THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND

Seventy-five years have passed since Lingard completed his History of England, which ends with the Revolution of 1688. During that period historical study has made a great advance. Year after year the mass of materials for a new History of England has increased; new lights have been thrown on events and characters, and old errors have been corrected. Many notable works have been written on various periods of our history; some of them at such length as to appeal almost exclusively to professed historical students. It is believed that the time has come when the advance which has been made in the knowledge of English history as a whole should be laid before the public in a single work of fairly adequate size. Such a book should be founded on independent thought and research, but should at the same time be written with a full knowledge of the works of the best modern historians and with a desire to take advantage of their teaching wherever it appears sound.

The vast number of authorities, printed and in manuscript, on which a History of England should be based, if it is to represent the existing state of knowledge, renders co-operation almost necessary and certainly advisable. The History, of which this volume is an instalment, is an attempt to set forth in a readable form the results at present attained by research. It will consist of twelve volumes by twelve different writers, each of them chosen as being specially capable of dealing with the period which he undertakes, and the editors, while leaving to each author as free a hand as possible, hope to insure a general similarity in method of treatment, so that the twelve volumes may in their contents, as well as in their outward appearance, form one History.

As its title imports, this History will primarily deal with politics, with the History of England and, after the date of the union with Scotland, Great Britain, as a state or body politic; but as the life of a nation is complex, and its condition at any given time cannot be understood without taking into account the various forces acting upon it, notices of religious matters and of intellectual, social, and economic progress will also find place in these volumes. The footnotes will, so far as is possible, be confined to references to authorities, and references will not be appended to statements which appear to be matters of common knowledge and do not call for support. Each volume will have an Appendix giving some account of the chief authorities, original and secondary, which the author has used. This account will be compiled with a view of helping students rather than of making long lists of books without any notes as to their contents or value. That the History will have faults both of its own and such as will always in some measure attend co-operative work, must be expected, but no pains have been spared to make it, so far as may be, not wholly unworthy of the greatness of its subject.

Each volume, while forming part of a complete History, will also in itself be a separate and complete book, will be sold separately, and will have its own index, and two or more maps.

The History is divided as follows:—

Vol. I. From the Earliest Times to the Norman Conquest (to 1066). By Thomas Hodgkin, D.C.L., Litt.D., Fellow of University College, London; Fellow of the British Academy. With 2 Maps.

Vol. II. From the Norman Conquest to the Death of John (1066-1216). By George Burton Adams, D.D., Litt.D., Professor of History in Yale University. With 2 Maps.

Vol. III. From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377). By T. F. Tout, M.A., Bishop Fraser Professor of Mediæval and Ecclesiastical History in the University of Manchester; formerly Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. With 3 Maps.

Vol. IV. From the Accession of Richard II. to the Death of Richard III. (1377-1485). By C. W. C. Oman, M.A., LL.D., M.P., Chichele Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford; Fellow of the British Academy. With 3 Maps.

Vol. V. From the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of Henry VIII. (1485-1547). By the Right Hon. H. A. L. Fisher, M.A., M.P., President of the Board of Education; Fellow of the British Academy. With 2 Maps.

Vol. VI. From the Accession of Edward VI. to the Death of Elizabeth (1547-1603). By A. F. Pollard, M.A., Litt.D., Fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford, and Professor of English History in the University of London. With 2 Maps.

Vol. VII. From the Accession of James I. to the Restoration (1603-1660). By F. C. Montague, M.A., Astor Professor of History in University College, London; formerly Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. With 3 Maps.

Vol. VIII. From the Restoration to the Death of William III. (1660-1702). By Sir Richard Lodge, M.A., LL.D., Litt.D., Professor of History in the University of Edinburgh; formerly Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. With 2 Maps.

Vol. IX. From the Accession of Anne to the Death of George II. (1702-1760). By I. S. Leadam, M.A., formerly Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. With 8 Maps.

Vol. X. From the Accession of George III. to the Close of Pitt's First Administration (1760-1801). By the Rev. William Hunt, M.A., D.Litt., Trinity College, Oxford. With 3 Maps.

