Novi. The Cisalpine and Roman Republics dissolved and the Fi'ench in North Italy now only held Genoa. April 29 Contrai'y to Russian wishes, but in agi'eement with England, the June 19 Austrians refused to restore the House of Savoy and proposed to annex Piedmont. In the South, Cardinal Ruffo organised a rising on behalf of the Bourbons ; the Fi-ench withdrew northwards and Naples was re-occupied. The Republicans, however, held out in june 13 two forts, and Ruflb an-anged for their capitulation. Nelson, June 19 aiiiving from Palermo, set the capitulation aside. None the less, the gamson came out. Their leaders were seized and on Ferdinand's aiTival executed. Nelson went further. Carraciolo, a Republican formerly in the royal service, had escaped prior to the capitulation 894 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789- but w£is subsequently aiTested. Nelson insisted on his , being tried by a CO uit- martial of Neapolitan officers on his own flag-ship ; and when he was found guilty of treason had him hanged the same June 29 evening. It seems established that Ruffp exceeded his insti-uctions and that Nelson acted on Ferdinand's authority and in accordance with his wishes. But no legal or technical justification can ex-. onerate him from the charge that he forgot he was, not the agent of a vindictive Court, but a Britis'i admiral and the representative at Naples of the British nation. The honour of his country was in the keeping of the victor of Aboukir Bay, and, to his lasting discredit, he betrayed the trust ^ With the summer the star of the Coalition paled. A joint Anglo-Russian expedition was despatched under Abercromby, who disapproved of the scheme but was overruled, to the Helder, and the Dutch fleet in the Texel was successfully seized. Delays, Aug. 27 in the, anival of the Russian contingent enabled the French and the Dutch to organise their defence. The Duke of York, appointed to the command of the allied forces, was ^then defeated in an attack on Bergen and the troops were pinned down to their entrenchments. The expected aid from, the Orange party came to nothing; and on October 18th the Duke made the Convention of Alkmaar, by which he evacuated Holland and surrendered _ his prisoners but retained the captured fleet — =a humiliating conclusion to a badly planned, badly equipped and executed entei-prise. The campaign in Switzerland also completely miscanied. Massena Sept. 26 defeated the Russians under Korsakov at Zurich, and Suvorov was compelled to make a calamitous if heroic retreat into Tyrol Woise still, Bonaparte had escaped from the East. Earlier in Feb. IS the year he had attacked Syria, taken El Arish and stormed Jaffa. But at Acre the sea power that had shut him up in Egypt again baffled him. He could only invest it by land, while British ships under Sir Sidney Smith intei-ceptpd the French stores, kept the garrison supplied, and helped the Turks to repel every attempt to storm theii' lines. Acre stood between Bonaparte and his plan of taking Europe in the reai\ On May 20th the siege was raised and the French returned to Egypt. The news from Paris convinced Bonaparte that " the pear was ripe ". He deserted Aug. 23 the army, slipped through the British cruisers and landed in Fi-ance. 'Sc« Appendix xi. 1802] FAILURE OF THE COALITION 895 The oywp ^etat of Brumaire overthiew the Directory. France craved Oct, 9 a Caesar, and the Csesar was thei'e in the person of the military chief, the incarnation of the triumphant Revolution. The Consul- ate, with Bonaparte as Fii-st Consul, and a new constitution were set up. He fully understood that a victorious peace would make him Dictator of France, and that he might still be master of the world. Our Admiralty was hieing taught some useful lessons in the disposition and control of their forces. Bonaparte's unmolested escape to Fi-ejus was not creditable. More striking still was Bruix's famous ci-uise. He slipped out of Brest, passed into the April 25 Mediterranean, reached Toulon, convoyed transports to Genoa, picked up Spanish ships at Carthagena, and another squadron at Cadiz, and got safely back into Brest without being brought to Aug. action by Bridport, Jervis, Keith, or Nelson. Bridport's grip on Brest was culpably slack, but Jervis's disposition of the Mediter- ranean fleet and Nelson's devotion to the Neapolitan court of fiddlers and harlots are open to grave censure. Good luck and Bruix's lack of initiative, not good management, saved us from sharp retribution. The final break ,up of the coalition was preceded by a letter from the First Consul to George III., expressing his desu-e for peace. Grenville answered it by a lecture in the shape of a despatch, to the effect that the restoration of the Bourbons would be the best guarantee of pacific dispositions^ Even George III. thought this gratuitous advice as to the most suitable form of French government " much too strong," but Pitt allowed it to go ; and the Ministerial principle that, as Fox said, "we must keep Bonaparte in a state of probation " was duly approved by a large majority in both Houses of Parliament The state of probation proved a process of disillusionment, short, sharp, and decisive. The Tsar Paul, angry with both his allies, withdrew from the League. Moreau drove the Austrians back on the Upper Danube ; Mass^na held out in Genoa until Bonaparte could cross the Alps and deliver at Marengo the coup de grace to Austrian ambitions June 14 in Lombardy ; and then Moreau's crushing blow at Hohenlinden completed the business which was neatly wound up by Macdonald Dec 3 and Brune on the Mincio and the Adige. The Emperor was in fact smashed out of the Coalition. The peace of Luneville con- ceded to France the line of the Rhine, and of the Adige, while Feb. 9, 1801 896 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789- the revolutionary Republics in Holland, Switzerland, and North Italy were formally recognised as independent. Murat had cowed Ferdinand of Naples into submission. By the Treaty of Florence March, the Neapolitan ports were closed to Great Britain and Taranto ' °' handed to a French garrison, an airangement with one advantage. It freed Nelson for better work than the protection of Lady Hamilton and her Bourbon patrons. Our military operations had been singularly inept. June and July were wasted in sending troops to Brittany, where it was dis- covered nothing coidd be done. Reinforced, they sailed south, inspected Ferrol and reimbarked, repeated the inspection at Vigo, and went on to Gibraltar. Co-operation with the Austrians in Piedmont had been promised, but Abercromby was not able to leave Minorca until June 22nd, when Marengo had been won, and he was now sent to Gibraltar with the idea of a stroke at Cadiz. But the sailors declined to guarantee a re-embarkation, so the force proceeded to Malta, which, after a two years' blockade, had at last been captured. Dundas then decided Abercromby should try what he could do in Egypt, which he reached Februaiy 8th, 1801. No proper preparations for a desert campaign had been made, but Abercromby's brilliant disembarkation in Aboukir Bay and victory at Alexandria saved headquarters from another failura Abercromby himself was mortally wounded. Bonaparte's reinforce- ments gave Jervis (who had replaced Bridport) the slip, but were hunted back to Toulon ; Cairo was taken before a force under Sept.,i8oi Bau-d, sent from India, arrived, and the capitulation of Alexandria provided for the evacuation of Egypt by the Fi-ench. It was the first success on land won in nine years of war, and if sea-power alone made it possible the gallant Abercromby had more than his share in the result. It came at the right time. To Pitt's expressed willingness to join in a general peace, Napoleon had replied by insisting on in- cluding the sea in the necessary armistice, for he desired to reinforce the French garrisons in Malta and Egypt. But this, with good reason, our Government refused. Napoleon : then concentrated on isolating Great Britain. The Tsar Paul, whose admiration for the First Consul was strengthened by his resentment at the retention of Malta by England, was negotiating to revive the Ai-med Neu- trality of 1780. Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark joined Russia in a 1802] COPENHAGEN 897 league to enforce the principles laid down twenty years earlier, and Dec. i8, an embargo was laid on British vessels. Our tiovemment replied '^°° with a counter-embai-go, and despatched a fleet under Sir Hyde Jan. 14, Parker, with Nelson as second in command, to the Baltic. Parker was a pedantic and cautious leadei', but the genius of Nelson, freed from the atmosphere which had " Sicilified " his brain and con- science, never shone out more brilliantly. Enti-usted by Parker with the attack on the Danish fleet at Copenhagen, supported by the batteries of the King's Deep, he carried it through with a superb combination of nerve and judgment. Parker's signal to discontinue the action (which if it had been obeyed would probably have entailed a disaster), was answered by keeping the signal " En- gage the enemy more closely " flying ; and an armistice with the Danes ended a contest i-emarkable for the tenacity with which both sides had fought. Parker was recalled. Nelson rewarded with a viscountship and the supreme command. But the assassination of the Tsar Paul, and the accession of Alexander I., who came to March 24 terms with Great Britain, broke up the league. Napoleon was June 19 not unnaturally furious. Portiigal had agi-eed to close her ports June to England. The mysterious power of the sea, at Malta, in Egypt, and in the Baltic was robbing him of every advantage. And another check followed. Linois with three battleships was successfully sent From Toulon to raise the blockade of Cadiz, unite with the Span- iards and sail for Egypt. Saumarez attacked him in AJgefii-as Bay with six battleships, was severely handled by the shore bat- teries, lost one of his ships, and retired to Gibraltar. The Span- iards came to Linois' aid, but Saumarez had refitted, chased the allies, who lost two vessels, into Cadiz, and sealed the squadron up in the harbour. His skill and obstinacy had, in St. Vincent's phrase, "put us on velvet". Outside Europe, Surinam had been July 3-8, occupied in 1799, Cui'a9oa in 1800, the Dutch and Swedish islands ^^°^ in the West Indies captured, and Madeira taken from the Portu- guese in 1801 — the fruits of British supremacy on the seas. In India operations of great importance had efffectually frns- ti-ated serious danger's to British rule. The master-hand in this critical period had been that of Richard CoUey Wellesley, Earl of Momington, the head of a remarkable family which gave four dis- tinguished sei"vants to the public service, the most famous of whom was Ai-thur, aftei-wards Duke of Wellington. Lord Momington, S98 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789- who became Marquess Wellesley in 1799, was a polished scholar, a keen disciple of Adam Smith, an ambitious man of the world, the friend of Wilberforce, Grattan, and Canning, and one of the few intimates of Pitt, who selected him for the Governor-Generalship in 1797. When Wellesley arrived in India in 1798 he had already decided that the policy of non-intervention pursued by his prede- cessor, Sir John Shore (Lord Teigrimouth, Viceroy, 1792-98) was no longer suitable. In the North, Oudh, badly administered, was threatened by invasion from Afghan, Sikhs or Mahrattas. The death in 1794 of the gi-eat Mahrattan prince, Madhaji RaoSindhia, " who had made himself,'' in Malcolm's phrase, "the sovereign of an empire by calling himself the headman of a village," had tempo- rarily shaken the solidarity of Mahratta supremacy, but ia the dissolving combinations, ineradicable ambitions and fighting power of the Mahratta chiefs — Sindhia's successor, Holkar, the Bhonsla of Berar, the Gaikwar of Baroda — always capable of uniting under the formal primacy of a puppet Peiahwa at Poona, lay a perpetual challenge to the East India Company and the peace of Hindostan. Haidarabad was another centre of danger. A union of the Nizara with the Mahi-attas would be serious for Bombay and Madras, and in the Carnatic the slackness of the Madras Government and the incompetence of the Nawab had brought about chaos. Most serious of all, at Mysore was Tippu, burning to avenge the check adminis- tered by Cornwallis. These dangers were aggravated by the in- tiigues of the Fi'ench. Mauritius provided the Republic with a valuable base for operations. Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt was a step in a far-reaching scheme, the avowed purpose of which was to undermine the foundations of the British Empire. French soldiers had helped Sindhia to organise his power ; French officers were assisting the Nizam to " create a Fi-ench State in the penin- sula," while the Mahometan ruler of Hindu Mysore professed sym- pathy with the principles of 1789, with his . tongue in his cheek could call himself " Citizen Tippoo," and was in active communica- tion with Mauritius. Wellesley's period of rule is a chapter in the world-wide struggle of Great Britain with France, as well as a chapter in the consolidation of British ascendency in India. The new Vice- roy, as member of the Board of Control, had previously studied Indian affairs, and he arrived with a clear conception of the task before 1802] WELLESLEY IN INDIA 899 him and a no less clear confidence that he wa* the man successfully to carry it through. The firet phase of his administration covers the years 1798-1801. Mysore was the pressing danger. It was necessary to isolate Tippu. By a judicious combination of diplo- macy and pressure the Nizam was induced to disband his French oontiMgent and replace it by a force officered by the British. John Malcolm remained as Resident at Haidarabad, and the offer to mediate between the Nizam and the Mahrattas ripened in bo the defensive alliance of 1800, by Which the territories of the Deccan State were guaranteed and the Nizam entered the subsidiary system with its con-elative consequence of British control. Overtures to Tippu for a similar aiTangement failed. Between refusal of and submission to our terms there was no middle way, and Napoleon's Egyptian expedition made it necessary to strike hard and Ri-omptly. The experience gained in Comwallis's canipaign was of gi'eat value, and Wellesley came down to Madras to control aiid direct opera- tions. War was declared on February 22nd, 1799 ; on May 4th Seringapatam was canied by an assault, in which Tippu fell. Part of Mysore was then allotted to the Nizam, part annexed to direct British rule. The remainder was reserved as a compact State, to which the Hindoo dynasty displaced by Hyder Ali was restored under British protection. A similar policy was followed in Surat and Tanjore'; and in the Camatic, on the death of the Nawab, whose disloyalty had been proved by documentary evidence, the new Nawab was restricted in revenue, and steps were taken to clear up the financial chaos and bring the administration under the Company's control. Oudh in the North presented similar features — a buffer State, an incompetent ruler, no adequate guarantee for security from without or satisfactory government within. Welles- ley has been blamed for coercing the Nawab into acceptance of the terms he thought necessary, viz. the cession of a frontier district to pay for the increased contingent of British troops, and the reform of the military and financial administration. To the wi-ath of the directors at home, to whom patronage was a valuable perquisite, the Governor-General had placed his brother Henry, afterwards Lord Cowley, a very competent officer, in charge of the ceded district. But Wellesley conceived that the situation in Oudh left him no option. Oudh was on the British bordel' ; its condition was a peril to British rule ; its present administration was a burden to its in- i8oi 400 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789 habitants ; its weakness was a temptation to Sikh, Afghan and Mahi-atta. It has even been argued by competent judges that Wellesley would have been justified in annexation, subsequently effected by Dalhousie in 1856, and that Oudh would have gained by such a policy. Be that as it may, the vigorous policy of the Governor-General had shown by 1801 that Pitt had sent no un- worthy successor to WaiTen Hastings to Calcutta in 1797. Peace, much needed, was at hand, but the negotiations fell to a Feb. 5, new Prime Minister. Ireland, the treachery of his colleagues and the obstinate superetition of the King had driven Pitt to resiga The rebellion of 1798 and the deplorable conditions of swollen debt and envenomed fanaticism which its suppression had entailed had clinched the conclusion, growing in Pitt's mind since 1785, that a legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland was now in- evitable. The incorporation of the Irish into the Imperial legis- lature offered a practical solution of the difRculties and anomalies in the administrative and constitutional relations inherent in the settlement of 1782. Healing measures for Ireland were now a matter of equity and urgency, and Pitt was convinced by Lord Clare that it was dangerous, if not impossible, in 1798 to combina the Protestant political ascendency with justice to the Catholic, and reform for Ireland save through and by a Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In. Pitt's policy, therefore, the legislative union came first as an essential preliminary ; but it was vitally bound up with Roman Catholic emancipation, the commutation of tithe, the provision of endowment for the Catholic priesthood and the Dissenters, and free trade between the two counti'ies to be legislatively united. The union, in brief, was only an element and not the. most important element in a compre- hensive scheme which, by large and generous concessions, was to eradicate deep-seated grievances and stanch wounds inflicted by tlu'ee years of barbarous civil war. Pitt, at least in 1798, was not guilty of the superficial assumption that a compulsory incorporation of two legislatures, involving the sacrifice of the symbols and organs of Irish nationality and self-government, but unaccompanied by fai reaching reform, would by itself solve the complicated Lish problem. Nor in 1798 was he blind to the fact that to deprive Ireland of its Legislatui-e in order to bolster up every feature of the existing system would aggravate rather than diminish the grievances of 1802] THE IRISH UNION 401 every class, save the official Castle Junto, in the country. But hi8 policy as he framed it was never tried. Pitt lived long enough to suffer the humiliation of defeat. He was spared the long-drawn bitterness of seeing his mutilated scheme whittled down to the Legislative union alone, and erected into an instrument for refusing the reforms and perpetuating the abuses which it was the main object of his plan to extirpate. Although the proposals for a union were not formally made in the Irish Parliament of 1799, the Address was generally recognised to raise the principle. Successful in the Lords, the Government Jan. 23 was defeated in the Commons by five votes. Concurrently Pitt^P'" canied with ease in both Chambers of the British Legislature reso- lutions in favour of a Union. Yet had the Irish Executive been responsible to the Irish Legislature the Ministry must have resigned or a general election followed ; and it is tolerably certain that in 1799, so strong was anti-Unionist feeling in Ireland, the Opposition would have increased their majority. But Pitt dared not risk an appeal even to the limited and corrupt Irish electorate. The Union must be carried in the existing Parliament or it would not be carried at all. A majority, ther^'ore, had to be created. The young Lord Castlereagh, specially selected by Pitt to be Chief Secretary to the Viceroy in 1799, a strong Unionist and supporter of Roman Catholic emancipation, convinced the British Cabinet that unless Roman Catholic support was secured the Government scheme would be wrecked. He returned to Ireland authorised to secure the support required. No definite pledge was given ; but Comwallis, the Viceroy, explicitly stated that so long as the Irish Legislatm-e existed the Government would resist concessions to the Catholics. It was generally understood in Catholic quarters thab the British Cabinet was in favour of relief and the Viceroy was officially informed of the Cabinet's views and permitted to utilise the information. Castlereagh accordingly secured, on this general understanding, a large measure of Catholic help. Assurances alone, however, would not create a majority in the Legislature. The Vice- roy and the Chief Seci-etary, therefore, set to work to haggle and job with " the most corrupt people under heaven," the members ; Corn- wallis's lettere remain as a proof of how repulsive and dirty the task was, but it was carried through with a thoroughness that would have made Henry Fox envious. The borough owners, condemned 402 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789- under the scheme to lose their patronage, were compensated on the scale of £15,000 apiece ; forty-one peerages were created or ad- vanced a step, and a brisk trade in honoui-s, places, and pensions went on ; the British Secret Service Fund was heavily drawn on. The result was seen in the Parliament of 1800 when an amendment to the Address -vas rejected by forty-two votes. By March 28th the articles of Union were can-ied, then approved by the British Parliament and embodied in a Bill passed by the Iiish Legislature. On August 1st the measure received the royal assent and the first meeting of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland met at Westminster, January 22nd, 1801. Resembling in form the Legislative union of England and Scotland in 1707 the statute incorporating the Irish Parliament was necessarily difFei-ent in various details. A new Great Seal, an amended Royal Standard, and a redrafting of the title and designa- tion of the Crown symbolised the amalgamation. The succession to the throne as defined by the Act of Settlement was confirmed. Twenty-eight peers elected for life represented the Irish House of Lords, a hundred members the House of Commons ; but restrictions w'eie placed on the prerogative to create Irish peerages, while an Irish peer was permitted to sit for a Bi-itish constituency in the Commons of the United Parliament. Castlereagh himself and Palmerston were prominent examples of this privilege. The Pro- testant Episcopal Church of Ireland was united, " in discipline, doctrine, and government," with the Established Church of Eng- land, and the maintenance of this union declared to be a fundamental article of the " treaty ". Four spiritual peers represented the Irish branch of the Church in the House of Lords, which was also made the final Court of Appeal fiom the Irish Courts. Economic equality and freedom of trade on the lines of the scheme of 1785 were laid down, and the financial relations of the two countries were regulated by complicated clauses, the interpretation of which has provoked a century of insoluble controversy. In the articles of Union as originally carried, the absence of any prohibition of Catholics from sitting in the future Parliament of the United Kingdom is notice- able, and is a striking indication of Pitt's policy. It is also char- acteristic of the transaction as a whole that its terms were so arranged, and the procedure carefully planned, not merely to avoid a reference of the measure to the Irish electorate, but to prevent 1802] THE IRISH UNION 403 the Opposition in Dublin or at Westminster raising the question of Parliamentary reform in either country. No one undei-stood better than Pitt or Castlereagh the vulnerability of the representative system in Ireland to unanswerable criticism. An unreformed system in Ireland was therefore taken over untouched in order that an unreformed system might continue unquestioned in Great Britain. The Union was not, as was the treaty of 1707, a union of two free and independent nations, ananged by plenipotentiaries, in which every sacrifice compatible with imperial unity was made to the national sentiment of the party suxTendering the symbols and organs of its independence. The Irish Union was a legal instru- ment arranged by the British Cabinet on the advice of Irish officials responsible to that Cabinet alone, and carried by con'up- tion in a Parliament which did not represent the Protestants, and to which three-fourths of Ireland were by statute prevented from sending representatives of their own religion. It could not have been carried by any other means than coiTuption and a vague but authorised expectation of Catholic relief. The end, such as it was, has been held to have justified the means. No other justification has been or can be suggested. ^ The transactions of 1799 and 1800 also re-emphasise the con- clusion that when a British Cabinet had made up its mind it could force any policy or measure it thought necessary through the Irish Parliament. In 1790 that Irish Parliament might have been re- modelled as easily and by the same methods as those by which it was extinguished in 1800. The " unbribed intellect of Ireland," voiced by Grattan, Fostei-, Pai-sons, Charlemont, opposed the Union ; but a viceroy in 1790, armed with the mandate and resources of Corn- wallis and Castlereagh, would have had the unbribed intellect on his side, the whole-hearted aid of the Roman Catholics and no small help from the northern Nonconformists. The purchase in 1790 of the fee simple of Irish corruption would have led in a reformed Parliament to measures that would have prevented the rebellion of 1798, and might well have led to a union as national in essence and as richly blessed in its results for the uniting nations as that of 1707. But the driving power of 1799 was not applied in 1790. Pitt nibbled at the Irish problem in 1785 ; he did not gi-apple with it until 1798. It was then too late. Comwallis pithily summed up the situation. Ireland could not be saved without 404 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789- the Union ; but " you must not take it for granted that it will be saved by it ". Pitt at least was not guilty of so foolish a delusion. The Union completed, he submitted to the Cabinet a draft of the healing measures — provision for the Catholic priesthood and the Dissenting clergy, commutation of tithe, and a political instead of a sacramental test for office by which Roman Catholics would be able to enter the Legislature and hold offices at present locked against them by " the symbols of atoning grace ". Loughborough, the Lord Chancellor, aware of the King's conviction that he would violate his Coronation oath if he assented to Roman Catholic Relief, betrayed the Prime Minister's confidential communication to his royal master ; and with the help of Auckland, who owed his political career and peerage to Pitt,^ and the Archbishops of Canterbury and Aimagh, stiffened, if that were possible, the bigotry of George III. Once more the King asserted that he would consider any man a personal enemy who proposed such a measure ; and the Cabinet that had previously agreed to emancipation now turned against it. Pitt Feb. could only tender his resignation, which was accepted. The King's mind gave way and Pitt promised not to raise the question in his lifetime. Fox gave a similar pledge in 1806. Neither states- man, in strict constitutional theory, had the right so to bind them- selves. But there was no question of the King yielding. Pitt, Fox, and Ireland had therefore to wait either for the King's permanent madness or his death. The arch-wrecker of Pitt's Iiish policy was George III. He enjoyed a fivefold triumph without the con- cessions that hurt his " principles ". He got the Union ; he drove Pitt, when he resisted, fi-om office ; he exacted a pledge from the two leading statesmen of the day ; he outlived both Pitt and Fox • and he did not go permanently mad until he had inoculated his son and successor with his own bigotry. The healing measures were postponed, some for thirty yeara some for ever. After 1801 the Tory policy was not Pitt's Irish policy, but It was a policy made possible and doubly pernicious by the Union. Pitt subsequently blamed himself for his delay which enabled treacherous colleagues to mine the ground in ad' vance, m submitting his healing measures to George III But ' It is significant that Auckland was excluded from Pitt's secnr.^ a j ■ . in 1804. »ccona Administration 1802] THE NEW MINISTRY 406 haste or delay after the Union was safely on the Statute Book mattered little. King and Cabinet then had Pitt in a vice of his own making. Pitt in 1798 could have insisted on a preliminary pledge from Sovereign and colleagues that the complementary relief measures were to follow the Union ; and that in or out of office he would oppose Union unaccompanied by refoims ; he was, as his action proved, prepared to resign to keep his moral pledges to the Catholics, and to enforce the necessity of those healing measures. A thi-eat of resignation before the Union was earned, to be followed by the certainty of opposition, would have placed Pitt in a position impregnable to misconstruction, and would have defined an issue of momentous impoii to the future both of Ireland and Great Britain. The new Ministry was formed by the Speaker, Henry Adding- ton, a dull, decorous, well meaning and vain mediocrity, thoroughly congenial to the King. Of the old Cabinet, Gi'enville, Spencer, Dundas, Windham and Cornwallis, together with the subordinates Castlei'eagh and Canning, both advocates of Roman Catholic relief, resigned with their chief. Portland, Chatham, Auckland, and West- moreland remained. New recruits were found in Lord Hawkesbury (Foreign Secretary) and Lord Hobart (Seci-etaiy for War), to whose office Colonial affairs were transferred. Loughborough was pi'operly punished by exclusion from the new Ministry. In his place Lord Eldon began that memorable tenure of the Lord Chancellorship which, with one brief interlude, lasted until 1827. The Govern- ment was admittedly weak in personnel and experience. Next year it was streng-thened by the adhesion of Castlereagh, who, at Pitt's request, became President of the Boai'd of Control. Overtures for peace were made by our Foreign Office in March, 1801, and the next twelve months were spent in prolonged and wearisome negotiations. Popular, opinion demanded a serious efibil; to end an exhausting war. Napoleon's power on the Continent was as indisputable as was our command of the sea ; and Napoleon re- cognised that he needed time for the internal reorganisation of France and the consolidation of his supremacy in the territories adjoining the French frontier. The signing of the preliminaiies oct. i gave great satisfaction both in France and Great Britain, and Cornwallis was sent as Special Envoy to Amiens to meet Napoleon's brother, Joseph. The definitive ti-eaty, in which Spain and Holland ♦06 ENGLAND AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION [1789- joined, was finally signed on March 27, 1802. Of her conquests Great Britain retained only Ceylon and Trinidad, the rest bang restored to Prance or her allies. Malta was to be given back to the Knights of St John mthin three months of the ratification of the treaty, and to remain under the guarantee of the Great Powers. Tlie French undertook to evacuate Taranto and the States of the Church. Proich and British troops were withdrawn firom I^ypt, which was restored to Turkey, whose integrity was established. Compensation to the ^^mce of Orange was promised by Napoleon. Tlie discussion in Parliament revealed both anxiety about, and opposition to, the one-sided nature of the settlement. Ministerial argument could not conceal that England had conceded much. Napoleon little or nothing. Joseph Bonaparte had been peremp- torily instructed " to rule completely outside our deliberations with England " the affairs of Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, and our Government had reluctantly been comptelled to accept this haughty limitation. The refusal to discuss a commercial treaty was a grievous disappointment to our manufacturers, hard hit by the war and prohibitive tarifls. Grenville and the leading Old Whigs — Spencer, PitzwiUiam, Windham — therefore attacked the terms as dishonourable, giving us nothing but a frail and deceptive truce. But Pitt decisively pronounced against our claim " to settle the affeirs of the Continent,'' a notable suiTender of his point of view in 1793, and Fox supported the Government England demanded peace ; it was even ready to thank Ministers who had the courage or the weakness to pay a heavy price for obtaining it. The first epoch of the great war had ended. It is not surprising that the treaties of Luneville and Amiens gave unbounded satisfaction in France The Firet Consul, the heir to the Revolution, had achieved more solid and brilliant results than a century of Bourbon rule. " Look," said Sheridan a year later, "at the map of Europe. You wUl see nothing but France." The Revolutionary Government established at Paris on the destruction of the old monarchy and rSgime had annexed the left bank of the Rhine. Belgium had disappeared. Terms had been dictated to Spain, Portugal, the HohenzoUems, and the Habsburgs. Holland was now the washpot of France, and over Switzerland and Piedmont she had thrown her shoe. Great Britain had undertaken to withdraw from every port east of Gib- 1802J THE PEACE OF AMIENS 407 i-altar in the Mediterranean — Elba, Malta, Minorca, Coifu. The recasting of Germany, culminating in the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and the establishment of the Confederation of the Rhine that followed Lun^ville, were a telling witness to the dictator- ship claimed at Paris, to the helplessness, disunion, and short-sighted gieed of the German Stales, and to the exclusion of Great Britain, accepted at Amiens, from the affairs of the Continent. And behind these tremendous territorial changes lay the moral, intellectual, and spiritual forces of French ideas and French civilisation. The ascendency of France rested on an ascendency of mind and of French genius, more subtle, pervasive, and irresistible than the strength of material power. But if Great Britain had signally failed to stem or extiTpate the French Revolution, or to set limits to French ambition and power, expressing under the conditions of the Revolutionary era and through the men of the Revolution the imperi'hable ideals of the historic France, France had no less failed to shake the character or undermine the security of Great Britain. Alone amongst the Eui'opean States, England had withstood and repulsed the assault both of Fi'ench arms and French ideas. If our eommorce had been hard pressed th^ French commercial marine had been practically extinguished. The seaborne trade of neuti-als was passing into our hands or being compelled to work under conditions imposed in our interests. Our credit was not exhausted. Despite an unparalleled increase of the National Debt and crushing taxation, exports and imports continued to expand. In 1800 they totalled over ^12,000,000 more than in 1796. Population was rapidly going up. The Treaty of Amiens registered the sun-ender of an impressive list of colonial acquisitions ; it did not register the sur- render of the strength and means by which they had been acquired. In a word. Great Britain, an essentially national State, retained in 1802 evei'y feature unimpaired which had enabled her to maintain successfully her independence. It was reserved for the second period of the war to reveal the full scope and potency of British sea-power and nationality as weapons of offence and defence against the Naj)oleonic Empire determined to destroy both. NoxG. — For the newer authorities see the supplement to the Bibliography, pp. 650-fifi2. 408 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- CHAPTER VI THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON (1802-181S) THE prophecy of the critics that the Peace of Amiens would prove a short and delusive truce was fully borne out by -the sequel which in fifteen months led to a rupture and the renewal of war. The desii'e of the commercial classes for peace had been largely due to the dislocation of trade and the loss of valuable markets, and the necessity of a restoration of normal relations with the Continent. But Napoleon's refusal to crown the boon of peace by a commercial treaty was a bitter disappointment which greatly strengthened the widespread and deep suspicions of Napoleon's ambitions and the political future. The whole basis of the relations of France and Great Britain was, in fact, thoroughly false. Napoleon had con- sented to come to terms because he wished to consolidate his power in France by a series of healing measures for which peace was essential. But, as the treaty showed, he was determined to exclude Great Britain from the affairs of the Continent, and both at Amiens and subsequently he ai-gued and acted on the principle that her intervention was inadmissible and must be prevented. Addino-ton's Ministry had tacitly accepted the assumption in order to secure peace ; but they also assumed that the status quo defined at Lune- ville and Amiens would remain unaltered. Neither then- own views nor an alarmed and disillusioned public opinion would tolerate radical changes in the European situation which could only permit Napoleon to renew his attacks on Great Britain with a maximum of advantage on his side, when he chose to throw off the mask. It was impossible that any settlement could be durable which explicitly required that Great Britain was to ignore or meekly acquiesce in acts of aggiession which destroyed whatever value the Treaty of Amiens had originally possessed. Andr^ossy's despatches prove conclusively that Gi-eat Britain sincerely desired to have and to 1816] NAPOLEON'S SCHEMES 409 keep peace ; that it was not this or that particular stroke, but the sum total, which caused acute anxiety, and (which Napoleon could not grasp) that a Ministry responsible to Parliament could not, even if it wished, I withstand the pressure of public opinion and the exigen- cies of our national future. Diplomatic relations were very soon sorely strained. A French expedition sent to San Domingo had wasted away, and a fresh ex- Cej. jgoi pedition in preparation was interpreted as really directed against Great Britain. Napoleon became President of the reorganised Italian (Cisalpine) Republic ; the Ligurian Republic was reorganised under J^"- ^5> French control and Piedmont practically incorporated with France, june 29 Intervention in Switzerland led to the " Act of Mediation," which ^^P'- ^i recast the Helvetic Republic, brought it under French domination, Feb. ig, and gave Napoleon a strategic base of first-rate importance. The ^ °^ occupation of Flushing and Utrecht and the French influence in the Dutch Republic were a further direct menace to British security. The ubiquity of French agents in Ireland and the examination of British harbours such as Hull were not adequately explained away by assertions that they were for commercial purposes only ; while the publication of Sebastiani's report on Egypt in the official Moniteur, j ^^ ^g drawing attention to the ease with which the country could be re- 1803 conquered by France, was an inexcusable piece of bravado. Decaen, sent to India to take over the French stations ceded by the Treaty, March, had instructions to intrigue with the native States against the British ' °^ power. Under these threatening circumstances the Ministry, finding that repeated protests were brushed aside on the ground that Great Britian had no diplomatic loctis standi, refused to evacuate Malta. They also demanded compensation for the gains that Napoleon had made since the Treaty. The retention of Malta was a false step, as well as a clear violation of the Treaty. We were strong enough at sea to prevent Napoleon capturing it ; and if war came we could occupy it again with ease. Napoleon was able to point to broken pledges and to argue with arbitrary plausibility that the subject- matter of our protests was wholly outside the scope and articles of our Treaty rights. The embittered feeling in England was not im- proved by Napoleon's demands for the suppression of virulent attacks in the Press on his character, for which French emigres were largely responsible. The trial and conviction of Peltier for a libel on the 410 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- Fii"st Consul was a wholesome proof that the courts would protect if our hospitality to political exiles were abused, but national pride resented the claim of a foreign ruler to prescribe the terms of that hospitality. The conviction that war was inevitable steadily gained Nov., i8oa strength, and the request of the Ministers in Parliament for large additions to the peace strength of army and navy was regarded as a justifiable precaution. Whitworth had been sent as special am- Sept bassador to Paris, but no agreement on the proposals submitted could be reached. Napoleon regarded his policy in Piedmont, Switzerland, and Holland as justified by French needs, and pointedly declared that he would as soon see the English in the Faubourg Feb. IS, St. Antoine as at Malta. After two theatrical scenes with Whit- March 13 ^^^th at the Tuileries our ambassador left Paris on May 12th and war was declared on May 1 8th. Exactly t wel ve months later the First Consul was proclaimed Emperor of the French. The Maltese question was perhaps the occasion, but it certainly was not the cause, of the final rupture. Peace could only have been preserved by one of two methods — the acceptance by Great Britain of whatever Napoleon chose to do on the Continent, or the limi- tation by Napoleon himself of his ambitions to the gains of France laid down at Luneville and Amiens. In the nature of things neither was possible in 1803. And the inevitable result was a trial of strength which would necessai-ily be a fight to a decisive finish. Great Britain must be either broken into submission or she must succeed in imposing terms on Napoleon which would shatter not a French ascendency in, but a French dictatorship of, Europe. The French Empire as Napoleon conceived it, and the British Empire as the British people conceived it, could not co-exist in the same world. The weakness of the Addington Ministry and Pitt's pledge on the Roman Catholics question made Pitt's exclusion from office unnecessary and undesii-able. Pitt's friends, indeed, ever since his resignation had been striving to bring him back to power. Gren- ville openly attacked the Government, and the mordant wit of George Canning (already shown in the Anti- Jacobin), and his political and personal devotion (exemplified in the famous verses to " The Pilot that Weathered the Storm," wi-itten for the celebra- tion of his chiefs birthday) were liberally employed in pouring ridicule on " Doctor " Addington. Pitt himself, however, until wai- came, treated the Ministry as one formed under his protection. 1816] PITT AND FOX 411 He could and would only return to the Treasury Bench as Piime Minister, and loyalty to Grenville required that he should return with him. Grenville, however, positively refused to serve with Addington, who, strong in the confidence and support of the King, was willing to reconstruct but not dissolve his Administration. Pitt came to be more and more dissatisfied with Ministerial meas- ui-es, while public opinion insisted that war required his immediate return to the Prime Ministership. On the recovery of the King March, from a short mental collapse, the parliamentary attack was pressed '^°* and the Government majority sank rapidly. Finally hard pressed by the combined Opposition, Addington resigned and Pitt was April 35 somewhat reluctantly invited by the King to frame a Ministry. It is highly creditable to him that he at once urged the formation of a united Administration, which would include both Fox and Grenville. The latter George III. consented to accept, but to the former his hostility was invincible. Only at the cost of civil war would he submit Fox, with the chivalrous generosity that justified the devotion of those who knew hiu. best, quietly accepted the royal veto, and advised both Grenville and his own friends to join Pitt It was, as has been happily sjiid, the finest moment in his life. But Grenville, who had a year before wrecked Pitt's schemes, now wrecked them again. He declined to serve with his former chief, and prevented Fox's friends from following their leader's desire to make the new Ministry truly national. The Cabinet, therefore, had May la to be patched up out of the Addington gi'oup, and the remnants of Pitt's party. Lord Harrowby (Foreign Secretary, vice Hawkes- bury transferred to the Home Office), Melville (Dundas) at the Admiralty, Eldon as Lord Chancellor, and Castlereagh at the Board of Control, were its chief members. Addington, as Lord Sidmouth, joined in January, 1805, but retired in a huff in July. Canning, not in the Cabinet, was rewarded with the Treasurership of the Navy. The wits pronounced with truth that the Adminis- tration was composed of William and Pitt, while of its eleven mem- bers nine were in the House of Lords. What, Pitt remarked, can you do with skim-milk like that? But that he had to deal with skim-milk on this occasion was due to the obstinacy of George III. and the pride that was the curse of Grenville. Nor was the chief the Pitt even of 1793. He resumed office and the power that he so dearly loved, broken in health ; and in eighteen months he died 412 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802 broken in hope. Fortunately for Great Britain, the work of the moment was the sailors' affair, and these months so tragic for Pitt wei'e the apiareia of Nelson. The war of 1803 resembled that of 1793 in one feature alone — the unbroken continuity of the struggle for the two main com- batants, France and Great Biitain. The other States of the Con- tinent, as in the previous war, fought now on the British, now on the French side, but for no single one of them in either war was the contest continuous. But in every other feature that distinguishes the struggle the difference is vital. In 1793 Great Britain wrestled with France as the architect of the Revolution. In 1803 the con- test is with Napoleon and the Napoleonic Empire, rather than with France. And the issue emphasised the difference. Great Britain failed to destroy and ended by accepting the main political results of the Revolution, both for France and for Europe. But she was the main instrument in shattering the Napoleonic Empii-e. This difference was already recognised in 1803. In 1793, we went exultantly into war. But its popularity soon ebbed. The war had its political, social, and military aspects ; the thennometer of our temper rose and fell with success and defeat, but the heart of the nation was never unitedly in it, and peace even on humiliating terms was welcome. In 1803 it is apparent that the nation was re- luctant to fight. Yet when the issues were understood the struggle became truly national. And there dawned slowly and surely into the mind of the British people the conviction that in fighting to the death for their own nationhood they were also fighting for the nationhood and liberty of the different peoples and States of Europe. It is this ennobling aspiration that enhances our cruel sacrifices, and sharpened our weapons with a moral momentum lack- ing in the firet war. The ideas and ideals of the future fought with, and not against, us. For we had as our ally not the ex- hausted civilisation of a perishing social order, but the cause of which Great Britain was the champion — the right of every national State to work out its own salvation, and to decide for itself what its civilisation should be and how it should achieve it And we closed the struggle with peremptory pleading for a great moral principle — the abolition of the slave trade — and with voluntary concessions from our conquests more numerous than have ever been made by a victor in the hour of victory. 1816] THE GREAT WAR 413 Napoleon aimed first at breaking British power by invasion, and then of combining Europe against us. The first clear phase of the war lasts till 1805 — the development and frustration of the scheme of invasion reinforced by a counter-stroke — the Third Coalition. The second ends with the overthrow of the Third Coalition and the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 ; the third is covered by the Conti- nental system proper, and its breakdown with the Russian campaign of 1812; and finally come the War of Liberation, Napoleon's ab- dication and return, the Hundred Days, and the European Settle- ment at Vienna. Cutting across these phases are the Spanish Rising of 1808, and, inspired by it, the Austrian War of 1809, which only seemed to end in a fresh triumph for Napoleon and a reconsolidation of his Empire by the Habsburg mamage. For Great Britain the decisive dates are 1805, 1808, 1812. After Trafalgar these islands are practically safe, but the scale of the continental blockade and the Treaty of Tilsit seemed to make the contest a desperate one for England. The Spanish Rising as by a miracle revolutionised the situation, political and military and in- tellectual. Down to 1809 our military direction shows the familial- half-hearted and scurried picnies on the rim of the strategic theatre, the familiar scattered and conflicting objectives, and officers handcuffed by inadequate forces, impossible or immature instruc- tions, and defective organisation. But the Peninsular War was a national one for national ends, it was continuously maintained and it used the assured command of the sea for the military penetration of the enemy's strategical lines. It was organised and led by a mili- tary genius second only to Napoleon himself. War, as Napoleon said, is an affair of a man, not of men ; but for Wellington, Moore's great march on Napoleon's communications and reti'eat might have been the tragic prologue to a drama that was never begun. Had Chatham in 1809 been sent to Lisbon and Wellington to Walcheren the result is not difficult to conjecture. And after 1812 Napoleon knew that, whatever the issue in Central Europe might be, the failures of his marshals in the Peninsula now necessitated war on two fronts, and that Wellington's strategical objective was not the Pyi-enees but Paris. The fii-st phase was decided on the water. For every student of war and eveiy British citizen the stategy and operations which culminated at Trafalgar are packed with imperishable lessons. 