Vol. XI. From Addington's Administration to the Close of William IV.'s Reign (1801-1837). By the Hon. George C. Brodrick, D.C.L., late Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and J. K. Fotheringham, M.A., D.Litt., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford; Lecturer in Ancient History at King's College, London. With 3 Maps.

Vol. XII. The Reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). By Sir Sidney Low, M.A., Fellow of King's College, London; formerly Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, and Lloyd C. Sanders, B.A. With 3 Maps.

The Political History of England

IN TWELVE VOLUMES

Edited by WILLIAM HUNT, D.Litt., and REGINALD L. POOLE, M.A.

XI.

THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND

FROM ADDINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION TO

THE CLOSE OF WILLIAM IV.'S REIGN

1801-1837

BY THE

Hon. GEORGE C. BRODRICK, D.C.L.

LATE WARDEN OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD

COMPLETED AND REVISED BY

J. K. FOTHERINGHAM, M.A., D.Litt.

FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD; LECTURER IN ANCIENT HISTORY AT KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON

NEW IMPRESSION

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON

FOURTH AVENUE & 30th STREET, NEW YORK

BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS

1919

NOTE.

When the late Warden of Merton undertook the preparation of this volume he invited the assistance of Dr. Fotheringham in the portions dealing with foreign affairs. At the time of the late Warden's death in 1903 three chapters (x., xii. and xviii.) were unwritten, and one (xx.) was left incomplete. It was also found that the volume had to be recast in order to meet the plan of the series. The necessary alterations and additions have been made by Dr. Fotheringham, who has been scrupulous in retaining the expression of the late Warden's views, and, where possible, his words.

CONTENTS.

[CHAPTER I.]

Addington.

[CHAPTER II.]

The Return of Pitt.

[CHAPTER III.]

Grenville and Portland.

[CHAPTER IV.]

Perceval and Liverpool.

[CHAPTER V.]

The Peninsular War.

[CHAPTER VI.]

The Downfall of Napoleon.

[CHAPTER VII.]

Vienna and Waterloo.

[CHAPTER VIII.]

The First Years of Peace.

[CHAPTER IX.]

The Last Years of Lord Liverpool.

[CHAPTER X.]

Problems in Southern Europe.

[CHAPTER XI.]

Tory Dissension and Catholic Relief.

[CHAPTER XII.]

Portugal and Greece.

[CHAPTER XIII.]

Prelude of Reform.

[CHAPTER XIV.]

The Reform.

[CHAPTER XV.]

Fruits of the Reform.

[CHAPTER XVI.]

Religious Movements and Poor Law Reform.

[CHAPTER XVII.]

Peel and Melbourne.

[CHAPTER XVIII.]

Foreign Relations under William IV.

[CHAPTER XIX.]

British India.

[CHAPTER XX.]

Literature and Social Progress.

MAPS.

(At the End of the Volume.)

1. [Great Britain, showing the parliamentary representation after the reform.]
2. [Spain and Portugal, illustrating the Peninsular war.]
3. [India.]

CHAPTER I.

ADDINGTON.

When, early in March, 1801, Pitt resigned office, he was succeeded by Henry Addington, who had been speaker of the house of commons for over eleven years, and who now received the seals of office as first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer on March 14, 1801. He was able to retain the services of the Duke of Portland as home secretary, of Lord Chatham as president of the council, and of Lord Westmorland as lord privy seal. For the rest, his colleagues were, like himself, new to cabinet rank. Lord Hawkesbury (afterwards the second Earl of Liverpool) became foreign secretary, and Lord Hobart, son of the Earl of Buckinghamshire, secretary for war. Loughborough reaped the due reward of his treachery by being excluded from the ministry altogether; with a curious obstinacy he persisted in attending cabinet councils, until a letter from Addington informed him that his presence was not desired. He received some small consolation, however, in his elevation to the Earldom of Rosslyn. Lord Eldon was the new chancellor and was destined to hold the office uninterruptedly, except for the brief ministry of Fox and Grenville, till 1827. Lord St. Vincent became first lord of the admiralty, and Lord Lewisham president of the board of control. Cornwallis had resigned with Pitt, but it was not till June 16 that a successor was found for him as master general of the ordnance. It was then arranged that Chatham should take this office. Portland succeeded Chatham as lord president, and Lord Pelham, whose father had just been created Earl of Chichester, became home secretary instead of Portland. An important change was introduced into the distribution of work between the different secretaries of state, the administration of colonial affairs being transferred from the home to the war office, so that Hobart and his successors down to 1854 were known as secretaries of state for war and the colonies. Soon afterwards Lewisham succeeded his father as Earl of Dartmouth.