414 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- Nor does the popular imagination en* seriously in figuring the struggle as a tremendous duel between two supreme masters, Nelson and Napoleon. The sailors of 1803 started with gi-eater advan- tages and utilised them more skilfully than those of 1793. The higher command at the Admiralty had a closer grip on science, and in the navy an instrument quantitatively and qualitatively superior. To our sailors the Channel was not, as apparently it was to Napoleon, simply a big river which the French army must cross in the face of a hostile but inferior force on the opposite bank. Napoleon asked his admii-als to give him the Channel free for three days or even for twenty-four hours, and the business would be done. But if " free" only meant temporarily clear of hostile fleets whose striking power remained intact, the gift would scarcely begin the business. And our Admiralty was determined that the Channel should not be free in any sense for three hours. Hence the task coiTectly interpreted was how to prevent the command not of the Channel but of the sea, of which the Channel was only an important strategic area, passing from our hands. If that com- mand were retained, invasion in the Napoleonic sense was im- possible. Accordingly our strategic dispositions were based on the principles of naval science adapted to the geographical and mari- time conditions. We had the interior lines. Effective observation of the enemy's main posts would divide the hostile forces and enable them to be followed or defeated in detail. The chiefs at sea. Nelson in particular, understood that their function was to neglect no opportunity to bring the enemy's effective force at sea to decisive action. An independent force was also kept in home waters ade- quate to impeach invasion unsupported by a lai'ge fleet. But as evasion by the enemy, and mistakes by ourselves, might shift the stategic dispositions, the main forces were ready to fall back and counter-concentrate on the threatened vital centre, the Channel Napoleon undenated the quality of the British navy and the genius of its greatest commander. His elaborate and shifting combinations, whose object was to unseal the blocked ports in a series, and mass a superiority of forces at the Western end of the Channel, were neces- sarily carried out by fleets inferior in personnel, training, and initia- tive, and they rested on the arbitrary dovetailing of links in a chain It is noticeable that the first of these was promulgated in January 7th, 1807, by the Whig Ministry of " all the talents ". 482 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802 to make the Continental sjrstem so odious to Europe that it would revolt against it The text of the Orders, and the facilities granted to neutrals whose inability to resist Napoleon was recognised, prove that, whatever the indirect result may have been, it was not our intention to extinguish neutral trade and absorb it. into a vast British monopoly. But precisely because we were in a position to assert our regulations at sea the neutral felt most severely the burden of our maritime supremacy. Moreover the Continental system and the Orders powerfully influenced our policy. Outlets for our exports had to be found. Isolated and militarily ineffective expeditions pierced temporarily the sealed coast-line. The capture and control of colonial centres of trade or production became doubly desirable as a measure for coercing Europe through the regulation of the supply of all colonial raw material or products. Neither Napoleon's system nor our counter-system was com- pletely enforced. Napoleon was obliged to permit certificated evasions in necessary articles {e.g. cloth, machinery, raw material, etc., which only Great Britain could supply), and British " licences " were issued on a large scale which narrowed considerably the area of operation and incidentally penalised the British manufacturer and shipowner. The Orders in Council were arbitrary and novel in principle, harshly executed, and only defensible as acts of war due to sheer military necessity against a relentless adversary. They ultimately embroiled us in a collision with the United States at a highly critical phase of the European sti'uggle ; and as measures of com- mercial policy they were very unpopular with the manufacturing and trading interests which they were framed to defend. To Brougham's searching indictment in 1810 no adequate reply was made by the Government, and after the death of Perceval, their chief advocate, they were practically dropped. But they had the merit of defining the issue for England as one of existence, while they reduced it to a desperate match in the resources of the combatants. In 1806 Napoleon's correspondence shows that he anticipated a speedy and decisive victory ; and he was certainly disappointed by the unexpected stubbornness of our resistance. He had misjudged the commercial capacity of Great Britain, and his ci-ude economics ignored vital elements in the problems of international trade. The superb tenacity of our Government and the national spirit of our 1816] NAPOLEON'S PLANS people, assisted by the adaptation of our commerce as organised by the industrial revolution to the new conditions, and the impotence of Napoleon to prevent our trade by sea with East and West out- side Europe, rather than the Orders themselves, combined to foil his plan. But the damage and suffering involved were immense, though it is not easy to decide whether the Continent or ourselves in the struggle suffered the more severely. British trade was unde- niably hard hit. The loss of markets, the depredations of privateere, the artificial diversion of ti'affic, the gluts in production, the over- speculation caused by violent fluctuation in prices, accentuated the havoc wrought by the maintenance of an inconvertible paper currency, grinding taxation, bad harvests, and the wastage of capital by the war. In 1810 a grave commercial crisis supervened. Fortu- nately, Napoleon's economic theory limited his efforts to strangling our expoi-ts. Had he cut off, as he might have done, the imports of grain from 1809-12, when prices ^ were rising to famine point, we might have been starved into surrender. But by 1812 the blockade in the Baltic had broken down, and in 1813 the Continental system virtually collapsed. The burden of loss fell mainly on the neutrals and Napoleon's allies. The Frenclj seaborne ti-ade was wiped out, although France lived at the expense largely of her tributaiy States. Most important of all, Napoleon failed to foresee the immense indirect political effect of his gigantic scheme. The renaissance of nationalism — Napoleon's most deadly foe, because it w«is a spiritual and not a material force, and could only be combated by spiritual forces — was fostered powerfully by the fear and hatred bred by the Continental system. Commerce, denationalised by, and sacrificed to, the ambitions of a despotic dictator, became the badge of political denationalisation. Our statesmen continuously proclaimed that any people in revolt would not only have our political aid to recover a lost independence, but would at once be freed from the degi'adation of our commercial coercion. In brief, oui- quan-el was not with Europe but with Napoleon, and between Great Britain and every nation fighting for its nationality it was ' The average price of corn from 1804-12 was 88a. iid. ; in 1810, io6s. jd. ; in 1811, 94s. 6d. J in 1812, 125s. 2d. ; in 1813 (to August), ii6s. In 1810. 1,250,000 qrs. (value more than ;f 7,000,000) were imported. In 1801, when the Baltic trade was cut off, the price went up to 1558. and dropped in 1804 to 498. fid. By December 1814, it had fallen to 731. 6d. 28 484 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- our duty to prove a complete identity of economic, political, and intellectual interests, and a common end, the restoration of a Euro- pean system based on independent and sovereign national States. And the indispensable preliminai-y to this was resistance to, and the overthrowal of, the Napoleonic Empire of 1810. The year 1808, however, was chiefly remarkable for the inter- vention of Great Britain in the affairs of the Iberian Peninsula, which led to the Peninsular War. This was due to a singular combination of events. Napoleon was determined to enforce the Continental system in Spain and Portugal and thus close an enor- mous line of seaboard to Bidtish goods and shipping, sever England 6'om her historic ally at Lisbon and control the colonial possessions Oct, 1807 of the House of Braganza. The secret Treaty of Fontainebleau forced on Godoy, the incompetent and unprincipled lover of the Queen of Charles IV. of Spain, had provided for the expulsion of the Portuguese reigning family and the partition of the kingdom. It is probable that as early as 1807 Napoleon had also decided to overthrow the Bourbon dynasty at Madrid ; as Bourbons they were offensive to his imperial dynastic policy, and Godoy was marked in Napoleon's memory for chastisement with his worthless master and mistress. But on the face of it the Fontainebleau Treaty was no more than the system of Tilsit enforced in a new sphere. Junot already in 1807 had invaded Portugal ; the Royal Family fled to Brazil under British escort, and Junot, in the spring of 1808, made Lisbon his headquai-ters, suppressed the Council of Regency, and took the government into his own hands. The Portu- guese business gave Napoleon an excuse for pouring troops into Spain and seizing some of the impoi-tant fortresses and strategic points. Spaniards and King played into his hands. A popular rising in Aianjuez frightened Charles IV. into abdicating, and his March, treacherous and worthless son was proclaimed as Ferdinand VII. 1808 Muiat, the Emperor's brother-in-law, entered Madrid. Force and fraud, as Wellesley said, were alike to Napoleon. Mui-at and his agents played off father against son, lover against the heir, mother and wife against husband and son. Charles and Ferdinand were cozened or coerced into a journey to Bayonne, whei-e Napoleon threw off the mask. The father was induced to abdicate, the son, terrified by threats of death, into following his example. The Crown of Spain was then confeixed by the gi-ace of the Emperor 1816] THE SPANISH RISING 435 on his brother Joseph, transfeiTed from Naples to Madrid, while Murat was sent to Naples vice Joseph, seconded to the Spanish throne. So far the episode had been a wonderfully successful example of Napoleon's methods, and a dramatic illustration of his dynastic ambitions and continental policy. Napoleon had bullied and tricked the Spanish dynasty. He had forgotten the Spanish people. To the surprise both of the Emperor and Europe spontaneous insurrections — the memorable Dos de Mayo (Second of May) — at Madrid and throughout the peninsula, which cost the French troops hundreds of lives, proclaimed a passionate protest against the degrading sale of a kingdom at Bayonne. A thi'ill ran through Germany, inflaming the hearts of Stein and the Prussian patriots already bmiiing to avenge Tilsit. For here was a nation rising oil behalf of a worthless dynasty, because even the miserable Fer dinand VII. symbolised nationality and independence. Valencia Saragossa, and Gerona withstood the French attacks ; Barcelona treacherously occupied by the French, was assaulted from the sea with British help under Collingwood. Napoleon saw himself com- mitted to a campaign of conqugst, which he estimated would be easy. At Medina de Rio Seco, Cuesta and Blake were defeated by July 14 Bessi^res, but Dupont was surrounded and compelled to surrender at Baylen the day that the new King reached Madrid. Proclaimed July ao King of Spain and the Indies, he now fell back behind the Ebro. Great Britain at this point despatched 12,000 men under Sir Arthur Wellesley to aid the Spaniards and Portuguese in throwing off the yoke of France. Landing at the mouth of the Mondego he Aug. 13 defeated a small French force at Roliga, and advancing thence towards Lisbon, met Junot at Vimiero. Wellesley had the advan- Aug. 31 tage both in numbers and position. The French attacked with skill and determination, but were driven back in confusion, and the victory might have been converted into a crushing disaster by a stern pursuit. Unfortunately, Wellesley was superaeded by Bun-ard on the day of the battle, to be superseded next day by Dalrymple, and these successive commanders most culpably let the opportunity slip. Instead, by the Convention of Cintra (finally arranged at Lisbon), Junot was permitted to hand over Lisbon and other Portuguese fortresses, while his army and himself were to be sent ^ack to France. At the same time, by another convention, thr 436 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- Russian fleet, blockaded in the Tagus, surrendered. Portugal was thus evacuated by the French. The Convention of Cintra was justifiably condemned at home. Popular sentiment was deeply stured over the Spanish rising, and the easy terms granted to Junot provoked great indignation and a pamphlet from Words- worth, significant of the poet's and the nation's feelings. A mili- tai-y court of inquiiy exonerated the generals, but it was clearly I'ecognised that Wellesley alone came out of the transaction with honour. He had justified the military reputation won at Assaye, he had twice defeated the French, and the failure to crush Junot after Vimiero was due to his mediocre superioi-s. Canning wisely marked him out for further employment if events offered the oppor- tunity, though as yet neither Napoleon nor Canning perceived that in Wellesley Ireland had produced a military genius of the first order. Oct. 7 Sir John Moore had assumed the chief command in Portugal. He had recently returned from an expedition to aid Gustavus IV. of Sweden, at war with Russia, Napoleon's ally, but the Swedish king made co-operation impossible. Shortly afterwards ha was obliged to abdicate in favour of his uncle, Charles XIII., and the adoption of Marshal Bernadotte (the founder of the present royal line in Sweden) as Crown Prince brought about a reconciliation with Russia and France. Moore was an officer of great ability, with a desenredly high reputation, but his Whig views and ill- concealed scepticism about the military prospects in the Peninsula did not commend him to Canning, who profoundly mistrusted his colleague at the War Office, Castlereagh ; and Moore's task of co-operating with the Spanish armies was made more difficult by lack of local information, the exaggerated estimate of the Spanish troops, our defective military organisation, and the immense effoi'ts now made by Napoleon. Baylen and Vimiero had been a serious blow to French prestige ; Austria, inspired by the Spanish rising, was arming ; Prussia and North Germany were honeycombed by patriotic plans of a similar national rising. Napoleon, freed by Oct. 12 the Convention of Erfurt with the Tsar, who promised aiu against Austria and recognised Joseph as King of Spain, had planned an elaborate and masterly campaign to ci-ush Spanish resistance The Nov. II Spanish armies were successively routed at Espinosa, Gamonal, Nov. lo and Tudela. On December 4th Napoleon was in Madrid. The same day Moore, who had reached Salamanca, was joined there by 1816] MOORE'S CAMPAIGN 437 his cavalry and artillery. But Baird, sent with reinforcements, dis- Nov. 13 embai'ked at Corunna, had only reached Astorga on November 22nd. ^^'^ ^^' Moore's position was critical. He knew of the Spanish defeats, but not that Napoleon was already in Madrid. After some days of delay and indecision he determined to advance, strike at the Emperor's communications "bridle in hand," but ready to retreat if necessary. He would thus draw on himself the full weight of the French force, might rain their plan of campaign, and give the routed Spaniards some months of breathing time to reorganise. It was a fine and courageous design which might succeed. And it did. Baird's re- treat from Astorga was cancelled, and Moore left Salamanca knowing Dec, 11 that Madrid had fallen. On December 13th he turned aside for a sti'oke at Soult ; on December 20th he was joined by Baird ; on December 23rd he reached Sahagun. Four days earlier Napoleon had at last discovered Moore's movements, and now with demonic energy hurled every man at his disposal to exterminate the British force. But Moore too had learned what was in store for him, and promptly retreated. Pursuer and pursued drove their men by forced Dec. 24 marches through cruel winter weather. At Benavente the French Dec. 29 were brilliantly checked. On January 1st Napoleon, seeing that his prey would probably escape, handed the command to Soult at Astorga. Moore reached Corunna on January 12th with an army terribly demoralised by the strain of the retreat, but before he could embark he tm-ned to bay, and the worn-out troops completed their commander's task by repulsing at every point the French attack. Moore himself fell in the action, which was a brilliant Dec. 16 close to the operations which had foiled Napoleon and shattered his plan of campaign. The army, leaving the body of its chief in its honourable grave at Corunna, was quickly embarked next day. If Moore had thus failed to keep the field in Spain, it is only fair to remember that, with the Spaniards routed, no man could have done more against 250,000 victorious French directed by the Emperor himself. And if Moore drove his men too hard in the retreat he knew not merely that the capture of his force would probably seal the fate of the Spanish rising, but that he was in command not of a British force but of the British army. As it was he drew on himself "the whole disposable force of the French," saved his own army, and proved that when French and British met on equal terms Vimiero had not been a lucky accident. 438 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- A new phase of the war opened in the spring of 1809. Great Britain made a treaty of alliance with the Spanish Junta, the cen- tral organisation formed to control the national resistance ; Beres- ford was sent out to work up the Portuguese army ; and Arthur Wellesley was appointed to the chief command. His famous memorandum, di-awn up before he left England, embodied his views and foreshadowed his conception and conduct of the war. Assured of the command of the seas, Wellesley (as against Moore) held that Portugal could be defended irrespective of the contest in Spain ; that we could secure a foothold there from which we could not be driven ; that the French would require at least 100,000 men to overrun Portugal, and that such an effort would vitally affect their operations in Spain. In a word, an adequate British force in Portugal with reorganised local support might in time achieve the liberation of the whole Peninsula from the French. Such a result could not but shake Napoleon's position in Central Europe. The first step was to clear Portugal of the invaders. March- May 5 ing from Lisbon, Wellesley by masterly manoeuvres crossed the May 14 Douro in the face of the French at Oporto, and compelled Soult to retreat in disorder to Galicia. Combining with the Spaniards July 27-28 under Cuesta he advanced east into Spain, and at Talavera was attacked by the French under Joseph, Jourdan, and Victor. The Spaniards proved of little value, but the British troops signally re- pulsed the French assaults, and the victory, which cost our army 6268 casualties and the French soiiie 9000, turned Wellesley into Viscount Wellington. But Soult had thrust himself between the British and their base, and Wellington was compelled to make a circuitous retreat via Badajoz to the Portuguese frontier. The army suffered severely, and critics in England not unnaturally saw in the campaign of 1809 only a discouraging repetition of Moore's operations — a risky advance, a bloody battle, called a victory, and a demoralised retreat. Elsewhere Great Britain appeared to singularly little advan- taga At sea there were gleams of success. Cochrane's brilliant April II cutting-out expedition in the Basque Roads was prevented from being a complete success by his chief's. Lord Garabier's, negligence Collingwood in the Mediterranean captured the Ionian Islands and destroyed a French squadron in the Bay of Genofi 1815] THE WALCHEREN EXPEDITION 439 Meanwhile Napoleon from Spain had decreed exile for the Nov. i6 great Prussian statesman, Vom Stein, but despite Prussia's refusal to join her, Austria, under Stadion and the Archduke Charles, pro- claimed a national war. Napoleon had huwied from Astorga to April 9 Paris and then took the field. Victories at Regensburg and Eck- muhl seemed to proclaim the invincibility of the Emperor, who entered Vienna. But the attempt to cross the Danube resulted in May 13 a serious repulse at Aspern, and for six weeks the French army was May 18 virtually imprisoned in the island of Lobau. Extricated from his perilous position. Napoleon, after heavy loss, defeated the Austrians on the northern bank at Wagram, and though the struggle might July 6 have been continued, an armistice at Znaim converted into the July 14 Treaty of Vienna ended the war from which so much had been Oct. 14 hoped. Stadion was replaced by Mettemich, and the national policy of Austria flickered out in an inglorious peace. During this critical phase the woi-st aspects of our political and military direction were painfully exemplified. We were still nomin- Jan., i8og ally at war with Austria, and until correct relations had been estab- lished our Government, whom a long and bitter experience had made hostile to Austrian plans, decline4 eflfective assistance. True to its traditions, headquartei-s divided its efibrts and despatched 15,000 June men from Palermo against Naples, which captured two rocky islands and then retired. Had a large force been despatched in April, as the Austrians demanded, to the Elbe, a serious diversion might have been effected and Prussia brought into the struggle. But the Peninsular Wai-, the military folly of the Ministry of all the Talents, and the lack of organisation at home, had drained England of men, and not till July 28th when the Austrian campaign was over did the armament of thirty-five ships of the line and 40,000 men leave the Downs. The conception was sound — to strike at Antwerp and destroy the docks and fleet — but the Walcheren expedition was ruined by its independence of the Continental opera- tions, by the long delay which advertised its despatch, by the incom- petence of the commander, who justified his nickname of "the late Lord Chatham," and by the absence of medical equipment for a force dumped on to malarious swamps. The French fleet was allowed to escape ; Antwerp, that might easily have been rushed, was let alone till it could defend itself ; Flushing, of no importance, was taken ; and then the army, unable to advance, mouldered away A°B- '* 440 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- in malarial fever. The shattered remnant was finally withdrawn on December 24th. Never had there been a more complete fiasco. Walcheren deservedly made us the laughing stock of Europe, and embittered a disillusioned public opinion against eveiy future military stroke at Napoleon. Worse even than the disaster and the loss of life and the waste of money — when men and money were so sorely needed in Portugal — was the condonation of those con- cerned. SaUoi-s and soldiere freely threw the blame on each other, yet it was not this disgraceful catastrophe that broke up the Ministry, but a personal quan-el between the two ablest members of the Cabinet, Canning and Castlereagh. For two years the Ministry had been hampered by internal dis- sensions, aggravated by a domestic scandal which excited more public interest than the events that were making history on the Continent. Furnished with information by a vindictive and dis- reputable woman, Mrs. Clarke, who had been the Duke of York's mistress, one Colonel Wardle, M.P., accused the Duke of corruption in the exercise of his patronage as Commander-in-Chief. The cor- ruption was in reality practised by Mrs. Clarke herself, and a Com- mittee of the House of Commons acquitted the Duke of the charges. But opinion was so deeply stirred that the Duke felt it necessaiy to resign. His resignation was a real loss to the army, for at the Horse Guards the Commander-in-Chief had done valuable work as an administrator. With a genuine interest in military organisa- tion the Duke had instituted a series of reforms which bore fruit later, and the future required that they should be carried much further. The true nature of the case brought against him was brought to light later in a lawsuit, in which it appeared that Mrs. Clarke had become the mistress of Colonel Wardle himself, who had rewarded her services by furnishing a house for her, the pay- ment for which had to be extracted by the machinery of the law. The revelation of this sordid conspiracy to levy blackmail in the name of public purity helped to reinstate the Duke in public favour. The quan-el between Canning and Castlereagh was no less fertile in envenomed recrimination. Both were unpopular with the public, and Canning was so dissatisfied with Castlereagh as a col- Aptil league that he pressed for his removal from the War Ofiice. The July Cabinet agreed to a scheme by which the Marquis Wellesley was 1816] CANNING AND CASTLEREAGH 441 to succeed Castlereagh, transferred to the Lord Presidentship of the Council, to be vacated by Camden's resignation. But the change was postponed while the Walcheren expedition was in progress. Canning understood that Castlereagh was to be informed, but the Prime Minister, Portland, from sheer slackness or reluctance to be disagreeable, kept silence ; and when ill-health compelled him to Sept. 6 declare his intention to resign, Canning, to his indignant surprise, learned that the change had not been communicated to Castlereagh, and at once resigned. Castlereagh followed suit, and then de- manded satisfaction for what appeared to be a base intrigue on Canning's part In the duel. Canning was slightly wounded. It Sept. zi is faii-ly clear now that the affair was the I'esult of a misunderstand- ing for which neither Canning nor Castlereagh was to blame. Curiously enough the issue made Castlereagh less unpopular and Canning more unpopular than before.^ And for Canning the result was disasti"ous. Portland's retii-ement finally broke up the admini- oct. 29 stration. No pleading or proofs could prevent the political world from concluding that while Canniing's conduct could be explained it eminently needed explanation. Castlereagh came back to high office in 1812, but Canning was excluded from real power until Castlereagh's death in 1822. Had Canning been Foreign Secretary in the place of Castlereagh in the critical years after 1812 his record aiter 1822 shows that Great Britain and Europe would have been the gainers. And, as Canning himself bitterly reflected later, two years of power in 1812 would have been worth twenty years in 1822. In 1809, Great Britain lost a statesman of genius and the one Tory who, in spite of defects of character and temperament, really believed in a liberal foreign policy, and was able and willing to resist on principle the insidious reactionary legitimism and crafty opportunism incarnated in the new Chancellor, Metternich, at Vienna. After wearisome negotiations in which the personal element was disagreeably predominant, a new coalition Administration was patched up under Perceval as Prime Minister and Chancellor of 'See Holland, Further Memoirs of the Whig Party (1807-21; Murray, 1905): "He sunk in the same proportion as bis rival rose in public estimation, and par- ticularly in the House of Commons " (p. 36). And on the whole affair see Canning and His Friends (ed. Bagot), vol. i. ; Walpole's Perceval, I., ix. , II. i. ; Phipps, Memoir of Ward, pp. 210, et seq.; Twiss, Eldon, ii., 88; Colchester, Diary, 2, 209; Creevey Papers, i., g6 ; and the Annual Register for i8og (vol. 51). 442 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- the Exchequer, whose two most important colleagues were Lord Livei-pool, who replaced Castlereagh, and the Mai-quis Wellesley, who replaced Canning. Canning, Castlereagh, and Sidmouth re- mained outside the Ministry. The Whig leaders, Granville and Grey, declined the overtures made to them. The Whig party was, in fact, thoroughly disintegi-ated. The Clarke- Wardle scandal had keenly stimulated the movement for purity and efficiency in the public administration ; and the public accounts, which revealed a million and a half spent on useless sinecures, provided ample material for agitation. The left wing of the party, represented by the ec- centric Burdett, Cochrane, the naval hero of numerous daring ex- ploits. Viscount Folkestone and Whitbread, had taken up again the cause of parliamentary reform, and they were aided outside by "demagogue" Hunt and Cobbett, whose power as an unwearied pioneer begins with 1809. But official Whiggism fastidiously dis- owned alike the programme and the alliance The party was rent by divisions. A great impetus, indeed a new life, had been given to Whig principles by the foundation in 1802 (the year also of Cobbett's Weekh/ Political Register) of the Edinbwrgh Review under Jeffrey, within whose buff and blue covers were concentrated the best brains of the day. It was a veritable " pillar of fire," " the effect of which," Cockbui'n said truly, " was electidcal," and it marked an epoch in our periodical literatui'e as well as in our political history. To its white and scorching flames contributed Cockbum, Sydney Smith, Francis Homer, and the marvellously versatile talents of Brougham. Sir Walter Scott also wrote for it until his rugged and healthy Toryism revolted and found more congenial outlet in the rival Quarterly Review, started in 1809 by John Murray and edited by Gifford. From 1808-17 the titular Whig leader in the Commons was Ponsonby ; but within the Whigs were many groups who followed their clan leaders with a perverse and personal fidelity. Lords Grey and Grenville represented the aristocratic tradition of the eighteenth century ; Moira and Sheridan were the confidential intimates and advisere of the Prince of Wales, who still deluded himself with the idea that he was a Whig ; and outside there was the cluster who " followed the principles of Mr. Fox," led by Henry Vassall, third Lord Holland, husband of the autocratic lady, weaned by divorce and re-marriage from Toryism, who made Holland House the social centre of the new Whiggism, and the shrine for two 1815] THE PENINSULAR WAR 443 generations of all who acknowledged the master, Charles James Fox. The abolition of slavery and the slave trade, a free Press, re- ligious toleration, Roman Catholic emancipation, the refonm of our criminal and civil law — for these Holland and his group pressed un- ceasingly ; and yeoman seiTice in the cause was rendered by Hornei", Baring, Romilly, whose knowledge of law and equity was unrivalled, and who, had he lived beyond 1818, might have been one of the gieatest of nineteenth century Chancelloi-s, and Brougham, as well as by Lord Lauderdale and " citizen " Lord Stanhope. The Re- gency Bill was a fresh cause of division to the Whigs, and they were fatally split by the Peninsular War. It is difficult for the generation of to-day to understand how responsible public men could so bitterly oppose our continued in- tervention in the Peninsula ; how bo cool-headed a statesman as Grey felt it his duty to enter a protest in the Lords' Journals' against Wellesley's viscountship for the victory at Talavera It is only fair to remember the conviction of Napoleon's invincibility universal in Europe at the time, which not even Moscow and Leip- zig (three years ahead and wholly unforeseen) dissipated. In 1809 Napoleon was the victor of Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Eckmuhl, and Wagram : the ally of the Tsai", the master of the " banks of kings and princes " of the Erfurt Congress. Since 1793 our military eftbrts were a record of monotonous and humiliating failure. Walcheren was one more addition to a black list. Men had come to believe that the stare in their courses blessed Napoleon and cursed the puny politicians who fought with heaven's decrees. Talavera had been " followed by the necessity of a precipitate re- treat " ; it was the inevitable prelude to another Corunna. Our War Office could not organise victory ; it never had and it never would. And until 1812 the Peninsular War seemed to beai- the critics out — advances, " victories," retreats to the base in Portugal and the sheltering guns and decks of our fleet. We were so little accustomed to military genius that the greatness of Wellington was not recognised, still less that the hard, cold, reserved leader who mastered his stafl' and men because he had mastered himself, who never won their love because he did not love them, was month by month forging the instrument which cleared the Pyre- nees passes in 1813, and in their general's opinion (and Wellin^- ' Rogers, Protests of thi Lords, 2, 434. 444 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- ton measured his words) would have made Waterloo an affair of thi-ee hours. Canning had detected Wellington's genius ; and if the Marquis Wellesley and Castlereagh adhered through evil re- port to Wellington there were many sceptics in Perceval's and Liverpool's Cabinets — stout Tories who shared in secret the out- spoken disbelief of " unpatriotic " Whigs. But Holland and Homer, to their honour, believed in the Peninsular Wai'. To them it was more than a campaign ; it was the struggle of a nation to be free, and the assertion of nationality based on freedom was more impor- tant even than the overthrow of Napoleon.i They believed with justice that had Fox been living in 1809 he would have thought and said the same. Perceval, as Gi'attan said, was not a first-rate line of battle ship, but he was a first-class cruiser out in all weathers. His Administration was framed on the principle of maintaining the Orders in Council, and resisting the demand for Roman Catholic emancipation. In home affairs the two most important events were the famous Report of the Bullion Committee and the Settle- ment of the Regency. The commercial crisis of 1809 and the scarcity of specie had resulted in the appointment of a Committee under Horner to examine the state of the currency. The report (the work of Homer, Baring, Thornton, and Huskisson) showed that the suspension of cash payments since 1797 had removed "the natural and true control " over the circulating medium ; that the prices of gold bullion had risen, involving a general rise in prices and the depression of the exchanges ; that these results were the outcome of a non-convertible paper currency, the over-issue of which, particularly since 1806, had been stimulated by its incon- vertibility, with the inevitable consequence of an appreciation of gold and a depreciation of the paper money. Confirming the analysis of the report of 1804, the committee recommended the ' See Holland's Further Memoirs of the Whig Party, passim, and Horner'i Memoirs. " I cannot hesitate now in believing . . . that the Whigs ought to adopt the war system, upon the very same principle which prompted them to stigmatise it as unjust in 1793 and as premature in 1803. The crisis of Spanish politics in May, 1808, seemed to me the first turn of things in a contrary direction ; and I have never ceased to lament that our party took a course so inconsistent with the true Whig principles of Continental policy, so revolting to the popular feelings of the country, and to every true feeling for the liberties and independence of mankind " (Letter in 1813, op. cit., 2, 158). 1816] THE CURRENCY AND THE REGENCY 445 resumption of cash payments in two years. The weight of econ- omic experts was wholly on the side of the Bullionists, and Ricardo's pamphlet was a crushing exposure of the adverse critics. Canning, with wit and grasp of the theory, defended the Com- mittee; but Castlereagh and Vansittai-t, by misrepresenting the Bullionist economics, which they were incapable of understanding, pereuaded the House of Commons to postpone the restoration of cash payments and a conveitible paper cuiTency until "the con- clusion of a definite ti'eaty of peace ". Ministei-s had convinced themselves that the suspension of cash payments, like the Orders in Council, was a weapon of war. They did not see that it was a weapon which every year inflicted far more damage on ourselves than the enemy against whom it was employed. In the same year the King, oppressed by the death of the Princess Amelia, the outcry against the Duke of York, and the collapse of the Walcheren Expedition, permanently lost both his sight and his reason. It was necessary to provide for a Regency, and Minis- ters adhered to the dangei-ous and unhappy precedent of 1788. The Regency Bill appointed the Piince of Wales Regent withpeb. 4, restricted powers, while the personal,care of the King was vested in 1811 the Queen and a Council. The legislative limitations and the legal fictions by which the resolutions were earned into law were violently debated. The Prince and his royal brothers bitterly resented the restrictions on the 'Regent's powers. (After 1812, when it was clear that the King's derangement was incurable, these restric- tions were withdrawn or modified.) Lord Holland ably repre- sented the Whig constitutional view, and restated the formidable objections advanced in 1788 ; but Grenville was hampered by his former support to Pitt's proposals and the bi-each between Moira and Sheridan, the Prince's confidential advisers, and Grey and Grenville the official Whig leaders in the Lords. And the Bill which made the Prince of Wales virtually King did not, as it would have done in 1788, cause any change in the Ministry. Since 1807 the Prince Regent had really ceased to be a Whig. Whig- gism had been with him probably but a skin-deep creed ; the alliance with Fox had been an effective instrument for canying on the hereditary opposition of his royal house between the heir to, and the occupant of, the throne. And since Fox's death George, who disliked Grey and Grenville, who with good reason disliked the 446 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [isoa- conduct of the Prince of Wales, had gravitated steadily towards the Eldonian Toryism of maintaining the status quo. In and after 1810 there was much correspondence, many interviews and dis- cussions which kept the Tapers and Tadpoles very busy, and occupy a vast deal of unnecessary space in the memoirs and letteii of the day, but they came to nothing. And by 1812 the rupture between the Regent and the Whigs was complete. The Prince believed (as he later believed that he had taken an effective share in the battle of Waterloo) that he had been deserted and betrayed by the Whigs. The Whigs with more truth regarded their quon- dam royal patron as a renegade to reaction, who offered to place them in power on terms which made the Regent the em throno Pontiff of the Whig faith. In fact by 1810 the Prince Regent had nothing in common with the Whigs, save the sentimental bond of having loved and lost in their company. Once he had easily over- come his personal aversion from Eldon and his colleagues, he was wholly in agreement with their political principles. And with the facility of a self-centred character for which imaginary personal grievances were the mainsprings of political action, the Prince Regent henceforward made it his main object to keep the Whigi out of office. The Peninsular War was the one all-important issue untU 1812. The peace with Austria after Wagram enabled Napoleon to pour copious reinforcements into Spain, to rout the Spanish armies and pi-epare for driving the British leopards into the sea. Baicelona Dec, 1809 was relieved and Gerona taken ; Suchet made himself master of Aragon, while the efforts organised by the Spanish Junta to take the offensive again with Madrid as the objective ended in disaster Nov. 19 at Ocana, where Joseph and Mortier wi-ecked the main Spanish army. Jan..Feb., Soult was flung into Andalusia which he oven-an, Cadiz alone hold- 1810 ing out. Ai-agon, Castile, and Andalusia were thus in French hands ; it remained to complete the conquest of Valencia and Catalonia, and clear Portugal, for which latter Massena, probably the ablest of Napoleon's marshals, was specially selected by the Emperor, Wel- lington with less than 30,000 British troops had to face the cei-tain prospect of invasion by a field army of 70,000 under Massena, and the likelihood of a co-operating movement south of the Tagus by Soult fi'om Andalusia. Left practically to his own resources, for neither men nor money in any adequate degree were sent from home 1816] THE PENINSULAR WAR 447 (another consequence of Walcheren), Wellington had planned the campaign on a novel defensive, which was carried out with un- flinching courage, skill, and consistency. Unknown to Massena the tiiple lines of Ton-es Vedras across the neck of the Peninsula on which Lisbon stood were consti-ucted by the engineei-s, and these converted the capital into a vast and unassailable fortress. Behind these lines Wellington intended to retke with all his forces, British and Portuguese, while — equally surprising to Massdna — the country was systematically denuded of all supplies by the peaaantiy, who were withdrawn from theii- homes. Massena for his part intended to make Lisbon a second Corunna, and to punish the British so severely that they would fall back on their fleet and leave Portugal to its fate. Astorga was taken, April 22, Ciudad Rodrigo on July 10, Almeida on August 27. At Busaco, Wellington, to hearten Sept. 27 his men and test the Portuguese re-organised under British direction, stood up to the invaders and repulsed the French assaults, Massena having 4400 casualties to the Anglo-Portuguese 1300. The Portu- guese — again to Massena' s surprise — showed that they could fight and fight well, and Wellington fell back behind the lines of Torres Vedras, which Massena now discovered, and which his trained eye revealed could not be forced. And in and about Santarem, from November 15 to March 5, 1811, Massena remained impotent, his flanks and communications unceasingly harassed by the Portuguese militia, his army perishing from hunger and disease. He had in- tended to eat up the British. Instead the inflexible Wellington was remorselessly using the stripped land to eat up the French invaders. Soult contented himself with defeating a Spanish army at the Gebora and capturing Badajoz. Driven by starvation, Massena, followed by jyfarch^io Wellington, led the wreck of his army from Santarem to Ciudad Rodrigo, and at Sabugal, in Wellington's opinion " one of the most April 4 glorious actions British troops were ever engaged in," the invasion April 3 of Portugal of 1810 ended in a brilliant defeat of Regnier's corps by the Light Division. A month earlier Graham at Barrosa, outside Cadiz, inflicted a sharp repulse on the French, but, unsupported by March 5 the Spaniards, retired to the city. In the East, Suchet however captured Tortosa and isolated Catalonia for a time, following the {|"j *' stroke by storming Tarragona, the centre of Catalan strength. ,„„£, ^g Wellington meanwhile laid siege to Almeida, which Massena endeavoured to relieve, attacking the British twice at Fuentes and 5 448 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- d'Onoro. The battle of the second day was a critical one — " there was not," Napier records, " during the war a more perilous hour " — as the English divisions were separated and their right vidng turned, which necessitated a new line being taken on new ground, while the struggle in the village of Fuentes d'Onoro was very severe. But in the end, thanks to the superb resistance of our men and Wellington's unshakeable nei-ve, Massena was beaten ofF (with some 3000 casual- ties to our 2000). The French garrison in Almeida cut its way out, but the fortress fell to Wellington. Beresford concurrently had i6 invested Badajoz when Soult marched to its relief. At Albuera, south of the city, after a bloody engagement, in which French and British infantry fought with terrible determination, Soult was finally repulsed. The French lost 6000 men out of 23,000 engaged, but of the 10,500 British more than 4000, or 37 per cent, of " unconquer- able British soldiei-s" had fallen "on the fatal hill". Compai-ed with this the Spanish and Portuguese loss was trifling (not more than 2000, including prisoners). Soult retired, and Wellington, hurrying from the north, joined hands with Beresford and invested the fortress. Assaults failed. Marmont, who had replaced Mas- sena, united with Soult, and Wellington had to abandon the siege. Had the two mai-shals used their superior forces to compel a de- cisive action, Wellington might have been very roughly handled, and the safety of Portugal imperilled. But Soult broke away to safeguard Seville, and Wellington struck north at Ciudad Rodrigo. Marmont promptly returned, reinforced, fi-om the valley of the Tagus, and Wellington was obliged to leave Ciudad Rodrigo and fall back on to the Portuguese frontier where he offered battle, that was refused, and the opposing armies went into winter quaitei's in October. The autumn of 1811 marked the tui-n of the tide. Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes d'Onoro, Barrosa, and Albuera had proved the fighting quality of the British troops, but they had been victories strictly defensive in character. Yet, foiled as he had been at Badajoz and Ciudad Rodrigo, Wellington had kept his word. Portugal had not been overwhelmed ; and if the French retained the two gi-eat fortresses — Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz — which barred the main lines of advance into Spain, Massena's mighty effort in 1810 had ended in failure, and the summer of 1811 had seen the operations of the Anglo-Portuguese forces transferred to the fron- 1816] WELLINGTON IN SPAIN 449 tiei-s. In 1810 and 1811 the French had employed some 350,000 and 300,000 men respectively in the peninsula, and Napoleon's best marshals had been in command. Every day that Wellington kept the field against them stiffened the ubiquitous local Spanish resist- ance east of the frontier, from Galicia to Andalusia, Castile, Leon, Valencia, and Catalonia. The national war, in which they were now so inextricably involved, involved the French generals in a I critical dilemma. Until the hydra-headed local resistance — a war of guerrillas which cut the lengthy communications, absorbed thousands of troops, and imperilled the grand operations against the Anglo-Portuguese army — was finally crushed out, it was im- possible to use their vast superiority of force against Wellington and pin him down to the neck of the isthmus at Lisbon. And until Wellington was pinned dowa the Anglo-Poi"tuguese army was " in being," strong enough to hold its own against any main body of the French of equal numbers ; and the Spaniards were encouraged and enabled to continue their local efforts over the whole theatre of war, from the Pyrenees to the Portuguese frontier. The French marshals had discovered they were pitted against a commander as skilful at least as themselves, of infinite nerve and resource and singulaiiy determined. Every month improved the quality of the Anglo-Portuguese army, an instrument forged in the best of schools, experience, and led by a chief whose long nose the British soldier had learned was worth one if not two divisions. The marehals indeed had a cruelly difficult task. The Spanish War was not a campaign like that of Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, or Wagram. Victory only secured the ground on which the victors stood. They were disunited amongst themselves, and they were directed, counter-directed, and abused by their imperial master. Spain in 1811 demanded Napoleon's presence in person and every man he could spare. But in 1811 the Time-spirit had reversed the hour-glass. For Napoleon the European situation had steadily woreened. If the divorce of Josephine, the marriage with the Archduchess Marie Louise, the birth of an heir to the empire, the Aprn ^^ King of Rome, had strengthened his dynastic position, Austria March 20, under Mettemich was a dangerous ally, moved by self-interest alone. France under the pressure of the " blood tax " had lost its enthusiasm ; the Continental system was a second ulcer which, like the Spanish one, steadily sapped the moral and material resources 29 450 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [18oz- of the empire. Prussia was being recast by the successors of Stein — Scharnhorst, Hardenberg, Von Humboldt — and the unquench- able fire of the Spanish patriots inspired every German nationalist to pray that the hour for Germany would soon come to rise and do likewise. Most serious of all, the system of Tilsit had broken down. Aug,, 1811 The Tsar was alienated, and Napoleon plainly contemplated an open rupture and war with Russia, to seal up the Baltic to British ships and goods. The autumn saw the preparations for an overwhelming Russian campaign pushed forward ; and just at the moment when a supreme effort was urgent in the Peninsula, Napoleon began to recall troops from Spain. By the spring of 1812 30,000 men had been withdrawn. It is as easy as it is futile to be wise after the event. Contemporaries in the winter of 1811-12 could not foresee that the irepiir^Teta of the Napoleonic tragedy was at hand. But in the " might have beens" of history thez-e is ho more fascinating subject than to speculate on what might have happened had Napoleon, in October, 1811, postponed the quarrel with Alexander, poured 250,000 men into Spain, and fought the campaign of 1812 in person with Lisbon and' not Moscow as his objective. The Emperor underrated Wellington and the Tsar. He was misled by gleams of success in Spain, the conditions of which he never undei-stood. Suchet defeated Blake and his Spanish army Oct. 25 decisively outside Sagunto and the fortress fell ; Blake was driven into Valencia, and his force, 16,000 strong, surrendered with the Jan. 9, capital of the province. Wellington, seizing the chance for which ^^^^ he had quietly been waiting, replied by a quick concentration; Jan. 8 pounced on Ciudad Rodrigo, and can-ied the fortress by a brilliant Jan. 13 assault before Marmont could move. Marmont again dispersed his ai-my into its winter quarters, and Wellington struck with speed March iS and determination at the southern barrier — Badajoz ; and " against time " the place was stormed by a desperate and bloody assault, in which 5000 of the assailants fell. Both at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz our troops committed deplorable excesses, but the storming of the latter in particular, immortalised in Napier's narrative, was a signal proof of what their commander owed to his officers and men. These decisive opening moves were rammed home in a brilliant campaign. By a masterly stroke, finely executed by Hill, the pontoons at Almaiaz on the Tagus — the sole line of direct communication between Soult in the south and the army of Per- 1816] A NEW MINISTRY 431 tugal in the north — were destroyed ; and Wellington then marched north, determined to force an issue with the isolated Marmont. After some weeks of manceuvring.Marmont gave him his chance at the Arapiles, where Wellington won the most finished tactical success of his career at the battle of Salamanca. The French left wing was July za rolled up and routed ; the main body pushed off the field. Eight thousand French casualties and 7000 prisoners testified to the com- pleteness of the victory. King Joseph fled to Suchet in Valencia, who was also joined by Soult from Andalusia, which Salamanca had compelled him to abandon ; and on August 12th Wellington entered Madrid amidst the delirious enthusiasm of the Spaniards. The autumn did not quite bear out this triumphant advance. Wellington struck north at Burgos, which he besieged but failed to take ; and then, faced by a triple French reconcentration (Souham sept. Oct fi'om the north, Soult and King Joseph from Valencia) tell back on Salamanca, where Hill, abandoning Madrid, joined him. Soult, united now with Souham, pressed the advance in superior force, and Wellington made a costly retreat to Ciudad Rodrigo. The troops j^^^ again got out of hand, but Portugal was safe, French prestige had received an irretrievable blow, an(| Southern. Spain was free of the French. The prospects for 1813 were fai' more promising than in any previous period of the wai-. The summer of 1812 witnessed a reconstruction of the Ministiy. The Prime Minister, Perceval, was assassinated by one Bellingham. jjjy ,j Lord Liverpool, whose chief gift lay in reconciling to his leadership the leading members of his party, formed an Administration which was a loosely jointed Tory coalition, and the most remarkable feature of which was his continuance as First Lord of the Treasury for fifteen yeara. Canning and the Whigs were not given office. The former 1812-17 was still distrusted, but alike with Grey and Grenville might have joined the Ministry had he been willing to give up principles and con- nections. Eldon retained the Great Seal ; Sidmouth became Home Secretary ; Lord Bathnrst, Secretary for War and the Colonies ; Vansittart, Chancellor of the Exchequer. But the most important member of the Administration was Castlereagh, who had succeeded Wellesley as Foreign Secretary two months before Perceval's assas- sination. Wellesley, like Castlereagh, was an advocate of Roman Catholic emancipation, which was now left an open question in Liveipool's Cabinet ; he had strongly complained of the lack of 452 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- support to his brother m the Peninsula ; but Castlereagh was deter- mined to make the Spanish war as complete a success as British re- sources would permit. And in this task our War Office was much assisted by the development of the organisation originally laid down 1807 by Castlereagh himself when he was Secretary for War. ^ The main features of this system consisted in (a) the formation of a permanent local militia on a temtorial basis, as a third line behind the regular ai'my and the militia proper, which was largely raised by a compul- sory ballot ; and (b) supplementing enlistment for the regular army by drafts from the regular militia, which thus really ceased to be a militia proper and became almost a linked battalion system for filling up the corps of the depleted regiments of the regular army. Athough this did not completely solve the problem of numbera, training, and recruitment, and was not a voluntary system at all, it seems cei-tain that without it the army from 1811 to the end of the war could not have been maintained. It is noteworthy that from 1805 onwards more than 100,000 men were in this way supplied from the militia to the regular army. The first three yeai-s of Liveipool's Government were crowded with events of supreme importance. No modern British Cabinet has been called on to deal with problems of greater magnitude than those presented by European aifaii-s from the spring of 1812 to the battle of Waterloo and the settlement of peace after Napoleon's downfall ; or to determine the principles and ends of British policy under a more continuous strain of epoch-making events and a more complex tangle of conflicting elements. British action, in fact, is merged in the general history of Eui-ope. Castle- reagh, as the chief representative of the British nation in foreign affairs, was vested with an authority in the Councils of the Powers which he owed to the military prestige of Wellington and to the naval, military, and financial resources of the British Empii-e. Finance indeed and British credit were two of the most potent weapons with which Great Britain had fought throughout, and never were they more potent than in the yeai-s 1812-15. Had the British Government and Treasury not been willing and able to bear, at a tremendous cost to the generation after 1816, the gigantic burden of financing the efforts of the coalition as well ' See Appendix x. 1816] BRITISH EFFORTS 453 as their own, that coalition must have broken down. And the bai'e figures justify the epithet heroic for the British share.^ This tremendous strain was imposed on a population of not more than 16,000,000, demoralised by the system of Poor Law Relief which in 1812 cost ^6,500,000, for whom the price of corn in 1812 and 1813 averaged 120s. a quarter, and who in 1810 had suf- fered a series of commercial crises consequent on feverish speculation in our export ti'ade, and been hard hit by the Non-intercourse Act of the United States that preceded the American War. The suffering and misery of the agricultural and artisan classes were intense, and were mainly responsible for the epidemic of " frame-breaking " riots that spread in 1811 and 1812 from Nottingham to the chief in- dustrial centres of the North and Midlands. True t<) its reactionary creed the Ministry, armed with the customaiy alarmist report of a Secret Committee of the House of Lords, treated an economic disease, aggravated by very intelligible ignorance, as a dangerous Jacobin demonsti-ation. Sidmouth, anticipating the Six Acts of 1819, and reviving Pitt's principle that force was the only remedy for popular discontent in a time of war, ai-med the magistrates with despotic statutory powers, and added " frame-breaking " to the long list of capital offences which disgraced our criminal code, and which Romilly in vain endeavoured to modify. Sixteen unhappy "Luddite" frame-breakers were accordingly executed by special commission in 1812. Is it surprising that the Prince Regent, Castlereagh, and Sidmouth, who inspired this policy, earned for themselves that deep and widespread unpopularity which every year after 1812 only made more indelible? ' In i8i2 the amount raised by taxation was ;f 67,497,807 ; in 1813, £64,671,787; in 1814, ;£72,8o7,9gi ; in 1815, £74,289,368. For the same years respectively the amounts of debt (funded and unfunded) raised were £64,973,000, £80,700,925, £105,300,609, £88,892,390. In the same years the military and naval expenditure was £49,952,488, £S5>267,544, £70,647,786, £69,183,301. Observe the proportion of military and naval expenditure to revenue raised by taxation. From 1793-1815, £57,153,819 were paid in subsidies to foreign Powers. In 1812 the amounts were £3,748,981; in 1813, £6,785,982; in 1814, £8,442,578; in 1815, £10,101,728. In 1812 we had 145,000 troops beyond the seas, 30,000 foreigners and 30,000 Portu- guese in our pay (exclusive of subsidies), and 250,000 militia at home ; in 1813, 203,000 regulars, 52,000 foreign and colonial troops, 71,000 regular militia and rg3,ooo local militia ; the numbers borne for the navy (including marines) were in addition (1812) 144,844, (1813) 147,047, (1814) 126,414, (181S) 78,891. The charge for the maintenance of the National Debt rose to £32,500,000 in 1815, representing about 45 per cent, of the revenue raised by taxation. 464 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- A month before Salamanca, Great Britain was plunged into war with the United States, the origin of which lay in the maritime militaiy measures pursued by our Government since 1803, the Ordei-s in Council and the necessities of the Republican party under Jefferson and Madison. Since the rupture of the Peace of Amiens and the successful assertion of her supremacy at sea, Great Britain had vigorously exercised the right of search. Based on the British doctrine by which British-bom subjects were held to retain their nationality unless formally freed from it by their own country, the claim had been regarded as implying the right to search for and impress British desertei-s serving on American ships, even though under American law they had been converted from aliens into American citizens. In 1807 the memorable Chesapeake affair occurred in which a British ship of war, the Leopard, compelled by force the American frigate of war, the Chesapeake, to submit to a search for desertere from another British ship, the Halifax, in which three other deserters from H.M.S. Melampus, Americans by birth, were arrested and removed. The British Government dis- avowed this high-handed act and the claim to search vessels of wai' ; but it refused to abandon the right of search of commercial vessels or the doctrine of allegiance and nationality which was maintained by eminent jurists in this country. The embittered feeling ai-oused by the Chesapeake affair and our naval practice were seriously aggra- vated by Napoleon's Continental system and our counter-systefti of the Orders in Council, which hit the American shippers and traders with great severity. The United States desired to remain neutral in the tremendous Eui'opean struggle, but neither Great Britain nor Napoleon was prepared to tolerate a neutrality which under- mined the measures adopted. Each desired by grinding pressure to drive the United States into an alliance, and Great Britain as the supreme sea-power was able to make its pressure consistently more effective. Had the United States been strong enough at sea to protect its commerce and repel French and British coercion it might have extorted satisfactory terms from either or both of the belligerents ; but it had not the strength to do this, and Jefferson, the Republican President, rejecting the Federalist counter-policy of allying with Great Britain and obtaining " most favoured nation " terms, clove to neutrality and passive resistance. In 1807 a prohibition was laid on all foreign trade by the United 1816] WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES 455 States; and in 1809 "the Non-intercoui-se Act" empowered the President to raise the embargo on France or Great Britain if either suspended its treatment of neutrals. The " Non-intei course Act," which expired in 1810, was disastrous to American trade, and was re- vived against Great Britain in 1811, President Madison erroneously Feb. believing that Napoleon had cancelled his decrees against American trade. Lord Liverpool's Administration withdrew the Orders in June 23, Council applying to the United States, but it was too late. The '^" United States had declared wai- on June 18th. At a critical moment, therefore, our countiy was embroiled with a new adversary. And the war of 1812 was most unfortunate in every way ; worst of all in the terrible legacy of resentment and injury which, following so soon after the War of Independence, poisoned the relations of the two English-speaking States for more than two generations to come. If it be granted that our claim of search was exercised in a high-handed way, that our diplomacy after 1807 was stupid, clumsy, and ari'ogant, and that Perceval, in particular, was mistaken in refusing all concessions on the Ordei-s in Council, a proud nation engaged in a desperate struggle for bare existence against the Napoleonic Empire could not obliterate at dictation its legal doctrines or abandon military measures which American critics have recognised were an essential element in our strategy and tactics.* English feeling was embittered by American privateers utilising French harbours, by the strong sympathy with Napoleon in the Southern States, and by Madison's forcing on a war at so grave a crisis in our struggle with France. The Presi- dent's acquiescence in Napoleon's treacherous seizure of American vessels and cargoes, and assertion that the decrees had been with- March, drawn, which was not true, made it doubly difficult for Great '^^° Britain to withdraw her Orders while the decrees were still opera- tive. Madison's ultimatum was undoubtedly influenced by the determination to purchase for the forthcoming Presidential election the support of the Republicans, who hoped to conquer Canada. The events of the war were a sharp disappointment to both belligerents, and both on the high seas and the Great Lakes furn- ished instructive lessons in the value and methods of sea-power. The invasion of Canada of 1812 proved a failure. Hull was sur- 'See particularly Mahan, Sea-Power in Its Relation to the War of 1813 (2 vols., 1905). 456 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- Aug. i6 rounded, and surrendered at Detroit ; Wadsworth suirendered at Niagara, and Smyth was repulsed at Chippewa. At sea, to our bitter surprise, the American frigates, -superior in gun -power and gunnery, obtained a series of successes over British vessels whose inferior armament was due to excessive attention to " spit and polish " discipline, bred of a long undisputed naval mastery.' Far more important in the autumn came the colossal catastrophe of Napoleon's Russian campaign. Prussia had been forced into a Feb. 24 humiliating alliance, and Austria nominally supported the Emperor. Tui« 2 '^ "^^^ '^^^ Grand Army crossed the Niemen, fought the tenible Sept. 7 battle of Borodino and reached Moscow. Alexander refused to Oct'is'^ negotiate and Moscow was evacuated. Closely pursued, with an army already decimated by disease and exhaustion. Napoleon only Nov. 26-29 saved himself from surrender by forcing the passage of the Beresina with frightful loss, and then deserted the most appalling retreat on Dec. 5 record, which he left to Murat to complete. The Grand Army of June lost 100,000 prisoners, 400,000 men, and 1000 guns. The Emperor had been ruined by his overweening ambition, and the blunders of the campaign. The army was destroyed before the winter frost finally extinguished it. The next year, 1813, was the critical period alike for Napoleon and Great Britain. Previously to the campaign of 1812 Sweden April 5, had allied with Russia, and Great Britain virtually acceded to the attended alliance, with promises of financial aid. The basis of a fourth great European coalition was thus laid. By the Convention of Dec. 30 Tauroggen the Prussian army was coerced into neutrality ; national feeling in Prussia forced the hand of the vacillating Prussian King ; a Prusso-Russian alliance was made at Kalisch, and Prussia declared Feb. war. Great Britain was not formally a party to this alliance, March 17 though she waj'mly supported it ; and a further step towards a complete understanding was taken by Prussia's renunciation of claims on Hanover. There remained Austria British diplomacy aimed at securing her adhesion. But Austria, under Mettemich, preferred neutrality. Mettemich feai-ed Russian predominance, Aug. 16, 'The chief of these were the capture of H.M.S. Guerriire by the U.S.A. Con- 1812 stitution, H.M.S. Frolic by the Wasp, H.M.S. Macedonian by the United States, Oct. 18 H.M.S. jfava by the Constitution ; and in 1814 H.M.S. Penguin by the Hornet, Dec 20 """"'"ble because the Penguin " failed to hit her opponent once with her great guns"- raiff] VITTORIA 457 distrusted Prussia, and was thoroughly opposed in principle and in Austrian interests to the rising tidal wave of nationalist feeling in Prussia, and the reconstitution of a liberated Germany on a unitary system. British distrust of Austria, the sediment of Anglo- Austrian relations since 1798, was also strong, and the supreme effort made by England during 1813 was most effectively concentrated on the Peninsula. Wellington's campaign — breaking naturally into two well- marked sections — had a decisive influence on the European War. Public opinion was now enthusiastic in his favour. He had spent the winter in reorganising the Spanish and Portuguese military and civil administration and in preparing for a decisive advance. Soult, with many picked troops, had been recalled to Germany, and the supi-eme command fell to Jourdan and King Joseph. The French could control some 200,000 troops, but they were scattered and not easily concentrated. Wellington, disposing of some 90,000 men, had conceived " a grand design " — a rapid frontal advance in force with continuous flanking and turning movements by the left wing. Graham was secretly pushed into the mountainous province of Tras-os-Montes, thence debouching into the plains of Leon, over- lapping the French right. It was " grandly executed ". From his base at Ciudad Rodrigo, Wellington crossed the Coa, " the glories May aa of twelve victories playing about the bayonets " of his veterans, " rose in his stirrups and, waving his hand, cried, ' Adieu, Portugal ! ' " Thus outmanceuvred the Fi-ench evacuated Madrid and Toledo and fell back on Burgos. Overlapped again by Graham and the left wing, they blew up its citadel and retreated to the Ebro. Over- june 13 lapped again, they abandoned the line of the Ebro and offered battle at Vittoria. The battle was disastrous to the French. Graham, June 21 turning the enemies' right, cut off the direct retreat to San Sebastian and Bayonne ; our centre and right drove the French in on the town, and the retreat by the one line left open, mountain tracks to Salvatierra and Pampeluna, became a disorderly rout. Our loss was some 5000, the French 6000 and 1000 prisoners, but the French abandoned artillery, stores, plunder, and a million of money in the military chest. The French army was a broken mob, driven across the frontier to rally at Bayonne ; Suchet was compelled to evacuate Valencia and confine his operations to Catalonia, north of Tarra- gona, which was captured and held by the allies. On July Ist 458 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- Wellington ended the first phase by laying siege to Pampeluna and San Sebastian. The memorable " forty days " from May 22nd left the French with the prospect of an English invasion across the Pyrenees. Napoleon, by exerting all the strength of his genius, had created an army of 200,000 to withstand the coalition, but his efforts were cruelly handicapped by the rawness of the recruits, the lack of cavalry, the absence of thousands of seasoned troops locked up in the fortresses east of the Elbe, and the altered character of the Prussian soldiers. Had he been able to bring up the 200,000 men absorbed by Spain the campaign in Centi'al Europe might have May 2 ended very differently. After winning the victories of Lutzen and May 21 Bautzen, and occupying Breslau he consented to an armistice which June 4 y^gg ^Q jg^g^ until August 1st. The news of Vittoria greatly strength- ened the allies' determination, and Napoleon was obliged to organise against his base in France being threatened by an Anglo-Spanish invasion. Great Britain weis sparing nothing to complete the over- March 3 throwal of the Fi'ench Empire. She had come to terms with Sweden and Bernadotte, and promised a subsidy of one million and the an- Junei4, isnexation of Norway; had made treaties with Russia and Prussia (Reichenbach), with subsidies of ^1,250,000 and ^650,000 respec- tively, and promised to Austria the guarantee of a loan. With Austria lay the decisive word in these six weeks. Napoleon's failure to concede satisfactory terms brought the armistice to an end Aug. 12 Twelve days later Austria joined the Coalition and declai-ed war Aug. 26 Victorious in person at Dresden, Napoleon found that his lieutenants Aug. 23 were no match for the allies. Their defeats at Grossbeeren, Denne- Aur'ze "''*"' ^^^ Katzbach, Kulm, compelled the Emperor to retieat on Aug. 28 Leipzig ; and there in the awful thi-ee days' " battle of the nations," Oct. 16-1 ^jjg g^^j^p ^ grace, costing 50,000 on each side, was given to the Napoleonic " Grand Empire Fran9ais ". Napoleon fell back behind Oct. 8 the Rhine. Bavaria had deserted him (Treaty of Ried) ; Holland expelled the French and proclaimed the Prince of Orange ; Switzer- Nov. 9 land dissolved the French constitution. Russia, Austria, and Great Britain united to offer peace on the basis of the "natural frontiers " — Rhine, Alps, and Pyrenees for France — and Napoleon would have done well to accept these terms. But the date of the ultimatum ran out, and the Prussians, with Jena in their hearts, crossed the Rhine. Unless a miracle intervened peace would be made at Paris 18U] THE PENINSULAR WAR 459 And the tide of invasion was swelled now by the English in the south. Soult had been despatched to take the offensive across the Pyrenees ; and though Soult's campaign justified his reputation as a commander of skill and resource, and the French fought superbly, he was matched against a gi-eater master than himself and an army whose fighting power and divisional leading made it probably the finest instrument ever directed by a Biitish general. Soult, who had more than 100,000 men at his disposal, aimed first at relieving Pampeluna. By a rapid concentration he flung himself on the British right, forced against Hill and Picton the passes of Ronces- valles and Maya, but, despite desperate fighting, was rolled back at J"'y ^5-26 Sauroren, having lost 10,000 casualties. Turning westwards, he next J"'y *7*^ endeavoured to relieve San Sebastian, but was fi'ustrated by Hill and the Spaniards at the battle of St. Marcial, and after his failure the besiegers stonned the town with terrible loss, and the castle ^"S'3i surrendered. Pampeluna was starved out. The French offensive ^*P'- 9 by " the battles of the Pyrenees " had thus been checked with severe punishment. Before Pampeluna fell Wellington, urged by the home Government, now struck back at Soult, who had taken up a strongly fortified defensive position on the Nivelle. The Bidassoa was CTossed and the French lines behind the Nivelle were penetrated O'^'- * N o V, 10 after heroic effoi-ts on both sides, and Soult fell back on his third line on the Nive. Once again Wellington forced the passage, and J^^c. g after four days of fighting, in which Hope's and Hill's divisions sur- ^'"^' '°-i3 passed themselves, repulsed every effort to dislodge the victora. Weakened by withdrawals to Napoleon's army, Soult left Bayonne to its fate and retii'ed eastwards to threaten Wellington's flank if he advanced on Bordeaux, where the Bovurbons were now proclaimed. At Orthez the French, driven from their position after a stubborn '^^^- »7. engagement, fell back on Toulouse, where with heavy loss Welling- April lo ton stormed the entrenchments, and Soult evacuated the town. It was the last pitched battle of the Peninsular War. A costly sally from Bayonne, involving 800 casualties on both sides, ended the April 14 struggle which had begun at Roli9a in 1808. Toulouse was a use- less slaughter. Unknown to the commanders. Napoleon had abdi- cated on April 6. Napier's conclusion to his immortal epic is the fitting epitaph : " Those veterans had won nineteen pitched battles and innumerable combats ; had made or sustained ten sieges and 460 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- takcn four great fortresses ; had twice expelled the French from Portugal, once from Spain ; had penetrated France and killed, wounded, or captured 200,000 enemies — leaving of their own num- ber 40,000 dead, whose bones whiten the plains and mountains of the Peninsula ". While Soult in the South had lost all but honour, Napoleon, with a handful of an army, had fought a striking campaign in Champagne against the triple army of the allies. The Emperor's March i efforts to detach Austria were met by the Treaty of Chaumont, which pledged Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria to con- tinue the war and make no separate peace until France had been reduced to her ancient frontiers. While Napoleon was making a fruitless dash against his adversaries' communications then* armies March 30 marched straight in and occupied Paris. The Senate deposed the April 6 Empei'or and proclaimed Louis XVIII. Napoleon abdicated, re- nounced by treaty the Crowns of France and Italy, and was assigned the island of Elba, while his wife, Maiia Louise, was provided with the Duchy of Parma. The task of settling Europe now devolved on the four Great Powers, whose coalition had been sealed by the Treaty of Chaumont. Great Britain was still at war with the United States. In 1813 Proctor defeated the Americans at Frenchtown, but advancing farther was obliged to retreat. Commodore Peiiy on Lake Erie Sept. 10 obliterated the British squadron, and Proctor's force retiring to- Oct. 5 wards York was practically annihilated at Moraviantown. The Americans secured the mastery on Lake Ontario, a British attack on Sackett's Harbour, badly managed, being a failure. The Ameii- can invasion, however, of Lower Canada was successfully repulsed ; Oct. t6 the southern Army was defeated at the Chateaugay River ; an Dec. 7 Eastern division was also roughly handled at Chrystler's Farm — in both cases the Canadian militia proved their loyalty and their fight- ing quality. On the open sea the memorable combat between the British Shannon and the Ameiican Chesapeake was the most re- June I markable event, in which Captain Broke vindicated British gunnery, and in fifteen minutes compelled his opponent, of the same strength, to suiTender. British commerce suffered severely from American privateers, but the American commercial mai-ine was practically swept off the seas. Nor was the next year decisive. A drawn July as battle on the Niagara frontier at Lundy's Lane, ending in the 1816] THE TREATY OF GHENT 461 retirement of the Americans, frustrated the renewed invasion of Canada. A counter-invasion of New York State was foiled at Plattsburg, and Prevost in command retired into Canada. Farther south, General Ross landing in Chesapeake Bay, defeated the local militia at Bladensburg, and then occupied Washington, the public buildings of which he burnt as a reprisal for similar American ^.ug. 24 acts at York and Newark, Re-embarking, Ross made a stroke at Baltimore, which failed and in which he was killed. Peace was finally made at Ghent ; but before the news reached America Dec. n Pakenham, reinforced by seasoned troops from Wellington's army, badly bungled an attack on New Orleans, which ended in his death, jan. g, after a mad attempt to storm impregnable entrenchments. We ^^rs lost 2000 men to the Americans' 300. The Treaty of Ghent de- liberately omitted to deal with the questions which had caused the war. It provided for a delimitation of frontiers and for the sup- pression of the slave trade. Had Madison held his band for six months in 1812, and the British Government shown a juster ap- preciation of the American case against the Orders in Council, two and a half years of stupid wai'fare, mismanaged on both sides, might have been avoided. As it was, ag%inst the continuous and costly inroads on our commerce, and the sharp lessons taught our navy, we could only place as counter-assets severe material damage to American trade and the fine loyalty of the Canadians, French and British, to whom the safety of Canada was mainly due. Minor events elsewhere increased the difiiculties of the future territorial redistribution of Europe. Trieste had been captured q^.^ ^^ bya joint Austi'o-British force, and the British reduction of Cattaro r^_ ^^ completed the efforts of the Montenegi-ins to wrest Dalmatia from the French Empire. King Joachim of Naples (Murat) came to terms with Mettemich, which left him in possession of his kingdom, to the disgust of the Bourbon Court at Palermo ; and to hasten the expulsion of the French from Italy Lord William Bentinck landed at Leghorn and seized Genoa. The capture of Java, Mauritius, and the He de Bourbon had swept the last of the Fi-ench colonial possessions into British occupation. The allies were thus in a position to deal with a Pi-ance and a Europe of which, if they remained united, they were absolutely masters. But there can be no greater mistake than to assume that the map of Europe in 1814 was or could be regaided as a clean sheet on which an Aieopagus of 462 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- four great nations could draw lines and demarcate divisions at their arbitrary pleasure or on principles irrespective of facts. From the first the diplomatists' hands were tied by engagements made with the minor States in the course of the struggle of 1813 and 1814, e.g. that concluded by Austria with Bavaria, which guaranteed the independence of the South German Kingdom ; with Joachim of Naples, to which Great Britain was not a party ; the conventions Jan. 14, y/\\jj^ Sweden (Kiel), which assured the annexation of Norway from Denmaik ; and that with Denmark, by which Great Britain under- took to restore British conquests, save Heligoland. Still more important were the pledges which had brought Prussia, Austria, and Russia into the coalition — a general undertaking that these kingdoms respectively were by the future settlement to be restored to a status equal in geographical area and population to that en- '807 joyed pi-eviously to Tilsit. The exact form of the " compensation" that this would assume was not predetermined, and its definition was bound to involve a conflict of views, arising from a conflict of incompatible interests. The compensation of Prussia touched Austria as deeply as Prussia itself. The delimitation of Russia's western frontier (involving the settlement of Poland) raised an inexhaustible crop of unsolved, perhaps insoluble, problems. Moreover, Europe was not a tabula rasa. The Bourbons alike at Paris, Madrid, Palermo, and the Pontiff at Rome, might show that they had learned or forgotten nothing, and might cling to the grotesque assumption that in 1814 Europe, exorcised at last from the incomprehensible insamty which had smitten it on May 4th, 1789, was now able to re-enter on its dynastic inheritance, swept and garnished for the restoration of the ancient order ; but the moving finger of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Time-spirit had written, and having written still moved on ; and the Congress of Vienna proved that " not all your piety and wit could lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it." The master diplomatists were only too obsessed with the fear that " Jacobinism," in its widest sense, was not dead in 1814 ; and throughout their work runs a consistent purpose. The settlement must above all provide against to-morrow and for peace. It should foster the anti- septic and the prophylactic elements that within the political organ- ism of a corporate Eui-ope would automatically expel or stei-ilise the germs of the disease from which that organism had for the 1816] ENGLAND AND THE ALLIES 463 moment been saved. To the revolutionary principle must be op- posed a counter-principle. And the Congress found its salvation not in nationalism, as Vom Stein desired, but in the ex-revolutionist Talleyi-and's gospel of legitimism, translated into the language of compromise by Metternich. Nor can the personal characteristics of the leading figures be ignored. Talleyrand showed that against genius, when diabolically unscrupulous, brute force fights a losing battle. Two others stand out prominent — the Tsar Alexander I. and Metternich — and the Congress of Vienna was the battle-ground of the ill-concealed duel between these two which began in 1813 and ended in 1819, when Alexander surrendered to the Austrian's policy of the Carlsbad Decrees. Their strength and their weakness lay in the plethora of ideas in the one and the absence of ideas in the other. Alexander was in love with his ideas as a libertine is in love with his mistresses — chronic infidelity broken by paroxysms o^ a sincere but fleeting devotion. Metternich was the unconscious victim o5 the pathetic diplomatic fallacy that tact and a knowledge of the world could be an efficient substitute for convictions and ideals. It was un- fortunate both for Europe and Great Britain that the supple Hardenberg, and not the stem but imaginative Vom Stein, inspired and represented the policy of Prussia ; that Castlereagh, our lead- ing pohtical statesman, was denied by temperament, prircipies, and environment the clear and steady vision and judgment of the liberal ideas whose secret force had stiffened our national resistance and swept the allies from the Niemen and the Mondego to Paris ; that Wellington, whose personal prestige was second to none in Europe, only lacked (but that lack was damning) love of his fellow-men to be as great a statesman as he was a general ; and that Canning, on whom alone the mantle of his master, Pitt, had fallen, was condemned to the cruellest fate of ambitious ability, the cross- benches. In British policy certain fixed ideas are conspicuous. Castle- reagh and the Cabinet were acutely sensible of their responsibility to Parliament; they were aware that public opinion in Great Britain was a real force ; and that, however much this or that line of action was intrinsically reasonable, they could only be a party to acts which could be explained to, defended in, and were likely to be approved by, the House of Commons. The continuous insistence 464 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- on the suppression and abolition of the slave trade is a memorable instance of this indu-ect pressure. And there is some truth in the aphorism that the slave trade was the one thing about which the moral conscience of the nation as a whole was in grim earnest. The Cabinet, too, was, with the consent of the nation, quite ready to retain only the barest minimum of our conquests compatible with the security of the empire. Napoleon's criticism that our spon- taneous cessions revealed our failure to utilise the gifts of fate and of sea-power and make ourselves mastei-s of the world, was one more proof of how little he understood the British nation. Great Britain in 1814 desired not supremacy but peace and stability. The restoration of the conquests of war, if it was generosity, was gener- osity inspired by conscience and principles. And Englishmen have some right to-day to be proud of the pride that inspired it. Two other principles are apparent — our policy towards France and the Netherlands. In siding with the Tsar in 1814, as against Mettemich, when France was reduced to the limits of 1792, we stood for the principles that underlay the policy of Pitt fiom 1792 to 1801, inherited from the principles of 1689. A France "of the natural frontiera " was a menace to the balance of powei and the independence of the central European States. CoiTelatively, also, British statesmen (Wellington in particular) insisted that the Bour- bons must be restored to a historic, not a mutilated, France ; and resisted the Prussian demand for the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. The German nationalism that voiced the demand for this annexation was countered by the concession to the French nationalism that opposed it. Eight centuries, and an unbroken tradition of our foreign policy, gave renewed strength to the Cabinet's insistence on an effective barrier to French extension across the land frontier from Calais to Luxemburg. Belgium (the former Austrian Netherlands), not strong enough in itself, must be artificially stiffened, and the requisite " buffer State " was created by unitinsf Holland and Belgium into a single kingdom under the friendly and allied House of Orange — the realisation of an idea never out of the minds of our Foreign Office since 1689 and 1713. No principle indeed of British policy was more tenacious in its grip on Whig and Tory alike than that the littoral opposite our shores from the Helder to Ushant must not be in the occupation of a single, and possibly hostile, Power. The sea frontier, broken at 181«] THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA 466 Calais, must be coloured differently to the east from its colouring to the west of that arbitrary point. The Treaty of Paris, 1814, defined for the restored constitutional May 30 monarchy of Louis XVIII. the limits of France as those of 1792, togethei- with a slight but advantageous rectification of frontier on the East and the absorption of Western Savoy (an addition of 150 square miles in all and 450,000 inhabitants) ; the French colonies, with the exception of Mauritius, St. Lucia, and Tobago, were given back. A European Congress was arranged to meet in September at Vienna; and the Four Great Powers — Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia — agreed (as arranged at Chaumont) by secret articles to reserve the control of the settlement in their exclusive but joint control. Prior to the Congress the King of Prussia and the Tsar visited England on the invitation of the Prince Regent, and were received with lavish hospitality and unbounded enthusiasm. The Congress at Vienna in every sense marked an epoch, not least in the new system of European deliberation that it inaugurated and the explicit claim of the gi-eat Powers to a right of protection over the collective interests and peace of Europe. Castlereagh was the chief British representative until February, when he was re- placed by Wellington, created a duke. The fijst serious step was May, 1814 taken when Talleyrand, representing France, broke down the as- sumption that an alliance against Fiance existed, and triumphantly forced the Four Great Powers to recognise the participation of the French State in the Concert of Europe. The Saxon and Polish questions very soon brought the funda- mental differences of the leading States to a critical issue. The Prussian proposal (whose real author was Vom Stein) to annex the whole of Saxony (which involved the disirJieritance of its King, Napoleon's one faithful ally) was supported by the Tsar, and at first by Castlereagh. The British minister apparently hoped that, despite the rejection of the principle of "legitimism," Prussia would then unite with Austria to resist Russian demands for a kingdom of Poland, revived under the supremacy of the Tsar (which earlier in the autumn he had been disposed to favour). Castlereagh's sus picion of Alexander's objects, his fear of Russian power, and his aversion from the deep taint of " Jacobinism " in the Tsar's present liberal and nationalist phase, were almost as acute as Mettemich's rooted distrust of Prussia and fear of a Russian hegemony. Alex- 30 466 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- ander distrusted and disliked Mettemich ; he was devoted to the King of Prussia. His support of the Prussian proposal was repaid by Prussian support of the Russian scheme of a constitutional monarchy for a Poland created by extending the Napoleonic Duchy of War- saw to the limits of the Poland dismembered in 1795. Castlereagh's arctic reserve and brittle resolution fitted him singularly ill for the part of honest or dishonest broker. His mediation was a failure ; and, angered at Prussian and Russian obstinacy, while Talleyrand acted as Mephistopheles, he lost his head, joined Mettemich, and agreed to the Triple Defensive Alliance of January 3rd, 1815. This amazing document pledged Great Britain and Austria and France to place 150,000 men apiece in the field, in the event of attack on account of proposals to which they had jointly agreed for carrying out " the principles of the Peace of Paris ". War, in fact, was contemplated, in which it was certain that the prisoner at Elba would be let loose by the allies or their opponents, even if that prisoner, well informed of the proceedings at Vienna, had not (which is more probable) promptly joined in on his own accord.' The treaty was kept a profound secret, but Napoleon anticipated the modem researcher, and communicated the French copy dming the Hundred Days to Alexander, hoping, but failing, thereby to divide his enemies. Fortunately so terrible a catastrophe as a vast European war, wantonly provoked by the Powers assembled to make peace, was averted by Mettemich's passion for compromise ; and when Castlereagh left for England the lines of a settlement were Feb. 8 already laid down. More decisive still was the news that Napoleon Feb. 25 had left Elba and landed not in Italy, where his brother-in-law, March 8 Joachim Murat, was ready to strike on his behalf, but at Cannes. " Le Congrh est dissous," Napoleon remarked truly enougL Ney set out to bring him in an iron cage back to Paiis, but joined him March 14 instead. To France the spell of his genius was irresistible. The Bourbon monarchy rocked on its paper foundation of the Charter and toppled over. Louis XVIII. fled on March 19th, and that night Napoleon slept at the Tuileries. March 13 Six days earlier a declaration, signed by the representatives of 'On Napoleon's relations at Elba with the Powers, see: Comm. Weil, Lt Reviremtnt de la Politiqut Autrichienne, Turin, 1908; G. Galavresi, La Rival*- none Lombarda t la Politica Inglese (Archivio Stoiico, igog) ; Quarterly Revien. January, i$lo. 1816] THE HUNDRED DAYS 467 eight Powei's, pronounced him an outlaw, " the enemy and disturber of the peace of the world ". Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain pledged themselves to place 150,000 men each in the field; Napoleon's overtures to Austria and Great Britain were rejected ; and the House of Commons defeated Whitbread's protest against war by 273-72 votes, and voted subsidies of more than 5,000,000 April 2I to the allies by 160-17. By that day Napoleon had lost his one May 26 ally. Joachim I. appealed precipitately to Italian nationalism, proclaimed a national war against Austria, and marched to the Po. At Tolentino the worthless Neapolitan army was routed, the King May 3 fled from Naples, occupied by an Anglo- Austrian force, to Toulon ; May 9 where, a king without a crown, a general without an army, he found his brother-in-law furious at his folly in ruining the campaign that was now inevitable against the allies. Wellington had been at once ordered to Brussels, where the British Government was feverishly endeavouring to create an army for him. Unhappily the American War had drawn the bulk of the Peninsular battalions across the Atlantic. A motley force was patched up of British corps (with many raw recruits), the German Legion (of Peninsular fame), Hanoverian, Brunswick, and Nassau contingents, and Dutch-Belgians, and was extended on the line from Mons to Ghent. To the east the Prussians, more than 120,000 strong, under Blucher, tolerably homogeneous and more seasoned troops, with Liege as their base, were stretched out on the line from Liege to Charleroi. Napoleon by superb energy had collected a fine force of 125,000 men, most of whom were tried veterans, on the line Valenciennes to Thionville. Soult replaced Berthier as chief of the staff, and Ney commanded the left wing. But the Emperor was without the other famous marshals, and events proved that he would have done better to have given Soult the command on the left. Napoleon had decided to strike at once at the allies, penetrate between them before they could concentrate, and crush them separately. Two victories over Blucher and Wellington would recover Belgium, consolidate his rule in France, be a shattering blow at the solidarity of the coalition, and give him time to complete his organisation and deal with the Austrians and Russians in the iate summer and autuinn. The opening moves in their rapidity and strategic conception were worthy of Napoleon at his best. He left Paris, June 12th ; 468 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- the army had been swiftly and secretly concentrated ; on the 15th it was over the frontier, drove back Ziethen's corps in confusion and seized CharleroL His left was in touch with the British outposts at Quatre Bras. Wellington as well as Bliicher had been surprised at the swiftness of the stroke ; and the duke, badly served by his scouts and staff, and doubtful whether Napoleon would advance by the Mons or the Chai-leroi roads, had only 4000 men at Quatre Bras, while the rest of his force was deliberately extended for subsequent concentration on either line. Not till the night of the 15th did the concentration begin — the night of the Duchess of Richmond's ball, which Wellington attended. Bliicher, hurrying westwards, had brought up 90,000 men to Ligny and St. Amand, and Napoleon )itue i6 turned on him the next day. Wellington visited Blucher and promised help if he were not himself attacked. And Blucher needed such help, for at Ligny he got the " damnable mauling " which Wellington had foretold when he saw his exposed position. The French lost more than 10,000 men, but the Prussians lost 20,000, and might have been wiped out but for Ney's mistakes and the stubborn resistance at Quatre Bras. Ney, whose instructions were to brush away the enemy on his front and then turn and roll up the Prussian right, deferred his attack until 2 p.m. This en- abled Wellington to bring up division after division, pressed as they burned up into the firing line. It was a pell-mell business of hard fighting, in which each side lost more than 4000 men and divided the honoui-s. But by nightfall Wellington had a marked superiority in numbers on the field. Had Ney attacked at 10 a.m. the superiority in numbers would have been decisively his. Worse than this, D'Erlon's corps, Ney's reserve, had been ordered by Na- poleon to fall on and crush the Prussian right ; it was recalled by Ney when he found himself outnumbered, to aid him at Quatre Bras, with the result that it marched first east and then west, and took no part in either battle. Had D'Erlon disregarded Ney's countei"-com- mand, and flung himself on Bliicher's right at the critical phase of the action, the Prussians might have been so overwhelmed as to be incapable of rallying. As it was, with iron determination and unmolested in their retreat they fell back, not on Li^ge, but north- wards to Wavi'e, in order to keep in touch with Wellington. Na- poleon, however, had won a victory, and prevented the British commander from giving any aid to his allies at Ligny. At the 1816] WATERLOO 469 same time had Wellington concentrated twelve hours earlier he could have crushed Ney at Quatre Bras. Napoleon then thi-ew away precious hours. Grouchy was de- tached with 83,000 men to follow the Prussians, whom his master vainly imagined to be retreating on Liege, but detached so late that the cavah'y failed to get into touch or (fai- more important) discover the real line of Bliicher's march. On the night of the 17th Grouchy was at Gembloux, while the Prussians were at Wavre. Wellington fell back early from Quatre Bras, but Napoleon did not follow him until 2 P.M., when the advance was pressed, but delayed by heavy rain. By nightfall Wellington stood at bay across the two high roads fi'om Nivelles and Charleroi to Brussels. Napoleon confronted him on the ridge opposite Mont St. Jean. The duke had decided to fight the battle that Napoleon desired ; he had been assured by Bliicher, despite the objections of Gneisenau, his chief of the staff (who distrusted Wellington most unjustifiably), that he would march on the 18th against Napoleon's flank, and Bliicher, old Marshal Vor- warts, meant business. Wellington had some 67,000 men, of which 24,000 were British and 14,000 Dutch-Belgians (the weakest section of his composite force) ; in addition a day's march away at Hal, to the west, was a detachment of 14,000 men, and it is difficult for a layman to understand why the duke left them there — possibly he did not wish to have any more Netherlanders in line, for this force was mainly formed of troops of that nationality. Napoleon, and Wellington knew it, had made no sign of attempting to turn the British right flank. Napoleon, at La Belle Alliance, had about 74,000 men. Confident that Bliicher was either falling back on his base, or would be intercepted by Grouchy, he delayed the attack till noon of Sunday, June 18th. It was to be a diiect frontal onslaught, the column against the line — the crumpling up of the two-deep formation by sledge-hammer impact. Soult and Reille, who had fought against the line as used by Wellington in the Peninsular War, and against British and Hanoverian infantry, which Napoleon ' had not, had serious doubts of these tactics. And they were right. The battle had four distinct phases. D'Erlon's assault in massed columns was preceded by a failui-e against Hougomont (on the British right) and by the unwelcome appearance of Prussians six miles to the east. The infantry assault ended in a bloody re- 470 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- pulse, consummated by a charge of the brigade of heavy cavah-y. Phase two was under Ney's supervision — great cavahy charges, avalanche