Though the Addington ministry has, not without justice, been derided for its weakness as compared with its immediate predecessor, it is interesting to observe that in it one of the greatest of English judges as well as a future premier, destined to display an unique power of holding his party together, first attained to cabinet rank; and in the following year it was reinforced by Castlereagh, who disputes with Canning the honour of being regarded as the ablest statesman of what was then the younger generation. The weakness of the ministry must therefore be attributed to a lack of experience rather than a lack of talent. It was unfortunate in succeeding a particularly strong administration, but is well able to bear comparison with most of the later ministries of George III. Addington himself was in more thorough sympathy with the king than any premier before or after. Conversation with Addington was, according to the king, like "thinking aloud"; and with a king who, like George III., still regarded himself as responsible for the national policy, hearty co-operation between king and premier was a matter of no slight importance.

In the early days of the new administration Pitt loyally kept his promise of friendly support, and it is to be deplored that Grenville and Canning did not adopt the same course. While the issue of peace and war was pending, domestic legislation inevitably remained in abeyance. In Ireland serious disappointment had been caused by the abandonment of catholic emancipation; but the disappointment was borne quietly, and the Irish Roman catholics doubtless did not foresee to what a distance of time the removal of their disabilities had been postponed. The just and mild rule of the new lord lieutenant, Lord Hardwicke, contributed to the pacification of the country. But in reality the conduct of the movement for emancipation was only passing into new hands; when it reappeared it was no longer led by catholic lords and bishops, but was a peasant movement, headed by the unscrupulous demagogue O'Connell. In these circumstances it is to be regretted that the new administration neglected to carry that one of the half-promised concessions to the catholics which could not offend the king's conscience, namely, the commutation of tithe. Nothing in the protestant ascendency was so irritating to the catholic peasantry as the necessity of paying tithe to a protestant clergy, and its commutation, while benefiting the clergy themselves, would have removed the occasion of subsequent agitation. The spirit of disloyalty, however, was believed to be by no means extinct either in Ireland or in Great Britain, and two stringent acts were passed to repress it. The first, for the continuance of martial law in Ireland, was supported by almost all the Irish speakers in the house of commons, where it was carried without a division, and was adopted in the house of lords by an overwhelming majority, after an impressive speech from Lord Clare. The second, for the suspension of the habeas corpus act in the whole United Kingdom was framed to remain in force "during the continuance of the war, and for one month after the signing of a definitive treaty of peace".

THE HORNE TOOKE ACT.

The only other measure of permanent interest which became law in this session was the so-called "Horne Tooke act," occasioned by the return of Horne Tooke, who was in holy orders, for Old Sarum. Such a return was contrary to custom, but the precedents collected by a committee of the house of commons were inconclusive. It was accordingly enacted that in future clergymen of the established churches should be ineligible for seats in parliament, while Horne Tooke was deemed to have been validly elected, and retained his seat. The house of commons found time, however, for an important and well-sustained debate on India, in which among others Dundas, now no longer in office, showed a thorough knowledge of questions affecting Indian finance and trade.

The naval expedition which had been prepared in the last days of Pitt's administration sailed for Copenhagen on March 12, 1801, under Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson as second in command. The admiral in chief was of a cautious temper, but was wise enough to allow himself to be guided by Nelson's judgment when planning an engagement, though not as to the general course of the expedition. The fleet consisted of sixteen ships of the line and thirty-four smaller vessels; all these with the exception of one ship of the line reached the Skaw on the 18th. A frigate was sent in advance with instructions to Vansittart, the British envoy at Copenhagen, to present an ultimatum to the Danish government,[1] demanding a favourable answer to the British demands within forty-eight hours. For three days Parker waited at anchor eighteen miles from Elsinore, and it was only when Vansittart brought an unfavourable reply on the 23rd that he took Nelson into his counsels. He readily adopted Nelson's plan of ignoring the Danish batteries at Kronborg and making a circuit so as to attack Copenhagen at the weak southern end of its defences, but set aside his project of masking Copenhagen and making straight for a Russian squadron of twelve ships of the line which was lying icebound at Revel. The fair weather of the 26th was wasted in irresolution, and it was not till the 30th that the fleet was able to weigh anchor. It passed Kronborg in safety and anchored five miles north of Copenhagen.

Parker placed under Nelson's immediate command twelve ships of the line and twenty-one smaller vessels, by far the greater part of the British fleet. With these he was to pass to the east of a shoal called the Middle Ground and attack the defences of Copenhagen from the south, while Parker with the remainder of the fleet was to make a demonstration against the more formidable northern defences. The wind could not of course favour both attacks simultaneously, and it was agreed that the attack should be made when the wind favoured Nelson. The nights of the 30th and 31st were spent in reconnoitring and laying buoys. On April 1 a north wind brought Nelson's squadron past the Middle Ground, and on the next day a south wind enabled him to attack the Danish fleet, if fleet it may be called. At the north end of the Danish position stood the only permanent battery, the Trekroner, with two hulks or blockships; the rest consisted of seven blockships and eleven floating batteries, drawn up along the shore. An attack on the south end of the line was also exposed to batteries on the island of Amager. Nelson's intention was to close with the whole Danish fleet, but three of his ships of the line were stranded and he was obliged to leave the assault on the northern end entirely to lighter vessels.

BATTLE OF THE BALTIC.

The Danish batteries proved more powerful than had been anticipated, and as time went on and the Danish resistance did not appear to lose in strength, Parker grew doubtful of the result of the battle and gave the order to cease action. The order was apparently not intended to be imperative, but it had the effect of inducing Riou, who commanded the frigate squadron, to sail away to the north. For the rest of the fleet obedience was out of the question. Nelson acknowledged, but refused to repeat the order, and, jocularly placing his glass to his blind eye, declared that he could not see the signal. At length the British cannonade told. Fischer, the Danish commander, had had to shift his flag twice, at the second time to the Trekroner, and all the ships south of that battery had either ceased fire or were practically helpless. The Trekroner, however, was still unsubdued and rendered it impossible for Nelson's squadron to retire, in the only direction which the wind would allow, without severe loss. He accordingly sent a message to the Danish Prince Regent, declaring that he would be compelled to burn the batteries he had taken, without saving their crews, unless firing ceased. If a truce were arranged until he could take his prisoners out of the prizes, he was prepared to land the wounded Danes, and burn or remove the prizes. A truce for twenty-four hours was accordingly arranged, which Nelson employed to remove his own fleet unmolested.

The destruction of the southern batteries left Copenhagen exposed to bombardment, and the Danes, unable to resist, yet afraid to offend the tsar by submission, prolonged the time from day to day till news arrived which removed all occasion for hostility. Unknown to either of the combatants, the Tsar Paul, the life and soul of the northern confederacy, had been murdered on the night of March 23, ten days before the battle, and with his death the league was practically dissolved. When Nelson advanced further into the Baltic, he found no hostile fleet awaiting him, and the new tsar, Alexander, adopting an opposite policy, entered into a compromise on the subject of maritime rights. The battle of the Baltic is considered by some to have been Nelson's masterpiece. It won for him the title of viscount and for his second in command, Rear-Admiral Graves, the gift of the ribbon of the Bath, but the admiralty, for official reasons, declined to confer any public reward or honour on the officers concerned in it