upon avalanche of horse, met by the British forming square. It was deathly work on both sides, but the mauled squares stood firm, though it needed all Wellington's wonderful nerve and all his infantry reserve to hold his position. Bliicher, thanks to Gneisenau's doubts and bad staff work, was not in touch with the Fi-ench until the cavalry charges began ; Napoleon detached Lohau with 10,000 men to contain them at Planchenoit. Lobau fought heroically, and, reinforced by the Young Guard at 6 p.m., held his own. Phase three was signalised by Ney's final effort (about 6 p.m.) to break the British line with infantry, and D'Erlon's corps at last cari'ied La Haye Sainte (about 6.30 p.m.). This was the critical moment. Had Napoleon flung his last resei-ve, the Old Guai'd, there and then into the gap, before Wellington could pull the shat- tered battalions together and rearrange his line, the effort might have succeeded. But Napoleon waited until Planchenoit was again cleared against Bliicher's third onslaught ; and Wellington's nerve did not fail him nor his men either. The gap was closed by a supreme effort, and when, after 7 p.m. — the last phase — Napoleon launched the Old Guard in columns, en ichelon, the line, under Wellington's direction, asserted its fire-discipline and blasted the attack. The British cavalry reserve was hurled on the recoiling battalions, and the French centre shivered and dissolved. Simul- taneously the Prussians, reinforced by their last corps, had broken down the French flank. Wellington's decimated and exhausted army advanced to the crest of the French position ; and when the duke met Bliicher at La Belle Alliance, Napoleon had left the field and the French force was a disorganised mass of fugitives. For the Emperor it was not defeat, but ruin, completed by the relentless pursuit of the Prussian cavalry. The French lost 80,000 in killed and wounded, some thousands of prisoners, and all their artillery. The remainder, in disunited bands, crossed the Sambre and the frontier next day. The Prussians owned to 6000 casualties, 1000 less than the purely British loss ; Wellington's army in all had more than 13,000 killed and wounded. Differ as the experts may on the many disputable points in the campaign from June 13th to 18th, it seems cleai- that Grouchy was not responsible for Napoleon's disaster. He cai'ried out his chief's orders; and because, like 181«] NAPOLEON ABDICATES 471 Napoleon, he failed to perceive Bliicher's flank march, or because on the 17th he was detached too late to discover the Prussian line of retreat after Ligny and was so placed that it was physically impos- sible either to intercept Bliicher or rejoin Napoleon in time to fight at Waterloo, it is unjust to make him the scapegoat. What might have happened had Napoleon never detached Grouchy at all, or ordered him at the first to march on Wavre and secure his right flank, neither expert nor amateur can decide now. But on the facts as history presents them what most impresses the layman is probably, first, the astonishing nerve of Wellington, and, secondly, the heroic resistance of his infantry, German as well as British. It was theii- commander's nerve that drew the last ounce from his men. Tactically, Wellington fought a superb battle. But it was not tactics that won or lost the day. The moral gift of the great com- mander was Wellington's ; never was it more needed, never was it more conspicuous than in the awful hours from 4 to 7 p.m. And it is this quality, too, that lightly made Bliicher the co-hero of Water- loo. He kept his word ; he made his march to the flank of a genius who had soundly beaten him thirty-six houi-s before ; the Prussians did not win Waterloo, but they co-operated to make it an irre- trievable catastrophe for their foes. Napoleon made a second abdication ; Waterloo had ruined the June 22 brief Empire of the Hundred Days. Louis XVIII. crossed the frontier from Ghent, proclaimed the restoration of the Bourbon June 25 Monarchy and the re-enactment of the Charter. The Anglo- Pi-ussian armies under Wellington and Bliicher met with some resistance, but Paris capitulated on terms which explicitly recog- nised the replacement of the Bourbon Monarchy. On July 7th July 3 the allies made their second triumphant entrance into the capital. Napoleon, who had fled to Rochefort, found that British cruisers made escape to America impossible. The Prussian cavalry on his track were prepared to seize him, and the Emperor surrendered to Captain Maitland of the Bellerophon. He claimed the protection of the Prince Regent, but he was clearly warned that he sur- rendered at discretion. The British Government, pursuant to the declaiation of March 13th, treated him as a piisoner of war; and on August 8th he was sent to St. Helena, to be kept under the custody of Great Britain. And at St. Helena the last phase of the most astonishing career and the most richly gifted personality in 472 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- modem history ended in 1821, after six years of captivity spent in petty quarrels with the tactless governor Sir Hudson Lowe, and in the compiling of much garbled military history. Nov. 20, The Second Treaty of Paris redefined the status and conditions '^'5 of the restored Bourbons, and the relations of France to the Allied Powers. The Prussian demand for the chastisement of France by the cession of Alsace and LoiTaine, at first supported by the Liverpool Ministry, was wisely negatived, thanks to the pressure of the Tsar and Wellington, supported by Castlereagh ; and when Metternich changed his mind, Pi'ussia was obliged to bow to the decision of Russia, Austria, and Great Britain. But the allies in- sisted that : (1) the rectification of frontier previously granted should be withdrawn ; (2) an indemnity of :E40,000,000 should be paid, and the occupation of the northern fortresses maintained until this was done ; (3) the treasures of art taken by Napoleon to Paris from the Europe he had conquered should be restored to their former public ownere. And the allies solemnly renewed the engagements made in previous treaties to regard a disturbance of the status quo in France as a case for concerted action, and to con- tinue the European Concert by congresses. The way was thus paved for the epoch of "the Holy Alliance," and of counter- revolutionary reaction. The final settlement of Europe was consummated at the resumed Congress of Vienna, where indeed the diplomatists had not ceased their labours during the Waterloo Campaign. It must suffice to summarise the main features of complex arrange- ments embodied in a sheaf of treaties which belong to European rather than British history. Belgium and Holland were united under the House of Orange into a single kingdom, to which the old bishopric of Liege was added, together with the Dutch colonies restored by Great Britain. Norway was annexed to Sweden, which definitely abandoned its claims to Finland and Vor-Pommem (Swedish Pomerania). This latter, assigned by the Treaty of Kiel to Denmark, was reassigned to Prussia for a money payment. And Denmark was obliged to remain content with another money com- pensation for the loss of Norway, and with part of the petty Duchy of Lauenburg. Prussia received her Polish acquisitions of 1772, together with Thorn and portions of the Department of Posen, her former possessions on the Elbe eind Weser, and a solid block of IBIS] THE EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT 478 temtoiy in the Middle Rhine, which made her the guardian of that river from Wesel to Mainz ; Austria took her main compensation in Italy, where she acquired Lombardy and Venetia, and in Central Europe recovered Galicia, lUyria, Dalmatia, the Quarter of the Inn, Tyrol and Vorarlberg — ^in all, an inci-ease of nearly 6,000,000 inhabitants on the Habsburg dominions of 1792. To Russia went Finland, and the bulk of the Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw, con- stituted as a constitutional kingdom perpetually annexed to Russia. Italy was parcelled out in a series of pi'incipalities which broadly resembled the political mosaic of 1792. Ferdinand IV. recovered the Two Sicilies (Murat had made an effort to return, but was captured and shot) ; the Papal States recovered their fonnerOct limits as far as the mouth of the Po ; Parma, Piacenza, and Gua- stalla were assigned to the ex-Empress Marie Louise ; Tuscany to the Grand Duke Ferdinand (a Habsbui-g) ; Modena to the House of Habsburg-Este, heirs to the last Italian duke ; Lucca to Marie Louise (the Bourbon " ex-Queen of Etruria") ; the Republic of Genoa was suppressed and thrown, together with Nice and Savoy, into the Kingdom of Saidinia. The House of Braganza returned to rule in Portugal (with which JBrazil was incorporated), and Spain fell back under the clerical and reactionaiy rule of its worth- less, treacherous, vindictive, and " national " sovereign, Ferdinand VII. The Swiss Constitution was remodelled on the basis of a loosely jointed Federal State of twenty -two cantons ; more im- portant was the joint recognition by the Four Allied Powers of the perpetual neutrality of the Helvetic Confederation, and the inviol- ability of its temtory. The hai-monisation of the claims of the German States and the establishment of a system of government raised more difficult ques- tions than any other problem. The State in which Great Britain was most du-ectly interested, Hanover, received a considerable acces- sion of territory, notably East Frisia, which excluded Prussia from a direct frontier on the German Ocean. The Federal Act of th* Congress created a Germanic Confederation of thirty-nine States in which the sovereign powers of the component members were very imperfectly readjusted to the machinery of the Federal Diet pre- sided over by Austria. The dream of the German Nationalists of a single German State — based on Gneisenau's memorable concep- tion, " the triple supremacy of Gei man science, a German army, and 474 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- a (representative) Constitution" — was completely shattered; and Germany, like Italy after 1816, a " geogi-aphical expression," had to wait for the recreation of the Second Napoleonic Empire, on whose destruction by German arms and Gennan science was erected the unified Germany of 1871. The first German Emperor was a boy of ten when the fii-st Napoleon entered Berlin in 1807, he could remember Tilsit and actually sei-ved in the War of Liberation. Moltke, the military hero of 1870, was a lad of fifteen when Waterloo was fought. Great Britain retained of her conquests Heligoland, Malta, the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Ceylon, Demerara, Essequibo, Beatrice, Trinidad, St. Lucia, and Tobago. The rest were, as already noted, spontaneously restored to theii* former ownera. She was also assigned the Protectorate of the seven Ionian Isles. But these permanent acquisitions, moderate as they were, were due more to military or naval considerations than to desire for an imperial colonial empire. And despite the efforts of Castlereagh, pressed by Wilbei-force and the party of "The Saints," Great Britain was unable to procure the immediate abolition of the Slave Trade. She had to remain content with the Declai'ation of February 8th, 1815, signed by eight Powers, pledging the signatories to its extirpation, which, however, left the date and the means to the choice of the country concerned. But unquestionably the decree of abolition for July 30 France, enacted by Napoleon on his return from Elba, and its adoption by Louis XVIII., was a great step forward, while the printing of the Declaration in an annexe to the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna gave to it a quasi-international sanction. One other matter — the opening of the River Scheldt — in which Great Britain was principally interested, and which had a historical con- nection with the great war, was provided for, and a similar code was laid down for the principal waterway of Western Europe, the Rhine. In the broad features and principles of this settlement, unprece- dented alike in its scale and complexity, British diplomacy had its full share, and cannot be acquitted of responsibility. The points most vulnerable to criticism — the rejection of the principle of nation- ality, the absence of any consistent policy (for the doctrine of legitimism was very partially applied), the adoption of the Napole- onic system of compensation, the artificiality of many of the aiTange- 1818] BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY 476 ments — were either initiated by or concurred in by Castlereagh and his colleagues. The failure to make good the iniquitous Partitions of Poland of 1793 and 1795 ; the forced union of Norway and Sweden, of Belgium and Holland ; the restoration of the de- moralised Bourbons in South Italy and of Ferdinand to Spain under conditions which later left England only able to register ineffective protests ; the riveting of a denationalised and denationalising Austria on an Italy quickened to a new life, betrayed in our diplomatic leadei-s not a lack of ability but impoverished imagination, limited vision, and a deplorable ignorance or distrust of the moral and spiritual springs of action in national life. Not the absence of convictions or principles, but their sterilising character and the consequent rejection of principles of illimitable spiritual and intel- lectual potency, and with a richer future of development, are written indelibly on British action in 1814 and 1815. The true meaning of what Castlereagh and his colleagues did and meant to do cannot be fully grasped by a study of the Congi'ess ; it has to be interpreted by their conception of British duty and of British interests at home and abroad in the next eight years. Foreign policy, like chai-ity, begins at home i unlike chaiity, it also ends at home. A Chatham or a Canning in our foreign relations started from, and returned to, the axiomatic principle that Great Britain stood irrevocably for free self-government ; and that for her to con- cur in any departure from that principle, or assent to any arrange- ment which avowedly blocked its gradual realisation, was treason to the interests of Europe and treason to the historic mission of Great Britain itself, for which both Europe and Great Britain would as- suredly pay the penalty. Castlereagh and his colleagues failed in 1814 and subsequently to grasp the vital difference between thrust- ing British principles on foreign States and a refusal to approve settlements which locked, barred, and bolted the national aspirations for assimilating British principles in the Europe that had liberated itself from the denationalising and military empire of Napoleon. They did worse. They made " the Holy Alliance " inevitable ; and the I'eaction of that reactionary epoch is wi'itten in the internal history of our country. What an emancipated Toiyism could have accomplished alike at home and abroad was shown by Canning and Peel after 1822. And a British statesman in 1814, whose spirit had really been finely touched to the fine issues of the 476 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- colossal struggle from 1802 onwards, whose imagination had been truly fired by the living coal from the altars of God and freedom, might conceivably have failed to make as neat and finished a settlement as the historic one, but would have stamped the con- tribution of Great Britain with an irresistible power. The Con- gi-ess of Vienna closed an epoch. The opening of the new epoch came not from the men who made it, but from those who deliber- ately undid their work. That is the fate of statesmen who have never risen to the credo quia impossibile of a Bismarck or a Cavour. The Present, if it will have the Futme accomplish, shall itself com- mence. But the Toiyism of Castlereagh and Eldon was cursed by the superstition of the statm quo ; it did not hope for but feared a future different from the present. And by denying reform it defeated its most cherished aim. It testified to the efficacy of Revolution in the past ; it proclaimed the necessity of Revolution in the future. It is no less regrettable that the British Cabinet neglected to grapple with the Eastern Question, with the relations of Spanish and Portuguese South America to Spain and Portugal — both problems of vital importance to the British State. The root of the Turkish question lay in the refusal of the Sublime Porte to reform its administration, or to remedy the admitted grievances of its subject populations (the Greeks, in particular). Greece, the Danubian Principalities, Egypt, were not new phenomena in the diplomatic world. But an assertion of the right of the European Concert to coerce the Sultan into a wholesome respect for treaty obligations, and a precise definition of the attitude of Great Britain, might have saved much avoidable trouble in the future. Castlereagh, no less than Canning, was aware that the old rigiime, restored at Lisbon and Madrid, could not be restored in South America ; as early as 1807 * there are clear indications that Great Britain would not tolerate the extension of the Continental System across the Atlantic, or the pei-petuation of dynastic tyranny and commercial selfishness. Nothing but the Peninsular War and the national rising against Napoleon probably prevented in 1807-9 the recognition of the independence of Spanish and Portuguese America — an anticipation of the famous calling into existence of the New World to redress the balance so grievously upset in the Old. But ' See Bagot, Canning and Hit Friendi, ii,, 126, 173-204, 229, 237-241. 1816] BRITISH IDEALS 477 in 1815 nothing was done save to permit an impossible stattui quo to be restored, which British diplomacy from 18] 6-24 was primarily occupied in sweeping away. And in 1814 Great Britain had both the coercive power and the moral mandate to enforce her principles mthe Councils of "The Pentarchy". The Secret Treaty— the Triple Defensive Alliance of January Srd, 1815 — showed that she was ready to fight to prevent Saxony from being absorbed into a nationalist Prussia, or Poland being reconstituted as a national kingdom ; she was the paymaster of Europe, whose subsidies and credit were indispensable ; she was the undisputed mistress of the seas ; and the free and aristocratic Government of Great Britain alone of all the European Powers since 1802 had peremptorily re- fused, dire as had been her need and cruel as had been her suffering, to bow the knee to Napoleon, to purchase peace, territories, or rule by surrendering her independence or her moral right to represent national freedom in and for itself. It is the barest justice to the aristocracy that ruled our land to point out that they were incapable of the Treaty of Tilsit or of sealing the Napoleonic Empire by the gift of a British Marie Louise. And they did not palter with the birthright of the nation they governed. Nothing is more impressive in 1815 than the acceptance by Europe of our maritime supremacy, which we had acquired, indeed, at a great price; but no less im- pressive is the homage of Europe to the value of our system of government. The freedom of Great Britain from the revolutions that had convulsed Europe, the stability of our institutions, the relentless continuity of our policy, and the moral strength that representative institutions gave to the Executive of the Crown, sank deep into the minds of foreign thinkei-s and statesmen confronted with the problem, why had Great Britain succeeded where other States, greater in area and numbers and the apparent power of the Executive to command the finances and lives of their subjects, had collapsed ? And foreign historians looking back to-day to the epoch that dates from 1814 have emphasised its characteristic as the age in which the constitutional ideals and practice of Great Britain most pro- foundly influenced the intellectual and political life of Eui'ope. Certainly in 1814 Great Britain had no reason to regret the Revolution of 1688. The test of a long and varied experience had placed her flexible system of a Constitutional Monarchy, rul- ing through Ministers responsible to a representative Parliament, 478 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- amongst the accomplished contributions to the science of govern- ment and the progi'ess of the world. The struggle with France that began in 1689 and closed in 1815 ended in a marked extension of the empire. Yet in its last Napoleonic phase it was not primarily nor deliberately a struggle for imperial extension, for colonial expansion, for imperial consoli- dation. Itis partly explains why our statesmen so readily restored the colonial conquests made since 1802 — even such rich and tempting possessions as the Dutch East Indies. The retentions were made on military or naval grounds ; for security, not as the nuclei of a desired and foreseen colonial development. Hence the criticism of two generations later that we threw away conquests invaluable to the colonial future of Great Britain. But the statesmen of 1816 were imbued with what they conceived to be the true moral of 1783. Naval bases — the Cape, Malta, Mauritius — were essential to the protection of a world-wide commerce and the policing of the seas and the trade routes ; an island like Ceylon was necessary for the protection of the British possessions in India ; others such as Trini- dad or Tobago could not be permitted to pass into hands that would use them as nurseries of privateei's in a futiu'e war ; Heligo- land was a guardship to Hanover. But naval bases were one thing ; colonies, like the Parliaments of Charles I., became cursed with age. They were costly in infancy, troublesome in youth, and they re- belled in manhood. The need of a Britain beyond the seas to which supei-fluous population could emigrate was not felt, for the home country could under her industrial expansion absorb the multiplying proletariat with profit and comfoi-t New markets would be provided in Europe, in South America, in the United States, in inhabited and developed States, not in puny settlements wrestling for existence with Nature and natives, absorbing capital and paying no dividend on the investment. And a generation staggering under a gigantic debt, crippled by taxation and military armaments, exhausted by twenty years of war, justifiably regarded disarmament and reduction as the crying need of the day. Colonies were an expensive luxury. Nations on the verge of banbuptcy must reduce their expenditure or perish. The portentous gravity of the financial situation in 1815 cannot be exaggerated. And, as is always the case with a long war and a supreme effort, the full effects of the strain since 1802 asserted themselves for more than a decade. 1816] THE BRITISH EMPIRE 479 Hence Austialia was not regarded as the gift of Providence and British explorers to compensate for the loss of the United States. Pitt's Government in 1788 viewed it as a convenient outlet, now that America was lost, for transpoi-tation, copiously fed by the comprehensive criminal code of the day. New South Wales started as a colony for convicts, though Captain and Governor Phillip was convinced "it would prove the most valuable acquisition Great Britain ever made," and repudiated the idea (not held by a sceptical Government) that " convicts could lay the foundation of an empire ". As usual the colony owed more to the independent Englishman than to the men in office. The energy and faith of the individual Briton were as conspicuous and fruitful as the collec- tive scepticism and apathy of " Downing Street ". By 1815 little more than the bases were laid of the future Commonwealth of Australia. Phillip selected Port Jackson and started Sydney; MacArthur brought sheep from the Cape and began the breeding of pure merino ; the Blue Mountains were crossed and Bathui-st opened up ; Macquairie's governorship practically created New South Wales ; Bass in 1798 discovered that Van Diemen's Land 1813 was an island ; Collins started the settlement at Hobart ; Port '809-ai Phillip was discovered in 1802, and Flinders surveyed the southern coast. The burden of Empire was nowhere more acutely appreciated than at Calcutta and the East India House. After Wellesley left India the duty imposed on the administration was to defend what we had won, not to add to responsibilities already onerous enough. Minto's Governor-Generalship was a period of consolidation and 1807.13 administrative reform ; the annexation of Amboyna, the Moluccas, and Java were, like the seizure of the Mauiitius, acts of war imposed by European not Indian policy, and their restoration was decided at London, not Calcutta. Moira (the Marquess of Hastings), who succeeded Minto, however, found that the British power could not stand on the status quo ; and the war with the Ghurkas of Nepal, 1814.1a the reduction of the Pindari freebooters, and the final dissolution of the Mahratta confederacy at Poona (which fell after 1815), reluctantly undertaken, were the necessary completion of WeUesley's work. Sir Thomas Munro's series of administi-ative and financial reforms in the Madras Presidency furnishes another aspect of the obligations, faithfully interpreted, of empire. In 1818 the renewal 480 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- of the Charter to the East India Company was closely debated at home. That in the critical yeai-s of the European War time could be found for such a discussion exemplifies not merely the wide public interest in Indian affairs, but how parliamentary government, which is " government by public meeting," provides opportunity and the machinery for ventilating important but subsidiary issues in the stress of a crisis. The opening of Indian trade to all vessels of less than 400 tons — a breach in the Company's monopoly strenuously but unsuccessfully resisted — was a distinct advance towards separating the decaying commercial functions of the Company from its dele- gated imperial and political task. The whole situation had been profoundly modified by Wellesley's policy and achievements. The dissolution of the Napoleonic Em- pire, and our undisputed supremacy at sea, had dispelled the danger of French invasion across the water, aided by native assistance from within. The annexation of Ceylon, the retention of Mauritius and the Cape, secured the main route from Gibraltar and the British ports, while Malta and the Ionian Isles guai'ded the alternative line of communication thi'ough the Mediterranean, the Isthmus of Suez, and the Red Sea. But this latter, it will be observed, passed Aden (not yet British) and the mouth of the Persian Gulf, a superb lair for pirates bent on toll or blackmail. But on the whole, the menace of the sea routes was now replaced by the menace of the land routes — invasion through the mountains to the west and north- west, by which the Mogul conquerors had once reached Delhi. This was both an Indian and a European problem. The Sultan at Con- stantinople was the head of the Mohammedan world ; the Govern- ment at Calcutta was responsible for, and to, Mohammedan chiefs and races. The advance of Russia to the Caucasus and the Caspian and beyond, to the mouth of the Danube and beyond, could not be overlooked. A European Power of the fii-st rank at Constantinople threatened the Eastern Mediterranean and Egypt. And the same logic that drove the British in India was driving the Russian rulers. A safe and " scientific " frontier was a necessity to British India. Where was the line to be drawn ? Policy, geography, military con- siderations entered into the problem. But wherever the line was drawn Government House at Calcutta could not remain blind and deaf to events on the other side of it. Mountstuart Elphinstone's mission to the Amii- of Afghanistan, Malcolm's two missions to 1816] THE INDIAN PROBLEM 481 Persia, Metcalfe's mission to Ranjft Singh, the creator of the Sikh 1807 and mihtary state, and one of the most remarkable in the long list of native statesmen and rulere in Hindostan, illustrate the inexorable pressure of the situation. Metcalfe came to an agreement with the Sikh, and the Sutlej was faithfully maintained during Ranjit Singh's lifetime as the frontier beyond which neither British nor Sikh should d. 1839 pass. The foresight of Warren Hastings had predicted that the Persian Gulf would thrust itself upon us, if we did not wisely anticipate the day.^ And the frontier question pressed, not at our choice, into the fi-amework of the picture that every Governor- General found awaiting his study at Calcutta. Directors at the East India House might renounce ambition in italics, and Governors- General who thought they had mastered the Indian problem at the Board of Control in foggy London came out determined to seek peace and ensue it. But the East India House could not extirpate ambition in native chiefs, nor suppress the appeal of the oppressed to the Lat Sahib at Calcutta. The Jumna Sikhs in 1809 were responsible for Metcalfe's missioni Before now the whispers of the Brahmins at Poona had set Central India in a blaze. Governors- General could not sleep soundly simply because the Maidan at the door of Government House was quiet. Delhi, the tomb of Akbar, the Moti Musjid, and the Taj Mahal enshrined the spell of the Mogul Empire — the day when India had acknowledged a single imperial dynasty whose place the British had taken. The sceptre of Akbar and Aurungzib could be wielded now. by none but a British Sovereign or his delegate. Dull indeed of soul had that ruler been who could step into the chair of Clive, Wanen Hastings, and Wellesley and not be fascinated and absorbed by the problems of this vast India — its millions of inhabitants, its races, religions, languages, civilisation, and aspirations — be stung by the splendour of the unfolding dreams which set a polished imperial jewel in the imperial ci-own of the United Eangdom of Great Britain and Ireland ; be fired by the passion to achieve by administration, legislation, institutions, new reforms for the millions committed to his charge. ' " That the Persian Gulf is the most important position in Asia, one of the most important in the world ... If I were the War Minister of the Czar ... I should endeavour to occupy Persia and to establish myself at the head of the Persian Gulf ... I could strike at India with the one hand and at Asia Minor with the other ; I should take Constantinople in the rear." (A remark of Hastings quoted from G. W. Hastings' A Vindication of Warren Hastings, p. aoz.) 31 482 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1803- The Popes, bonie in the curule chair of Roman consuls and empe- Tors, fanned by the imperial peacock of the Caesars, entrenched at the Vatican in the heart of the mistress city of the world, could resist the undying appeal of imperial traditions for temporal sover- eignty as little as the gifted aiistocrats sent in succession to the East to govern on behalf of the democracy of Great Britain. It was India that converted the critic Wellesley into an admirer of Warren Hastings. Minto and Hastings, the critics of Wellesley, found it impossible to refute the arguments that convinced their misunderstood predecessor, or to be untrue to the mission thrust upon them by the obstinate facts of the case and by the genius of their race. Canada was not yet able to refute sceptical or disillusioned im- perialists. The Constitutional Act of 1791, which divided the colony into Upper and Lower Canada, had not solved the difficul- ties of government nor bridged the rift between the autocracy of the Governor and Executive and the democratic ideals of the governed. Dorchester's resignation in 1795 removed the most ex- perienced and far-sighted of Canadian empu-e-builders. The best feature of the situation was the loyalty of the French Canadians in the war of 1812, under the Governor, Sir George Prevost, and their independent readiness to repel the American invaders. But the colony grew very slowly. In 1815 the population was not yet 300,000 in Lower, nor more than 80,000 in Uppei-, Canada. Great Britain had neither the means nor the will to send what wa.« needed most — men and women. And the great fur-trading Companies, the Hudson Bay and the North- West, jealously resisted expansion westwards into their monopoly. Nor was Canada self-supporting Its scanty revenue until 1818 was necessarily supplemented from the burdened Imperial Treasury. Imperial authorities construed the lesson of 1783 as teaching that self-government ended in separation. The commercial system of mercantilism was not re- laxed. The Imperial Legislature could legislate for, and tax Canada. The new epoch came a generation later, and as the result of rebellion. It was preceded by, and the outcome of, reform or, rather, revolution in the heait of the imperial organism, the mother country. Thus, the Toryism of 1815 was a political creed, an interpreta- tion of life, formally expressed in, and working through, the legal 1816] OLD AND NEW TORYISM 483 machineiy of gorernment. But ita strength did not lie in the venerable and hoary battlements of the historic Constitution. It drew its vitality from the catena of conventions, the customs and usage which determined the application of the legal machinery, the prestige of the Crown, the accepted predominance of the aris- tocracy and the landed classes in both Chambers of the Legislature, and in local government through Quarter and Petty Sessions, in the alliance of squire and parson, and the union of the spiritual hierarchy with the temporal peerage in the House of Lords. It was entrenched in the social and economic organisation of society, whose subtle, all-pei-vading atmosphere, breathed alike in palaces and country seats, manor-houses, rectories, cotton-mills, and cottages, coloured unconsciously the ideas of man, woman, and child. Reform would come when, and not until, the new ideas with their new atmosphere — in 1815 the monopoly of a handful of "Jacobin"' speculators and agitators outside, and the Radical left wing in, the House of Commons — had mastered the educated, the moderate, the average sensual man and woman. Before ideas and a creed of life held by a majority, organised and determined, in any country, insti- tutions are helpless. They fall as the walls of Jericho. But in a State already provided with the apparatus of self-government revo- lution is not necessary ; for the difference between revolution and reform does not lie in the result but in the method. The reformer finds to his hand the instruments that the revolutionist has first to invent and then to apply. The lessons of 1 688 were being releamed in 1815 ; and, assisted by Peel and Canning after 1822, the new ideas were triumphantly driven home in 18'6% and gave Great Britain a new life, resting on new values. That reform was needed in 1815 scarcely requires proof. The great wars left Great Britain sick, suffering, despondent. It was not the inevitable reaction in a healthy body politic after a pro- longed and exceptional effort, which would be cured by a year or two of repose. Wounds and bruises and festering sores testified to organic disease and functional dislocation. The Crown was steadily losing its command on the allegiance and respect of its subjects. A monarchy is indeed marching to a parlous pass when stout-hearted Tories, such as Eldon and Wellington, found it difficult to reconcile their veneration for the Crown with their healthy and growing- contempt for the Prince Regent It is significant that when, Great 484 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802- Britain, intoxicated in 1814 with the victories over, and the downfall of, Napoleon, was cheering to the echo Alexander I. and Frederick William III., the Regent was hooted in London.^ For the poor blind and mad King there was univei-sal pity; but his heir and representative, by the scandals of his family life, his cynical im- morality and excesses, and his self-centred identification of public duty with personal passion, was destined to depress the Crown that he inherited in 1820 to the nadir of its moral and political influence. The House of Lords ^ resisted, or mutilated when it could not reject, every movement towards reform. A barbarous, inhuman and ineffective criminal code,' which punished with death every offence that could be swept within its net, and meted out the same penalty to the sheep-stealer or the shop-lifter as to the mur- dei-er, a procedure that in the common law courts made justice the expensive luxury of the rich and in Chancery rendered it impossible for a suitor with a determined adversary to obtain a decision in his lifetime, savage game laws, a system of land law that was a baffling labyrinth of conflicting feudal relics, and an effete jurisprudence placed Great Britain half a century behind the countries of th« Napoleonic codes. Yet to Eldon and EUenborough, Romilly's efforts to modify some of the most flagrant and demoralising features were Jacobini- cal attacks on property, aggravated by a milksop humanitarianism, while the merciless exposure by Bentham was simply the despicable dialectic of a reason-besotted leveller. The police in the modem sense had not been created. In the metropolis the watchmen were a corps of Bumbles or of Jonathan Wilds. The local government was fortunate if it was gifted with a stupid, lazy, but honest Dog- ' See Holland, Further Memorials of Whig Party, p. 197. ^ " Nobody," said Wellington, " cares a damn for the House of Lords ; the House of Commons is everything in lingland," yournal, 1817-18. 'In 1800 more than zoo crimes were punishable by death, and two-thirds of these had been added in the eighteenth century. An offender could be hanged for falsely pretending to be a Greenwich pensioner, for injuring a county bridge, for cutting down a young tree, forging a banknote, being a fraudulent bankrupt, steal- ing property value 5s., or more than is. from the person, stealing anything firom a bleaching-ground, and, if a soldier or sailor, for begging without a pass. In 1816 a boy of ten was sentenced to death. Not till 1820 was the flogging of women abolished. Not till 1836 could a prisoner's counsel in a charge of felony address the jury on his behalf. Eldon successfully opposed the alteration of the law in the case of bleaching-grounds and property worth more than 5s. In 1815 no married woman could make a contract, 01 acquire personal property, while all her earnings belonged to her husband. 18H] THE CASE FOR REFORM 485 berry. The flogging of women was still a legal penalty ; public elementary education by the State did not exist ; our jails and the treatment of prisoners, when Elizabeth Fry in 1817 took up the arrested work of John Howard, would have caused King Bomba some twinges of conscience, and were a disgrace to a Christian country, as well as a breeding-ground of crime, disease, and vice ; the sponging-house to which Rawdon Crawley was conveniently rele- gated was a familiar institution. The country under its system of poor law relief, which relieved only the landowner and the employer, paid nearly £7,000,000 annually to lower wages, discourage thrift, penalise the industrious, soften the lot of the dissolute, the loafer, and the vagrant, and to breed bastards. The Grand Inquisition of the nation, the House of Commons, with the exception of a few great constituencies, such as Westminster, was largely filled by the nom- inees to the Treasury boroughs, or the nominees of the landowners and the borough-mongers. A seat could be bought at a known price as easily as a ticket for the opera or the lottery, or the stock of the National Debt. The electoral law for the boroughs was a tangle in which no two boroughs were alike ; in the counties the richest leaseholders or copyholder% had no qualification for a vote. Property, that summed up the Decalogue of Toryism, was only use- ful for buying what did not rest on property. A farmer cultivating 2000 acres on a long lease was disfranchised ; but a faggot free- holder of 40s. made by the landowner was on the suffrage roll. An Ai'kwright who had created an industry that employed thousands, and who could buy up a hundred squires or a dozen peei-s, had to acquire, if he could, a trumpery but limited qualification in a borouffh to be on a level with men who voted in virtue of a disused doorway, their sole possession. Great towns created by the Indus- trial Revolution had no representation at all save through the county in which they lay, and then only through a few freehold votes. The House of Commons, unmanipulated, was as imperfect a representation of the classes with " a stake in the country " as the House of Lords. The system gave a direct representation to one category of one class of property, ownei-ship of land, persistently regai'ded in defiance of facts as identical with the agricultural in- terest. Ownership of seats was apparently considered as equiva- lent to ownership of land. Other classes of property and other interests could only secure indirect representation by corrupting *86 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [I802- and manipulating the system. Peerages could be bullied or bribed out of Ministers by wealth ; seats could be purchased from a borough-monger by Indian nabobs, rich entreprenewrs, by all who wished to recoup themselves from the perquisites of patronage. The Whigs cynically acquiesced in the system because reform waa impossible, and because Providence created Whig as well as Tory landowners, and these co-operated with Providence by creating a Whig Opposition. The democracy was wholly excluded ; a mere fraction of the middle class had votes. Neither had the wealth nor the opportunities to pei-vert the system, and so secure an in- diiect representation. Hence the gross financial abuses which, in a country bled white by taxation and the reckless creation of debt, aggravated the gravity of the financial situation. The public ser- vice from top to bottom and in every department was clogged and demoralised by pensions, sinecures, and payments by fees enjoyed by functionless drones who absorbed public funds and were a per- petual bar to efficiency. Two millions at least were doubly wasted in this way — they produced no service and every recipient was a vested interest opposed to reform. And the Fixint Opposition Bench connived at defeating reform, partly because it hoped to return to office and would need the system, not less because the Whigs of the ruling class had their full share of pensions and sine- cures. The Radicals alone were in earnest, and the day of the Radicals with their teixible utilitarian creed and catechism — the Tribunal and Guillotine of political philosophy for every public person and institution that could not prove their utility and con- tribute to promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number — had not yet come. But it was coming, and faster than Bumble dreamed. Most serious was the dislocation of the new economic organisa- tion of society from the political and legal framework of society, and one fraught with national peril. The glories of the Great War coincided with the mounting misery and degradation of the wao-e- earners. The agricultural labourer and the artisan, unrepresented and credited with an incurable Jacobinism, had one duty alone — to suffer in silence and breed sons for the army and militia, daughters for the service of the gentry, hands of both sexes for factory and workshop. In the villages they were at the mercy of squire, parson, and fanner, aided by the surveyor of the Poor ; in the industrial 1816] THE ECONOMIC SITUATION 487 towns they were exploited by the capitalist entrepreneur. Trades unions, combinations to raise wages, were illegal, and the anti- Luddite legislation of 1812 showed that if the law was not strong enough it would be strengthened ; but combinations in Parliament to depress wages and keep up the price of food (with the aid of the statute book) were legitimate and in the public interest. Gilbert's Act of 1782 recognised practically the right to work and the right to exist ; but outside the workhouses the reign of laissezfaire and the theory of free contract was now dominant. The dawn of a new epoch dates strictly from the Act of 1802 due to Sir R. Peel, the father of the statesman, which attempted to regulate through State intervention the houi-s and conditions of labour in factories. Unfortunately, it was a complete dead letter.^ But in principle it was the parent of the "Factory legislation" of the nineteenth century. Effective control by the State in the interests of the community was as yet far away. The hours and conditions of labour enduied by the industrial proletariat were far worse than low wages. And above all, for the women and children economic slavery and degradation as always were dogged by physical degradation, by disease, vice, and crime. The Industrial Revolution, brought Great Britain wealth, an addition to her intellectual capital, and the commercial supre- macy of the world ; but these gifts were purchased at a heavy price. The fear of revolution that haunted the ruling class was one of the many pernicious superstitions that needed extirpation. What the working classes required in 1815 was not charity but justice, not a fostered ignorance but knowledge. British statesmen had yet to learn that there is only one safe system of insurance against revolution — the conviction in the heart of every citizen, however humble, that he is really a partner in the best life which his State exists to promote. That Great Britain with these and many other fundamental defects could accomplish what she did from 1793-1815 is not the least remarkable feature of a remarkable epoch. But nations, like individuals, ave capable of astonishing efforts when it is a fight for life and independence. And after 1802 Great Britain fought for bare existence. Any and every internal evil, any and every sacrifice was preferable in the national mind to the surrender of the right to ' Robert Blencoe, a worker, first learned of the law twelve years after it became law. It Is omitted in the Parliamentary History by Cobbett. 