At the same time, the French occupation of Egypt was drawing towards its inevitable close. Kléber, who was left in command by Bonaparte, perished by the hand of an assassin, and Menou, who succeeded to the command, was not only a weak general, but was prevented from receiving any reinforcements by the naval supremacy of Great Britain in the Mediterranean. On March 21, 1801, the French army was defeated at the battle of Alexandria by the British force sent out under Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was himself mortally wounded on the field. His successor, General Hutchinson, completed his work by taking Cairo, before the arrival of General Baird, who had led a mixed body of British soldiers and sepoys from the Red Sea across the desert to the Nile. The capitulation of Alexandria soon followed. In September the French evacuated Egypt, the remains of their army were conveyed to France in English ships, and Bonaparte's long-cherished dreams of eastern conquest faded away for ever—not from his own imagination, but from the calculations of practical statesmanship.

French arms, and French diplomacy supported by armed force, were more successful elsewhere. The treaty of Lunéville was only the first of a series of treaties, by which France secured to herself a political position commensurate with her military glory. By the treaty of Aranjuez between France and Spain, signed on March 21, Spain ceded Louisiana to France, reserving the right of pre-emption, and undertook to wage war on Portugal in order to detach it from the British alliance. Spain and Portugal were both lukewarm in this war, and on June 6 signed the treaty of Badajoz, by which Portugal agreed to close her ports to England, to pay an indemnity to Spain, and to cede the small district of Olivenza, south of Badajoz. Bonaparte was intensely irritated by this treaty, which deprived him of the hope of exchanging conquests in Portugal for British colonial conquests in any future negotiations; he declared that Spain would have to pay by the sacrifice of her colonies for the conquered French colonies which he still hoped to recover. A French army was despatched to Portugal and enabled Bonaparte to dictate the treaty of Madrid, signed on September 29, whereby Portugal ceded half Guiana to France and undertook, as at Badajoz, to close her ports against England.

INFLUENCES MAKING FOR PEACE.

This last condition was equally imposed on the King of the Two Sicilies by the treaty of Florence, concluded on March 28, and before the end of the year France had established friendly relations with the Sultan of Turkey and the new Tsar of Russia. More important still, as consolidating Bonaparte's power at home, was the concordat signed by him and the pope on July 15 recognising Roman Catholicism as the religion of the majority of Frenchmen, and of the consuls, guaranteeing stipends, though on an abjectly mean scale, to the clergy, and placing the entire patronage of the French Church in the hands of the first consul. Never since the French revolution had the Church been thus acknowledged as the auxiliary, or rather as the handmaid, of the state, and probably no one but the first consul could have brought about the reconciliation. After such exertions, even he may have sincerely desired an honourable peace, as the crown of his victories, or at least as a breathing time, to enable him to mature his vast designs for reorganising France. Perhaps he did not yet fully recognise that war was a necessity of his political ascendency, no less than of his own personal character. The French people still clung to republican institutions; and the consulate was a nominal republic, with all effective power vested in the first consul. Time was to show how largely this unique position depended on his unique capacity of conducting wars glorious to French arms; for the present, France was satisfied, and longed for peace.

The English ministry, too, was impelled by strong motives to enter upon the negotiations which resulted in the peace of Amiens. Not only was Great Britain crippled by the loss of nearly all her allies, but the high price of bread had roused grave disaffection,[2] and intensified among British merchants a desire for an unmolested extension of commerce; above all, English statesmen now recognised the consulate, under Bonaparte, as the first stable and non-revolutionary government since the fall of the French monarchy. Both countries, therefore, were predisposed to entertain pacific overtures, but the very fact that these were in contemplation stirred both sides to further endeavours in order to secure better terms of peace. A French squadron, commanded by Admiral Linois and containing three ships of the line besides smaller boats, was making a movement for the Straits of Gibraltar in order to strengthen the force at Cadiz. Sir James Saumarez with five ships of the line and two smaller vessels engaged Linois off Algeciras on July 5, but the French ships were supported by the land batteries, and one of the British ships, the Hannibal (74), ran aground, and Saumarez was eventually compelled to leave her in the hands of the enemy. This victory was hailed with delight throughout France, but it was fully retrieved a week later. The French squadron had in the meantime been reinforced by one French and five Spanish ships of the line, and on the 12th it made a fresh attempt to reach Cadiz; it was, however, engaged in the Straits by Saumarez with five ships of the line. In the ensuing battle two Spanish ships blew up, and the French Saint Antoine was captured. The remainder succeeded in reaching Cadiz, but Saumarez was able to resume the blockade a few weeks later.

Meanwhile there was no relaxation of French preparations for an invasion of England, or of naval activity on the part of Great Britain. No sooner had Nelson returned from the Baltic than he was, on July 24, placed in command of a "squadron on a particular service," charged with the defence of the coast from Beachy Head to Orfordness. With this he not only blockaded the northern French ports, but assumed the aggressive, and bombarded the vessels therein collected. A more daring attempt to cut out the flotilla moored at Boulogne by a boat attack was repelled with some loss on the night of August 15. But couriers under flags of truce were already passing between London and Paris, and hostilities ceased in the autumn of the year 1801.

THE QUESTION OF MALTA.

The history of the negotiations which ended in the peace of Amiens derives a special interest from the events which followed it. The earliest overtures for peace were made by Hawkesbury on March 21, 1801. At first Bonaparte refused to listen to them, but the destruction of the northern confederacy inclined him to more pacific counsels. On April 14 the British government stated its demands. They mark a distinct advance on those which had been made in vain at Lille in 1797. France was to evacuate Egypt, and Great Britain Minorca, but Great Britain claimed to retain Malta, Tobago, Martinique, Trinidad, Essequibo, Demerara, Berbice, and Ceylon. She was willing to surrender the Cape of Good Hope on condition that it became a free port, and stipulated that an indemnity should be provided for the Prince of Orange. At the outset, Bonaparte opposed all cessions by France and her allies, but the steady improvement in the fortunes of England in the north and in Egypt at last determined him to grant some of the British demands, and as the evacuation of Egypt became inevitable, he was resolved to gain something in exchange for it before it was too late. The preliminary treaty was accordingly signed by Bonaparte's agent Otto on behalf of France and Hawkesbury on behalf of Great Britain on October 1, the day before the news of the French capitulation in Egypt reached England. Great Britain had already consented to relinquish Malta, provided that it became independent. She now consented to relinquish all her conquests from France, and with the exception of Ceylon and Trinidad all her conquests from the French allies, requiring, however, that the Cape should be recognised as a free port. The French were to evacuate not only Egypt, but the Neapolitan and Roman States. Malta was to be restored to the knights of St. John under the guarantee of a third power. Prisoners of war were to be released on payment of their debts, and the question of the charge for their maintenance was to be settled by the definitive treaty in accordance with the law of nations and established usage.

No mention was made of the Prince of Orange, but Otto gave a verbal assurance that provision would be made to satisfy his claims. He also gave the British government to understand that France would be willing to cede Tobago in consideration of the expenses incurred in the maintenance of French and Dutch prisoners. The omission of all reference to the continental relations of France is conspicuous. In France it was interpreted as indicating that Great Britain renounced her interest in continental politics. The Batavian, Helvetian, Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics, the kingdom of Etruria, and the whole east bank of the Rhine were, however, supposed to be already protected against French encroachment by the treaty of Lunéville, and Great Britain had no wish to impose terms involving a recognition of these new creations. Again, no mention was made of commercial relations apart from the Newfoundland and St. Lawrence fisheries, for Great Britain was too ready to believe that a separate commercial treaty would be practicable, and was naturally loth to delay the conclusion of peace by a difficult negotiation.