488 THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON [1802-lfi exist as a free people, masters of their own fate, captains of their own souls. And there is no more bracing or instructive example of the vitality and sustaining power of political conceptions and ideals than this refusal, through disaster, disillusionment, and blunders, to make peace except upon terms that left Great Britain free to define her civilisation and future in accordance with a free nation's will. The aristocratic government of our countiy is entitled to its full credit for its proud and inflexible leadership. But there is no reason to suppose that if Great Britain had been governed thi'ough manhood suffi-age and equal electoral districts the decision would have been different, the obstinacy less stiff, the courage less proud and heroic. In the ends of our foreign policy Pitt, Fox, Canning, Wellesley, Castlereagh coiTectly interpreted national sentiment, and were sup- ported by the national will. The political aptitude, the inherited political instinct, the intuition of a race trained by centuries of struggle, wrested from defective machinery illegitimate benefits. Nations that can defy their maladies and blunder into success are the despair of the political theorist. The truest hope for the future of Great Britain in 1815 lay in a simple quality. She had been strong enough to endure and sui-vive her vices and her diseases ; she was therefore strong enough — and the nineteenth cen- tury is one long proofs — to devise and endure the drastic but effective remedies. Note. — For additional authorities see the Supplement to the Bibliography, pp. 650-562. There ig an admirable and objective survey of the development of Whigs, Tories, Radicals and their political creeds and acts in H. W. C. Davis, The Age of Grey and Peel (1929). The best account of England in 1814- 15 is in E. JHal^vy's Histoire du Peuple anglais au XIX' Steele (vol. i., Eng. tnutsl.) APPENDICES I. THE PRISONER OF AHLDEN The fate of Sophia Dorothea of Celle, the wife of George I., who might have been Queen of Great Britain, is beyond question. But her relations with her lover, Count Philip Cliriatopher von Kouigsmarok, are still a matter of con- troversy. Nor, so far, is there certain evidence as to how he met his death, though both Stepney, the contemporary English resident at Di-esden, and Cressett, at. Celle, had no doubt he had been murdered. It seems very un- lilcely that any fresh material will come to light, either to acquit or convict George I. of being the instigator of, or privy to, his sudden and inexplicable disappearance. It seems not unreasonable to conclude that the count me) with a violent end, and that the Hanoverian Court, which " issued a lying report " and shrouded tlie whole affair in impenetrable mystery, both knew and had good cause to conceal the truth. The lomantic version of the tragedy, which has persisted till to-day, rests chiefly on the Romische Octavia of Duke Antony Ulric of Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel, published in 1711, and obviously i semi-fictitious, semi-historical roman A, cUf. A new development was given to the critical discussion of the relations of Sophia Dorothea to Count Philip Koniggmarck by Kramer in his Denkwiirdigkeiten von Aurora von KSnigs- marck (1843), and some supplementary evidence was published by R. F. Williams in his Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea (1846). The most recent discussion of the problems involved will be found in A. D. Greenwood, Lives of the Hanoverian Queens of England, vol. i. , and A. VV. Ward, The Electress Sophia and the Hanoverian Succession (2nd ed. ). Dr. Ward has supplemented the series of letters in French and cipher, preserved at Lund, between Sophia Dorothea and Konigsmarck, by printing thirty-four additional letters preserved in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv at Berlin, which clearly belong to the same correspon- dence (see Bng. Hist. Rev., April, 1910, pp. 314-16, for proof of this). Dr. Ward thinks that no further letters are in existence. The student will find in the two modern works cited above a full bibliography of the literature on the subject. A translation of the Lund letters was published by W. H. Wilkins, The Love of an Uncrowned Queen (2 vols., 2nd ed., 1900), and a transcript, with annotations, by Mrs. Everett Green is in Brit. Mus., Add. MSS. 28259. The interpretation of these letters is almost as various as that of the Casket Letters, with the exception that their authorship is not dis- puted. Lord Acton {Lectures on Mod. History, p. 267) pronounced that " nobody doubted that Konigsmarck had been made away, and that the 489 490 APPENDICES author of the crime was the King of England, whose proper destination there- fore should have been not St James but Newgate, and indeed not Newgate but Tyburn ". But without adopting so extreme a view it is difficult to under- stand Miss Greenwood's scepticism (op. cit. supra) as to the guilty relations . between Konigsmarck and Sophia Dorothea, which, given the character of the lover and of the princess, and the unhappiness of her marriage, the letters leave in little doubt. And the princess's father, it is noteworthy, believed in his daughter's guilt. Lord Acton's words [op. cit., p. 162) on Mary's share in the murder of Darnley sum up the case against George I. : " The case is highly suspicious and compromising ; but more than that is required for a verdict of guilty in a matter of life and death ". The ethical question raised by his divorce and imprisonment of Sophia Dorothea cannot be discussed satisfactorily in an appendix. But his conduct was eminently characteristic of the man. II. WALTON'S DESPATCH In connection with the operations of Byng (Lord Torrington) In the Mediterranean in 1718 allusion is generally made to the famous brevity of a despatch by Captain (afterwards Admiral) Sir G. VValtou, and the allusion generally consists in misquoting its supposed contents {e.g. Stanhope, History of England, 1-474; Lang, History of Scotland, iv., 262). The received ver- sion first appeared \nThe Gentleman's Magazine for 1739, p. 606, and has been repeated without verification by many writers since. The author of tliis garbled version was T. Corbett, who in 1718 was Byng's secretary, and in 1739 was Secretary to the Admiralty. Sir J. K. Laughton, who had already exposed the error in his article on VV^altou {Diet, of Nat. Biography, lix., pub- lished in 1899), printed the correct text of the despatch (dated August 6th, 1718) in The Times, December 29th, 1906, p. 6, and pointed out (1) that the de- spatch was not limited to a single sentence, the exact wording of which usually runs, " We have taken and destroyed all the Spanish ships and vessels that were upon the coast, the number as in the margin," but to a letter running to fourteen lines of small print; (2) the popular version " is thus not simply erroneous, but a lie " ; (3) that the " lie " gave Walton " a sort of distinction which he never merited"; (4) that Walton's force was "overwhelmingly superior " to that of the Spaniards. III. THE WAR OF JENKINS' EAR, 1739 Although Burke, Horace Walpole, and others doubted whether Jenkins lost an ear, as he stated to the House of Commons on March 17th, 1738, the fact has been substantiated from official records. It was suggested, indeed, later by Jenkins' critics that he lost his ear in the pillory, or that he had both his ears when he appeared to give evidence. Sir J. K. Laughton pub- Sept. 12 I'slied in The English Historical Review for 1889 (vol. iv., pp. 741-49) the text 1731 of various letters discovered by him in the Admiralty Records hearing on the complaints arising in the West Indies. One of these, from Roar- Admiral C. THE SPANISH WAR 491 Stewart to the Governor of Havana, is a protest against "cruel, piratical outrages " committed by the Guarda Costas, and refers explicitly to Jenlcins : " About April 20th last . . . after using the captain in a most barbarous, inhuman manner, tailing all his money, cutting off one of his ears . . .". A return also in 1737 mentions in a list of vessels " taken or plundered " the " Rebecca, Robert Jenlcins, Jamaica to Loudon, boarded and plundered near Havana, 9th April, 1731 (i.e. 20th April, n.a.)". The Spanish captain, a letter of June 16th, 1742, further states, one Fondino, who "took Jenkins, when his ears was {sic) cut oflF," had bean captured, and the captor on this occasion was a great-great-grandson of Oliver Cromwell, Admiral Sir T. Oct. iz, Frankland. It is significant that Rear-Admiral Stewart, writing to Newcastle, '731 has much to say unfavourable to British conduct, e.g. " Give me leave to say that you only hear one side of the question . . . the sloops manned and armed on that illicit trade has {sic) more than once bragged to me oi their having murdered 7 or 8 Spaniards on their own shore . . . but villainy is inhe:rent to this climate ... a parcel of men who call themselves merchants, but except two or three . . . they are no better than pedlars, and one of them formerly in jail for piracy". The origin of ths war of 1739 has recently been examined by Mr. Temperley {Royal Hist. Soc. Transactions, third ser., vol. 3 (1909),pp. 197-23G), who has collated fresh documentary information from the Record Office with the evidence from Spanish archives utilised by Bau- drillart and Armstrong. iVIr. Temperley, in brief, shows very clearly (1) that there is much to be said ior Stewart's view : " The question will be whether we, by carrying on the clandestine trade, are not ourselves the authors of our complaints " ; (2) the Convention of the Pardo was a sincere effort of both Governments to establish a preliminary basis for a complete and satisfactory understanding ; (3) the complication caused by the affairs of the South Sea Company being introduced into the diplomatic negotiations, and the refusal of the Company to produce their accounts or pay what they owed to the King of Spain ; (4) Newcastle's extreme sensitiveness to public opinion and the clamours of the Opposition (a singular anticipation of his conduct in 1750-67) ; (5) the fear in the Cabinet, aware of the Pacte de Faraille of 1733, that in 1738 a Franco-Spanish alliance was on foot ; (6) the disastrous effect of the Op- position attacks on the JMinistry and the Convention in inflaming an ignorant and prejudiced public in Engl:ind ; (7) " the counter-orders " to our fleet in the Mediterranean on March 10th, 1739, for which Newcastle was primarily responsible, and the issue of which Newcastle instructed Keene to deny. Spain was then convinced that England meant war, broke the Convention by refusing to pay the £95,000 agreed to, and thus made war inevitable. Mr. Temperley proves that Walpole's Ministry had " not truckled to Spain, and were not prepared to sacrifice our trade and navigation," and concludes " that popular and parliamentary agitation was the main factor in causing the war". April n, Montijo, President of the Council of the Indies, summed up the quarrel fairly : 1738 " There were faults on both sides ; our (English) contrabandists ought to be punished, and some of their (Spanish) Governors hanged " The extent of the illicit trade was enormous. The return of 1737, alluded to above, speci- fies 62 British vessels taken by the Spaniards, and Rear-Admiral Stewart 492 APPENDICES mentiong that we had " 60 ships to one Spaniard in those seas "- See, also, Hertz, British Imperialism in the Eighteenth Century, p. 16 seq., where the pamphlet literature is carefully analysed. IV. " THE DOUBLE-MARRIAGE PROJECT " Carlyle's phrase describing the tortuous and wearisome negotiations for a double dynastic connection between the British Royal House and the Royal House of Prussia by a marriage of Frederick, Prince of Wales, to Princess Wilhelmina, afterwards Margrafin of Baireuth, and of Frederick, the Crown Prince, the Frederick the Great of 17-iO-1786, to the Princess Amelia, has passed into history. (See Carlyle's Frederick, vol. ii., Bks. vi. and vii.) Since Carlyle wrote the negotiations have been documentarily investigated, particu- larly by Oncken (Forschungen zur Brand, und Preuss. Geschichte, vol. vii., 1894) and Berueck (Denkwiirdigkeiten der Margrafin und die Bng.-Preuss. Heirath's Verhandlung, 1894). (See also Wilhelmina, Margravin of Baireuth, by Edith Cutheli, vol. i., London, 1906.) From these sources it seems established that (1) the double marriage was ardently desired by the Queen of Prussia, but opposed by her husband ; (2) that Sir C. Hotham practically secured the Prussian Court's consent to the single marriage of Wilhelmina and Prince Frederick ; (3) that the English Court learned nothing of this definite settlement because they preferred not to learn ; (4) that the proposal for a double marriage was a project to detach Prussia from Austria ; (6) that the plan to destroy the influence of Grumbkow and Seckendorff over King Frederick William I. failed ; and on the failure the marriage of Wilhelmina to the Prince of Wales was then abandoned for good by the British Court. V. PITT'S RESIGNATION IN 1761 AND THE PEACK OF 17C3 The circumstances under which Pitt resigned iu October, 1761, have been the subject of considerable controversy. A writer in The Quarterly Review Aug. IS, (*''■'■• ^- ^*'') (Oct., 1899) maintained (1) that Pitt had " positive knowledge " 1701 of the Family Compact of 1761 ; (2) that "the secret of the Family Com- pact was probably divulged to Pitt from a wholly unexpected quarter " ; (3) " that there can be little doubt . . , that Dutens informed Pitt secretly, through his friend, Robert Wood, of the nature of the correspondence which Tanucci (Neapolitan Foreign Minister) carried on with Madrid under the nose of Sir J. Gray (our envoy at Naples). There can be still less doubt that this intelligence was amongst the papers which Pitt brought down ' in Oct ■ ^''^ ^^S ' ^° ^^^ Council Board ou that memorable October day " ; (4) that Pitt's " pride forbade him to disclose" his "proofs" to "an incredulous audience " ; (6) " a conjecture " that " Pitt had in his possession s copy of the secret treaty of August 15th, 1761 ". The same writer asserts that a copy of the treaty exists amongst the miscellaneous papers of 1761 iu the Newcastle Collection ; and argues that " the writing, the paper, and especially the water-mark, clearly indicate that it came from Pitt's office in Cleveland Row ". Hence the inference that Newcastle " received this copy of th« Treaty from Pitt himself". PITT'S RESIGNATION 498 Two distinct points are here brought into the discussion : (1) On what eyidence did Pitt rely in his demand for instant war with Spain ? (2) Did he in forming his own conclusions rely on evidence, however obtained, which "pride" or any other motive " forbade him to disclose " ? In other words, did Pitt withhold from his colleagues proofs which it was in his power to bring forward ? It is difficult to understand d priori why pride should have commanded this secrecy. The issue was very critical, and Pitt clearly desired to convince his collea'^ues that he was right in his interpretation of Spain's action. Why should he withhold cateoorical information which would have clinched his argument f If he already had a copy of the Treaty of August 16th revealing its real terras, his failure to produce it and confound the sceptics who doubted those terms is quite inexplicable. Pride or any othei motive at least did not forbid him to lay before the Cabinet the intercepted correspondence of Fueutes and Grimaldi. (2) As to the copy in the New- castle Collections we have no evidence (beyond a doubtful argument from a water-mark) that Pitt had seen it, that Newcastle received it from Pitt, or that it was in British hands before October 2nd, 1761. The mere fact that it is included in the Newcastle Papers for 1761 is no proof that it was re- ceived by Newcastle in 1761, particularly before October 2nd of that year. And if Newcastle before October 2nd had seen a copy of the terms of the Treaty of August 16th, why did he write when explicitly informed on De- cember Ist of the treaty by the Portuguese ambassador, "I think Mello's account can't be true " (B. M. Add. MS. 32931 f. 426)— a wholly inexplic- able comment if Pitt previous to his Designation had already communicated to him the terms of the treaty ? The Newcastle Papers (B. IVI. Add. iVTS., 32923, ff. 63-8) and the Hard- wicke Papers (B. M. Add. MS., 35S70, ff. 297, 301, 303, 310) supply detailed information as to what took place in the numerous Cabinet meetings between August 6th and October 2nd, 1761. On September 18th Pitt and Temple in a written memorandum to the King (printed in Grenvilli Corr. , 1, 386) de- manded that Bristol, our ambassador, should be withdrawn from Madrid after delivering an ultimatum to the Spanish Court. The final decision was taken at a Cabinet meeting on October 2nd. On August 31st Wall, the Spanish ambassador, had presented to Bristol a paper declaring that the memorial on the Spanish grievances had been submitted by Bussy, the French plenipoten- tiary, on July 16th, " with the full consent, approbation and pleasure of his Catholic Majesty" {i.e. of Spain) — clear proof that the two Bourbon Courts were acting in conjunction and on explicit orders from Madrid. An inter- cepted letter from Grimaldi to Fuentea of August 31st (printed in Chatham Corr., 2, 139) contained these sentences : "The fear of our (Spanish) Court, which is not badly grounded, is for the fleet {i.e. the flota of silver galleons). They want to gain time there {i.e. at Madrid) till she is arrived at Cadiz, and are privately sending twelve ships by way of convoy . . . they have remained here entirely bound by the Family Agreement and the Convention . . . now there is no room for this fear, since both instruments were signed on the 16th, and I expect shortly the ratification ". On September 2nd Stanley wrote from Paris to Pitt : " I have secretly seen an article, drawn up between 494 APPENDICES France and Spain, in which the former engages to support the interests of the latter equally with her own in the negotiations of the peace with England ; it was entitled Article 10. / am as yet a stranger to the other nine. " On September 13th another intercepted letter from Gi-imaldi to Fuentes contain! this passage : " It would be sufficient to repeat to Bussy the order of the 10th of August, not to sign anything without the accommodation of matters with Spain likewise, according to the stipulation of the Treaty between the two Courts, which is already ratified ".- We know from the Hardwicke and Newcastle Memoranda that these documents in full were submitted to Pitt's colleagues in the Cabinet It is clear, therefore, that every one in the Cabinet by October 2nd knew that : (1) Spain was acting in conjunction with France ; (2) an instrument or treaty between the two Courts had been signed on August 16th, and was already ratified. On this evidence Pitt based his demand for war with Spain (already m^de in the written memorandum of September 18th) before Spain, as he argued, made war on us. He practically made two points : (a) an inference that the Treaty of August 15th was offen- sive and not purely defensive or merely for joint diplomatic action in the nego- tiations for peace ; (6) a measure of policy, that it was better to anticipate and not wait for the inevitable blow. The Cabinet had therefore to decide : (1) What was the correct interpretation of the Treaty of August 15th ; (2) what, as a measure of policy, was the best action to take. Newcastle's note on Pitt's speech runs : " That the papers he (Pitt) had in his bag (meaning my Lord Bristol's letter and Mr. Wall's paper) fixed an eternal stain on the Crown of England if proper measures were not taken upon it ". Hardwicke'a note on Granville's speech runs ; " 1. Whether the memorial of Mr. Wall, together with the intercepted letters, are a sufficient foundation for your lordships to form a fixed opinion that Spain means to make war against England, and to warrant you to make war or to come to an open rup ture with them ? " Hardwicke also notes that the intercepted letter of September 13th was produced " and the translation read ". The conclu- sion, therefore, seems clear ; first, that no other evidence was submitted by Pitt except Wall's memorial of August 31st and the intercepted letters of August 31st and September 13th, and that these and these alone were in Pitt's " bag " ; secondly, that Pitt did not produce any other evidence, because on October 2ad he had no other evidence to produce. The supposition that he suppressed or withheld other information must, therefore, be dismissed. And this supposition is further disproved by the vote of the Cabinet which decided that (1) Pitt's interpretation of the treaty of August 16th as offensive was not borne out by the evidence, and " neither founded in justice nor expediency " ; (2) as a measure of policy it was dangerous to provoke a war with Spain, in which the military experts, Anson and Ligonier, concurred. It is inconceiv- able that if Pitt could on October 2nd have revealed the actual terms of the Family Compact he would not have done so. Such a document, if in existence, would have blown out of the water the interpretation of the majority in the Cabinet that the treaty of August 15th did not necessarily bring Spain into the war. That Pitt was correct in his inferential interpretation events subse- quently proved. But on October 2nd it was an inference which he could not JUNIUS 496 prove, and which even so experienced a diplomatist as Granville (Carteret), the Lord President, decided against Pitt's hypothetical interpretation. The argu- ment on policy does not affect the question as to the evidence submitted by Pitt : though the course of events showed that Pitt, and not the military ex- perts, were right in this also. The student will consult with advantage, in addition to the authorities cited above : Memoir, by H. Fox, prefixed to vol. i. o{ the Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox; Eng. Hist. Review (Jan. and April, 1906), in which the text of the important passages from the Newcastle and Hard- wicke Papers is printed ; W. D. Green, William Pitt, App., 383-85 ; Ruville, The Earl of Chatham, 11., part iv., chap. xvi. ; J. S. Corbett, England in the Seven Years' Wa.r, II., chap. vi. ; Waddington, La Giierre de Sept Ans, vol. iv. On the peace of Paris and the negotiations leading up to it see especially Royal Hist. Soc. Trans., 3rd series, vol. 2 (1908) (article based on docu- mentary study by Miss K. Hotblack) ; W. L. Grant, Mission de M. Bussy i Londres (1781) ; G. L. Beer, British Colonial Policy, 1764-65; American Hist. Review (article by Mr. Hubert Hall), July, 1900. (Note 1929) : The standard life of Pitt is, since 1914, the biography in 2 vols, by Prof. Basil Williams. The student should read his narrative (ii., pp. 103-26) of the events which led to Pitt's resignation. Prof. B. Williams accepts the view expressed in this Appendix (written in 1910), i.e. that Pitt's policy and demands were based, not on a copy of the Treaty, but on the intercepted correspondence of Grimaldi, particularly the letters of August 13th and September 13th, referre'^ to above. VI. THE AUTHORSHIP OF JUNIUS The student will find the arguments for and against the Franciscan author- ship of Junius summarised and criticised in the article by Sir L. Stephen on Sir P. Francis in Diet, of Nat. Biogr., vol. xx., with a bibliography of the chief literature of the controversy (see also article by the same writer — " Chatham, Francis and Ju.mua"^Ejtg. Hist. Rev., iii., 233). Macaulay (Bsiay on Warren Hastings) for five reasons " had a firm belief" that Francis was the author. Sir W. R. Anson (Introd. to A utobiography of Grafton, pp. xxxi, xxxxii) notes that " It is remarkable that throughout the autobiography no allusion is made to the letters of Junius " ; and while riot prepared to dispute the Franciscan authorship, maintains that the letters "suggest an intimacy with the higher walks of political life and a knowledge of the pei-sons concerned " which could not have been acquired by Francis alone; and that Francis's career does not " explain the savage ferocity of the attacks made by Junius upon the Duke of Grafton and Bedford ". Sir W. Anson finds the clue in Temple who, for reasons advanced op. cit., may be supposed to be "the guiding spirit of Junius," and expresses "a conviction that whatever part Francis may have played in the composition of these letters, Temple directed their policy, supplied much of their information, and may conceivably have polished their invective ". Shelburne {Life, by Fitzmaurice, i., p. viii) apparently not only asserted that he knew who Junius was, but that 496 APPENDICES it was a person wholly different from any one suspected on varioua ground? of being the author by contemporary opinion ; and he intended to write a pamphlet revealing the secret. The pamphlet was nevei- written, and the statement seems at variance with that recorded of Shelburne's views else- where {op. cit., iii., 466). Sir W. Anson's suspicion that the Grenvilles were concerned in the publication and writings of Junius is curiously borne out by The Further Memorials of the Whig Party, by Lord Holland (ed. Stavor- dale, J. Murray, 1906, App. D, p. 404). Lord Holland records his own " impressions of Francis's conversations, inasmuch as he always seemed to me to know or imply something about Junius, but to deny strictly his being the author," and relates a story accordinj? to which Charles Lloyd (private secre- tary to George Grenville, and suspected by Lord North of being the author of " Junius ") on Francis's admission, " wrote the letters and Francis corrected the press". Shelburne's authoi-ship is stated in " Junius " by C. W. Everett (1027). VII. GRAVES'S ACTION WITH DE GRASSE (SEPT. 6th, 1781) AND RODNEY'S ACTIONS OF APRIL 17th, 1780, AND APRIL 12th, 1782 "New light" (to quote the editor) "of the most startling kind" has recently been thrown on the tactical history of the period from 1776-1794 1776-94 hy the publication in 1909 of Signals and Instructions, edited by Mr. J. S. Corbett (Navy Records Society, vol. xxxv.). This volume contains the collection of Signal Books and Instructions made by Admiral Sir T. Graves, K.B. (Nelson's second in command at Copenhagen) and "embodies for us a practically core ^eta history of the transition " in tactics, laid down in the old system of instructions (see Fighting Instructions, 1530-1616, vol. xxix., Navy Records Society, ed. J. S. Corbett), which was superseded by the Signal Book System. Previously to the discovery in 1908 at the United Service Institution of the Graves Collection the gap from 1776-1794, pointed out by the editor, had remained unfilled ; and the principles and methods of the transition from the old system to the new, so long discussed by naval historians, were necessarily a field simply of inference, conjecture from scanty facts, and, as it proves, erroneous interpretation of these facts. The fortunate discovery of the new material has now provided documentary material which fully explains the critical period of development in naval tactics from 1776-1794. The problems and their solution are discussed at length by Mr. Corbett in his lengthy introduction to the documents (pp. 1- 81) to which the student can safely be referred. A layman naturally will not attempt to pronounce on matters that belong to the province of a few naval experts and are still under discussion. It must suffice here to point out that Mr. Corbett places the leading sailors of the time — Howe, Rodney, Hood, Kempenfelt, and the lesser lights in an entirely new setting ^-and to note some of his most striking conclusions, e.g. : (1) the influence of French theoretical writers, e.g., Morogues, in particular, on British naval in 1782 theory and practice ; (2) the " invaluable work " of Clerk of Eldiu, " many of whose ideas must have been perfectly familiar to the leading spirits in NAVAL TACTICS 497 the Navy," " can only be regarded as one expression of a aeep and wide- spread movement " ; (3) the existence of a great school of naval tacticians and reformers, of which Howe and Kempenfelt were the leading spirits, the great object of whose labours was to free commanders from the fetters of an obsolete system, and which was quite distinct from the conservative school of Rodney, that sought improvement in the established system. The debt of our Navy to Kempenfelt and Howe and their followers is convincingly set forth by the editor. Mr. Corbett shows at length that in the manoeuvre of "breaking the line," which for so long has been in our history text-books Rodney's chief title to immortality : (a) in April l7th, 1780, and April 12, 1782, "the idea of the manoeuvre was familiar to both the French and the English services " ; (6) " all the evidence points to the conclusion that so far from Rodney being the parent of the manoeuvre," he belonged to the school which "condemned it as a dangerous and unsound form of attack"; (c) that the signal for the manoeuvre had been introduced into the Channel Fleet, 1779-1780, was continued by Kempenfelt, and that Sir C. Douglas, Rodney's first captain, and Affleck, who made the manoeuvre independently on April 12th, were " Channel Fleet men who had been serving under Kempenfelt's system ". Equally striking are the considerations advanced by Mr. Corbett as to the real nature of the action fought by Graves with De Graase on September 6th, for which Graves was so severely criticised by Hood and Rodney, and by all historians since. Here Mr. Corbett suggests that the fiasco was due, not, as generally supposed, to Graves's incompetence, but to the fact that Hood and his squadron "hide-bound in the stereotyped tradition of the old Fighting Instructions " failed to interpret intelligently and to carry out the signals of Graves (who belonged to the school of Kempenfelt and Howe). See particularly Introd., pp. 62-66. Hood, there- fore, on this reading of the action was really responsible for the result, which, by crippling Graves's fleet, enabled De Grasse to get back to the Chesapeake, and which led directly to the epoch-making disaster at Yorktowu ; and Hood "as a tactician must be placed in the school of Rodney," "the fanatical devotee of the letter of the law ". Mr. Corbett goes on to point how "the golden period " of development which culminated with Trafalgar "must be associated chiefly with Howe's name, whose work from 1790- 1794 laid the basis of the matured variation, on the " glorious First of 1794 J^une," of the manoeuvre of breaking the line "which the French parry would not meet," finally consummated in " the Nelson touch," the Memoran- dum of October 10th, 1806, and the action of October 21st at Trafalgar. App. E. to Mr. Corbett's volume provides a complete bibliography of English works on Naval Tactics, 1760-1860, and much other supplementary and in- structive material. VIII. WARREN HASTINGS The interpretation and verdicts of Macaulay on Warren Hastings' career in his famous essay have been shattered by modern critical research. It is one of the moat astonishing things in our modern government of India that 32 498 APPENDICES this essay is still used under goverumental authority as a text-hook for the education of Indian hoys and university students. The hest short life of Hastinafs still remains that hy Sir A. C. Lyall (English Men of Action Series, 1902). Hastings' administration is reviewed hy P. E. Roberts (Introduction in one volume (viz. vii., pts. i.-ii.) of the Historical Oeography of the Dominions, ed. Lucas : Oxford University Press, 1923), who examines the evidence for and against Hastings (pp. 167-219). Mr. Roherts holds that the least defensible of Hastings' acts were the measures taken against (i) Chait Singh, (ii) the Begums of Oudh, hut also con- demns in unmeasured terms the conduct of the impeachment hy the Managers and the failure of the House of Commons in 1785 to recognise the exceptional difficulties under which Hastings laboured or his long and splendid services to Great Britain in the East, and adds the case for the recognition of those services by some high honour from the Crown. The student will do well to consult (a) G. W. Hastings, A Vindication of Warren Hastings (1909), (6) The Selection of Letters and Despatches, 1772-8i (3 vols. , 1890), and Selection of the State Papers (Warren Hastings) with introduction hy Sir G. W. Forrest, 2 vols. , 1910. There is a useful summary and review of the present position by Prof. J. W. Neill in History, April, 1918, pp. 36-47. Hastings had to work under the Regulating Act of 1773 ; Hastings' successors worked under the Act of 1784, on which the opinion of a great Viceroy, the Marquess Curzon, is worth quoting : " Such (the machinery as 'reorganised ' by Pitt) was the form of Government that was invented by the wisdom of our ancestors. . . . Had a Committee been assembled from the padded chambers of Bedlam, they could hardly have devised anything more extravagant in its madness or more mischievous in its operation. To it must be attributed many of the astounding errors and contradictions that charac- terised our Indian policy at that time " (British Government in India, ii., 69), coinciding with Hastings' judgment that " fifty Burkes, Poxes and Francises " could not have planned a worse measure. IX THE DROPMORE PAPERS The syncopated treatment of foreign policy, particularly after 1793, required hy the exigencies of space in the text offers no opportunity foi discussing in detail the many difficult problems that arose between 1786 and 1801. On these The Dropmore Papers (Hist. MSS. Commission Reports, MSS. of J. B. Fortescue) throw the most valuable light, and are a mine of information which has not yet been fully worked out by students. Six volumes of these papers have so far been published from the archives at Dropmore, and apart from the Pitt correspondence, utilised by Dr. Ruville in his Life of Chatham, which occupies half of the first volume, the material consists of letters to or from William, first Lord Grenville particularly bearing on his period at the Foreign Office in Pitt's Cabinet. This rich material was not used by the Duke of Buckingham in his Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George HI., nor by Lord Stanhope in his Life of Pitt FOREIGN POLICY 499 though it has been used by Professor Salomon in his William Pitt, der JUngere, which, however, has only reached the year 1792. The information is as varied as it is important. The student's attention may be directed here to a few of the many points on which new light has been shed : (1) The corre- spondence on Irish affairs from 1782-1801, and the Legislative Union ; chiefly letters from Grenville's brother, the Marquis of Buclcingham. The worliing of the Castle system, the Regency question in 1788, Fitzwilliam's recall, the Re- hellion of 1798, the attitude of the Protestant Ascendency party, the dead set against " Clemency " Cornwallis are here fully illustrated. (2) Pitt's strong hostility in 1782 and 1783 to the system of personal government by the King, the unconstitutional influence of the Crown and the need of electoral reform are exemplified (see particularly i., 212 et seq.). (3) Thurlow's opposition to Pitt in the Cabinet, which makes it more surprising that he was not dismissed earlier than 1792. (4) Dundas's political system in Scotland. " My secession from all political life at this time would be a very fatal step to the strength and hold Government has of Scotland " (i., 534). (6) British relations with Holland from 1787 onwards (see particularly Introd. to vol. vi. and refer- ences there given). (6) The rupture of the Triple Alliance of 1788 and the collision with Russia in 1790-91. The editor notes (iii., p. viii) : "It appears probable from Mr. Whitworth's letter to Grenville dated June 17th, that the story of Fox having sent Adair to the Russian Court to thwart Fawkener and bring Pitt's Administration into discredit in England was the suggestion of a mortified diplomatist ". (7) Confirmatory evidence of Pitt's determination to remain strictly neutral after the French Revolution broke out (see particularly vol. ii.). (8) The rapid change in public opinion in the autumn of 1792, reflected in the Cabinet. (9) The reports from secret agents on the Committee of Public Safety. After 1793, when the war had come, a brief analysis of the material is impossible, so rich and suggestive are its con- tents. The cumulative evidence the more it is studied the more it strengthens the opinion of the incapacity of the Cabinet in its military measures and foreign policy. From first to last there were fierce dissensions (Dundas was in continual collision with Grenville) which handicapped continuity and vigour of effort. As the editor notes, our military plans and operations throughout are " a strange exhibition of miscalculations, wavering purpose, and in- effectual action". "Probably at no other period of its history did the military reputation of England, in all respects except bravery in the field, fall so low as during Pitt's first Ministry," The absence of any organisation of the Higher Direction is conspicuous. Pitt and the Cabinet veered back- wards and forwards from week to week between rival plans and policies. Home and foreign strategists drew up plans and quarrelled over their merits ; they were hung up, amended, mutilated, and invariably executed too late and with inadequate means. Melancholy confirmation of the disorganisation and divided councils is apparent in vols, ii.-vi. (see particularly the Introduc- tions to vols. iv. and vi. and specific references there given). The incapacity of our officers is another constant theme (vi. , 89 and 183, are good examples), but no officers could have achieved anything remarkable under so defective a lyatem. Dundas's share is discreditable. Pitt down to 1798 seems to have 500 APPENDICES placed himself in his hands; yet Pitt remarked (vi. 89): " Diindas's geo- graphy, you will ohserve, is as accurate as his language " (Dundas s grammar being notoriously defective). No less striking is the evidence as to the phases and difficulties of our foreign policy, the rotten organisation of the European monarchies, the selfish and divergent aims of the members of the alliances which ruined the First and Second Coalitions. The information as to Prussia (see particularly vi., 492, and Elgin's confidential despatches for 1796 and 1797 in vol. iii.) explains the conduct of that Power ; our relations with Austria throughout constitute a remarkable chapter in diplomatic history, very similar to the relations that prevailed from 1741-48. The recrimina- tions, jealousy, suspicion, conflicting policies, financial quarrels, charges of bad faith, military dissensions are copiously illustrated (see particularly ii., 614-36 ; iii., 47, and vols. iv. and vi. passim). Nor was our co-operation with Russia in the Second Coalition more satisfactory, ending in a rupture and military collapse (vol. vi.). The phases through which our foreign policy passed are instructive. In 1792 Dundas seems to have imposed the policy of " indemnity and security," and of dismembering France on the Cabinet, as the only policy which would reconcile public opinion to the war. On the com- plete failure of this, Grenville's plan of restoring the French monarchy with the boundaries of 1792 was adopted. This too had broken down by 1796. Pitt and Grenville's plan of securing peace, or purchasing Prussian help b; cutting up Germany and aggrandising Prussia and Austria by the Austrian Netherlands and Bavaria, and slicing up the small and helpless German States, was condemned by George III. as "Italian politics" (iii., 227 and 330), "immoral and unjustifiable" (iii., 173, 278, 311), to which he gave a very reluctant consent. Napoleon's cynical principle of compensation — blessed are the strong for they shall prey upon the weak — was in fact anticipated by the monarchies of the old order, which professed to be the bulwarks against Jacobin revolution. In the Second Coalition the British principle of restoring the Bourbon monarchy was wholly opposed to Austrian views. Austria had frankly abandoned the aim of expelling the French from the Netherlands or restoring the French monarchy. And the collapse of the Coalition caused its abandonment by the British Cabinet, which quite failed to understand the strength of Napoleon's hold on France and the healing effect of his reconstructive measures after Brumaire. Grenville's blindness to Napoleon's greatness is extraordinary, and was shared apparently by the whole Cabinet Vol. vi. is full of this attitude towards " His very Corsican Majesty " which was responsible for the failures of 1799 and 1800. Napoleon apparently to Grenville and his colleagues was a somewhat mediocre adven- turer, of little merit as a statesman, and not the equal of " famous " Austrian stategists. We are reminded of the Prussian belief in 1806 "that your Majesty has several generals superior to M. de Bonaparte ". It is not sur- prising that in each case Marengo and Jena were a rude awakening, or that politicians who made such imaginary and comfortable pictures brought disaster on themselves. Equally pathetic throughout is the confidence year after yeai that France must shortly succumb. In 1792 (ii., 282 and 314) it was held at Loudon that FOREIGN POLICY 501 the Republic could not resist the Duke of Bruaswicic ; in 1793 Grenville thought that " the Toulon business " would " be decisive of the whole war ". (His brother thought, and for good reasons, very differently, ii., ^24-29.) In 1796 and in 1798 he was no less confident (iv., 334). Ministers throughout were buoyed up by their convictions, inspired by the reports of secret agents (a good example in iii., 80), that financial exhaustion and a royalist counter- revolution would destroy the Republic. But see the disagreeable counter- evidence in vi., 289. Our secret service and representatives, Wicltham particularly in Switzerland (see vols. ii. and iii., 67-133), were employed lavishly to subsidise and organise insurrections in France, with singularly little success, while the aid in Brittany and elsewhere, hopelessly mismanaged, ended in a series of disasters. It is not surprising to find in 1793, 1795, 1800 much evidence of deep popular discontent at home with the war, and no little discouragement amongst Ministers themselves. The subsidy system was dis trusted and very unpopular. Fox's criticism had sunk deep. Dundas wrote to Pitt (vol. v., 434): "The Government of this country dare not venture to revolt Dec, 1798 the feeling of the public " by reviving the subsidy system. No less interesting and disagreeable is Carysfort's candid evidence from Berlin (confidential letters in vol. vi. , 104-174) showing that our maritime policy and claims and implacable attitude as regards peace (contrasted with Napoleon's apparent moderation) had turned continental opinion completely against us (vi., 334- 402). Great Britain was regarded as the incarnation of insidious treachery, of insular and commercial selfishness, and pursuing the war with reference to her own ends entirely. And it was not tiU long after 1802 that this opinion, prevalent in educated circles in Europe, was removed. It is instructive, lastly, to note the early expression of the fixed ideas in European affairs, which finally were realised in 1816. In 1793 and in 1799 the reduction of France to the limits of 1792, with the implied restoration of the monarchy, was put forward by England, and adopted as ground for common action by Russia and by Thugut for Austria ; the union of the Dutch and Austrian Netherlands and their permanent separation from France under the Huuse of Orange wag the fixed policy of Great Britain and adopted by Russia in 1799 ; the Memorandum (vi., 122) sent by Keith to Dundas shows how in 1799 and 1800 the Austrian Government, anticipating the policy of Metternich, was de- termined to bring the Italian States — Sardinia (" there must be no Genoese "), Modeua, Tuscany, the Papacy, and Naples entirely into the possession of, or in complete dependence on, the Habsburg Emperor. " The English have no right to interfere in this arrangement ; and if they do, they cannot prevent it." Throughout the six volumes the student can analyse the personal characteristics of Lord Grenville, which he did not shake off in 1801 when he resigned, and after 1794 the permanent and deep influence of his views on Pitt, which Malmesbury and the young George Canning thought as detri- mental as the influence of Dundas, though this had waned considerably by 1798. From 1793-1801 these three — Pitt, Dundas, and Grenville — constituted a Triumvirate within the Cabinet, whose deliberations and material were not always communicated to their colleagues, and generally only when a decision had been taken. In connection with the Dropmore Papers the student may 502 APPENDICES consult with advantage Mr. Laprade's monograph, England and the French 1789-97 Revolution (Johns Hopkins University Studies, series xxvii. , Nos. 8-12), which analyses the internal movement in Great Britain and is hased on an examina- tion of the contemporary pamphlet and journalistic literature. X. MILITARY MEASURES, 1793-1801 1 793-1802 The iirst period of the war shows that the Government was continuously faced with four main difficulties : (1) Of manning the fleet ; (2) of manning the regular army ; (3) of providing a force for home defence ; (4) of welding the military forces as a whole into a coherent, efficient, and organised system. And these had to be solved under the strain of war. Adequate machinery had to be improvised under the pressure of events, for it did not exist in 1793. It must be remembered also that in 1793 no less than five diflFerent depart- ments, whose functions and jurisdictions were not strictly defined, overlapped and conflicted, were responsible for the army, viz. the Horse Guards, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Ordnance Board, the Treasury, which dealt with finance, transport and snpply, and the Admiralty fwhere joint operations on the transport of troops in connection with the naval forces were planned). In 1794 the office of Secretary for War and Colonies (a third Secretary of State) was created, but the office did not abolish the existing and conflicting functions of the other departments ; in 179S the creation of a Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief (H. R. H. the Dulce of York) gave the army a single military head, but he was a purely executive officer. He was not a chief of a general stafl^ and the first military adviser and expert of the Government ; nor was any general staff created which could act as a military brain to the Government, provide, criticise, and work out military plans of campaign, and operations required by the policy of the civil and su- preme Cabinet. The need of a direct and efficient hyphen between the Cabinet as the politically responsible director of policy and the army as the instrument of execution was never met. The Government did not devise or attempt to devise machinery to utilise in organised form the brains of the army in the planning of strategy and the tactical execution of its schemes. The unifica- tion and utilisation of the higher control — the union of policy and war — of the political and military brains working in co-operation, are damningly con- spicuous in their absence from all Governmental measures down to 1809. And this lack of system, of a definite and thought-out plan, was equally evi- dent in the measures for providing a military force. Roughly these measures were : (1) As regards the regular army to enlist recruits by bounties, by raising new regiments (offering commissions to an individual or individuals who would furnish a body of men), or by raising men for rank, i.e. promo- tion to officers, or a commission to civilians who would provide a defined num- ber of recruits. The main instruments of these last two methods were the army-brokers and the crimps. A special Act in 1796 authorised the levying of 16,000 men from parish to parish, with bounties, the maritime counties supplying the navy, the inland counties the army. But the Act was a failure ; (2) the militia — increasing the number of embodied militia under the Act of ARMY MEASURES 503 1767 (Additional Militia). In 1796 a Supp'ementary IMilitia Act authorised the raising of 60,000 men with a fixed quota for each county. In 1798 and 1799 Acts were passed to enable militiamen to enlist in the Line, the total not to exceed 10,000. In 1793 a militia was created for Ireland, in 1797 for Scotland ; (3) the creation of fencibles, i.e. regulars limited to service at home, and thus free the regular army for service abroad ; (4) the creation of volunteer corps, infantry, yeomanry and artillery ; (6) in 1796 provisional cavalry were created ; (6) the enlistment of foreigners into corps, as distinct from and supplemental to the hiring of regular foreign troops (Hanoverians and Hessians) ; (7) to feed the navy from the army. " In 179£ no less than fifteen regiments were serving in the fleet." These measures were framed on no single plan or system. They did not distinguish between the formation and the maintenance of an army, i.e. pro- viding for supplying the wastage of war in the depleted cadres. They did not distinguish between the supply for the regular and that for the auxiliary forces. By allowing substitutes in the militia ballot, and by permitting a volunteer to escape the militia ballot, the Government ruined the militia and put a premium on an inefficient, badly armed and disciplined body. The recruit market was swept dry by the crimps competing for recruits for the regulars, substitutes for the militia, recruits for the fencibles, while evasion from alt was the basis of the volunteer corps. Foreign enlistment was a bounty to " the foreign crimps competing for the refuse of the recruits of the Continent ". No attempt was made to affiliate the volunteers, yeomanry, and fencibles to the militia. Hence by 1801 the problem of providing Great Britain with a permanent and efficient regular force and a co-ordinated auxiliary organisation was quite unsolved. Had the Government (1) kept the recruiting market, by voluntary enlistment, as a strict monopoly for the regular army required for service abroad ; (2) dropped all bounties, raising men for rank, etc. , and materially enhanced the soldier's career by increasing his pay and perquisites ; (3) abstained from encouraging volunteers who were costly and useless ; (4) strenuously enforced the Militia Act by a ballot in which personal service for home defence was required and no substitutes allowed, the policy would have been cheaper and more efficient in the end, and a better class of men provided for both services ; a link between the auxiliary or home defence and the regular force could have been made by permitting militiamen (as was partially done) to enlist, and lilling up their places in the home reserve by the compulsory ballot. The way would thus have been paved for a compulsory training for home defence of all males capable of bearing arms, leaving the regular army (for service out of the United Kingdom) to be fed by voluntary enlistment. From 1803-16 the measures were no less various, and for many years the absence of system and the retention of the previous vicious defects equally conspicuous. In 1803 the militia was embodied, substitutes being permitted; the volunteers reconstituted (providing exemption from the militia ballot) and an army of reserves created (43 Geo. III. , c. 82). These methods only led to a gigantic rise in bounties and the starvation of the regular forces. In 1801 came Pitt's Permanent Additional Force Act (44 Geo. III., c. 66), which 504 APPENDICES made the parish officers responsible for producing a definite quota ; the Volunteer Consolidation Act (44 Geo. III., c. 64) and an Act permitting the supplementary militia to enlist in the regular army. These measures were a failure. In 1806 Windham endeavoured to (1) introduce short service and better terms of pay ; (2) suppress the volunteers, who were only to exist at their own expense ; (3) suspend the ballot and create a militia by a limited bounty ; (4) provide a shoi-t training for a balloted force (46 Geo. III., c. 90). But these measures were only partially successful ; and in 1808 Castlereagh made a great step forward by (1) authorising the enlistment of men from the militia into the regulars ; (2) creating a permanent local militia (48 Greo. III., c. Ill) with a training of twenty-eight days, and forbidding substitutes or bounties to the balloted men. This local militia was supplemental to the regular militia, and was the basis of a national force for home defence resting on a na- tional liability to service. Had it been extended and completely enforced it ivould have brought about in time a universal training in arms for the whole male population. As it was, with the consolidation of the Militia Acts (52 Geo, III. , c. 58) the nation after 1809 provided for the war on these lines : volun- tary enlistment for the regular army, supplemented by continuous drafts from the regular militia ; the regular militia embodied under the amended Act oi 1767 ; the local militia utilised as a third line behind the regular militia ; and the enlistment or hiring of foreign corps. It is noticeable that after 1807 the volunteers were gradually squeezed out of existence, and that after 1809 the popularity of the war and service in it steadily increased. In 1813 Castle- reagh obtained powers to employ the militia in any part of the United King- dom and the local militia outside their counties. But the strain of providing men for the regulars and the regular militia was malcing itself increasingly felt, while the partial application of the local militia system and the aversion in many parts of the country to the military measures were sources of weak- ness. The creation of an adequate military organisation, capable of expansion to meet a sudden or continuous demand, had not been effected by 1816, and after that date the nation abandoned the attempt with disastrous results experienced in 1854. This note is mainly based on the wealth of material to be found in J. W. Fortescue, History of the British Army, vol. iv., pts. i. and ii., and the same writer's The County Lieutenancies and the Army (1803-14), which are indis- pensable to every student. XI. NELSON AT NAPLES The most recent discussion of the questions arising out of Nelson's con- duct at Naples and the execution of Caracciolo will be found in Mr Gutteridge's volume, Nelson and the Neapolitan Jacobins (Navy Records Society, 1903), in which the documents are printed, and a complete biblio- graphy of the literature and a critical introduction by the editor are provided. Mr. Gutteridge points out that the documentary evidence is not yet com- plete. The letters written by Lady Hamilton to Queen Caroline, between the NAVAL AFFAIRS 606 24th and the 30th June, and the pieces justificatives sent by Micheroux with the Compendia, have not yet come to light, though it seems probable that these and other documents are in existence, though not available to the historian. After reviewing the evidence at length Mr. Gutteridge (p. xcii) concludes that " there is not the slightest proof at present of any foul play ou Nelson's part ; and if the garrisons were deceived, it was only because RufFo was willing that they should be ". As regards Caracciolo, he sums up : " Tech- nically, at all events, this sentence cannot be impeached, but the haste with which he was executed is more open to criticism ... it must be judged by the standards and according to the exigencies of the times " (p. xciii). Mr. Gutteridge substantially concurs in the view taken by Captain Mahan, Life of Nelson (2nd ed., 1899), ch. xiii., and in his replies to Mr. Badham in the English Historical Review (July, 1899, and October, 1900). From the con- sidered verdicts of Sir J. K. Laughton every student who knows what our naval history owes to his researches, unrivalled erudition, and discriminating judgment will dissent only with hesitation, but it is difficult to concur in his opinion : " on a careful examination it is difficult to see that Nelson could have acted otherwise. . . . He had no further responsibility than that of restoring and maintaining the civil power" (Diet. Nat. Biogr., xl., art. " Nelson "). And still more strongly : " Nelson's conduct at this period, far from being judged blamable, disgraceful, 'a stain upon bis memory,' will appear rather most honourable and meritorious " (Nelson, by J. K. Laughton, Macmillan & Co., 1896, p. 139). But it is only fair to remember that these opinions were expressed bef^e much of the recent evidence in the Neapolitan archives and elsewhere was available. Nor is it possible on that evidence (still more so as the letters of Lady Hamilton alluded to above are not before us) to assent unreservedly to Sir J. K. Laughton's view : " it is well attested that with the annulling of the capitulation, and with the death of Caracciolo, Lady Hamilton had nothing to do " (Diet. Nat. Biogr. art. cit. ). On Lady Hamilton's relations with Nelson see Laughton's ai-ticle on " Emma, Lady Hamilton," in vol. xxiv. of Dictionary of National Biography. The student should also consult on the whole question A rchivio Storico per It provincie Napol., vol. xxiv., and the Revue Historique, September, 1908, and January, 1904 (articles by Dr. Hueifer). XII. THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR The brief account given in the text, pp. 417, 418, is practically that of the first edition of 1911 ; it rejected the traditional narrative generally accepted at that date, which represented- Nelson as abandoning on October 21st, the famous memorandum of October 9th, and attacking the Franco-Spanish fleet in two columns parallel to each other and at right angles to the enemy line. In this traditional account no explanation was offered why Nelson should draw up on October 9th an elaborate memorandum, communicate it to his officers and then abandon it— for a tactical scheme, open to grave objections— on the day of battle— without any explicit counter orders to that effect. 606 APPENDICES The history of this "legend " is a characteristic example of hovr uncritical interpretations develop and become embedded in the text-boolcs. ITie myth apparently started with Southey, whose Lif& of Nelson (1813) had a great vogue, and whose description of the battle was supported by a picture, illustrating the attaclc, which was assumed to be evidence for the interpre- tation, whereas the picture simply translated into a diagram what the biographer had written. Southey'a narrative (and picture) were faithfully copied and reproduced for seventy years without question by numerous writers who never attempted to ascertain on what evidence, if any, Southey had based his narrative. Writers, as usual, were too lazy or too ignorant of naval matters to consult the sources ; and " the legend " became history by dint of sheer repetition. It was even embodied in the relief-plan shown at the United Service Institution — a further [" proof " to the lay mind of its accuracy. Even so " scientific '' a naval historian as Admiral Mahan adopted it in his Life of Nelson (1897) — so potent is a tradition. The decadence in the scientific study of naval strategy and tactics between 1820 and 1890 was no doubt largely responsible for the prevalence of the " Southey" interpretation : for if naval "authorities" accepted it without question, laymen cannot be blamed for concurring. But with the rise of a new school of naval strategists, led by Admirals Sir Cyprian Bridge and Colomb, the original authorities foi naval history, strategy and tactics as a whole, i.e. the documents and ships' logs in the archives of the Admiralty and the Public Record Office, began to be raclced. In 1905 and 1907 two writers attacked the traditional view and argued that Nelson, so far from throwing over on October 21st his memorandum of October 9th, had really carried it out — these were J. R. Thursfield (a layman) in his Trafalgar and other Naval Studies (1909), and E. Desbri^re (a French Staff officer) in his Trafalgar, La Campagne Maritime de 1805 (Paris, 1907). A hot controversy at once was l(indled. J. S. (later Sir Julian) Corbett, a nazal historian of distinction, published in 1911 his Campaign of Trafalgar in which he rejected Thursfield's and Desbrifere's view and concluded for "an unprecedented vertical attaclc in line a-head " — a slightly modified version of the Southey narrative. Corbett's book was at once severely criticised by Capt. (now Admiral Sir) Mark Kerr in The Nineteenth Century for October, 1911, in which he agreed with Thursfield and Desbri^re that the battle was fought in accordance with the memorandum of October 9th, "the Nelson touch," and not in two columns perpendicular to the enemy's fleet, "the worst possible tactical scheme that could have been devised". Kerr's two main points were : (a) all the original evidence in the ships' logs, correctly plotted out, proved the case ; and (b) there was no evidence that Nelson issued either after October 9th or in the battle any order or signals counter- manding the previous instructions given in the famous memorandum. In a word, the fleet knew what Nelson intended to do when they met the enemy — and did it. The controversy between the specialists became so strong that the Admiralty instructed a special Commission of Admirals Sir Cyprian Bridge and Sir Reginald Custance with Prof. Sir Charles Firth to examine the evidence afresh. Their Report (an official Blue Book — Cd. 7210) issued \n NAVAL AFFAIRS 607 1913 rejected " Southey " or Mahan'a view without qualification and concluded that Nelson fought Trafalgar in accordance with the Memorandum of October 9th, and did not at the last moment abandon it for some other unspecified tactical scheme, for which there was no evidence and which would have been wholly contrary to all his tactical principles and insight. This Report, therefore, remains the conclusive authority for the strategic situation leading up to the battle and for the tactical course of the battle itself, and based on an exhaustive examination by experts of all the evidence available was illustrated by specially drawn diagrams to show exactly what happened and how. It confirmed (a small matter) my conclusion of two years previously (before Corbett and Kerr intervened) and definitively exploded the Southey "legend". More, it placed the famous Memorandum of October 9th in its correct light as the culmination of Nelson's genius and prolonged reflection on naval tactics. Trafalgar, in fact, justified his famous confidence in " the Nelson touch ". But legends die very hard and since 1913 some books still repeat the unwarrantable libel on Nelson's genius, which Southey's narrative really implies. It is worth noting that as early as 1895 in his admirable short Life of Nelson, which remains the best short life of Nelson iu print, that accomplished naval scholar and historian Sir J. K. Laughton simply seated that, apart from unimportant details, the Memorandum was carried out on October 21st (p. 216) ; but Laughtoa's verdict was ignored — or rather the importance of his verdict (quietly dismissing without discussion the traditional Southey view) was completely missed or misunderstood. Those who simply want to have a general idea of the Campaign of Trafalgar should read Corbett, op. cit., and replace his account of the battle by the Admiralty Report, referred to above. Mahan's Life remains still the standard large-scale authority. A short biography by Sir G. Aston (Bonn's Sixpenny Series) is well worth reading. The specialist literature is indicated in the Bibliography, pp. 628-29. XIII. CANNING, TILSIT AND THE EXPEDITION TO COPEN- HAGEN The information on which Canning and the Cabinet acted iu sending the expedition to Copenhagen, and the sources from which the information was derived, have recently been investigated in great detail. (The student should consult the following : Stapleton, Canning and His Times, 123-38 ; J. H. Rose, Napoleonic Studies, 133-66 ; Royal Historical Society's Transactions. 1906 ; Bagot, Canning and His Friends, i., 232 et seq. ; The Life of Sir R. Wilson, ii., 283; Diaries and Letters of Sir G. Jackson, ii., 162 et seq.; Malmesbury, Letters and Diary, 4, 391 ; Edinburgh Review, April, 1906 (internal evidence clearly points to Dr. J. H. Rose as the author) ; the Athenaum, Sept. 27th, 1902). A brief summary can only be attempted here. Napoleon met the Tsar on the famous raft on the Niemen on June 24th, 1807. The Treaty of Tilsit was signed on July 7th. On July 16th Canning had sent instructions to Broolce Taylor at Copenhagen telling him to reassure 508 APPENDICES the Danish Minister that the presence of the British fleet in the Baltic was not intended as a menace to Denmarlc. On the same day important de- spatches from Mackenzie (of June 23rd), from Garlilte (of June 26th), and from Garlilce (of July 4th) reached the Foreign Oflfice, the purport of which was that Napoleon had come to terms with the Tsar. On July 22nd, Canning wrote "most secret" to Brooke Taylor: "Intelligence reached me yester- day (i.e. July 21st), directly from Tilsit, that at an interview between the Emperor of Russia and Bonaparte on the 24th and 26th of last month the latter brought forward a proposal for a maritime league against Great Britain, to which the accession of Denmark was represented by Bonaparte to be as certain as it was essential ", On July 28th the expedition under Gambler, with the ultimatum to Denmark, drawn up on the same day and conveyed by Jackson, set out. It is clear that (1) between July 16th and July 22nd the Cabinet, inspired by the Foreign Secretary, came to a momentous decision, based on important information ; (2) on July 22nd, Canning did not know of the existence of a treaty. On August 4th he was inquiring what the terms of the treaty were, whether there were secret articles, etc. On December 4th he wrote : "The Peace of Tilsit is come out". Canning, therefore, clearly acted, not on a betrayal of the specific terms of the Treaty, but on general information from some person who, in Stapleton's words, "gave such proofs of the accuracy of his intelligence as left no doubt of its truth in Mr. Can- ning's mind ". Dr. Rose has shown that no despatches from the Baltic States were received at the Foreign Office on July 21st. He has also proved from the Admiralty Records that on July 18th there was " an order of phenomenal Importance, directing the immediate preparations of no fewer than fifty-one warships for ' a particular service ' under Admiral Gambler " ; and that on the same day " 31 warships at sea were assigned to the same duty," and that July 21st-26th brought no new developments. Castlereagh stated (Hansard for 1808, p. 169) that July 19th was the day on which "Ministers took his Majesty's pleasure as to the propriety of the expedition ; " and that July 18th was a day of strain for the Admiralty is confirmed from other evidence (Edin. Rev., art. cit., p. 356). It is also confirmed by remarkable evidence in a con- temporary MS. by Jackson, peremptorily summoned to the Foreign Office on July 18th to undertake a mission, " the object " of which " was to get possession of the Danish fleet". Hence the now almost certain conclusion that the despatches received on July 16th prompted the new and momentous depar- ture. That it was not Mackenzie who came direct from Memel who orally conveyed the information on which Canning first acted is made certain by (a) the facts cited above ; (6) the proof in the Athenceum (art. cit.) that Mac- kenzie did not arrive with his despatches until July 23rd. Canning's phrase in his letter of July 22nd that his information " came direct from Tilsit " and reached him " yesterday " (July 21st) has raised many theories that the infor- mation was betrayed from a foreign source, e.g. Bennigsen or Talleyrand, or from a British agent whom long-established tradition (Stapleton's story) asserted " was concealed behind a curtain of the tent, and was a secret witness of that most curious conversation " The " man on (or under) the raft " CANNING AND DENMARK 509 figures in the romance of diplomacy much as the famous "No. 101" who betrayed the Family Compact of 1733 and other Bourbon secrets. Mr. Oscar Browning [Eng. Hist. Rev., Jan., 1902) stated that he had been assured by General R. Maclcenzie that his grandfather was concealed on the raft at Tilsit and brought the news to London. Captain Bagot {George Canning, p. 233) explicitly states "that the Secret Service Accounts for 1807-9," in his possession, show "during that time an expenditure of some £80,000, but throw no light on the supposition of any one who was at Tilsit getting a larfje reward ". And Canning himself {Hansard for 1808, p. 66) asserted in the House of Commons "that this information came from a British Minister". The difficulties of identifying the supposed informer are fully discussed in the authorities cited. On the whole it seems safe to conclude that : (1) the de- spatches received on July 16th were the basis of the Cabinet's decision ; (2) that the information at the Cabinet's disposal was serious but very meagre j (3) Canning, with brilliant intuition, surmised the nature and scope of Napoleon's plans and alliance with the Tsar and determined to frustrate them at all costs ; (4) every piece of information subsequent to July 16th coniirmed the accuracy of the hypothesis and the gravity nf the impending crisis. The evidence was limited and circumstantial but cumulative ; (6) " Portugal never entered into Canning's calculations in the months June-July, 1807 " (Rose). It is now beyond question that Canning's guess as to Napoleon's plans was correct. The secret articles of the Treaty of Tilsit and the mass of evidence now avail- able for their interpretation leave no doubt on this point. Whether the Cabinet was justified in anticipating Napoleon by despatching the expedition and coercing Denmark is a wholly different question. The arguments fo» and against Ministerial policy are fully stated in the great debate on January 21st, 1808 (see Hansard, " Pari. Debates," for that year). Dr. Holland Rose (Cambridge Hist, of Foreign Policy, 1., 360 et seq.), thinks that " the secrets leaked out through Bennigsen or some other mal- content ofHcer ". He dismisses, and I concur, as " fantastic " the picturesque story of a British spy concealed on the raft. How such a spy got there, heard the conversation of Napoleon and Alexander and got away in time to be in London or convey his information by July 16th no one has ever explained. Canning, in fact, was in the same position as Chatham in 1761 (see App. v., p. 494). He had certain information (from Memel, Copenhagen and Altona) which, pieced together, pointed to a certain conclusion. Like Chatham in 1761 he was correct in his interpretation of the evidence at his disposal ; unlike Chatham, he was in a position to have decisive action based on his conclusion. XIV. THE CABINET The origin and development of the Cabinet have been the subject of specialist articles, based on MS. material, e.g. Eng. Hist. Review, Oct., 1912, by Dr. H. V. Temperley ; Jan. and April, 1914, by Sir W. R. Anson ; Prof. E. R. Turner, April, 1917 and April, 1923 ; July, 1919, by R. R. Sedgwick, 510 APPENDICES and Jan., 1922, by 6. Davies ; American Hist. Review, July and Oct., 1913, by Prof. E. R. Turner. The detail in these articles is naturally considerable, and the writers are not always in agreement as to the interpretation. Careful Btudy of the material sifted and collected leaves me with certain conclusions, which do not, however, substantially modify the text, pp. 183-90 : (1) The Cabinet did not originate in any committee or group of committees of the legal organ, the Privy Council ; and that while it is easy to confuse known committees with the nascent Cabinet, and natural to ascribe parentage to the legal organ, more careful analysis separates the Cabinet protoplasm from any of the specific committees which can be traced and marked off as definite ad hoc bodies ; (2) contemporary statesmen and ministers from whose letters, diaries, memoranda, etc., copious references are available were not always precise in their wording and did not anticipate the modern historian's diligence, interest and desire to arrange an ordered evolution in scientifically defined divisions and functions ; like primitive man, who did not live his life merely to oblige a modern scientific anthropologist, so the men who worked the government machine between 1690 and 1783 were more concerned with getting their work done than in seeing that the various organs through which they ad- ministered would subsequently fit into a logical genealogical tree ; and as Stubbs pointed out of the working of the Cttfia Regis the same men habitually met each other at different times in different rooms or places and did not always ask " Are we a committee, and if so, of what " ? or " Are we a Cabinet, or the Cabinet, and "are we all here who ought to be here, and if not, who is away and if so, why " ? Most historians (Anson and Bryce were notable exceptions) have never had to carry on the King's business or make policy or correlate the position of a Privy Councillor with the position of a Minister of State and membership either in the House of Lords or House of Commons, and therefore do not ask, " How are or can things be done " ! Maitland warned us repeatedly that primitive man was not simple or logical ; simplicity and logic are the virtues (or vices) of civilisation and that it is, therefore, unhistorical to force simplicity on what was, in the nature of things, neither simple nor logical. That important decisions will be taken by a group of important persons, holding office or perhaps merely Privy Councillors, meeting by accident or design, happened alike in the days of Tutankhamen, Queen Anne and King George V. ; but the meeting of an important group does not make a Cabinet, even if all its members are " Cabinet Councillors," any more than a dinner party of Cabinet Ministers makes a meeting of the Cabinet, even if the decisions taken after dinner are far more important than those taken at the subsequent meeting of " His Majesty's confidential servants''; (3) by 1714 there was in existence a "Cabinet," i.e. a group of ministers who habitually, but not regularly, met, but not in the Sovereign's presence, to decide policy, much of whose business probably was prepared for it by one or more properly constituted committees of the Privy Council, and which tendered advice to the Sovereign because roughly it represented the party with a majority in the House of Commons ; which advice was ratified, so far as was required either by law or for executive action, by the Privy Council ; (4) From 1714-60 we find this THE KING AND THE CABINET 511 Cabinet recognised, not in the formal law or custom of the Constitution, but l^ all who were at the centre, and developing into two bodies — a larger group of all the chief ministers and ofScers — and a smaller, known as the " con- ciliabulum," and these can be distinguished as the "Outer" or "Inner." or as the "nominal" and "efficient" Cabinet. Efficiency, convenience, personality decided that the real power lay with the " Inner" Cabinet, which might vary from ten to five or six persons. Two points arise here : (a) When did this effective distinction begin .'' No exact date can be given at present but while some writers pronounce for Henry Pelham's system, i.e., from 1744 onwards, others see clear evidence of its existence in the later years of Walpole's regime. The interest in a specific date is antiquarian rather than important. But it seems clear that " The Inner " Cabinet was recognised aud working by 1764 ; (6) this " Inner " Cabinet must not be identified with a group of three or four all-important persons. A real Cabinet is not those who make important decisions but that body of the King's confidential servants who habitually tender advice as a Cabinet to the Sovereign, which advice, so long as they are ministers, he is practically obliged to accept ; (6) By 1760 the parentage of the modern Cabinet is clear — it is the " Con- ciliabulum". George lll.'s attempts to break it, to fuse "Outer" and "Inner,"' to work a system of " double Cabinets " (as stated by Burke), to get back to departmental government with an efficient King as the real Prime Minister, and to extirpate collective responsibility, etc., etc. , belong to general constitutional history, and the Cabinet by 1784 emerged all the stronger and more definite from these royal efforts ana failures. Briefly, then, four stages can be distinguished : (1) The gradual dissolu- tion of government by the Crown in (Privy) Council ; (2) the slow formation of a substitutive organ, which comes to be called the Cabinet, in the process of dissolution ; (3) the articulation of this organ, which develops a structure necessary for its function ; and (4) the co-ordination of structure and function into the organ called the "Cabinet," which can then become the central instrument in a system of Parliamentary Government, unique because it has created the Cabinet and the Cabinet has created it. The essence of the whole evolution is really contained in a memorable sentence of Queen Victoria : " I expect my Ministers to recommend to me a policy or measures which they can explain, defend and carry in the House of Commons". The Cabinet originated and grew because the growth of the power of the House of Commons required a group of confidential servants of the Crown who could explain, defend and carry the advice tendered to the Sovereign. Dr. Temperley (The Times, Dec. 18th, 1928) points out that there is no proved instance of George I. attending the Cabinet ; but that there is clear evidence that George II., as Prince of Wales and Regent, attended, probably regularly, because he could speak English and his father could not ; that Queen Caroline, as Regent, attended in 1729 and 1736, and that George II. attended (e g. on Dec. 6th, 1746) and on two other occasions (perhaps more, if the records were complete). SIS APPENDICES Some very interesting evidence as to the relations of the Cabinet with George III. will be found in Report on MSS. in Various Collections (Hist MS. Commission), vol. vi., 1909 ; MSS. of Captain H. V. Knox. The King's idea of the departmental system is succinctly stated by Lord Hillsborough (p. 263) : " His (Hillsborough's) object was to fall in with what he Icnew to be the King's plan, that each of his Ministers should hold of him and not of one another or of the first ". It is a commonplace of our constitutional text- books that after 1714 the Crown ceased to attend or preside over meetings of the Cabinet. Yet we find two specific instances of a Cabinet meeting sum- moned by the King and presided over by him. The language used in Knox's memorandum makes it perfectly clear that these meetings were not meetings of the Privy Council. The first is on June 21st, 1779 (p. 263) : " This morning all the members of the Cabinet were summoned by a message in the King's own handwriting to meet him at the Queen's House at one o'clock. They assembled accordingly. He desired them to walk into the library. He sat down at the head of his library table, and desired, for the first time since he became King, all the Ministers to sit down. He then began by saying Lord North had desired to know why they were summoned, but he had not thought fit to tell him, as he meant to tell it to them all together." George III. then made a " discourse " which " took up near an hour in delivering ". The second occasion was on January 19th, 1781 (p. 272) -. "Despatches," writes Knox, "having come from Sir James Harris giving an account of a conversation with the Empress on the subject of the Armed Neutrality . . . the King summoned Ministers to the Queen's House on the 19th, when, being come, he ordered them to be seated round a table, him- self at the head, opened the business, and desired their opinions separately. One asked who His Majesty would choose to speak first. The King said he should not point to any one. Lord Sandwich . . , said the usual way [was] for the youngest to begin, which being acquiesced in. Lord North . . . began without rising . . .". That this was a meeting of the Cabinet may be in- ferred from (a) the absence of the Privy Council officials ; (6) the ignorance of the Ministers present as to the procedure to be followed if the King were present. Two further quotations are instructive : When Burgoyne's failure at Saratoga "threatened to come under discussion," Thurlow, then Attorney- General, asked Knox for information. Knox showed him " a pricis of the whole correspondence of the preceding year ". Thurlow remarked : " Why, this is the very thing I wanted . . . pray, do Ministers know of this ? " "Yes, sir, they have all had copies of it." "Then, by God," said Thurlow, " they have never read it, for there is not one of them knows a tittle of the matter " (p. 270). In 1782 Lord North desired to get rid of Lord George Germain, " because of his avowed principle of resisting treaty with America upon any footing but preservation of sovereignty. ' If you mean by his going out,' said the King, 'to relinquish that principle, you must make other removes.' 'No,' replies Lord North, 'for no one else has declared that principle.' 'Yes,' says the King, 'you must go further; you must remove mb ' " (p. 276). GERMAIN AND BURGOYNE 518 XV. LORD GEORGE GERMAIN, SIR W. HOWE, AND GENERAL BURGOYNE That Burgoyne's disaster at Saratoga was due to carelessness on the part of Lord George Germain in transmitting the orders for a strict co-operation between Sir W. Howe and General Burgoyne is asserted in the MS. auto- biography of Shelburne (Fitzraaurice, Life of Shelburne, i., 368). Shelburne probably derived his information from William Knox, Under-Secretary for the Colonies from 1770-82 ; and a comparison of the passage in the Knox MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm. Repts., vol. vi. (1909), p. 277) shows that Shelburne's statement is a general paraphrase of Knox's detailed memorandum. Knox explicitly asserts that Germain would not wait to write "to Howe to acquaint him with the plan or what was expected of him in consequence " ; that D'Oyly wrote, " but he neither showed it to me nor gave a copy of it for the office, and if Howe had not acknowledged the receipt of it, with the copy of the instructions to Burgoyne, we could not have proved that he ever saw them ". It is clear that Burgoyne regarded his instructions as positive, and that he expected to have the co-operation of Howe. He wrote to Germain on July 30th : " I have spared no pains to open a correspondence with Sir W. Howe. ... I am in total ignorance of the situation or intentions of that general" {Life of Burgoyne by E. B. de Foublanque, p. 270) ; and again on August 20th "my orders being positive to 'force a junction with Sir W. Howe'" {op. cit., p. 276). And the recently published Stopford-Sackville MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm. Repts., vol. ii. (1910)) seem to confirm the inference that Germain was responsible for Howe's failure to understand the importance of co-operation by himself, if Burgoyne'a operations were to be successful. On April 2nd, Howe wrote to Sir Guy Carleton {op. cit., p. 65) that he would be able to oflFer very small assistance to a force advancing from Tioonderoga, "as I shall probably be in Pennsylvania". "The officer in command there- fore must pursue such measures as may from circumstances be judged most conducive." On May 18th Germain wrote to Howe: "As you must from your situation and military slcill be a competent judge of the propriety of every plan, his Majesty does not hesitate to approve the alterations which you propose {i.e. the march into Pennsylvania) trusting, however, that, what- ever you may meditate, it will be executed in time for you to co-operate with the army ordered to proceed from Canada and put itself under your com- mand " {op. cit., p. 67). This letter was received by Howe on his passage, August 10th, up Chesapeake Bay. Burgoyne had taken Ticonderoga on July 6th, and on August 16th was endeavouring to reach the Hudson River, where he had been led to expect Howe had been ordered to co-operate with him from Albany. His letters cited above show that he was anxiously expect- ing news from Howe, whose movements, unknown to Burgoyne but sanctioned by Germain, made a junction impossible. That Howe interpreted Germain's letter, not unreasonably, in the sense of giving him complete discretionary powers is shown in his letter to Germain of October 22nd after the 33 514 APPENDICES disaster. "I was surprised," he writes, "to find the General's (Bur. goyne's) declaration in his message to Sir H. Clinton by Captain Campbell 'that he would not have given up his communications with Ticonderoga had he not expected a co-operating army at Albany,' since in my letter to Sir Guy Carleton, a copy of which was transmitted to your lordship in my despatch of 2nd April, 1777, no. 47, and of which his Majesty was pleased to approve, I positively mentioned that no direct assistance could be given by the southern army. This letter I was assured was received by Sir Guy Carleton and carried by him to Montreal before General Burgoyne's departure from thence" (op. cit., p. 81). Germain, in short, ordered Bur- goyne to carry out operations, of which a junction with and by Howe was an essential part, but failed to order Howe to make the junction, or to acquaint him clearly with the character and scheme of the parts assigned to Burgoyne and himself. The vague and confusing discretionary authority allowed to Howe and the approval of the stroke on Pennsylvania which made co-operation impossible permitted Howe to infer that the junction with Burgoyne was a matter of "trust" not an explicit command. Knox's memorandum, the accuracy of which may be accepted, shows how Germain in a matter of vital importance preferred not to " keep his horses waiting in the street" and him- self late for a country visit, rather than spend half an hour in writing an authoritative letter to the commander-in-chief acquainting him with the plan. "There certainly," writes Knox, "was a weak place in Lord Sack- ville's defence, which was the want of an official communication to Howe of the plan and Burgoyne's instructions, with order for his co-operation, oi which I was not only innocent, but it was owing to my interference that Howe had any knowledge of the business" {Knox MSS., p. 277). Nor is it surprising that subsequently the Secretary of State endeavoured in every way to burke inquiry ; he refused to grant a court martial of investigation to Burgoyne ; and when (in 1778) a Committee of the House of Commons examined the affair, a sudden prorogation of Parliament prevented it from reporting its verdict, which would probably have been very adverse to Ger- main, or from making public the evidence. Burgoyne published in 1780 a vindication of his conduct (State of the Expedition to Canada), but the com- plete revelation of Germain's criminal carelessness was reserved for Knox, rhurlow's coarse comment is not amiss. "So, says he (Thurlow), because one damned blockhead did a foolish thing, the other blockhead must follow his example " (Knox MSS., p. 271). Since writing the above I observe that Professor Egerton has {Eng. Hist. Rev., Oct., 1910), drawn attention to the passages in the Stopford-SackvilU MSS. cited above. XVI. BYNG AND THE LOSS OF MINORCA Byng's failure and the loss of Minorca raise two quite distinct issues: (1) The strategical dispositions of the Admiralty and the measures of the Government : (2) Byng's personal conduct, trial and execution. A recent BYNG AND MINORCA 515 book, Admiral Byng and the Loss of Minorca by B. Tunstall (1928), reopens both issues. The report of the court martial was published by the Admiralty in 1767 ; the relevant original document on the strategical and political issues (not on the trial itself) were edited for the Navy Records Society, vol. 42 (1913), by Capt. (now Vice-Admiral Sir) H. W. Richmond, a high expert authority. The following points are worth noting on both issues. (1) Sir H. W. Richmond conclusively shows that the dispositions talcen were either inadequate or faulty, or too late. Minorca could have been saved had the right dispositions been made in time : the old, old story in fact ; (2) the fall of Minorca caused great excitement and indignation at home. Byng was recalled, Hawke was sent out to replace him, and the court martial and execution followed. Every student who examines the evidence will concur in Sir H. W. Richmond's conclusion on issue no. (1) : " Byng was made the scapegoat to cover the sins of omission of the Administration whose blunders he had failed to retrieve '' ; (3) Such a conclusion does not necessarily exculpate Byng from "negligence". Clearly, he was not the man for a difficult job. " He had resigned himself," says Sir H. W. Richmond, " to the loss of Minorca before ever his anchor was off the bottom of Gibraltar Bay." His action off Minorca was badly handled and he found himself 600 miles from his base (Gibraltar) with the French fleet less damaged than his own, operating from their advanced bases, near at hand. The Council of War on the flagship in answer to Byng's " leading questions " endorsed the withdrawal. Hawke or Nelson would not, I am convinced, have withdrawn, but then Hawke or Nelson would not have fought the indecisive and badly handled action which placed Byng in his dilemma ! (4) I can see no evidence that Byng did not have a perfectly fair trial — a much fairer trial than laymen got in a criminal court in the eighteenth century ; (S) Byng was not tried, as has constantly been stated and repeated, for "an error of judgment" but under Art. 13 of the Articles of War for having failed to do his utmost to carry out his instructions " through cowardice, negligence or disaffection '. The Court acquitted him of cowardice or disaffection but found him guilty of "negligence". Having found him guilty, the Court had no discretionary power as to the penalty. The Articles of War had been revised after 1748 to meet abuses revealed in the war of 1739-48 and had removed from 80, simply lived on the royal bounty, i.e. on money obtained by national taxation. The truth is that national funds are always, and have always been, regarded as employable justifiably on and by the political nation, as it may be constituted THE WHIG POLITY 525 for its own self-preservation. Mr. Namier shows that much of the so-called "corruption" was really charity (Old Age Pensions and the like) to the indigent or unemployable of the eighteenth century political nation. To-day the political nation is very differently constituted. But have the conventions and principles and applications really altered ? Again, was "Whig Society" more importunate and more shameless in its begging for place, honours, sinecures, titles (national or local), etc? If in Victorian, Edwardian, or Georgian England we could have access to a Newcastle or a Robinson— if we could cross-examine Prime Ministers, and above all Private Secretaries and Whips in the ante-chambers to Prime Ministers — should we discover that those who desired these things were less importunate, less shameless, less explicit .? The beggars would no doubt be different and the things asls:ed for in some cases be different ; but the plain truth would probably emerge that so long as society is so constructed and social conventions are based on certain scales of values and so long as "the State " is a vast reservoir of what human nature covets, human beings will not hesitate to importune those who have the power to grant their wishes and to give what to the recipient is socially valuable or has a monetary value. The smug conclusion that Whig Society was parasitic in a sense in which Stuart Society or Regency or Victorian Society was not lacks both historical, philosophical and psychological perspective. Nor does the Whig assumption that the interest of "the Publick" coincided with the interest of the in- dividual beggar differ essentially from the assumptions that preceded or followed the Whig regime. Bolingbroke was just as " corrupt " as Newcastle or as Dundas. Not the least convincing of Mr. Namier's investigations is the coup de grdce that he administers to the legends as to " corruption " (in the narrower sense) and the uses of the secret service money. In the text eighteen years ago I expressed my complete scepticism as to the ordinary charge of "corrup- tion" against Walpole, which at that time rested on the unverified but continuous accusations of political opponents and fragments of tittle-tattle diligently collected from stray and unverified assertions by biased or uncritical persons in memoirs, letters, etc. — the kind of evidence on which the ordinary "ghost story" passes muster with those who want to believe in the ordinary ghost story. Mr. Namier brings the matter to the test of figures — the only trustworthy test, and be demolishes the " Tory " legend. The analysis in vol. i., ch. iv., pp. 214-90, Secret Service Money under the Duke of Newcastle with its facts and figures is conclusive : " the vast engine of Parliamentary corruption called "Secret Service money" when measured has proved surprisingly small in size ; a mere supplement to places and other open favours, and on further inquiry it was found that there was more jobbery, stupidity and human charity about it than history " ; and again, " the ill-famed, sub- terranean stream of corruption when uncovered and measured, proves to have been after all not nearly so dirty as generally supposed ; it was the last resort of political beggars in distress and of opposition leaders in search of a topic." Two clear points seem to emerge : (i) the traditional indictment of " corruption " on a large scale has mainly come from the partisan statement of political opponents, e.g. " The Bolingbroke " coterie and The Craftsman in Walpole's day, "The Leicester House and Dowager Princess of Wales 626 APPENDICES party " in Newcastle's day, who convinced themselves (if they did !) first and the writers of history subsequently, that nothing but bribery could have kept Walpole in office for twenty years or the Whigs in power from 1742-00; (ii) a plain confusion between " secret service money " proper, i.e. money used for obtaining foreign intelligence or special services and the like, and unappro- priated sums in the Civil List, alleged to have been spent on " corruption ' (for on what else could they have been spent ?). Neither the critics nor the later historians mastered or understood the financial system of the eighteenth century, which requires elaborate analysis and patient unravelling to make intelligible. Two quotations will make this point clear : Newcastle noted in 1766 "that the King had for special service, which was sent to Hanover for the payment of troops, etc. , £90,000 which we did not think it advisable to lay before Parliament {e.g. because there would have been an anti-Hanoverian 'patriotic' debate). I know the (Dowager) Princess of Wales said that these great sums drawn that year on account of the Civil List were employed for bribing the House of Commons to approve the Russian Treaty " ; in 1771 George HI. wrote to Lord North ; "as there is no publick mode of obtaining the money that is expended in that corruption {i.e. influencing the Court of Sweden) it must he taken from my Civil List, consequently new debts in- curred ; and when I apply to Parliament for relieving me, an odium cast on myself and Ministry, as if the money had been expended in bribing Parliament." Obviously, a minister could not come to the House of Commons to ask for £60,000 to "influence" the Court of Sweden, or to pay for spies, stolen documents, intercepted letters or the like : still more obviously, receipts fof such payments could not be exhibited to Parliamentary or other auditors-< hence the argument — £90,000 unaccounted for, a certain defeat of the Ministry unaccountably warded off; conclusion, the requisite majority must have been bought out of the Secret Service Fund. Mr. Namier completes his demolition of the legend, not merely by showing exactly how Newcastle spent " the Secret Service " Fund, but the wider implications involved. This becomes clearer when we consider how the '• system " broke up. Three forces ultimately broke the "Whig System " which became the Tory Citadel after 1783 : (i) The growth in the wealth of the country made the totality of patronage infinitely more valuable j "the original " and ordinary shareholders had a larger cake to divide and a larger ordinary dividend to dis- tribute. Hence the " ins " were relatively better oif than the " outs " and a seat in Parliament became more and more valuable, because it made the possessor an " in " ; (ii) the great growth in population from 1780 onwards made the existing political nation relatively smaller and smaller and the unrepresented larger and larger; (iii) the growth of a powerful and unrepresented industrial middle class, paying a larger and larger share of taxation ; this class did not so much want a share in the "perquisites" as a voice in determining national policy. We are apt to forget that from 1688 onwards the Whig^ maintained certain fundamental constitutional principles — above all that taxation and representation went hand in hand and that the Crown must govern through ministers responsible to Parliament. The experienced " managers " behind the screen who worked the system startle the student from time to time b; THE WHIG POLITY 627 naive comments, almost humorous to-day, to the effect that the King's ministry has a majority but it has no one to lead them and, as a leader in open debate, " manage," i.e. persuade the House of Commons. The real secret of Walpole, of Pitt the elder, and of Pitt the younger, lies in their gift of leader- ship. These three anticipated by their genius and their personality the posi- tion of Peel " who played on the House of Commons as a fiddler on his fiddle," of Gladstone and of Lord Asquith in his prime. The Whigs and the Crown required leaders, i.e. men who could conduct "the King's business" in a debating assembly. The combination of gifts that malce a leader is un- analysable and unpredictable — but we know them when they are seen daily at work. Walpole, Henry Pelham, Chatham, Charles Fox, the younger Pitt, in different degrees were Parliamentary leaders. Carteret, Newcastle, Henry Fox, North, Burke (for all his oratory) were not. Hence the principles that the Whigs laid down in 1688 were the principles which made Reform both constitutional and inevitable. Since 1832 "corruption," in the only correct sense in which the term is applicable to the Whig regime, was not abolished, it only changed its form. ITie Old Age Pensions Act of modei-n democracy is the democratic form of the Civil List and the Secret Service Funds of the Whigs : and if to-day a twentieth century Newcastle or John Robinson is piling up the requisite material for the twenty-second century to discuss, the Party Funds and the Honour Lists may prove to have as close a connection as the evidence set out in all its nakedness by Mr. Namier and Prof. Laprade. And the historian of the twenty-second century may have to explode the legends of the political pamphleteers and show that what is suprising is not the extent of the "corruption" but the vehemence of the indictment as compared with the slenderness of the evidence in its favour. A useful commentary on iVIr. Napier's instructive two volumes are : Prof. Turberville's English Men and Manners in the Eighteenth Century (1926), and The House of Lords in the Eighteenth Century (1927). XXIL THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1784 The sentence at the end of the first paragraph on p. 303 has been left as it was originally written, but Prof. Laprade has convinced me that, as it stands, it requires very serious modification. Tliis note is based on an article in Eng- Hist. Review, " Public Opinion and the General Election of 1784 " (April, 1916), supplemented by Parliamentary Papers of John Robinson, edited for the Royal Hist. Society by Prof. Laprade (19:^2), together with an article in the American Hist. Review, XVIII., 254, which should be studied carefully by all interested in the eighteenth century. John Robinson, in fact, who " managed " the election of 1 784 for the King and Pitt is in the witness box and we have before us his calculations, his statistics and his results — and John Robinson had "managed " the elections of 1774 and 1780. Briefly the story is : in IMarch, 1783, Pitt refused to form an administration ; the Fox-North Coalition came into power ; Fox's East India Bills stirred intense fear and antagonism in the powerful commercial and vested interests of the East India Company ; the Bills must be defeated ; coalition of these interests with the King ; the Bill passes the Commons ; can it be defeated in the Lords ? the King intervenes and the BiU S28 APPENDICES is defeated ; Pitt comes in ; Robinson (Dec. 15) instructed to make his calculations as to how a favourable election can be " made " ; to makes nia calculations for secret meetings of Dundas and Pitt and promises if the requisite measures are taken an adequate ministerial majority in the next Parliament ; General Election three months later and majority secured ; verdict of historians since that " the nation in its wrath put Pitt and purity into 'power as against Fox and North and a venal coalition ". Robinson's calculations and analysis are illuminating and complete ; every seat and member were discussed and tabulated ; 42 sea.ts are ticked oflF as " close or under decisive influence " and favourable ; 69 are " partly accessible in one way and partly in other ways " ; 38 are laconically labelled "money," i.e. if the funds are available they can be bought either privately or in the open market ; 27 are grouped " No money," i.e. the patron must have his compensation in gome other form than money; 17 are "open Boroughs where seats may probably be obtained with expense ". In a word, if £200,000 are available, at least 137 seats can be transferred to the (Pitt) ministerial party. Robinson showed that, when Pitt took oflRce, of 668 members 231 were pledged to Fox and North with 74 doubtful supporters, and that if the election were properly managed Pitt could rely on 256 certain, with only 123 definitely in opposition, and that the Ministry could count on 116 additional probables, while the Opposition might have 64 additional probables — i.e. 256 + 116 versus 123 + 64, and the election confirmed his estimate ; the requisite measures were taken for "things were in the hands of men of resolution ". Prof. Laprade produces evidence to show that the bill was met (a) by 17 peerages or promotions in the peerage, following the General Election ; (6) by a redistribution of patronage and offices ; (c) by large sub- scriptions from the vested interests in the East India Co. ; (d) by private subscriptions from friends and political supporters ; («) by clearing out what was available in the Treasury and the King's private funds — as was done in 1780. He quotes from a contemporary pamphlet : " Sir Robert Walpole himself was a simpleton to this wonderful young man (Pitt) " ; he shows that in all his calculations Robinson never refers to the supposed unpopularity of the Coalition or the national disgust at the Fox-North combination as in- fluences to be employed in deciding the results ; the men or the seats to be dealt with were calculable factors to be handled by methods familiar to the manager, provided that that manager was in office working for a ministry ia office with the Crown at its back, which could, in vulgar phrase, promise and "deliver the goods". The essential preliminary was (a) to get Fox and North out of office and the Treasury into "the right" hands ; (6) to prevent the Coalition fighting a General Election while they controlled the Treasury, patronage, etc. George III. managed the preliminaries by dismissing Fox and North • Pitt, who had refused office twelve months previously, now came in because with Dundas he had met Robinson secretly, seen his calculations and was pre- pared to go through with the business. Hence Prof. Laprade's final conclu- sion : that to see in the General Election of 1784 the spontaneous expression of an overwhelming public opinion is to ignore the evidence in the Robinson papers, the carefully riveted links in the sequence of events and completely to misunderstand the nature of the eighteenth century Parliamentary system. REFORM AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 529 But the Gensral Election of 1784 does explain very clearly (a) why Pitt could not produce an India Bill that would have dealt faithfully with the deficiencies of the East India Co. ; and (6) why his subsequent attempts at Parliamentary Reform were so lukewarm and such complete failures. Pitt could not throw over the East India men who had helped to put him into office and partly paid the election bill of 1784, or reform by "confiscatory" legislation a system to which he and his ministerial supporters owed their own Parliamentary existence. Robinson provides the final comment : " Parliamentary State of Boroughs . . and a wild wide calculate of the money wanted for seats but which I always disapproved and thought very wrong ". Delicious. XXIII. REFORM AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Nothing is more difficult to judge sanely than reform movements in a great war, particularly when those movements have been inspired from a country which is a belligerent. The present generation is better able to understand the effects of a " war-complex " and a " spy-complex " after its experiences of 1914-18 and to appreciate more accurately the war-mentality of a period such as 1790-1816, very largely similar to that of 1089-1714 with Jacobitism rampant at home. All such periods will always be judged politi- cally (even by trained historians), rather than scientifically, and the political principles of a later generation will be read into the political controversies of the earlier, i.e. writer and reader will consciously or unconsciously start from an assumption that Pitt must broadly have been right and Fox wrong, or vice versa : and the evidence will be interpreted from that angle. The French savant who remarked that the flaw in all research was that the researcher usually found what he was looking for, and added that the best of all proofs of a proposition was a simple assertion, because you cannot discuss the value of a proof that is not given, was nearer the truth in periods of war-mentality than in other spheres of human affairs. The general course of the Reform movement from 1789-1830 is fully dis- cussed in G. S. Veitch, The Genesis of Parliamentary Reform (1913), J. R. M. Butler, The Passing of the Great Reform Bill (1914), G. M. Trevelyan, Life of CharUs, 2nd Earl Grey (1920), G. D. H. Cole, Life of W. Cobbett (1924), Graham Wallas, Life of Place (1918), J. L. and B. Hammond, The Village Labourer, 1760-1832 (1920), and the student can safely be referred to these works, with the authorities that are cited in them, together with the books given on pp. 623 and 531, and the masterly survey by E. Hal6vy in his Histoire du Peuple Anglais au 19* Siecle, 3 vols. (1923). "The revolutionary" movement from 1789-98 has been examined besides Laprade's monograph, in particular by Veitch, op. cit., Graham Wallas, op. cit., and by J. Holland Rose, Life of Pitt, vol. ii. (1911), pp. 164-94; by P. A. Brown, The French Revolution in English History (1924), and the results of their researches only confirm the view taken in the text. In short, the attempt to show that there was a widespread conspiracy amongst the " British Jacobins " (" Jacobin " being a term equivalent to the modern " Bolshevist ") 34 630 APPENDICES breaks down at every point ; yet the existence of such a widespread conspiracy oould be the only justification for the action of the Government, for the repressive legislation and the savage prosecutions. The argument that the repression extirpated the alleged conspiracy is doubly vicious : (a) it is not borne out by the MS. evidence ; and (b) it perverts the ministerial argument that the conspiracy was the cause of the legislation. Prof. C. Gill in The Naval Mutinies of 1797 (1913) which so terrified ministers shows con- clusively that none of the political or "seditious" societies formed plans, or were responsible for, a general mutiny ; and that in the genuine grievances of the naval mutineers there was incomparable material for a general treason, yet the mutinous fleet saved England from revolutionary France. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Pitt, Dundas, the ministers and the " society " in which they moved did not know and did not trouble to ascertain the facts, and that the ministerial legislation and execu- tive measures were the product of a war and panic oompleij which was shared by three-fourths of the nation in every class. As Prof. Veitch, op. cit., p. 342, puts it : " It was, as if a]iiation of self-appointed policemen had turned out in force to keep guard over a handful of suspected pickpockets ". Even if all the British "Jacobins" had risen en masse in red caps and with pikes and muskets (which they had not got), they could probably have been dispersed by a squadron of yeomanry ; but the British " Jacobins " had no such intention of rising, and no evidence has so far been adduced to prove any such intention or that they were subsidised by French gold. The French contention that every "traitor" to the Revolution was corrupted by Pitt and English gold had — in view of our active support of the J^migres — far more plausibility than the allegation that French gold (of which the Revolutionary Government had very little) was pouring into England to complete the demoralisation of a treasonable nation. But just as in 1914-18 even to know German was almost a proof of "Pro-German" treachery, so in 1796 Burke and the Britii^h nation saw " republican daggers " not only in the air but considered they had proved their case by flinging a handful on the floor of the House of Commons. Pitt's argument in 179:1 remains on record ; he solemnly depicted to the House of Commons " an enormous torreut-» tn a Z >-) < en •-H <; Qi H (I] w — .g- "Oh n G con U3 M-f. en W- S <: > o (I) •< s u II- M 1 s » o s « ^ 5 ■" >< ^ -.3 S -si-" •- o 8 &. I. S •S *^ so a . e f .s g. M " a a s 3 " SI S,g S "3 31 °s ^ ■a S" 5 rt-i a . u o " -i; ^-B 13 .a S x: J3 e OH O 5S1 > a •36 tc o n — a n < o. o CO II — 5 H J3 O. O CO a ■s •aP< a- J3 o 03 -s O o II— O o hi -o Q o u II- -3 O II .r s Q ■15 s IS n- — < o J3 o II •S3 O-i- ? o s " o - S -^ o , ° 3 N II -H O O M o a •§ O c S o \ 1 > 3 St a > "s ■a 00 u tu *i o (d _o a o H O II- u ag n j3 ja a §■12 « »».^ **L His. a (A H .H .. ,_^ o u 1--30 u o _ o o e a "O CEO'S >^^ — 3 "^ ■:•§ iS o I . S£:g,° c .- a S c'E3S •B S u •> il" = C V c! O •-i o » •a-a° u— -"2 S g^-B O 632 TABLE in THE NATIONAL DEBT Year. Funded. Unfunded. Total Interest and Annuities. 1714 £ 27,820,321 „ £ 8.355.139 £ 36,175,640 £ 3.063,135 1727 G.B. 47,665,052 Ireland 46,153 4.249.371 52,523,923 2.360.934 1739 G.B. I. 42,740,024 222,462 3.651.397 46,613,883 2.030,884 1748 G.B. I. 68,056,824 363.323 7.391.98s 75,812,132 3.165.765 1756 G.B. 73.751.255 815.555 74.575,025 2,753.566 I. 8,215 — — — 1763 G.B. I. 128,564,808 507,692 4.705.990 — ♦ 132,716,049 5.032.733 1775 G.B. 122,963,255 3,079,80a 126,842,811 4.703,519 I. 799,754 — — — 1783 G.B. 211,363,255 18,513,114 231,843,631 0,065,585 I. 1,410,092 557.170 — — 1793 G.B. I. 232,064,743 1,625,297 12,656,233 1,183,485 247.874.434 9,711,238 1802 G.B. 508,924,557 14.349.500 537.653.008 20,268,551 I. 13,307,229 1,071,722 — ~~ 1815 G.B. I. 792,033.426 24,278,515 42,229,300 2,497,808 861,039,049 32,645,618 N.B. These figures are taken from the official retutn in a Parliamentary Paper, printed by order of the House of Commons, July 29th, 1869, generally cited as " Public Income and Expenditure, 1688-1869 " (1869). 633 TABLE IV THE COST OF WARS FROM 1714-1815 Years. Paid from Revenue. Paid by Loans (Debt). Total War Expenditure. 1718-21 3.54S.W2 1,022,202 4.547.3a4 1739-48 I3>930.997 29,724,195 43.655.19s 1756-63 82,605,495 60,018,243 82,623,738 1776-85 3,039,427 94,560,069 97.599,496 1793-1815 391,148,370 440,298,079 831,446,449 Note in this table the extraordinary proportion of expenditure met by creation of debt, to expenditure met by taxation in the American War (1776-83) — charac- teristic of the spendthrift and reckless finance of Lord North's Administration and the King's system during those years. 634 BIBLIOGRAPHY (This bibliography does not profess to be exhaustive. It is intended to provide the student with the requisite aids to advanced or detailed study of the various aspects of eighteenth century British history. Contemporary or original authorities are marked with an asterisk.) General Aids for the Whole Period, 1714-1816 S. R. Gardiner and J. B. Mullinger. — Introduction to English History (4th ed.), 1903. The Cambridge Modern History. Bibliographies to vols, yi., viii., ix. (re- ferred to as C. M. H.). Dictionary of National Biography (D. N. B.). G. K. Fortescue. — Subject Index of Modern Works added to the Library of. the British Museum, 1881-1906. «, S. R, Scargill-Bird. — A Guide to the Various Classes of Documents in the Public Record Office, 1908. M. Livingstone. — A Guide t» the Public Records of Scotland, 1905 ; Catalogues of the A dditions to the MSS. in the British Museum (arranged in years) ; and particularly Index of the Catalogues of Additions to the MSS., 1880. Atlases: The Clarendon Press Historical Atlas. Spruner-Menke. — Hand. Atlas fur die Geschichie (3rd ed.). Droysen. — Historischer Atlas. C. G. Robertson and J. G. Bartholomew. — Historical and Modern Atlas of the British Empire. S. R. Gardiner. — Student's Atlas of English History. ♦Treaties : G. F. and C. de Martens. — Recueil des principaux Traitis (avec suppl6ment)j 1761-1808, 8 vols. F. de Martens. — Recueil des Traitis Conclus par la Russie, vol. x., England, 1710-1801 (introduction and notes based on Russian archives). C. G. de Koch and M. S. F. Schoell. — Histoire abregee des Traitis de Paix (2nd ed.), 16 vols. ; new ed., continued to 1816, 4 vols. A. F. Pribram. — Oesterreichische Staats Ver- trdge, England, vol. i. (1626-1748 ; introduction based on original Austrian and British sources). *A. Boyer. — Political State of Great Britain (from vol. viii., 1714). *The Gentleman's Magazine (from 1738). *The Annual Register (from 1768). H. B. George. — Genealogical Tables Illustrative of Modern History (4th ed.). F. Lorenz. — Genealogisches Handbuch. 685 BIBLIOGRAPHY [1714- Part I.— 1714-60 The chief original MSS. authoritiea in the British IVIuseum are : The Stowe MSS. (see Catalogue of the Stows MSS., London, 1895), the Newcastle MSS. (Add. MS. 32, 679-33, 201), the Hardwiche MSS. (Add. MS. 36, 349- 36, 278), Carteret Papers (Add. MS. 22511-19, 22523-24), Gualterio Papers (20241-20683), Melcombe Papers (Egerton MS. 2170-76), Norris Papers (Add. MS. 28128-29, 28136, 28143-47, 28164-66), Coxe Papers (9128-97), Whitworth Papers (37361-97). For the State Papers in the Public Record Office see Special List, xix, (a catalogue of State Papers doirn to 1782, and invaluable), published in 1904 ; and information in C. M. H. , Bibliographies. The Pitt-Pringle (Chatham) Papers (partly published in The Chatham Correspondence) are in the Record Office. A. Foreign Policy For bibliographies consult : G. Monod. — Bibliographie de I'histoire de France. Dahlmaun-Waitz. — Quellenkunde der Deutschen Geschichte (ed. Brandenburg, 7th ed.). V. Loewe. — Bibliographie der Hannoverschen und Braunschweig Geschichte, 1908. The follovring for the chief European States will be invaluable to the student : — E. Armstrong. — Elizabeth Farnese, 1892. E. Bourgeois. — La Diphmatie Secrete au XVII U Silcle, voL L, 1909 (deals with Dubois). \ G. de Flassan. — Histoire de la Diphmatie Franfaise, vols. iv. -vL B. Lavisse. — Histoire de France, vol. viii., pt. 2. L. Wiesener. — Le Regent, I'abbe Dubois et les Anglais, 3 vols. J. E. Droysen. — Geschichte der Preussischen Politik. B. Erdmannsdorffer. — Deutsche Geschichte (Oucken's series), from 1648-1740, vol. 2. C. T. Atkinson.— i4 History of Germany, 1713-1816. R. Koser. — Kiinig Friedrich der Grosse, 2 vols. E. Bourgeois. — Manuel de politique itrangire, 2 vols. A. Baudrillart — Philippe V. et la Cour de France, vols. iii.-irj Cambridge Modern History, vol. vi. British History {Foreign and Political). — {For Bibliographies, Memoirs and Hist. MSS. Com. Reports, see special Sections) M. Brosch. — Geschichte von England, vols. viii. and ix. J. F. Chance. — George I. and the Great Northern War. „ List of Diplomatic Representatives and Agents, England and N. Germany, 1907. „ John de Robethon and the Robethon Papers, Eng. Hist. Rev., voL xiii. J. 8. Corbett. —England in the Seven Years' War, 2 vols. 1780] BIBLIOGRAPHY 637 G. B. Hertz.— British Imperialism in the Eighteenth Century. A. D. lanes. — Great Britain and Her Rivals. J. S. Leadam. — Political History of England, vol. ix., 1702-60. L. G. Wickham-Legg. — List of Diplomatic Representatives, England and France, 1689-1733. W. E. H. Lecky. — History of England in the Eighteenth Century, 7 vols. A. T. Mahan.— T/k! Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. W. Michael.— Englische Geschichte im XVIIIten Jahrhundert. L. von ^Raa^a. —English History (Eng. ed.), vols. v. and vL J. R. Seeley. — The Expansion of England. „ The House of Bourbon, Eng. Hist. Rev., vol. L Earl Stanhope. — History of England from the Peace of Utrecht, 7 vols. B. Waddington. — La Guerre de Sept Ans, 6 vols. A. W. Ward. — The Blectress Sophia and the Hanoverian Succession (2iid re- vised edition, 1909). „ Great Britain and Hanover. B. Williams. — The Foreign Policy of England under Walpole, Eng. Hist Rev., vols. XV. and xvi. Biographies, Memoirs, Letters, etc. These are very numerous ; the following are amongst the most im- portant : — A. Ballantyue. — Lord Carteret. *Bedford, Correspondence of Fourth Duke of, ed. Lord J. Russell, 4 vols. *Chatham Correspondence, ed. Taylor and Pringle, 4 vols. *Cowper, Earl. — Private Diary (Roxburghe Club). * „ Countess of. — Diary, ed. S. Cowper. *W. Coxe. — Memoirs of H. Pelham, 2 vols. * „ Memoirs of Horatio Lord Walpole, 2 vola. * „ Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole, 3 vols. W. D. Green.— P^t«ta»» Pitt, Earl of Chatham. A. Greenwood. — Lives of the Hanoverian Queens of England, vol. L *Grenville Papers, ed. W. J. Smith, 4 vols. *Hardwicke, Earl of. — Miscellaneous State Papers, 2 vols. G. Harris. — Life of the Earl of Hardwicke, 3 vols. F. Harrison. — William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. *John Hervey, Lord. — Memories of Reign of George II., 2 voh. ♦Marchmont, Earl of. — Papers, 3 vols. *A. Mitchell, Sir. — Memoirs and Papers, 2 vols. J. Morley (Viscount).— 5»»- R. Walpole. E. S. RoBCoe. — Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford. A. von Ruville. — William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (English translation), 3 vols. W. Sichel. — Bolingbroke and His Times, 2 vols. (vol. ii. deals with the period after 1714). ♦Suffolk (Countess of).— Letters (1712-1767), 2 vols. *WaldegTave, Earl of. — Memoirs, 1 vol. 538 BIBLIOGRAPHY [17U-1760 *Horace Walpole. — Complete Letters, ed. Mrs. Paget Toynbee, 16 vols. * ,, Memoirs of the Reign of George II., ed. Lord Holland, 3 vols. *Wentworth Papers, ed. Cartwright. *C. Whitefoord, Papers of, ed. Hewins. The *Reports of the Historical MSS. Commission contain very valuable information. The following reports are important (Roman figures give the Report, numerals the Appendix referred to) : — Westmoreland MSS., x., 4 ; Bath MSS., xv., vols. 1-3 ; Buccleuch MSS., XV., 8; Carlisle MSS., xv., 6 j Dropmore Papers, xiii., vol. 1 ; Kenyon MSS., xiv., 4 ; Lonsdale MSS., xiiL, 7 ; Onslow MSS., xiv., 9 ; Portland MSS., xiii., vols. 2, 6, 6, 7 ; Townshend MSS., xi., 4 ; Wcston-Underwood MSS., x., 1 ; Buckinghamshire MSS., xiv., 9; Hare MSS., xiv., 9; The Stuart Papers, vols. 1, 2, 3, 4 (largely Jacobite material). Constitutional and Parliamentary History The Register of the Privy Council is kept at the Privy Council Office, and can, by permission, be consulted there. Classified details of the Home OflSce Papers are given in Scargill-Bird, op. cit., pp. 367-69. The MSS. of the House of Lords dealt with by the Hist. MS. Com. only reach 1708. The following are official or semi-official : — *The Statutes at Large. 1st series to 1801 ; 2nd series from 1801-62. *Journals of the House of Lords, vols, xx.-li. Index to the fournals, 3rd part, 1714-79 ; 4th part, 1780-1820. *Journals of the House of Commons, vols, xviii.-lxx. Index to the Journals. 2nd part, 1714-73 ; 3rd part, 1774-1800 ; 4th part, 1801-20. *Catalogue of Parliamentary Reports, with a breviate of their contents, 1696- 1837 (1837). *Reportsfrom Committees of House of Commons , 1715-1801, 16 vols. (1803). *Official Return of Members of Parliament, 2nd part 1706-98 ; 3rd part, 1801-74. For Reports of Debates consult The Gentleman's Magazine, The London Magazine, and — *The Parliamentary History of England, 1066-1803, ed. Cobbett and Wright, 36 vols. *Collection of Parliamentary Debates in England, 1668-1741, 21 vols, (index in vol. 21). *The Parliamentary Register (1743-1802), 88 vols, (compiled from news- papers and magazines, and supplements many gaps in Cobbett). A. Mantoux. — Notes sur les Comptes Rendus des Siances du Pari. Anglais, 1906. Other useful printed authorities on Constitutional History are : — W. R. Anson, Sir. — The Law and Custom of the Constitution, 2 vols., voL ii., in 2 parts. 17U-1816] BIBLIOGRAPHY 639 R. BeaUon.— Chronological Register of both Houses of Parliament (1807). W. Blackstone, Sir. — Commentaries on the Laws of England. M. T. Blauvelt. — Development of Cabinet Government. Campbell, ImtA.— Lives of the Lord Chancellors. W. Cobbett and T. B. Howell.— Stote Trials, 33 vols. G. E. C. — Complete Peerage. De Lolme. — La Constitution de PAngleterre. R. Gneist. — English Constitutional History (English translation). H. Hallam. — The Constitutional History of England, vol. iii. J. HatselL — Precedents and Proceedings in the House of Commons, 4 vols. D. J. Medley.— Ewg^WsA Constitutional History. Montesquieu, 'Ba.ro'a.—L' Esprit des Lois, vol. i. (English translation), bit. d. L. O. Pike. — Constitutional History of the House of Lords. E. and A. G. Porritt. — The Unreformed House of Commons, 2 vols. J. Redlich. — Procedure of the House of Commons (English translation), 3 vols. *C. G. Robertson.— S«/ec< Statutes, Cases, and Documents, 1660-1832 (Fifth Rev. Ed., 1926). • Th. Rogers. — Protests of the House of Lords, 3 vols. A. Todd. — Parliamentary Government, 2 vols. W. M. Torrens. — A History of Cabinets, 2 vols. *W. W. Wilking. — Political Ballads of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century, 2 vols. Irish History, 1714-1816 Consult especially the bibliographies in C. M. H., vol. vi., ch. xiv. ; vol. iz., ch. zzii. ; vol. x., ch. xzii., which give an exhaustive analysis of the MSS. eources, the pamphlets, etc., and the printed literature. A select critical bibliography will be found in O'Connor Morris, Ireland, 1494-1905 (Carab. Hist. Series, 2nd ed., by R. Dunlop, 1909). As an Introduction to Irish History the best authority is W. E. H. Lecky, History of Ireland in the Eight- tenth Century to 7801 (4 vols., published separately, but originally part of the author's great English History in the Eighteenth Century). The text-books and histories for the most part are controversial and very numeix)us. The following represent various points of view : — R. Dunlop. — Life of H. Grattan. J. A. Froude. — The English in Ireland, 3 vols. W. E. H. Lecky. — Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, 2 vol* R. R. Madden. — History of the Penal Laws. Studies in Irish History.— EA. R. B. O'Brien. Two Centuries of Irish History, 1691-1870 (2nd ed. ), 1907. For the period of Grattan's Parliament, the Rebellion of '98, and the Union, consult especially : *The Irish Parliament (MS. edited by W. Hunt), the *Charlemont MSS. (Hist. MS. Com., Rept., 12, x. ; 13, viii.), the *CastU- reagh Correspondence, the *Comwallis Correspondence (cited below, part iL), and the *Dropmore Papers, vols. i. and v. ; also the following selected books : — *J. Beresford. — Correspondence, vol. ii. *E. Cooke. — Arguments for and against a Union, Dublin, 1798. 540 BIBLIOGRAPHY [17U- *R. L. Edgeworth, — Memoirs, 2 vols. *H. Grattan, — Speeches, vols, ii.-iv. T. D. Ingram. — A Critical Examination of Irish History, voL il. „ History of the Irish Union. J. S. Macneill. — How the Union Was Carried. *T. Wolfe Tone.— Autobiography, ed. R. B. O'Brien, 2 vols. Scottish History, 1714-1816 For the literature of Jacobitism consult the full bibliography in C. S. Terry, The Rising of 1743 (ed. 1903), and C. M. H., vi. (pp. 858-63) by the same author, which gives a full account of MS. and printed material ; also by the same author Index to Papers Relating to Scotland in the Hist. MS. Commis- sion (a most useful analysis). A select critical bibliography for the period will be found in P. Hume Brown, History of Scotland (Camb. Hist. Series), vol. iii. The student should also examine the publications of the Scottish History Society, the New Spalding, Abbotsford, Maitland, Roxburghe and Wodrow Clubs, which have printed, under competent editors, a great mass oi MS. material ; also the volumes of The Scottish Historical Review. As an introduction consult : — Argyll, Duke of. — Scotland as It Was and as It Is, 2 vols. P. Hume Brown. — History of Scotland, vol. iii. J. Hill Burton. — History of Scotland, vol. viii. *Cockburn, Lord. — Memorials of His Times. H. Craik, Sir. — A Century of Scottish History, 2 vols. H. G. Graham. — Social Life in Scotland in the 18th Century, 2 vol* A. Lang. — History of Scotland, vol. iv. W. L. Mathieson. — Scotland and the Union, 1695-1747, 2 vols. G. W. T. Omoud. — The Lord Advocates of Scotland, 2 vols. Military and Naval History, 1714^1760 For naval material consult Scargill-Bird, op. cit., pp. 370-76, and Select Index, xviii. (Public Reo. Off.), on The Admiralty Records. A bibliography will be found in C. M. H., vi., pp. 885, 910. The student should consult the articles in D. N. B., by J. K. Laughton, on naval commanders. Besides the works of Corbett and Mahan, cited above, the following are useful : — M. Burrows. — Life of Lord Hawke (2nd ed.). G. Chevalier. — Histoire de la Marine Frangaise (to 1763). *J. S. Corhett.— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 (Navy Rec. Soc). W. James. — The Naval History of Great Britain, 6 vols, (with index by Too- good (Navy Rec. Soc), vol. iv.). W. Laird Clowes. — History of the Royal Navy, vol. iii. For military history, see classification of documents in Scargill-Bird, pp. 388-90 ; and the introductions and appendices to J. \V. Fortescue, History of the British Army, vol. ii. (based on MS. and printed material and very stimulating reading), which is the best narrative both of military operations 1760] BIBLIOGRAPHY 641 and the inner history of the army. For the operations 1740-48 and 1766-63 consult also C. T. Atkinson, History of Germany, 1713-1815 ; F. H. Skrine, PonUnoy ; and for colonial operations, A. G. Bradley, Wolfe and the Fight with France for North America; A. Doughty and G. W, Parmelee, The Siege of Quebec, 6 vols. ; P. Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe. [See also section below on Colonial History.] Colonial History, 1714-1760 A full bibliography of MS. and printed material will be found in C. M. H., vol. vii., to chapters iL, iii., iv. ; also supplementary in C. M. H., vi., pp. 874- 77. The standard work is: J. A. Doyle, The American Colonies, 1714-60; which the student can supplement first by — *W. L. Grant and J. Muuro. — Acts of the Privy Council of England, Colonial Series, vol. ii. (to 1720). W. J. Ashley. — Surveys : Historic and Economic G. L. Beer. — Commercial Policy of England towards the American Colonies. „ British Colonial Policy, 1764-66. H. Egerton. — History of Colonial Policy (2nd ed.). H. Hall. — Chatham's Colonial Policy (Amer. Hist. Rev., July, 1900). G. B. Hertz.— TAe Old Colonial System. G. Kimball. — Correspondence of W. Pitt with Colonial Governors, 2 vols. C. Lucas, Sir. — Historical Geography of the British Colonies (with useful Select Critical Bibliographies) : West Indies, vol. ii. ; West Africa, vol. iii. ; S. and E. Africa, vol. iv. (2 p^.) ; Canada, vol. v. (pt. i.). F. Parkman. — La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West. „ The Old Regime in Canada. Indian History Consult the bibliography in C. M. H., vi., pp. 926-32. A general history of the East India Company based on modern critical research is much needed. The student may refer to : — A. J. Arbuthnot, Sir. — Lord CUve. P. Cu\trM.—Dupleix. *G. W. Forrest. — Selections from State Papers (Bombay). * „ Selections from State Papers {Ma.hTa.tta Seiiea). A. D. Innes. — A Short History of the British in India. A. C. Lyall. — The Rise and Expansion of the British Dominions in India. G. B. Malleson. — The History of the French in India. 3. Mill. — The History of British India, ed. H. Wilson, 10 vol*. H. Weber. — La Compagnie Frangaise des hides. Economic and Social History, 1714-1760 Useful bibliographies in C. M. H., vi., pp. 860, 865, 874, 876. Cunning. ham. — Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Modern Times, 2 vols. — P. Mantouz. — La RivoUition Industrielle. The statistics and explanatory matter in Public Income and Expenditure, 1688-1869 (Cd. 1869, Parliamentary 542 BIBLIOGRAPHY [17M-1760 Paper, over 1000 pages) are indispensable. Consult also : J. P. Anderson. — Classified Catalogue of the Topographical Works in Library of British Museum Relating to Great Britain and Ireland (1881) ; Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1714-28, 2 vols. ; Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers, 1728-46, 5 vols. Consult also : — A. Anderson. — Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Com- merce, 4 vols. J. Andreades. — History of the Bank of England (English translation). N. A. Brisco. — The Economic Policy of R. Walpole. *J. Brown. — Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times. *D. Defoe. — Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain. *F. M. Eden. —The State of the Poor, 3 vols. F. G. Price.— yl Handbook of London Bankers, 1677-1876. R. E. Prothero. — Pioneers of Agriculture and Farming. Th. Rogers. — Six Centuries of Work and Wages. „ A History of Agriculture and Prices, vol. vii. *C. de SausBure. — A Foreign View of England under George I. and II. (Eng- lish translation). G. Schmoller. — The Mercantile System (English translation). *J. Sinclair. — History of the Public Revenue, 3 vols. *A Smith.— TAe Wealth of Nations (2nd vol., ed. E. Cannon). S. and B. Wahh.— English Local Government (1688-1834), 3 vols. T. Wright. — Caricature History of the Georges. Religion: The Established Church and Dissent Useful bibliographies will be found in C. M. H., vi., pp. 851-67. Leslie Stephen.— Htsioy^ of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 2 vols. J. H. Overton and F. Ralton.— r/w English Church (1714-1800) (the most convenient text-book on this subject). For Wesley and Wesleyanism con- sult : R. Green. — Bibliography of Works of John and Charles Wesley (new ed., 1906); Anti-Methodist Publications during the Eighteenth Century (1902). The *Wesley Historical Society (from 1896) has published valuable material *John Wesley's Works (16 vols., London, 1866) have been published. A new edition of his * Journal in 6 vols. (4 published) is being brought out, and is the best material for understanding the man. Useful general works (besides those mentioned above) are : — C. J. Abbey and J. H. Overton. — The English Church and Its Bishops, 1700- 1800, 2 vols. R. W. Dale. — History of Congregationalism in England. T. Lathbury. — History of the Non-Jurors. J. H. Overton. — The English Church in the Eighteenth Century, 2 vols. L. Tyerman. — J. Wesley's Life and Times, 3 vols. „ The Oxford Methodists, 2 vols. „ Life of George Whitefield, 2 vols. The works of * Berkeley (ed. Fraser, 4 vols.), * Butler (ed. Bernard, 2 vols.), * Hoadly (3 vols.), * Law (9 vols.), * Warburton, are available in col- lected editions. 1760-l8lfi] BIBLIOGRAPHY 543 Part II. (1760-1816) Many of the authorities specified in Part I. belongs also to Part II. They are not repeated in the several sections below, which are strictly additional. The student should, therefore, refer back to the corresponding section in Part I. for general information or particular books. M55.— In the British Museum the chief MSS. are : Nelson MS. (Egerton 1614-1623, add. 18, 676) ; Wellesley (Egerton 12, 664-13, 916 and add. 29, 238- 239) ; Warren Hastings (add. 28, 973-29, 236) ; Wilkes (add. 30, 866-30, 896) ; Sir R. Wilson (30, 096-30, 144) ; Hutchinson (Egerton 2659-2666) ; Sir W. Hamilton (Egerton 2634-2641) j Mackintosh (add. 34, 487-34, 626) ; Auck- land (add. 34, 412-34, 471 and 34, 436-34, 463) ; Bute (36, 801-36, 813, 37, 080-37, 086) ; Place MSS. (add. 27, 789-27, 869) ; Leeds MSS. (27, 918, 28, 670, 28, 064-28, 087) ; Reeves MSS. (16, 919-16, 929). In the Record Office the special printed Catalogue, List XIX, of State Papei-s only goes as far as 1782. Valuable indications as to particular volumes and particular countries bearing on specific problems and periods will be found in the bibliographies in C. M. H., vols. viii. and ix. ; F. Salomon, William Pitt der JUngere, vol. i. (to 1793) ; J. H. Rose, Life of Napoleon, 2 vols. ; W. H. V. Temperley, Life of Canning. The following articles by J. H. Rose in the Eng. Hist. Review should also be consulted : Napoleon and English Commerce (viii, 704) ; Canning and Denmark (xi, 82) ; The Secret Articles of the Treaty of Amiens (xv, 331) ; France and the First Coalition (xviii, 287) ; The Commercial Treaty of 1786 (xxiii, 709) ; William Grenville's Mission to the Hague and Versailles (xxRf, 278) ; Pitt and the Campaign of 1793 (xxiv, 744). A very useful list of the pamphlet literature 1789-1897 will be found in W. T. Laprade, England and the French Revolution (Johns Hopkins Studies, Ser. xxvii, Nos. 8-12). I. Home and Foreign Policy [The general history of the European States in their relations to Great Britain will be most usefully studied in : C. A. Fyffe, A History of Modern Europe (3 vols.) ; W. Oncken, Das Zeitalter der Revolution, des Kaissereichs und der Befreiungskriege (2 vols. ) ; A. Sorel, L' Europe et la Revolution Frangaise (8 vols.), and the various chapters on the European States in C. M. H., vols. vi. (1714-89) ; viii. (1789-1801) ; ix. (1801-16).] Consult, also, * J. Debrett, A Collection of State Papers Relative to the War against France, 11 vols. , 1794-1802 ; *Rose, Despatches relating to the Third Coalition (Roy. Hist. Soc, 1904). The *State Papers {Domestic), 1760-76 (4 vols. ), have been calendared. Useful secondary authorities are : — J. Adolphus, History of England (1760-1820), 7 vols. *The Annual Register, 1760 et seqq. G. 0. Brodrick and J. K. Fotheringham. — Political History of England, vol. xL P. Coquelle. — NapoUon et PAngleterre, 1803-16. M. Dorman. — History of the British Empire. W. Hunt.— Political History of England, vol. r. (1760-1801). H. Jephson. — The Platform : Its Rise and Progress. 544 BIBLIOGRAPHY [1760- W. T. Laprade. — England and the French Revolution {JohnaHopkioM StuiioB, Aug. -Dec, 1909). J. McCarthy. — History of the Four Georges. H. Martiueau. — History of England (1800-16), E. Smith. — The Story of the English Jacobins. W. Massey. — History of England in the Reign of George III. From the numerous Biographies, Memoirs, Correspondence, etc., the fol- lowing may be chosen : — ♦Addington (Lord Sidmouth). — Life and Corresp., ed. G. Pellew, 3 vols. *The Anti-Jacobin, 36 nos., 1797-98. •Auckland. — Journal and Correspondence, 4 vols. *M. Bateson. — Changes in the Ministry, Camden Series, 1898. *Bland-Burges. — Letters and Life, Ed. J. Hutton. •Buckingham. — Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George III., 4 vols. *Buckinghamshire : Papers (1762-66) of the Earl of. Royal Hist Soc, 1900. ♦Brougham. — Life and Times, by himself, vols. i. and ii. ♦E. Burke.— PVorfts, 6 vols. (London, 1826). * „ Correspondence. Ed. Lord Fitzwilliam, 4 vols. „ Memoir, by T. MacKnight, 3 vols. „ A Political Study, by J. Morley. G. Canning. — Political Life, by A. G. Stapleton, 3 vols. * „ Correspondence. Ed. Stapleton, 2 vols. * „ Speeches. Ed. Therry, 6 vols. *G. Canning and His Friends, ed. Bagot, 2 vols. „ Lives of, by J. A. R. Marriott and H. W. T. Temperley. •Castlereagh (Viscount). — Memoirs and Correspondence, 12 vols. Castlereagh {Viscount) : Life of, by Sir A. Alison, 3 vols. Castlereagh (Viscount). — A Study, by Marchioness of Londonderry. W. Cobbett: Life of, by E. L Carlyle. Coke {Earl of Leicester) : Life of, by A. M. Stirling, 2 vol». •Colchester. — Diary, 2 vols. ♦Cornwallis (Marquis of). — Correspondence, 3 vols. *The Creevey Papers, ed. Sir H. Maxwell, 2 vols. *G. B. Doddington (Lord Melcombe). — Diary. *Eldon. — Life and Letters, by H. Twiss, 3 vols. •Elliot (Earl of Minto). — Memoir, by Countess of Minto, 3 vols. •Erskine (Lord). — Speeches, 4 vols. C. /. Fox : Early Life of, by Sir G. O. Trevelyan. ♦C. J. Fox. — Memorials and Correspondence, ed. Ld. J. Russell, 4 vol* C. /. Fox : Life of, by Ld. J. Russell, 3 vols. ♦C. J. Fox.— Speeches, 6 vols. C. /. Fox : A Study of, by J. L. D. Hammond. •George IIL — Correspondence with Lord North, ed. Donne, 2 vols. George III. : Memoirs of the Life and Reign of, by J. H. Jesse, 3 vols. George IV. and Mrs. Fitxherbert, by W. H. Wilkins, 2 vol*. *Gower. — Despatches of the Earl, ed. O. B. Browning. •Grafton (Duke oT).— Autobiography , ed. W. R. Anson, 1815] BIBLIOGRAPHY 546 ♦Holland (Lori).— Memoirs of the Whig Party, 2 vols. * „ Further Memoirs, ed. Lord Stavordala ♦Holland (Lady).— Diary, 2 vols. * Jackson {Sir G.) : Letters and Papers of, 2 vols. ♦Junius. — Letters, 2 vols. ; London, 1904. *Leeds [Duke of) : Political Memoranda of, ed. O. B. Browning. *Lennox {Lady Sarah) : Letters of, ed. Lord Stavordale, 2 vols. ♦Mackintosh (Sir J.). — Memoirs, 2 vols. ♦Malmesbury (Earl of).— Diaries and Correspondence, 4 vols. W. Pitt : Life of, by Earl Stanhope, 4 vols. " >i ty F- Salomon (to 1793), voL i. (In German, not translated.) ♦W. Pitt. — Correspondence with Duke of Rutland. * „ speeches, 4 vols. „ Some Chapters of His Life, by Ld. Ashbourne. W. Pitt : Life of, by Lord Rosebery. F. Place : Life of, by Graham Wallas. ♦Rockingham (iMarquis of).— Memoirs, ed. Lord Albemarle, 2 vols. ♦Romilly (Sir S.). — Memoirs, 3 vols. ♦G. Rose. — Diaries and Correspondence, ed. Harcourt, 2 vols. G. Selwyn and His Contemporaries, by J. H. Jesse, 4 vols. ♦G. Selwyn. — Letters and Life', ed. Roscoe and Clergue. „ Title and Letters, 2 vols. Shelburne {Lord, Marquis of Lansdowne), Life of, by Lord E. Fitzmanrice, 3 vols. *R. B. Sheridan. — Speeches, 5 vols. • R. B. Sheridan, Life of, by W. F. Rae, 2 vols. „ „ by W. Sichel, 2 vols. *H. Walpole. — Memoirs of the Reign of George III., ed. Le iMarchant, 4 vol*. *W. Wilberforce. — Correspondence, 2 vols. W. Wilberforce, Life of, by R. and S. Wilberforce, 6 vols. * „ Private Papers of, ed. A. M. Wilberforce. ♦W. Windham. — Diary, ed. Mrs. Baring. * „ Speeches, ed. Amyot, 3 vols. ♦N. W. Wraxall (Sir). — Historical Memoirs of His Own Time, 4 vols. Historical MSS. Commission Reports (No. of Report in Roman figures, of the Appendices in numerals). — Dropmore Papers, 6 vols. Dartmouth MSS., si., 6; xiii., 4; xiv., 10; xv., vol. i. Rutland MSS., xii., 4 and 6; xiv., vol. 3. Kenyon MSS., xiv., 4. Carlisle MSS., xv., 6. Stopford-Sackville MSS., ix., 3 J xvi., 2 vols. Ailesbury MSS., xv., 7. Bagot MSS., x., 4. Bath MSS., xvi., xvii., 2 vols. Ancaster MSS., xvii., 1 vol. Charlemont MSS., xii., 10 ; xiii., 8. Lansdowne, ii., iii., iv., v., yi., with respective appendices. Leeds MSS., xi., 7. Tovmshend MSS., xi., 4. Round MSS., xiv., 9. Weston-Underwood MSS., x., i. Du Cane MSS., xvi., 2. Savile- Foljambe MSS., xv., 6. Lothian MSS., xvi., vol. L Abergavenny MSS., X. 6. Ketton MSS., xii. 9. Constitutional and Parliamentary History. For the Parliament of 1768-71 consult : ♦H. Cavendish. — Debates in the Unreported Parliament (with Journal of Fourth Duke of Bedford), ed, by J. 35 546 BIBLIOGRAPHY [1760- Wright. ThoBe shorthand notes were continued to 1774, but for 1771-74 have never been printed from B. M. MS. Egerton, 216-62. For general and other works see : — *J. Ahaon.— Political Register (1767-72), 11 vols. * „ History of the Late Minority. A. V. Dicey. — The Law of the Constitution, H. R. Fox-Bourne. — English Newspapers, vol. L C. B. Kent.— r;»« English Radicals. G. C. Lewis {Sir).— Essays on the Administration of Great Britain {17B3-1S30), T. E. May. — Constitutional History of England from 1760, 3 vols. *Revolution Society, The Correspondence of, London. S. and B. Webb. — English Local Government from the Revolution to tht Municipal Corporation Acts, 3 vols. (Invaluable and indispensable.) *J. Wilkes. — Complete Collection of Genuine Papers and Letters, London, 1767. * ,, Correspondence and Memoirs, ed. J. Almon, 6 vols. *C. WyyiXL— Political Papers, 3 vols. Military History The most useful general book is the Hon. Sir J. W. Fortescue, History of the British Army, vols. 3-6, which gives valuable information on authorities, MS. and printed. For the Peninsular War : Sir W. Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula (6 vols.), and C. W. C. Oman, History of the Peninsular War, are indispensable. Consult also . * The Diary of Sir J. Moore, ed. J. F. Maurice, 2 vols. A good bibliography of the extensive literature will lie found in C. M. H., ix., pp. 861-63, by Professor Oman. For the Waterloo campaign (bibliography in C. M. H., ix., pp. 876-77) consult especially: G. Chesney, Waterloo Lectures; F, von Clausewitz, Der Peldzug von 1816 (works, vol. 8); H. Houssaye, Waterloo; J. C. Ropes, The Campaign of Waterloo; and J. H. Rose, Life of Napoleon, vol. ii. The Dispatches of Wellington have been published : *Dispatches, ed. Col. Gurwood, 8 vols, j *Supplementary Dispatches, ed. by his son, 15 vols. Consult also: J. W. Fortescue, The County Lieutenancies and the Army. Naval History Consult the full bibliographies in C. M. H., vii., pp. 782; viii., pp. 821-26; ix., pp. 816-23. The following ♦volumes of the Navy Records Society are particularly useful: J. K. Laughton, Ojfficial Documents on Social Life; T. S. Jackson, Logs of the Great Sea Fights, 1794-1806; J. S. Corbett, Signals and Instructions, 1776-94; Lord Barham, Letters and Papers, 1768-1813; J. Leyland, Dispatches and Letters Relating to tht Blockade of Brest. Nelson's Dispatches and Letters have been published and edited by Sir H. Nicholas (7 vols.). Good general works are : — P. Coquelle. — La descente en Angleterre. E. Desbrifere.— Pfo;«te et Tentatives de debarquement aux ties Britanniaues (1793-1806), 6 vols. u La Campagne de Trafalgar. 1816] BIBLIOGRAPHY 547 A. T. Mahan. — The Influence of Sea Power during the Wars of the Revolu- tionary and Napoleonic Epoch, 2 vols. „ Life of Nelson (2nd ed.), 2 vols. J. K. Laughton, — Nelson. (See also article in D. N, B.) H. Newbolt.— r/ie Year of Trafalgar. J. R. Thursfield. — Trafalgar and Other Naval Studies. , Colonial History A. The American Colonies to 1783. — A full bibliography of the extensive literature will be found in C. M. H., vii., pp. 763-88. No less valuable and indispensable are : J. Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, vols. 6, 6, 7; The Reader's Handbook of the American Revolution; J. Lamed, The Literature of American History (a bibliographical guide, with supplement for 1900 and 1901 by Walls) ; J. N. James, The Literature of American History; M. C. Tyler, The Literary History of the American Revolution. In the Hist. MSS. Comm., the Dartmouth MSS., zi., 6; xiv., 10; the Shelburne MSS., v. ; the Stopford-Sackville MSS., xvi., vol. ii. ; and the Dorchester MSS. (Report on the American MSS. in the Royal Institution, 8 vols.) bear particularly on America. The most useful general works are : — G. Bancroft. — History of the United States, 6 vols, (the old view). E. Channing. — The United States of America, 1765-1865 (Camb. Hist. Series), J. Fiske. — The American Revolution, 2 vols. A. B. Hart. — American History told by Contemporaries, i vols. G. O. Trevelyan. — The American Revolution, 3 vols, (an English Fro-American view). F. S. Oliver. — Alexander Hamilton. C. H. Van Tyne. — The Loyalists in the American Revolution. The following biographies in the American Statesmen Series are very useful: Samuel Adams (J. K. Hormer), Alex. Hamilton (H. C. Lodge), Washington (H. C. Lodge), Jefferson (J. T. Moore), Franklin (J. T. Moore), Patrick Henry (M. C. Tyler), together with F. S. Oliver, Alex- ander Hamilton ; F. V. Greene, General Greene, and the standard Life of Washington, in 5 vols., by J. Marshall. B. The British Colonies and Dependencies. [Consult the bibliographies in C. M. H., iz., pp. 883-91, and z., pp. 871- 78, and the select list in H. £. Egerton, op. cit. infra.] The most useful general works are : — J. Bourinot — Canada under British Rule, 1760-1900. „ Manual of the Constitutional History of Canada. Brougham (Lord_). — The Colonial Policy of European Powers, 2 vols. G. Bryce. — History of the Hudson's Bay Company. *A. G. Doughty. — Constitutional Documents of Canada (1760-1791). B. Edwards. — History of British Colonies in the West Indies, 3 vols. H. E. Egerton. — A Short History of British Colonial Policy, 2nd ed. *H. E. Egerton and W. L. Grant. — Canadian Constitutional Development (selected original documents) 548 BIBLIOGRAPHY [1760- E. Jenks. — A History of the Australian Colonits. H. H. Johnston. — A History of the Colonisation of Africa. W. Kingsford. — History of Canada, 10 vols. P. Leroy Beaulieu. — De la Colonisation chez Us Peuples Modernes, 2 volt>. C. Lucas.— r/>« War of 1812, 2 vols. A. T. Mahan. — The War of 1812 in Its Relation to Sea-Power, 2 volg. G. M. Theal. — History of South Africa, fi vols. G. Zimmermann. — Die Europaischen Kolonien, S vols. India [For ivorka on Warren Hastings see Appendix.] The Rulers of India Series supplies useful short biographies (with select bibliographies) : Sir T. Munro, by J. Bradshaw ; Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan, by L. C. Bowring ; Mountstuart Blphinstone, by J. S. Cotton ; Ranjit Singh, by Sir Lepel Griffin ; Wellesley, by W. H. Hutton ; Sindhia, by H. G. Keene ; Marquess of Hastings, by Major Ross. See also the bibliography in C. M. H., iz., 883-86. The following are useful authorities : — *Cornwallis (Marquis). — Correspondence, 3 vols. *Fifth Report of Select Committee of House of Commons on the Bast India Com. pany, 1812. G. B. Malleson. — Final French Struggles in India. J. Malcolm, Sir.— TAe Political History of India, 1784-1823, 2 vols. *Teignmouth (Lord). — Life and Correspondence, 2 vols. ♦Wellington {Indian) Dispatches, ed. Gurwood, 5 vols. Economics and Finance For the Industrial Revolution consult the bibliographies in C. M. H., x., pp. 883-92, Cunningham and Mantoux, op. cit. supra; also articles in Pal- grave, Dictionary of Political Economy, 3 vols., and for the Labour Movement S. and B. Webb, History of Trade Unionism. The Webb MSS., collected by these last two authors, a very valuable collection of transcripts, pamphlets, etc., are in the British Library of Political Science, London School of Kcon- omics. J. R. MaccuUoch, The Literature of Political Economy (a classified catalogue, Loudon, 1846), is a valuable help. Of contemporary worki the following will probably be most useful to the student : — *W. Cohhoit.— Rural Rides (new ed., 1863). *F. M. Eden.— TAe State of the Poor, 1797. *T. R. Malthus. — A n Essay on the Principle of Population (1798 ; second edition, 1803). *W. Marshall.— TAi! Rural Economy of Norfolk (1787), Midland CoM»ri«s(1790), Southern Counties (1798). J. S. Nicholson. — A Project of Empire (a valuable exposition of Adam Smith). *D. Ricardo. — The High Price of Bullion, a Proof of Depreciation of Bank- notes (1809). Report on the High Price of Gold, Parlt. Reports, 1810. W. A. Shaw.— TAe History of Currency (1262-94). *A. Smith. — Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue, and Arms (1763), ed. by E, Cannan (1896i. 1816] BIBLIOGRAPHY o49 *J. Steuart. — An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy, 2 vols., 1767. *A. Young.— ToMrs in England, 5 vols., in Ireland, 2 vols. Of Secondary Authorities consult : — J. B. Bonar. — Malthas and His Work. E. Cannan. — A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in Eng- lish Political Economy from 1776-1848. L. Faucher. — Etudes sur VAngleterre, 2 vols. A. Held. — Zwei Biicher zur SociaUn Geschichte Englands. W. Hasbach. — Die Englischen Landarbeiter in den Letzten hundert Jahren und die Einhagungen. A. H. Johnson.— T/re Disappearance of the Small Landowner. H. Levy. — Enstehung und Ruckgang der Landwirthschaftlichen Grossbetuites. G. R. Porter. — Progress of the Nation. G. Slater. — The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields. W. Tooke. — A History of Prices and of the State of the Currency. A. Toynbee. — Lectures on the Industrial Revolution. *Abstract of the Answers and Returns to the Population Act, 41 Geo. III., 2 vols. , London, 1802. Political Thought, 1714-1816 The most useful general works are Leslie Stephen : A History of Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 2 vols. ; and the same writer's The English Utili- tarians, 3 vols, (particularly vols. 1 and 2). But the student can most profitably refer to the following * contemporary writers : — B. Beccaria. — Dei Delitte et delle Pene (1764, English translation), 2 vols., 1769. J. Bentham. — Works, ed. J. Bowring, 11 vols, (particularly, A Fragment on Government, ed. F. C. Montague ; The Introduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation ; Theorie des Peines et des Recompenses). G. Berkeley. — Works, ed. A. C. Eraser, 4 vols. W. Blackstone. — Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1766. Bolingbroke (Viscount). — Works, 9 vols, (particularly Dissertation upon Parties, The Idea of a Patriot King, Letters on the Study and Use of History). E. Burke. — 16 vols., 1826-27 (particularly Thoughts on the Present Discon- tents, Speeches on America, Reflections on the French Revolution, Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs). J. Cartwright. — Legislative Rights of the Commonalty Vindicated, 1777. De Lolme. — Constitution de VAngleterre, 1786. A. Ferguson. — Essay on the History of Civil Society, 1783. ,, Principles of Moral and Political Science, 1792. G. Filangieri. — La Scienza delta Legislazione, 1780. IVIary Godwin. — Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792. W. Godwin. — Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, 1796. D. Hwmfi.— Essays and Treatises (1768), ed. T. H. Green and T. H. Grose, 2 vols., 1876. W. Jones. — The Principles of Government (2nd ed.), 1797. 550 BIBLIOGRAPHY (1760 J. Mackintosh. — Vindiciat Gallicae, 1791. „ Discourse on the Law of Nature and Nations, 1799. T. R. Malthus. — Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798. C. de Montesquieu. — Esprit des Lois, 1748. T. Paine.— Common Sense, 1776 (Works, ed. by M. D, Conway, 4 vols., 1896). „ The Rights of Man, 1791. W. Paley. — The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, 2 vols., 1790. R. Price. — The Nature of Civil Liberty and the Principles of Government, 1776. J. Priestley. — Essay on the First Principles of Government, 1768. „ Letters to Burke, 1791. „ View of the Principles and Conduct of Dissenters, 1769. S. Romilly. — Memoirs, 3 vols., 1840. „ Speeches, 2 vols., 1820. S. Romilly on the Criminal Law, 1811. T. Spence. — The Nationalization of the Land, 1776. J. Swift.— WorAs, ed. Sir W. Scott, 19 vols. SUPPLEMENT Not*. — This supplement deals with books or articles since 1911, «.«. from 1911 to 1929, and therefore is additional in each section to the relevant section in the Bibliography that precedes. It is not a list of all books, documents, etc., on the eighteenth century which have appeared between 1911 and 1929, but of those which, in the writer's judgment, will be particularly helpful or bear on points dealt with in the text. Books or articles specified in the notes to the text or in the Appendices are not repeated here. Most of the books mentioned below have separate bibliographies of great value. ATLASES C.'G. Robertson and J. G. Bartholomew. — Historical Atlas of Modern Europe, 1789-1922. (With historical Introduction.) Ramsay Muirand G. Philip. — Historical Atlas, Medieval and Modern. (With historical Introduction 1928.) Vol. XII. of the Cambridge Modern History (1911) contains useful genea- logical tables, lists of officers, etc. , and a general Index. The Catalogue issued by H.M. Stationery Office gives complete in- formation about Govt. Publications, e.g. Hist. MSS. Commission Reports, etc. The two vols, of The Subject Catalogue of the London Library ought to be in every working Library. CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY AND POLITICAL THOUGHT Consult : A Short Bibliography of English Constitutional History by Helen M. Camm and A. S. Turberville (Hist. Association, 1929), D. J. Medley. — English Constitutional History (Revised ed. 1926). C. E. Vaughan. —S<«i»«s in History of Political Philosophy (2 vols. 1925). E. R. Turner — Privy Council and Cabinet in the XVIJth and XVII Ith Centurie* (1928). 1818] BIBLIOGRAPHY 661 J. A. FaTTM.—The Monarchy in Politics, 1760-1901 (1917). J. B. Scott.— The Armed Neutralities of 1780 and 1800 (1919). D. A. Winstanley. — Personal and Party Government (1913). K. G. Felling.—^ History of the Tory Party, 1640-1714. F. K. Brown. — Life of William Godwin. E. Hal6vy.— TA« Growth of Philosophic Radicalism (EngL trans.), 1776-1816. C. G. Robertson. — Select Documents on Constitutional History, 1660-1832, Fifth Rev. ed. 1928. BIOGRAPHIES, MEMOIRS, LETTERS, ETC. The Windham Papers (1760-1810). Countess Granville. — Correspondence of First Earl Granville, 1781-1821, 2 vols., 1916. M. Percival. — Political Ballads illustrating the Administration of Sir R. Walpole (1917). J. M. Robertson. — Bolingbroke and Walpole (1920). T. W. Riker.— Henry Fox, 1st Lord Holland (2 vols., 1913). Earl of Ilchester.— Hewo" Pox, 2 vols. (1920). Earl of Rosebery. — Chatham, his Early Life and Connections (1912). A. Greenwood. — Lives of the Hanoverian Queens of England, vol. it (com- pletes the woi-k mentioned in previous bibliography). Joseph Farrington's Diary, ed. J. Greig, 1792-1821, 8 vols. Memoirs of William Hickey, ed. A. Spencer, 1749-1809, 4 vols. C. Charteris. — Life of Duke of Cumbertand (1926). P. Yvon.— F»« d' Horace Walpole (1926). R. Cou^\a.nei.—Wilberforce (1924). Winifred Duke. — Lord George Murray and the Forty-Five (1927). Earl of Ilchester.— Lt/« of Sir Ch. H anbury -Williams (1928). G. M. Trevelyan. — Life of Charles, Second Earl Grey (Grey of the Reform Bill), 1920. British Diplomatic Instructions Sweden, 1689-1727 ; France, 1689-1721 and 1721-27 ; Denmark, 1689- 1789 : (vols. 32, 36, 36, 38 of Camden Series in Royal Hist. Soc. Publications. H. W. C. Davis.— r/s« Age of Grey and Peel (1929, Oxford Ford Lectures). FOREIGN AND POLITICAL HISTORY Consult Bibliography in Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, vol. i., and relevant articles in that volume ; R. A. Roberts, Guide to the Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports (1920) and the notes to the various chapters in the text C. K. Webster.— TAs Congress of Vienna (1918). „ British Diplomacy 1813-16. Select Documents (1922). 552 BIBLIOGRAPHY [1760-1816 Military and Naval History G. E. Manwaring. — A Bibliography of British Naval History (1929). (This bibliography is indispensable to all students of naval history.) Hon. Sir. J. W. Fortescue. — History of the British Army, vols. 8, 9 and 10 (1913-20). (The other volumes of this great vrork deal with events after 1815. „ Wellington, 1925. (A study by an expert.) Sir C. Oman. — History of the Peninsular War (completing the history). „ Wellington's Army, 1913. (Indispensable.) ,, Studies in the Napoleonic Wars, 1929. H. Belcher.— TAe First American Civil War. 2 vols. (1913). Navy Records Society (for details see Manwaring, op. cit,, above). G. Callender.— TAe Naval Side of British History (1925). Imperial and Colonial History Consult the Bibliography in Cambridge History of the British Empire, vol. i., 1929, particularly p. 839 for the references to Miss Davenport, Hist. MSS. Commission Report, xviii. , pp. 357-97. K. Hotblack. — Chatham's Colonial Policy (1917). M. E. Monckton-Jones. — Warren Hastings in Bengal (1918). L. Knowles. — Economic Development of the British Overseas Empire (1925). R. Coupland. — The Quebec Act — A Study in Statesmanship (1925). G. W. Forrest. — Lord Cornwallis, Introduction and Documents, 2 vols. (1926), Cambridge History of the British Empire, vol. 6 (devoted to India), 1929. The American Colonies are dealt with in Appendix XX. Economic and Social History G. O'Brien. — Economic History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (1918). M. Beer. — History of British Socialism, vol. i. (1919). W. L. M.aXh.\ason.— England in Transition, 1789-1832 (1921). „ The Awakening of Scotland, 1747-97 (1913). W. S,ma.ri.— Economic Annals, 1801-20 (1914). E. C. K. Gonner. — Common Lands and Enclosures (1913). H. W. Dickinson and Rhys Jenkins. — James Watt (Centenary Volume). The standard classical authority is now : B. and S. Webb, English Local Government from 1688-1836 — e.g. 1. The Parish and County ; 2. The Manor and the Borough ; 3. The King's Highway ; 4. Statutory Authorities ; 6. Prisons ; 6. Poor Law History (1913-27). ^dOTLAND DURING JACOBITE RISINGS OF 1715 AND 1745 Uui Kvttobar^ii Geographic A InSWuXf JuJai-UHrQinlnnuwJb StoxIitS. Motlinen & Co..Ltd..3H Essex Strcct,.Loii Kssc-x Streot.Londoti.W.C.:. Jtihii£ffl-tiiii,-ciioir i, S oniii NUKIH AMERICA, 1 7BiJ "Die Biinharglj iV.igrjjiliK^- Methupu & Co.Lid.,36 Essex Sti^et.Londoii.AS'C.: JimPRTlliuliTmeir ^ J^on Jli" INDEX ABERCROMBY, General, 134, 143, 144, 375, 380, 384, 391, 394, 396. Aberdeen, 24. Abolitionists, The, 354. Aboukir Bay, 384, 392, 415. Abraham, Plains of, 150, Acadia, 2,3; boundaries, 109, iii, 122; Braddock's expedition, 123; referred (((> 127, 129, 141-143. A'Court, Colonel, 232, Acre, 394. Acts of Parliament — Abolition of Hereditary Jurisdictions, 202. Abolition of Latin in Law Courts (1736), 19a* Abolition of Slave Trade, 423, Aliens, 360, 364. Army (1796), 502. Army of Reserve, 415 n. Appropriation (Irish), 201. Bill of Rights, 19, 160, 184, 347. Catholic Relief, 286. Consolidation of Customs and Excises, 31^ Constitutional (Canada), 362, 482, Corporation, 37, 190, 321. Declaratory, 244, 245, 25? > ^^^i 294< Disarming, 104, 202. Enclosures, 331, 332. Factories, 487. Forfeited Estates, 26. Fox's Libel, 194, 325. Gilbert's Poor Law, 354, 487. Habeas Corpus, Suspension of, 24, 45, 364, 367 n., 309, Indemnity, 190. India, 311, 312, 318, 353. Insurrection, 389. Jews, Nationalisation of, 117, 191. Macclesfield's (Calendar), 191. Marriage (Hardwicke's), 117, 19I1 35*^ Militia, 178, 192, 193, 503. Molasses, 213, 234. Mutiny, 165, 167, 179, i93. 294- Navigation, 5, 213, 262, 315. Non-Intercourse, 453, 455- Occasional Conformity, 191. Octennial (Irish), 283. Parliament Act, 27. Peerage, 37, 38. i67i 19°. 3S3. Permanent Additional Forces, 413. 5*5- Place, 88, 173. Playhouses, 192. Poyning's Law, 286, 294. Quebec (i774). 259i 260. 6S3 554 INDEX Acts of Parliament (continued) — Reform of the Calendar (1751), 117. Reform (1832), 174. Regency, 117, 167, 353, 443, 445. 446- Regulating (India), 288. Renunciation (1783), 294. Riot, 20, 21, 192, 193. Royal Marriage, 255, 323. Schism, 37, igo, 191. Seditious Meetings, 364. Sederunt (Scotch), 47. Septennial, 21, 26, 27, 88, 160, 169. Settlement, 19, 28, 160, 184, 185, 193. Six Acts, 453. South Sea, 38, 39, Stamp, 229, 233-238. Succession, 15. Supplementary Militia, 415 n,, 50a, Test, 37, 190, 198, 321. Treasonable Practices, 364. Triennial, 26. Turnpike, 334, 335. Volunteer Consolidation, 415 n., 503. Adam of Winteringham, 207. Adams, John, 258, 260, 272. Adams, Samuel, 235, 236, 244, 260. Addison, Joseph, 15, 31. Admiralty, referred to, 171, 177, 234, 235, 315, 365-367, 368, 375, 376, 381, 415 n« 453 n-, 505, 506. Africa, West, 2, 145. Agriculture, 65, 68, 203, 205, 330, 332, 365, 433, 433 n., 453, 479, 485. Agriculture, Board of, 330. Ahlden, Prisoner of, 18, 489. Aislabie, Chancellor of Exchequer, 31, 40. Albany, Congress of, 214. Albemarle, Earl of, 117, 226. Alberoni, Cardinal, 11, 22, 32, 34, 35, 77. Albuera, Battle of, 448. Alexander I., Emperor of Russia, 397, 429-450, 456, 463, 465, 472, 484. Alexandria, 384. Allen, Ethan, 268. " All the Talents," Ministry of, 422, 431 n., 439. Almeida, 447. Alsace and Lorraine, 371, 464, 472. Amboyna, 380, 479. Amelia, Princess, 66, 67, 445. America, British Settlements in, 2, 5, 41, 122-124, 126-129, 131, 134, 142-143, 147" 15I1 157. 158, zii, 223, 226, 233, 234-238. 2-^0. 260, 520. See aJso Canada. America, South, 424, 476. Amherst, Lord, 143, 149, 150, 152, 153. Amir of Afghanistan, 480, 481. Andr4, Major, 278 n. Andrfiossy, 408. Anglesea, Lord. 15, 20. Anglican Church, The, 23, 37, 56, 114, 163, 191, 198, 199, 200, 203, 207, 40a. Anne, Queen, i, 7, 8, 13, 15, 184. Anson, Lord, 108, 112, 132, 133, 135, 138, 146, 149, 225, 226, 494, 495. Anti-Jacobin, The, 410, Antwerp, 106, 439, Arcot, 121. 2go. INDEX 656 Areyle, Duke of, 23, 24. 74, 79, 83, 87. 203. Aikwright, Richard, 7, 333, 341, 485/' Armagh, Archbishop of, 404. Army (War Office etc.), 70 85, 88, 91, 92. 98, 104, 105, 109, 131. 141. 142, 152, 171. Arran, Earl of, 34 n., 45. Artois, Comte d', 371. Aspern, Battle of, 439. Assiento Concession, 10. Astorga, 437, 447. Atterbury, Dean, 15. 19, 31, 45, 163, ^64. Auckland, Lord, 316, 404, 404 n. Augustus II of Saxony- Poland, 17 n., 6s. Augustus III, 65. • / . 3 Aurora von Konigsmarck, 17 n. Austerlitz, Battle of, 419, 422, 443. Australia, 479. Austria, Relations with Great Britain, 2, 8, 9, 12, 21, 28. 33. 50, 62-64. 76, 89.92, ^gg-sl't ' ^°^' "*'"^' "9-'3i. 226, 359, 371-381. 392, 431. 466, 467, Avignon, 357. Aylesbury, 231. Badajoz, 447. 448, 450. Bahamas. The, 297. Baird, General, 396, 437, Bakewell, 7, 330. Baltic, The, British policy in, 13, 22, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 36. 47, sa Bangorian Controversy, The, 207, ■, »• ^ • 3 . 33, 3". 47. 50. Bank of England, The, 5, 45, loi, 376. Bantry Bay, 382. Barcelona, 435, 446, Barham, Lord, 415 n., 417, 505. Baring. F.. 443-44S. Barlow. Sir G.. 420. Barnard, T.. 70. Barrg, Col., 232. Barrington, Lord, 152, 223, 238, 277. Bairosa, 448. Bass, 479. Bastia, 378. Bastille, Fall of, 361. Batavian Republic, 378. Bathurst, Henry, 251, 451, 479. Bautzen, Battle of, 458. Bavaria, 93, 95, 126, 320, 458, 462. Beaus^jour Fort, 122, 128. Beckford, W., 254. Bedford, Duke of, 96, 117, 135, 201, 225, 226, 228, 230, 244, 330, 363, 495. Begums of Oudh, 290, 291, 317. Belgium. See Netherlands, Austrian. Belgrade, 32. 34. Belle Isle, 158, 223, 227. Benares, Rajah of, 317. Benavente, 437. [Bender, 13. Bentham, Jeremy, 6, 182, 218, 230, 348, 349, 350, 351, 484. Bentinck, Lord William, 461. 556 INDEX Beresford, John, 385, 386, 438, 448. Beresina, 456, 458. Berkeley, Bishop, 182, 201, 207. Beinadotte, Marshal, 436. Bernstorff, Hanoverian Minister, ig, 33, itj Berthier, Marshal, 467. Berwick, Marshal, 24, 34 n. Black, Joseph, 347. Black Hole, The, 154. Black Watch, The, 202. Blackstone, Sir W., i8g, 219, z2t, 229. Blake, 43s, 450. Blakeney Governor, 132. Blind Jack of Knaresborough, 335. " Bloomsbury Gang," The, 117, 244. Bliicher, Marshal, 467, 471. Board of Control, The, 481, Board of Trade, 180, 212, 316. Bohemia, 92, 143, 325. Bolingbroke, Viscount, 7, 8, 9, 15, 17, ig, 20, 24, 26, 34, 47, 72, 78, 79, 83, 87, 109, 116, 138, 161, 164, 166, 172, 182, 205, 219, 222, 341. Bolton, Duke of, 15, 6g. Bonaparte, Jerome, 423, 429, 435, 438, 446, 451. Bonaparte, Louis, 423, Bonaparte, Napoleon, Emperor, 3, 182, 321, 367, 370, 372, 377, 393, 394, 405, 406, 406 II., 408, 414-419, 423-425, 500; 506-508; First Consul, 395; Emperor, 410 ; relations to Peninsular War, 434-439, 443-449, 457-461 ; his Continental System, 430-434 ; abdication, 413, 460 | the Waterloo campaign, 468-471 j at St. Helena, 471, 472. Borodino, 456. Boroughs, Corrupt or Pocket, 71, 135, 172, 173, 198, igg, 386, 387, 485, Boscawen, Admiral, 121, 126, 127, 128, 143, 144, 146, 152, 153,516. Boston, 235, 245, 258, 259, 261, 267, 269. Bothmer, Hanoverian Minister, ig, 28, 33, 47. Bougainville, 151 n. Boulton, Archbishop, 46, 201, 334, 342. Boulton, Matthew, 7, 361. " Boy Patriots," The, 53, 71, 106, 135, Braddock, General, 127, 131. Bradley, Astronomer Royal, igi. Brandy- Wine Creek, 271. Braxfield, Lord, 352, 367. Brazil, 430, 434. Bremen, 13, 22, 28, 30, 36, 62. Brest, 112, 116, 131, 382. Bridgewater, Duke of, 335. Bridport, Admiral Lord, 375, 380, 382, 335. Brindley, James, 335. Bristol, Lord, 224, 493. British Museum, The, 117. " Broad Bottom Administration," The, 87, 88, gi, 94, 188. Broke, Captain, 460. Brueys, Admiral, 384. Bruix, Admiral, 395. Brunswick, Duke of, 358, 500. Brussels, 2, 467. Buckingham, Marquis of, 422, 498. Budget, The, 38, 54, 68, 136, 170, 171, 227, 313, 314, 325, 359, 376-377, Buenos Ayres, 424. INDEX 557 Bullion Committee, The, 348, 377, 444-443, Bunker's Hill, 268. Burdett, Sir F., 442. Burgh, Hussey, z86, Burgos, 451. Burgoyne, General, 226, 253, 208, 270, 271, 277, 509, 511. Burke, Edmund, referred to, 6, 107, 177, 182, 218, 232, 241 n., 242, 246, 276, 309, 349; enters Parliament, 239, 249; Paymaster-General, 283, 293, 297; his policy, 261, 266, 281, 282, 300, 306, 307, 317, 321-324,327, 350i35li366; his writings, 189, 222, 229, 247, 361-363, 381, Burkersdorf, Battle of, 226. Burney, Fanny, 192. Burrard, General, 435. Bussy, De, 154, 155, 493-494- Bute, Earl of, 119, 128, 134, 137, 145, 220, 230, 232, 238, 243, Butler, Bishop, r82, 207, 218. Buxar, 287. Buxton, Fowell, 423. Byng, Admiral, 33 ; (second admiral), 132, 133, 490, 5H- Cabinet and Cabinet System, 168, 170-172, 176, 183, 184, 184-190, 296, 310, 311, 325, 381, 403, 427, 428, 498-501, 508, 509. Cadogan, General, 37. Caermarthen. See Leeds, Duke ot Calcutta, 3, 480, 481. Calder, Sir R., 417. Calendar, Reform of, 191. Calvi, 378. Cambray, Congress of, 35, 47, 48. Cambridge, Duke of, 246. Camden, Lord, 6, 194, 233, 236, 241, 247. Camden, Lord, Viceroy of Ireland, 283, 351, 388, 389, 391, 441. Camperdown, Battle of, 384. Camperdown, Earl of, 370, 383, 384. Canada, 5, in, 112, 134. i42-i4S> 151. i57. 158, 215. 227, 233, 259, 260, 269, 273. 297, 326, 327, 456, 460, 461, 482, 509-511. Canning, George, 7, 12, 377, 442, 451. 463; his pohcy, 405. 41°, 425. 429.430. 430. 440, 445, 475, 488, 506-508 ; his character, 428, 429. Cape of Good Hope, 380, 383, 424, 474, 478-480. Capital and Capitalists, 5, 36, 116, 314, 340-342. Carelia, 36. Carleton, Sir Guy (Lord Dorchester), 149, 260, 269, 27a Carlsbad Decrees, 463. Carnatic, The, 288, 290. Carnwath, Lord, 24, 26. 1 ,• • , • a o Caroline, Queen (wife of George IL), her character and political mfluence, 11, IS, 44. 57. 58. 59, 65, 73-75, 166. 207. Caroline, Princess of Burnswick-Wolfenbuttel, 423. Carraciolo, 393, 504. 505- Carrero Porto, 30 n., 32. Carrickfergus, 153. Cartoet"(Earl Gr'anviUe), his policy and career, 35. 42. 47, 58. 72. 91-95. 96. 97. 109, no, 126, 131, 132, 135. 136. 188, 201, 228, 494, 495- Cartwright, H., 333. Cases — Atmon's, 255. Asaph, Dean of St., 35»' Bushell's, 193- Entinck v. Carringion, 194, 233. 558 INDEX Cases {continued) — Leach v. Money, 233. Rex V. Broadfoot, 178. Rex V. Tubbs, 178, 194. Somerset's, 351. Stockdale v. Hansard, igi, Wilkes V. Wood, 232. Woodfall, 351. Castleieagh (Viscount), his character and policy, 7, 12, 309, 353, 377, 402, 403, 411, 428, 436, 440, 442, 444, 452, 465, 472, 474, 475, 476, 488, 505, 507, Catherine II., Tsarina of Russia, 243, 257, 319, 326, 327, 379, 392. Cattaro, 461. Cavendish, Lord John, 276, 283, 297, 299. Cavendish, William, 347. Cellamare's Conspiracy, 30 n., 33, 34, Ceylon, 380, 406, 421, 474, 480, Chanda Sahib, 120, 121. Charlemont, Earl, 285, 315, 403. Charleroi, 4G7, 468, Charles, Archduke, 393. Charles Edward, Prince, 7, 9, 52, 60, 98, 99, 100-104, 217. Charles III. (Don Carlos), 11, 32, 92, 157; 224, 225. Charles IV., 434. Charles VI., Emperor, position and policy, 10, 11, 21, 28, 32, 48, 49, 58, 61, 62. 63, 75. 82. Charles VII., Emperor, 8g, go, 91, 94, 105. Charles XII., of Sweden, 13, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36. Charles XIII., 436. Charleston, 258, 270, 278. Charlotte, Queen (wife of George III.), 220, 445. Charlotte, Princess, 423. Chatham, William Pitt, Earl oi, his political career and policy, 61, 69 n., 70, 71, 87, 92, 94, log, 116, 118, 119, 120, 135, 138, 141, 142, 157, 158, 173, 188, 189, 190, 215, 218, 223, 226, 229, 232, 236, 238, 239, 240, 244, 247, 253, 260, 266, 267, 269, 272, 273, 285, 288, 304, 309, 351, 495 ; his character, 139-141 ; his system, 145-149, 152, 157, IS8, 242-244, 249, 261. Chatham, Second Earl of, 405, 413, 439. Chatterton, Poems of, 229. Chauvelin, 359, 360. Chesapeake affair, The, 454. Chesterfield, Philip, Earl of, 44, 54, 65, 69, 71, 87, 96, 108, 109, 117, 136, 139, 140, 143, 145 n., 173, 192, 196, 201; his writings and letters, 140 n., 164 n., i6e. Chevalier de St George. See James Edward. Chippewa, 456. Choiseul, Duke of, 114, I4g, 153, 224-226, 256, 257. Cisalpine, Republic, 393, 4og. Ciudad Rodrigo, 447, 448, 450, 451, 457. Civil List, The, 57, 67, 72, 166, 171, 177, 194, 219, 248, 252, 285, 300, 323. Clare, Lord, 198, 385, 387, 388, 400. Clarke, Mrs., 440, 442. Clarke, Samuel, 207. Clarkson, H., 7, 310, 321, 322, 349, 423. Clavering, General, 152. Clerk, John of Eldin, 347. Clinton, General, 268, 271, 276, 277, 278, 280. Clive, Robert, Lord, character and career, 7, 120, 121, 146, 154, 155, 156, 229, 287, 288, 318, 420. Coalition, The First, 371, 499. The Second, 392, 499, ioa. INDEX 569 Coalition, The Third, 413. The Fourth, 456, 458, Cobbett, W., 442. Cobham, Lord, 35, 69, 71, 87. Coburg, Duke of, 377, 378. Cochrane, Admiral, 438. Cockburn, Lord, 365, 443. Coke of Holkham, 7, 330. Coleridge, S. T., 218. CoUingwood, Admiral, 417, 418, 435, 438. Collins, A,, 207, 479, Colonies and Colonial System, 2, 4, 64, 71, 78, 81, 8g, 106, 108-115, 120-124, 141, 145, i53i 154-157. 170. 180, 233-238, 239-241, 272-283, 287, 297, 298, 316, 326, 406, 407, 461, 465-478, 479. Commerce and commercial classes, influence and importance of, 2, 5 n., 9, 13, 21, 22, 48, 50, 80, 81, 132, 134, 278, 307, 314, 322, 406; in relation to foreign policy, 157, 158, 204, 206, 207, 212-213, 213-215 ; colonial problems of, 233-239, 873, 316, 335-356, 430-434. 453- Compton, Sir Spencer (Lord Wilmington), 57, 58. Confederation of the Rhine, The, 407. Consolidated Fund, The, 177, 314. Constitutional Information, Society for, 363. Contades, Marshal, 144, 151. Continental Congress, 260, 267, 268, 270, Continental System, The, 430, 431, 454, 455, 476-477' Conventions of — Alkmaar, 394, Anglo-Hessian, 127, 128, Anglo-Prussian, 143. Cintra, 435. Erfurt, 436, 443. Kiel, 462. Klein-Schnellendorf, gi. Klosterseven, 142. Fardo, 61, 78, 491. Reichenbach, 326, 387. Sistova, 326. Tauroggen, 456. Westminster, 129, 131, 139. Worms, 93. Convocation, 208. Conway, Sir H. S., 232, 238, 241, 242, 245, 266, 283. Cook, Captain, 151, 229, 517. Coote, Sir Eyre, 156, 290. • Copenhagen, 397, 429, 430. Cornwallis, Admiral, 375, 376, 380, 410 n. Cornwallis, Marquis of, 278-280, 318, 319, 391, 398. 401, 403, 405, 420, 498. Corruption, Parliamentary, 53, 67, 68, 121, 173, 199. 203. «27. «8r, 393, 312, 313, 401, 402, 485, 486. Corsica, 256, 378, 381. Corunna, 34, 437- Cotton, Sir J., 96, 100. Cowley, Henry, Lord, 399. Cowper, Earl, 15, 18, 45. Craftsman, The, 49, 52 i72. Craggs, J., 40. Cranage, The Brothers, 333. CrawBhavirs, The, of Merthyr Tydvil, 343. Crefeld, Battle of, 144- .660 INDEX Criminal Code, The, 484, 485. Ciompton's mule, 333, Crosby, Lord Mayor, 255. Crown, The, its place and influence, 165, 166, 167, 170, 171, 175, 176, 178, 193, 211-216, Z20, 221, 230, 248, 281, 282, 294, 296, 310, 311, 324, 323-325, 426, 427, 483. Crown and Anchor Association, The, 366. Crown Point, 149, 150, 268, 270. Cuesta, General, 435. Culloden, 7, 34, 104. Cumberland, Duke of, 97, 98, 100, 103-105, 107, 108, 117, 119, 123, 131, 133 u., 136, 137. MI. 142. Z38. 239- Cumberland, Foit, 128, Cura(oa, 397. O'AcHE, Commander, 14a, 156, Dalhousie, Marquis of, 288, 400, Dalmatia, 461, Danton, 359, 373. Darbys, The, of Coalbrookdale, 333, 346. Darlington, Countess of, 18, 47. Dartmouth, Earl of, 251 n., 259. Dashwood, Sir F., 225, 230. Davy, Humphrey, 347. Deane, Silas, 272, Deccan, The, 290. De Crillon, 295. Defenderism, 388, 389. De Grasse, French Admiral, 274, 280, 496. De Guichen, French Admiral. 278. Deist Controversy, 182, 207. Delhi, 419, 420, 481. Demerara, 380, 474. D'Enghien, due, 416. Denmark, 12, 22, 29, 36, 49, 50, 279, 320, 321, 325, 396, 397, 429-431, 462, 472, 506- 508. D'Erlon, 468-470. Derwentwater, Lord, 24, 26. D'Estaing, Admiral, 274, 276, 277. D'Estr^es, General, 141. Detroit, 456. Dettingen, Battle of, 58. De Vaudreuil, Governor, 124, 126. Devonshire, Duke of, 15, 31, 135, 136, 146, 227, Dinwiddy, Governor, 122, 123, 214. Directory, The, 383, 384. Don Carlos, 33 n. 48, 49, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66', 75. See also Charles IIX, Don Philip, 65, 66. D'Orvilliers, 274, 277. " Double marriage project," 66, 67, 492. Douglas, J. Bishop of Salisbury, 220, 223. Dowdeswell, H., 238, 351. Drama, Censorship of, 192. Drapier's Letters, 45, 46. Dubois, Abb*, 29, 34, 45, 47. Duckworth, Admiral, 424. Dumouriez, General, 359. Dundas H. (Lord Melville), 203, 308, 310, 31a, 318, 322, 323, 375, 376, 380, 405, 411, 421, 422, 498-501. INDEX 661 Dungannon, Convention at, 295. Dunkirk, g, 12, 21, 99, 108, 227, 377. Dunning, H. (Lord Ashburton), 266, 280, 281, 282, 283, 293, 427. Dupleix, 112, 114, 120, 121. Duquesne Fort, 122, 127. East India Company, 3, 112, 113, 258, 287, 288, 300, 302, 311, 312, 315, 318, 398, 419-421, 480, 481. Eastern Question, The, 327, 328, 476. Economic Reform, 5, 6, 293, 306, 307, 338, 486, 487. Edinburgh Review, 442. Egremont, Lord, 225, 228, Egypt. 384. 396. 397. 406. 409, 424. 476- Elba, 407, 460, 466. Eldon, Lord, 6, 352, 354, 405, 411, 427, 428, 451, 476, 483, 484 d. Elizabeth the Tsarina, 127, 129, 130, 141. Ellenborough, Lord, 422, 484. Elliott, Sir G., 277, 295. Elphinstone, Mountstuart, 421, 480, Emmet, R., 390. Enclosures, 205, 329-332, 339, 343. Erskine, Lord, 6, 350, 351, 363, 369, 422. Estates-General, 233, 328. Eugene, Prince, 8, 32. Evangelicals, 208. Excise schemes, 45, 46, 54, 68, 69, 74, 227, 239, 313, 314. Eylau, Battle of, 429. Factory legislation, 487. Falkirk, 34, 102. Family Compacts, 66, 242, 327, 491-493, 507. Farmer's Letters, 244 Farnese, Elizabeth, Queen of Spain, 10, 11, 32, 35, 48, 49, 50, 58, 63, 64, 75, 77. Ferdinand III. (Spain), 11. Ferdinand IV., 473. Ferdinand VI., 157, 392. Ferdinand VII., 434, 473- Ferdinand (Naples), 396, 423. Ferdinand of Brunswick, 143, 144, 151, 152. 223. 226. Filmer, Doctrine of, 163, 164. Finance, Schemes and policy, 38-40, 48, 54, 70, 71 n., 116, 117, 170, 244, 232, 255. 273. 306, 314- Finland, 325, 472, 473- Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, 386, 390. Fitzgerald, Thomas, 391. Fitzherbert, Mrs., 323. Fitzwilliam, Earl, 363, 372, 406, 422, 426, 498. Flanders, 8, 92, 95, 97. 98, 106, 107, 125. Fleet, Parsons of the, 191. Fleury, Cardinal, 50, 64, 75, 90. 98, 99- Flood, Henry, 284-286, 294, 315. Florida, 81. Florida Blanca, 326. Fontainebleau, 227. Fontenoy, Battle of, 17 n., 97, 98, 151. Forbes, Duncan, of Culloden, 98, 99, 104, 105, 143, 144. 203. Forde, Col., 156. Forster, 9, 24-26. Fox, Charles James, character and policy, 256, 266, 272, 275, 276, 281, 294, 299, 300- 36 562 INDEX 302, 304, 305, 307, 309, 312, 313, 316, 317, 321-325, 327. 3Sli 352. 3»i. 3661 368-370, 372 n., 423-426, 488, 499; relations with George III., 250, *04, 299, 385, 404, 411 ; referred to, 138, 250, 296, 310, 353, 443- " Frame-making" Riots, 453. France, relations with Great Britain, i, 3, 4, 8-11, 21, 29, 33, 35, 4i> 42. 47> 49, 5°! 62-64, 76, 81, 93, 94, 97, 98, 100, 107, 108, 112-114, 120, 121, 122-129, 130-134, 143-145, 153, 156, 223, 224, 226-228, 238, 243, 274-285, 290, 316, 317, 319-321. 357-387. 392. 393. 394-397. 405-410. 412-419, 423-425. 429-44°. 443. 444. 446- 451. 455-478. 498-501. Francis I., Emperor, 76, 89, 105, 106. Francis, Sir Philip, 291, 292, 317, 495, 496. Franklin, Benjamin, 123, 214, 235, 237, 259, 272, 295. Frederick, Prince ofWales, 59, 60, 72, 79, 83, 95, 116, 492. Frederick the Great, 60-67, 82-92, 93-95, 106, 115, 124-126, 130, 143-145, 223, 226, 243, 257. 319, 376. Frederick William II., 320, 327, 371. Frederick William III., 465, 484. Frederikshall, 33. Freedom ot speech, i6g, 364, 365, 367. French Revolution, The, 8, 174, 182, 210, 308, 328, 357-407. Friedland, Battle of, 429. Friends of the People, 363. Frontenac Fort, 144. Fry, Elizabeth, 349, 485. Fuentes, Spanish Minister, 158, 224. 447. 448, 493, 494. Fiirstenbund, The, 320. Gaekwar, The, 290, 419. Gage, General, 259, 268, 269. Gainsborough, 229. Gambler, Lord, 438, 507, 508. Gamonal, 436. Ganteaume, Admiral, 417. Gaspee, Burning of, 258. Gates, General, 271, 278. Gay and the Beggar's Opera, 45< General Warrants, 232, 233. Genoa, 393, 461, 473. George I., his accession and its results, i, 9, 10, 15, 16, 55, 56 ; character and policy, 13, 16, 17, 21, 28, 29, 30, 36, 37, 42, 47, 55, 56, 489, 490. George II., as Prince of Wales, 18, 28, 37, 44, 45 ; character and policy as king, 58, 60, 63, 72, 84, 95, 106, 107, 118, 119, 127, 135, 137. 138. 139, 141. H6, 158. 159, 165, 188. ^ George III., heir to the throne, 47, 73, 134, 135 ; relations with his ministers, 140, 145, 2i8, 219, 227, 238, 240, 251, 252, 283, 284, 298, 299, 300, 301, 303-305, 310, 311, 325, 385, 404, 411,422, 427, 509; his character and system of policy, 159, 166, 194, 217-219, 220, 221, 222, 230, 231, 243, 244, 246, 249, 251- 254, 259, 262, 265, 269, 274, 281, 321,322, 360, 361, 395, 404, 500, 507, 508, 509. Georgia, 211, Germain, Lord George. See Sackville, Viscount Germanstown, 271. Gerona, 435. Ghent, 161, 467. Gibbon, E., 164, 208, 218, 230. Gibraltar, 2, 9, 10, 11, 33, 49, 50, 61, 63, 131, 133, 269, 277, 278, 297. Gifford, H., 442. Gilbert's Acts, 361. Gillray, 363. Glasgow University, 334. INDEX 563 Glenthiel, 34. Gloucester, Duke of, 277, Gneisenau, General von, 469, 470, 473. Godoy, Prince, 371, 434. Goldsmith, Oliver, 229, 250. Gordon, Lord George, 282, Gordon of GlenbucKet, 25. Goree, 145, 297. Gdrtz, Swedish Minister, 30, 32, 34. Giirz, Hanoverian Minister, 19. Gower, Lord, 96, 135, 244, 276, 283, 302. Grafton, Duke of, 189, 226, 238, 241, 242, 247, 256, 266, 276, 281, 283, 495. Graham, General (Lord Lynedoch), 447, 457. Granby, Marquis of, 245, 247. Granville, EarL See Carteret. Grattan, Henry, 197, 218, 285, 294, 309, 315, 316, 386, 388, 493. Graves, Admiral, Sit T., 280, 496, 497. Greene, General, 280. Grenada, 227, 277. Grenville, George, character and political career of, 87, 96, 118, 120, 129, 135, 137, 223, 225, 230, 231, 233, 234, 252. Grenville, Thomas, 295. Grenville, William, Lord, 310, 327, 359-361, 368 n., 375, 379, 395, 405, 406, 410, 422, 44S, 498-501. Grey, Charles (Earl), 309, 363, 369, 442, 443, 445, 451. Gnmaldi, 35, 149, 224, 226, 243, 256, 493, 494. Grouchy, Marshal, 382, 469, 47a, Grumbkow, 67, 493, Guadeloupe, 379. Gustavus IIL, 325, 326, Gustavus IV., 436. Gwalior, 290. Gyllenborg, Swedish Ambassador, 30, Haidar Ali, 288-290, 318. Halifax, Earl of, 225, 228, 231, Hamilton, Lady, 392, 504, 505. Hanover and Hanoverianism, influence on British policy, i, 13, 21-23, 28-30, 35, 36, 49. 55. 56, 62, 63, 66, 67, 89-95, 109, no, 125, 127, 136, 141, 142, 165, 320, 478. Harcourt, Lord, 285, 378. Hardenberg, 450, 463. Hardwicke, Earl of, Lord Chancellor, 83, 86, 87, 92, 96, log, no, 116, 117, 131, 132, 135. 137. 138. 146, 189, 190, 191, 192, 494. Hardy and Home Tooke, 363, 365, 390. Hargreave, inventor, 229, 233. Harley, Robert. See Oxford, Earl at Harrington, Lord, 64, 65, 87, 96, 107. Harris, Sir J. See Malmesbuty, Earl o£ HaiTOwby, Lord, 411. Hastenbeck, Reverse at, 141. Hastings, Warren, 7, 218, 254, 300, 420, 421, 481; his career in India, 288-293; impeachment and achievements, 317, 318, 497, 498. Hawke, Admiral Lord, 95, 108, 127, 128, 133, 142, 146, 152, 153, 156. Hawkesbury, Lord. See Liverpool, Marquis of. Hawley, General, 102. Heathfield, Lord. See Elliott, Sir G. Heligoland, 462, 474, 478. Helvetic Confederation, 409, 473. Henry, Patrick, 235, 336. 564 INDEX Hervey, John, Lord, 42, 59, 68, 166. Hesse, Relations with Great Britain, 49, I20, 127, 128, 132, 133, 147, 15a. Highlands, The, 23, 26, 202. Hill, General, Lord, 450, 451, 459. Hillsborough, Lord, 231, 244, 251 n. Hoadley, Bishop, 190, 207, Hobart, Lord, 405, 479. Hoche, General, 367, 377, 380, 382, 390. Hochkircb, 145. Hofer, 371. Hohenlinden, Battle of, 395. Holdernesse, Lord, 117, 135, 138, 223. Holkar, 398, 419, 420. Holland, Henry Fox, Lord, his political career, 107, 118, 119, 123, 124, 129, 131, i33i 134. 135. 137. i79i 192, 227; referred to, 4, 69 n., 87, 117, 145, 173, 188. 190, 218, 238, 296. Holland, Henry Vassall Fox, Lord, 309, 441 n., 442, 443, 444 n., 445, 484 n, Holland House, 370, 442, Holy Alliance, The, 472, 475. Hondschoote, 377. Honduras, 157, 158, 297. Hood, Admiral Lord, 282, 283, 375, 377, 378, 496, 497. Horner, Francis, 397, 442, 443, 444. Horton, Mrs., Z46. Hotham, Sir C, 375, 379, 380, 492. Hougomont, 469. Howard, John, 349, 354, 485. Howe, Admiral Lord, 143, 144, 269, 270, 274, 277, 295, 326, 375, 378, 383, 496. Howe, General Sir W., 253, 268, 269, 270, 271, 309-511, Hudson Bay Company, 2, 3, in, 482. Hughes, Sir E., 290. Humbert, General, 390. Hume, David, 6, 182, 210. Huskisson, W, , 444, 445. Hutcheson, S., 182, 201. Hutchinson, Governor, 245, 258, 259, Ile de Bourbon, 461. Impeachments, 168, 181, 184, 317, 318, India, British settlements and policy in, 3, 48, 106, 108, r;i, iig, 120, 121, 141-143, 1S4-157. 1561 158, 241, 243, 263, 273, 287, 288, 288-298, 300-302, 306-309, 311- 312. 397-400. 419-421, 479> 497. 498. Indies, The West, 2, 82, in, 141-143, 152, 157, 223, 273, 274, 277, 278, 297, 373, 379, 380, 397. 406, 417- Industrial Revolution, The characteristics of, 2, 5, 6, 61, 204, 205, 229, 306, 329-332, 334. 335-339. 340-356, 365. 485 519. Inventions and inventors, 5-7, 333-335. Ionian Islands, 381, 393, 439, 480. Ireland, British policy in, i, 7, 15, 45, 46, 195-197, 198-201, 241, 243, 263, 264, 269, 306, 324, 373, 409, 498. Islay, Lord, 24, 47, 166, 203. Italy, Relations with Great Britain, 11, ai, 22, 32, 48, 49, 62, 63, 65, 75, 76, 89-95, 108, 126, 380, 393, 406, 461, 473, 475, 501. Jacobins and Jacobinism, 370, 389, 453, 462, 465, 483, 484, 486, 500, 529. Jacobites and Jacobitism, in Scotland, 8, 19, 23-26, 41, 46, 47, 52, 74, 93, 96, 98-105; in England, 30, 32, 33, 39, 45- Jamaica, 2, 380, James Edward, Prince, " The Old Pretender," 19, 20, 23-26, 29, 34, 35, 52, INDEX 565 Jaasy, Peace of, 337, Java, 461, 479. Jefferson, President, 454. Jemappes, Battle of, 359. Jena, Battle of, 379, 443, 458, 300. Jenkins, Captain, 64, 78, 490, 491. Jervis, Sir J. See St. Vincent, Earl. Johnson, Samuel, 164, 248, 250, 349, 356. Joseph 11., Emperor, 243, 319-321, 325, 326. Josephine, Empress, 449. Jourdan, Marshal, 377, 393, 438, 457. Judciary, The, 168, 192, 193, 194. Junius, Junius's Letters, 52, 78, 239, 247, 255, 292, 351, 495, itsft. Juniot, Marshal, 430, 434, 435, 436. Kaunitz, Imperial Chancellor, 115, 125, 126, 130, Keene, Sir B., 66. Keith, Jamas, 33, 34, 501. Kempenfelt, Admiral, 155, 496. Kendal, Duchess of, 18, 28, 44, 45, 46, 52. Kenmuie, Lord, 24, 26. Kenyon, Chief Justice, 352, 365 n. Keppel, Admiral, 223, 274, 283, 297, 299. Kilmansegge, Countess of, 18. " King's Friends," The, 164, 221, 222, 239, 240, 252, a6i, 307, 310, 437. KoUin, Battle of, 143. Konigsmaick, Count von, 17, 489. Kunersdorf, Battle of, 151. La Bourdonnais, 113. " Lady Huntingdon's Connection," 209. Lafayette, Marquis de, 272, Lagos, 152, 153. La Haye Sainte, 470, Lake, General, 390, 419. La Salle, iii, 112. Lauderdale, Lord, 363, 424, 443. Law, James, 38, Law, William, 207, 209. Lawrence, Stringer, 113, Le Boeuf Fort, 122. Leczynski, Stanislas, 65, 76. Leeds, Duke of (Lord Caermarthen), 302, 319, 320, 327. Legge, R., 118, 120, 129. 135, 137, 138, 223. Leibnitz, 182. Leicester House, 44, 57, 59p 83, 87, 116, 119, 134, 136, 137, 139, 146, iji. Leipzig, Battle of, 443, 458. Lennox, Lady Sarah, 220 n. Leopold n., Emperor, 357. Leuthen, Battle of, 143, 148. Lexington, Battle of, 229, 261, 263, 264. Li^ge, 467, 472. Liegnitz, 152. Lightfoot, Hannah, 220 n. Ligny, Battle of, 468, 471. Ligonier, Field Marshal, 106, 131, 132, 146, 494. Ligurian Republic, 409, 416. Linois, Admiral, 397. Liverpool, Marquis of (Lord Hawkesbury), 117, 405, 411, 427, 442, 451, 472. 566 INDEX Livonia, 13, 36. "Lloyds," 347. Lobau, Battle at, 470. Loch Alsh, 34, Lochiel, 24, gg, 104. Locke, John, political philosopher, xGi. See references under Whiggism, London Correspondence Society, 363, 364. Lorraine, g, 21, 76, 77, 371. Loughborough, Lord, 258, 259, 352, 363, 404, 405. Louis XIV., 5, 8, 9, 10, 23, 24, 388. Louis XV., 65, gg, i2g, Louis XVI., 359, 360. Louis XVIII., 460, 465, 471, 474. Louisburg, g8, 108, 122, 143, 144. Louisiana, iii, 228. Lovat, Lord, 24, gg, 105. Lowe, Sir H., 472. " Luddites," The, 453. Luttrell, Colonel, 121 n., 246. Liitzen, Battle of, 458. Lyttleton, Oeorge, Lord, 71, 87, g6, 116, 118, 135, 137 a> Macclesfield, Lord, 51. Macdonald, Flora, 104, Mack, General, 3g2, 419. Mackintosh, Sir J., 362. Mackintosh, W., Jacobite leader, 25, 26. Macquarrie, Governor, 47g. Madeira, 397. Madison, President, 454, 455, 461. Madras, 3, 106, 112, 155, 479. Madrid, g, 23, 30 n., 48, 49, 50, 435, 437. Maestricht, 108, Mahi, 113, 290. Mahrattas, The, 113, 189, 190, 319, 398, 399, 419, 479, Maine, Duke of, 32. Malcolm, Sir J., 398, 421. Malmesbury, Earl of, 378, 381, 383. Malta, 384, 3g2, 3g3, 3g7, 406, 407, 409, 410, 474, 478, 480. Malthus, 218, 336, 340. Manila, Capture of, 226. Mansfield, fearl of, 87, 106, 107, 118, 119, 134, I3g, 142, 247, 255, 351, Mantua, 380. Mar, Earl of, 24, 26, 45 n., 52. Marchmont, Lord, 164. Marengo, Battle of, 395, 396, 443, 500. Maret (Due de Bassano), 360, 361. Maria Theresa, Empress, 11, 48, 4g, 8g, gi, 92, 93, 115, 124, 125, 126, 131, 157, 243, 326. Marie Galante, 379. Marie Louise, Empress of the French, 449, 460, 473. Marlborough (first duke of), 8, 10, 15, 18, 19, 21, 43, Marlborough (second duke of), 119, 144, 145. Marmont, Marshal, 448, 450, 451, Martinique, 226, 379, 417. Massachusetts, 212, 259, 261, Mass6na, Ma«shal, 394, 395, 446, 447, 448. Matthews, Admiral, 92, 95. Mauduit, pamphleteer, 222. INDEX 567 Mauritius, 113, 156, 398, 421, 461, 465, 474, 478, 479, 480. Mecklenburg, 30, 62. Melbourne, 309, 427. Melville, Lord. See Dundas, H. Mercantilism, 5, 54, 237, 316, 317, 347. Metcalfe, Sir C, 421, 481. Methodism and Methodists, 208-211, 264. Metternich, Prince, 439, 441, 449, 456, 457, 461, 463, 464-466, 472, 501. Minden, Battle of, 5, 148, 249, 151. Minorca, 2, 9, xo, 11, 40, 49, 131, 132, 133, 136, 227, 269, 278, 280, 282, 297, 393, 407, 514. Minto, Earl of, 360 n, 363, 482^ Miquelon, 378. Mir Jafar, 154, 155. Mirabeau, Marquis de, 52, 349. Mirepoix, Marquis de, 126, 128. Missiessy, Admiral, 417, Mist's journal, i6g. Modena, 473, 501. Moira, Lord (Marquis of Hastings), 322, 375, 377, 391, 422, 442, 44S, 479. Molyneux, Irish pamphleteer, 201. Montcalm, Marquis de, 114, 134, 142, 144, 151, Montesquieu, r6i, 193. Monte Video, 424. Montreal, Capture of, 112, 153. Moore, Sir J., 386, 413, 415 n., 436, 437. Moreau, General, 395, Morellet, Abb£, 349. Moscow, Expedition of Napoleon to, 443, 456. Munro, Sir T., 287, 421, 479. Murat (King Joachim I.), 396, 434, 435, 436, 461, 462, 467. Murray of Broughton, 99, 105. Murray, General, 158, i6g. Murray, Lord George, 34, 69 n., 102, 104. Murray, William. See Mansfield, Earl of. Mysore, 318, 319, 419. Namur, 106. Nanda Kumar, 291. Napier, Sir C, 220 n. Napier, Sir G., 220 n. Napier, Sir W.i 448, 459. Naples, 10, 65, 75, 380, 392, 393, 419, 439, 492, 501, 504, 505. Narva, 32. National debt, The origin and growth of, 5, 38-40, 70, 71, 88, 109, 115, 223, 228, 273, 306, 308, 336, 376, 407, 453 n. Nautical almanac, The, 347. Navigation laws, The, 123, 233, 234. Nawab of Bengal, The, 154, 155, 286, 287, 398, 399. Necessity Fort, 122. Neerwinden, 16. Nelson Vicount, 7, 147. 376, 378, 382, 384, 383, 393, 394, 395. 396, 397. 4^2. 4^3. 414, 418, 422, 496, 504, 503. Netherlands, The Austrian (Belgium), 12, 97, 98, 109, 359, 377, 406, 464, 472, 475. Netherlands, The United (Holland), i, 5, 8, g, 12, 21, 28, 29, 33, 4g, 62, 79, 90, 97, 107-109, 155, 243. 273. 279, 297, 320, 321, 325-327. 359. 381, 383. 406, 416, 423. 431. 458, 464. 472, 475- Newcastle, Duke ot, his character and policy, 47, 54, 57, 72, 79, 84, 87, 119, 123, 124, 126, 129, 131, 133 n., 135, 138, 145, 146, 178, 225, 238; referred to, 44, 92, 109, no, 116, 117, 139-141. 146, 188, 224, 491-493. 523-527. 568 INDEX Newfoundland, 2, iii, 157, 324, 227, 228, 297. New Orleans, iii, 461. New South Wales, 479. Newton, Sir Isaac, 46. Ney, Marshal, 406, 468, 470, Niagara, Battle at, 456. Nithsdale, Earl of, 24, 26. Nizam, The, 290, 319, 398, 399, 419. Nonconformists, The, 37, 52, 56, 162, 191, 203, 315, 361, 362, 386, 387, 400, 402, Nootka Sound, AfTair of, 326. Nonis, Admiral, 22, 34, 35, 36 ; (the second admiral), 99. North, Lord, character and policy, 245, 251, 254, 255, 256, 257, 259, 261, 263, 265, 269, 281, 285, 288, 299, 35o> 352; relations with George III., 251, 304, 508, 509 ; referred to, 45, 218, 275, 284, 2S6, 298. Norhern Question, The, 12, 13, 22, 28, 35, 36, 47, Northington, Lord Chancellor, 241. Norton, Sir Fletcher, 252. Norway, 402, 472, 475. Nottingham, Earl of, 15, 18, Nova Scotia, iii, 227. Ochakov, 327. O'Connor, AJthur, 386, 390. Oglethorpe, General, 211. Oliver, Alderman, 255, 258, Omichund, 154, 155. Onslow, Lord, Speaker of the House of Commons, 27, 170. Orange, The Society, 320, 321, 389. Orders in Council, 180, 242, 360, 431-434, 444, 445, 454, 455, 461 Orford, Earl of. See Walpole, Sir Robert. Orleans, The Regent, 29, 30, 32, 47. Ormonde, Duke of, 8, 19, 20, 24, 33, 34, 45, Ostend East India Company, 48, 49, 51, 62, 63. Oswego, Surrender of, 134. Otis, H., 234, 236. Oudenarde, Battle of, 58. Oudh, 113, 287, 398, 399, 421. Oxford, Earl of (Robert Harley), 8, 15, ig, 20, 31, 37, 38. Oxford, University of, 52, 56, 69, 87, 208, 209, 292, 318. Paine, Tom, 7, 362, 3G4, 368 n. Pakenham, General, 461. Palermo, 423. Palliser, Sir Hugh, 277. Palm, Imperial Ambassador, 50, Palmer, Fyshe, 364. Palmerston, Viscount, 309, 402, 427. Pampeluna, 457, 458, 459, Paoli, General, 378. Papal States, The, 380, 473, Paris, Peace of, 227. Parker, Sir Hugh, 274, 280, 281, 383, 397, Parliament and the Parliamentary System, 2, 4, 15, 16, 18, 19, 27, 29, 31, 37, 38, 46, 51. 54. 57.82, 84, 90, 160 16s, 166, 167. 168, 169, 190, 193, 223, 225, 231, 232, 246, 247, 299, 322, 325, 456, 485. Parliamentary Reform, 20, 27, 31, 37, 38, 43, 51, 68, 106, 107, 160, 170, 171, 172, 173, 232, 246, 247, ^51. 252. 281, 312, 313, 352-354, 366, 367, 442, 443. Parma, 33, 75, 76, 324, 460, 473. Parsons, Nancy, 239, 243. INDEX 569 Parthenopean Republic, The, 393. Patna, iiz, 155. Paul I., Tsar, 333, 392, 395, 396, 397. Peel, Sir Robert, 427, 475, 483, 487, " Peep of Day Boys," 388, 389. Peishwa, 419. Pelham, Henry, 54, 58, 61, 87, 94, io6, 107, 116, 117, 139, 173, Peninsular War, The, 413, 434, 444, 446, 457-460. Perceval, Spencer, 428, 432, 441, 442, 444, 451, 455. Percy's Reliques, 229. Perry, Commander, 365 n., 460. Persian Gulf, The, 480, 481, Peter III., Tsar, 223, 226. Peter the Great, 29, 30, 32, 35, 36. Petty, Lord Henry, 341, 422. Philadelphia, 270, 271. Philip V. of Spain, 10, 21, 29, 35. Piedmont, 392, 393, 406, 409, 416, See also Sardinia and Savoy. Pierson, Major, 281. Pillnitz, Declaration of, 357. Pitt, Fort, 144 (Pittsburg). Pitt, William, the Younger, character, career, and policy of, 282, 293, 295, 305, 315-328, 352-354. 358-360, 363. 365. 368, 370-77. 379. 383. 389. 39i. 395. 403. 415 n., 464, 488, 494, 495, 498-501, 505 ; referred to, 69, 84, 87, 164, 283, 296, 297, 302 n., 425, 495, 527. Pius VI., 392. Place, Francis, 366. Plassey, Battle of, 155, 287. Platen, Countess of, 47. Pocock, Admiral, 156, 226, Poland, Partitions of, 257, 327, 358 J Inferred to, 12, 65, 66, 75, 76, 243, 326, 371, 373. 378. 379. 462, 465. 466, 472. 473. 475. 477- Pomerania, 13, 36, 472. Pompadour, Madame de, 126, 129. Pondicherry, 113, 121, 156, 290, 378. Ponsonby, H., 442. Poor Laws and Pauperism, 206, 207, 354-356, 453, 485, Pope, Alexander, 45, 231. Popham, Sir Home, 290, 424. Porteous Riots, The, 73, 74. Portland, Duke of, 297, 299, 315, 363, 372, 389, 441. Porto Bello, 78, 82. Port Phillip, 479. Portugal, 49, 76, 204, 226, 228, 397, 429, 430, 431, 434, 473, 476, 508. Post Office, The, 179, 180. Pownall, Governor, 214. Pragmatic Sanction, The, 48, 49, 50, 6i, 62, 63 n., 76, 82, 89, 105. Prague, 92, 95. Prerogative, The Royal, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 171, 198, 199, 223, 255, 426, 427, 508, 509. Press, Freedom of the, 169, 192, i94> 231-233. 255,352, 364, 443. Preston, Battle of, 25. Preston Pans, Battle of, 34- „.,,„, „ , . " Pretender," The Old, The Young. See James Edward and Charles Edwaid. Prevost, Sir G., 482. Price, Dr. R., 309, 313, 361. Prideaux, Colonel, 149, 150. Priestley, Joseph, 347, 349. 3*1 • Prior, Matthew, 45. 570 INDEX Privy Council, The, its functions, 146, 175, 176, 180, 181. Prussia, Relations with Great Britain, 36, 49, 66, 67, 108, 129-131, 136, 141-160, 223. 227, 228, 229, 243^ 257, 273, 319-321, 325, 326, 359, 371-379. 392, 396, 397. 431, 456, 457, 438, 467-471, 492. See also Frederick the Great. Public Safety, Committee of, 373. Puerto Rico, 384. Pulteney, W. (Earl of Bath), leader of opposition to Walpole, 53, 68, 71, 83, 84, 90; referred to, 31, 42, 64, 72, 86, 94,. 106, 178, Pynsent, Burton, 138 n. Quarterly Rbvibw, The, 442. Quatre Bras, Battle of, 468. Quebec, s, 112, 144, 148-151, 269. Quiberon, Battle of, 152, 153 ; ex| edition to, 380, Race of Castlebar, The, 390. Radicals, The, 486, 530. Raikes, Henry, 349. Rajputana, 113. Ranjit Singh, 420, 481. Raucoux, Battle of, iu6. Rawdon, Lord. See Moria, Lord, Reeves, John, 363. Reform Movement, 529. Regency Question, The, 238, 310, 322-325. 353, 385. 428, 443, 445, 498. Regent, The Prince, 300, 322, 323, 423, 442, 445, 446, 453, 483, 484. Reichenbach, Convention of, 458. Rennie, John, 334. Revolution Society, The, 363. Revolution System, The, i, 2, 10, 17, ig, 27, 40, 41, 43, 55, 71, 85, 100-163, 164-190, Reynolds, Sir J., 229, 239, 250, 270. [i95-i97. 477. 478. Rhine, Confederation of the, 423. Ricardo, Dr., 338, 340, 377, 445. Richelieu, Due de, 132, 133. Richmond, Duke of, 266, 276, 281, 283, 293, 309. Ripperda, Baron, 11, 30 n,, 49, 50. Robethon, J,, ig, 28. Robinson, T., 118, 119. Rochambeau, Comte de, 278, 280. Rocbefort, 142, 271. Rochford, Lord, 245, 251 n. Rockingham, Marquis of, 227, 238, 239, 241, 242, 254, 264, 265, 276, 283, 293, 296, 310, 330. Rodney, Admiral Lord, 152, 226, 277, 278, 282, 283, 496, 497. Roebuck of Carron, 342. Rohillas, The, 289, 317. Romaine, W., 207, Roman Catholics, 260, 286, 315, 322, 386-389, 391, 401-404, 426, 427, 443, 444. Roman Republic, The, 393. Romilly, Sir F., 7, 349, 443, 453, 484. Rosbach, Battle of, 143, 148. Roscoe, William, 361. Rose, George, 308. Ross, General, of Bladensburg, 365 n., 461, Rousseau, J. J., 229. Roxburgh, Duke of, 46, 47, Royal Academy, The, 229. Ruffo, Cardinal, 393, 394. Rugen, Island of, 22, 36. INDEX 57L Russia, relations with Great Britain, 36, 50, 76,90, 120, 124, 127-129, 131, 147, I57i 8431 257. 3io> 319. 320, 326-328, 357, 358, 371, 392, 396, 397. 424. 429-434. 458, 467, 499, 506-508. Rutland, Duke of, 119, 302. Ryder, Sir Dudley, 134. Sabuoal, Combat at, 447. Sacheverell, H., 163, 164. Sackville, Viscount, 144, 145, 151, 218, 251 n., 265, 271, 283, 509-511. Sagunto, 450, St. Domingo, 379, 392. St. Helena, 471, 472. St. Kitts, 282. St. Lucia, 226, 379, 380, 465, 474. St. Lunaire, 145. St. Malo, 145. St. Marcial, 459. St. Pierre, 378. St. Vincent, Earl of, 226, 277, 380, 382, 303, 395, 41O. Salabat Jang, I20, I2i. Salamanca, Battle of, 5, 436, 451. Sandwich, Earl of, 117, 231, 251 n., 264, 265, 274, So9i5i7. Sandys, H., 83, 87. Santa Cruz, 384. Santiago de Cuba, 82. Saragossa, 435. Saratoga, Surrender at, 271, 273, 278. Sardinia, 10, 11, 32, 94, 106, 371, 393, 473, 501. See also Piedmont and Savoy. Saumarez, Admiral Sir J., 397. Saunders, Admiral, 146, 150, 241. Savile, Sir E., 282, 351. Savoy, 9, 10, II, 33 n., 65, 66, 75, 76, 89, 383, 393, 465, 473. Saxe, Mar€chal de, 17 n., 95, 97, 99, 106, 108, 125. Saxony, 12, 65, 126, 129, 130, 145, 465, 477. Schulenburg, Countess of, 18. See Kendal, Duchess of. Scotland and Scottish affairs, 2, 15, 23, 26, 32, 33, 37, 46, 47, 73, 74, 98-105, 168, 169, 192, 202, 203, 204, 232, 264, 364, 498. Scott, Sir Walter, 442. Sebastian!, Col., 409. Seckendorff, 67, 492, Senegal, 297. Seringapatam, 319. Seven Years' War, The, iii, 141-160, 223-229. Sharp, Granville, 321, 349. Shelburne, Earl of, 227, 231, 242, 266, 276, 282, 283, 299. 302, 309i 349. 363. 49°- Sheridan, R. B., 218, 229, 282, 292, 297, 309, 317, 322, 363, 406, 442, 445. Shippen, E., 16, 20, 33, 37, 53. Shirley, Sir W., iii, 123, 128, 134, 214. Shrewsbury, Duke of, 15, 175. Sicilies, The Two, 3, 11, 32. 33. 62, 75, 76. 37i. 424. 473- Sidmouth, Earl of (Addington), 218, 241, 422, 426, 428, 442, 451, 453, 496. Silesia, 92, 106, 124, 125, 130, 223, 226. Sinclair, Sir J., 330. Sindhia, Madhaji Rao, 398, 4I9- Sinking Fund, The, 38, 54, 70, 71, 87, 313, 314, 376. Slave Trade, Proposals to abolish, 218, 321, 322, 351, 412. 422, 423. 443, 404. 474- Smith, Adam, 6, 69, 182, 206, 213, 218, 230, 296, 298, 309, 313, 316, 317, 334, 337, 338, 348. 349- Smith, Sir Sydney, 369, 394. 442. 572 INDEX Sobieski, Clementina, 34, 35, 52. , Somers, Lord, 15, 19, 27. Sophia Dorotliea, wife of George I., 17, 18, 489, 4ga Sophia Dorothea, Queen of Prussia, 66. Sophia The Electress, 16, Soubise, Marshal, 144, 151, 223. Soult, Marshal, 437, 446, 447, 448, 450, 451, 457, 459, 460, 467, 469. South Sea Bubble, The, 38, 39, 40, 206, 491. Spain, Relations with Great Britain, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 21, 33-35, 46, 48, 49, 50, 62-64, 70, 78-80, 81, 82, 92, 108, 148, 157, 158, 211, 228, 243, 277, 320, 321, 371-379. 416-418, 431, 476, 493. " Speenhamland Act of Parliament," 355. Spencer, Earl, 372, 405, 406, 422. Stadion, Count, 371, 439. Stair, Lord, 24, 34, 69, 93. Stamp Act, The, 233-238. Stanhope, Earl, Foreign Secretary, 8, 10, 14, 18, 21, 22, 28, 29, 30 u., 31, 33, 34-36. 40, 41, no, 190, 191. Stanhope, Earl, " Citizen," 343, 363. Stanley, Hans, 224. Steevens, Admiral, 156. Stein, Baron vom, 371, 435, 439, 450, 463, 465. Sterne, L,, 229. Stirling, Siege of, 103. Stock Exchange, The, 206, 347. Stone, Archbishop, 202. Stralsund, 13, 22, 36. Stuart, Sir C, 375, 424. Suchet, Marshal, 446, 447, 450, 451, 457. Suffolk, Countess of, 57. Suffren, Bailli de, 290, Sunderland, Earl of, 8, 15, 18, 28, 29, 31, 37, 4a Surajah, Dowlah, 134. Surinam, 397, Sutton, Sir R., 33. Suvorov, Marshal, 393, 394. Sweden, Relations with Great Britain, 12, 13, 22, 29, 31, 34, 35, 36, 79, 141, 243, Z79i 320, 32S-3271 396, 397. 416, 419, 429, 436, 458, 462, 473. 475- Swift, Dean, 8 n., 15, 45, 46, 201, 264, 341. Switzerland, 392, 393, 406, 409, 410, 416, 458, 473, 500. Sydney, Lord, 302, 479. Synge, Archbishop, 201. Talavbra, Battle of, 448, Talleyrand, Prince de, 359, 360, 424, 463, 465, 466, 507. Taranto, 396, 406. Tarleton, Col., 278, 279. Taylor, Jeremy, 209. Teignmouth, Lord, 398. Telford, W., 335. Temple, Earl, 71, 117, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 225, 231, 238, 242, 301, 493, 495. Thornton, H,, 14, 444, 445. Thugut, Baron, 271. Thurlow, Lord Chancellor, 218, 247, 248, 251, 283, 293, 298, 301, 302, 325, 351, 509, Ticonderoga, 144, 149, 150, 208, 271. Tierney, H., 363, 385. Tindal, Matthew, 207. Tippu, Sultan, 318, 319, 398, 399. Tobago, 297, 378, 465, 474, 478. INDEX 673 Tone, Wolfe, 386, 387, 390, 391. Tooke, Home, 365. Torgau, Battle of, 152. Tories and Toryism, Principles of, 8, ao, 29, 37, 52, 71, 83, 87, 88, 91, 134, 163, 172, 190, 220-222, 303, 305, 309, 350, 354, 369, 427, 428, 482, 483. Torres Vedras, 447. Toulon, 116, 377, 378, 379, 384. Toulouse, Battle of, 459. Townshend, Charles, 238, 241, 242, 244. Townshend, First Viscount, 7, 15, 18, 22, 28, 29, 38, 44, 47, 49, 51, 57i 6*1 ^4i ^St 150, 187, 205. Townshend, Second Viscount, 251, 257, 284, 285. Trade and Plantations, Board of, 180. Trades Unions, 487, Trafalgar, Battle of, 5, 418, 505, 506. Treasury, The, 176, 177, 178, 428, 452, 453, 467, 48a, 501. Treaties — Aix-la-Chapelle, no, in, 124. Amiens, 372, 406, 409. Anglo-Russian, 129, Aranjuez, 126. Austro-French, 41. Barrier, 9, 21, 126, 320. Basle, 379. Bassein, 419. Berlin, 92, 94, 357. Breslau, 92. Campo Formio, 381, Cbaumont, 460. Commercial, 316, 319. Dresden, 106. Florence, 396, Fontainebleau, 4341 Frankfort, 94. Frederiksborgi 36. Fiissen, 105. Ghent, 461. Hanover, 49. Hubertusberg, 227. L^oben, 381. Lun^ville, 372, 416. Madrid, 35, 47- Methuen, 204, 316. Nymphenburg, go. Paris {1703). 227 (1814), 465, 47a. Quadruple Alliance, 33, 35, 41. Ried, 458. St. Petersburg, 141. Seville, 62. Stockholm, 36, 141. Surat, 289. Tilsit, 413, 429, 430, 462, 477, 506-508. Triple Alliance (1717). Z9. 32 ! (1788). 321. 325. 35?! tS* Utrecht, 2, 3, 8, 9. 10. ". i4. 2°. 23. 77. i". i67- Versailles, 141, 297. Vienna, 11, 49. 62, 63, 75, 76, 439. 465. Warsaw, 97. Worms, 94, 95- Wusterhausen, 49. 574 INDEX Trincomalee, 290. Trinidad, 384, 406, 474, 47S. Tucker, Dean, 262. Tudela, Battle of, 436. Tull, Jethro, 6, 7, 205. Tullibaidine, Marquis of, 34, qg. Turcoing, Battle of, 378. Turkey, 32, 257, 325, 3^6, 327. 392. 406. Tuscany, 11, 33, 63, 379, 473, 5oi- Ulm, Battle ol, 419, 422. Ulrica Eleanora, Queen of Sweden, 35. " Undertakers," The, 284. United Irishmen, Society of, 387, 388, 389, 390. United States of America, struggle for independence, 222, 233, 234-238, 244, 245, 257, 258, 260, 267, 268, 270, 297 J war with Great Britain (1812), 453, 454, 456, 460, 461. United Volunteers (1782), 286. Valley Forge, 271. Valmy, Combat of, 270, 358, Van Diemen's Land, 479. Vansittart, H., 377, 445, 451. Vendue, La, 377. Venice, 381, 473. Verden, 13, 22, 28, 30, 36, 62. Vergennes, Comte de, 257, 272, 276, 295, 320, 3J7, Vernon, Admiral, 82. Villaret-Joyeuse, 379. Villeneuve, Admiral, 417. Vimiero, Battle of, 435, 437. Vinegar Hill, Battle of, 390. Vitoria, Battle of, 457. Voltaire, 17 n. , 133. Wade, Field-Marshal, 26, 46, 95, loi, 20a. Wagram, Battle of, 439, 443. Walcheren expedition, The, 439, 440, 443. Wales, Dowager Princess of, 137, 218, 220, 227, 238, Walkinshaw, Clementina, 102 n. Wall, General, 493, 494. Walpole, Sir Robert (Earl of Orford), political career and achievements, 10, 14, 18, 19. 33. 41. 45. 46, 47. 50. 52-54. 61, 63, 64, 66, 75-77, 78-80, 89, go, no, 186, 187, 190; referred to, 135, 139, 173. 207. 237. 304. 491- Walpole, " old Horace," Lord, 47, 61, 63, Walpole, Horace, letter writer, 83, 86,87 n., 140 n., 166, 210, 22g, 239, 244, 265, 267, 352. " Waltham Blacks," The, 45. Walton, Sir G., 490. Wandewash, Battle of, 156, Warburton, Bishop, Tr.'l, 231. Wardle, Col., 440, 442. Warsaw, Duchy of, 429, 4O6, 473, Washington, George, 122, 127, 128, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 278, 380, 523. Waterloo, Battle of, 5, 444, 468-471, Watson, Admiral, 154, 155, Watt, James, 7, 329, 334. 361. i^l- Wattignies, Battle of, 377. Wedderburn, 258, 259, 323. See Loughborough, Loid. INDEX 575 Wedgwood, J., 7, 334, 343. Wellesley, Marquess, a88, 318, 397, 398-400, 419-421, 441, 451, 452, 480, 48a, 485. Wellington, Duke of, 308, 397, 413, 419, 435, 436, 438, 443, 446, 447, 448-4511 457. 459. 463. 468-471- Wesley, Charles, aoS, 209. Wesley, John, 7, 208, 209-211, 349. Wexford Bridge, Massacre at, 390. Weymouth, Lord, 244, 245, 351 n. Wharton, Duke of, 15, 40. Whigs and Whiggism, Principles and policy of, 1, 8, 10, 11, 19, 20, 21-23, S^i 4°. 52, 69, 71, 83, 87, 88, 91, 160-163, 165, 166, 167, 168, 174, 186, 195, 196, 240, 241, 283, 293, 309, 322, 350, 427, 428, 442, 443. Whitbread, S., 421, 442, 467. Whitefield, G., 209. Whitworth, Sir H., 410, 499. Wightman, General, 34. Wilberforce, S., 7, 218, 308, 310, 321, 322, 349, 422, 423, 474. Wilhelmina, Margravine of Baireuth, 65, 67. Wilkes, John, 121 n., 231, 232, 233, 246, 255, 293, 309, 32J, 516. Wilkinson, John, 342, 346, William V., Stadholder, 320, 321, 378, 406. William Henry, Fort, 142. Williams, Sir C. Hanbury, 117, 129, 135 n. Windham, H., 363, 371, 372, 374, 405, 406, 422. 503» Wintoun, Lord, 2