CORNWALLIS AT AMIENS.

Cornwallis was appointed to negotiate the definitive treaty, and had some hope that he might arrive at an informal understanding with Bonaparte at Paris before he proceeded to Amiens. But he was offended by Bonaparte's manner, and, dreading to be pitted against so subtle a diplomatist as Talleyrand, he left Paris before anything was accomplished, and arrived at Amiens on November 30. There France was represented by Joseph Bonaparte, the first consul's elder brother, and the negotiator of Lunéville. At Amiens, the position of the British government was compromised from the first by its renewed insistence on a point which had been omitted from the preliminary treaty, namely, the compensation of the Prince of Orange. This demand was accompanied by an endeavour to obtain compensation for the King of Sardinia. Joseph Bonaparte, on the other hand, entrenched himself behind the letter of the treaty, and acknowledged no further obligation. Any additional concession to Great Britain could only be purchased by British concessions to France. Other difficulties arose over the question of Malta, the payment for the maintenance of prisoners, and the inclusion of allies as parties to the treaty.

On the first of these questions the French would appear to have aimed throughout at reducing the knights to as impotent a position as possible. The British, on the other hand, ostensibly desiring to see the strength of the order maintained, were chiefly interested in securing its neutrality. At the time of the signature of the preliminary treaty, Russia was the power that seemed to Great Britain the fittest guarantor of the independence of the knights. On the refusal of Russia to accept this position, Naples appeared to be the next best alternative, but it was eventually agreed to substitute for the guarantee of a third power the obviously futile guarantee of all the powers. Neither party foresaw that the impossibility of obtaining such a guarantee was destined to leave the whole clause about Malta inoperative. After much dispute over the future constitution of the order, France proposed to obviate the chief source of difficulty by the demolition of the forts. This plan commended itself to Cornwallis, but was rejected by the British government. By the end of December it was agreed that a Neapolitan garrison was to occupy the islands provisionally, until the new organisation should be established. Great Britain proposed that this garrison should be maintained at the joint expense of Great Britain and France. It did not occur to the British government to propose any guarantee for the preservation of the property of the order, and this omission ultimately proved material. The question of including allies in the treaty was less complicated. France preferred a number of separate treaties so as to keep the British interest in Europe at a minimum. Great Britain, on the other hand, wished to make France a party to the cessions made by her allies, and successfully insisted on the negotiation of a single comprehensive treaty. Joseph Bonaparte granted this point on December 11, but, as he had not full powers to negotiate with any power except Great Britain, he continued to interpose delays till the end of the year.

In the meantime France had failed in her attempts to meet the British claims on behalf of the Prince of Orange by demands for further privileges and territory in the oceans and colonies. On the whole, the first month's negotiations had contributed much to a settlement, without giving a decided advantage to either side. The lapse of time, however, turned the balance in favour of the negotiator who was the more independent of his country's desire for peace. On January 1, 1802, Hawkesbury wrote to Cornwallis, treating the acquisition of Tobago as unimportant; on the 2nd Addington expressed his readiness to accept a separate arrangement with the Batavian republic for the Prince of Orange. By the 16th Hawkesbury had yielded the claim of Portugal to be a party to the treaty. The refusal of the French to cede Tobago in lieu of payment for the French prisoners, and the difficulty of assessing the payment, opened a way to the evasion of compensation altogether. Cornwallis, preferring to sacrifice this claim rather than re-open the war, suggested to Joseph Bonaparte on the 22nd that the treaty should provide for commissioners to assess the payment, while it should be secretly provided that they should not be appointed. On the same day, Joseph Bonaparte communicated his brother's consent to a clause engaging France to find a suitable territorial possession in Germany for the Prince of Orange.

If Hawkesbury and Cornwallis imagined that they had made sure of an early peace by these extensive concessions, they were greatly mistaken. Napoleon, flushed with this unexpected success, was encouraged to make further trial of the pliability of the British diplomatists. Two events occurred at this stage of the negotiations which tried the temper of both sides to the uttermost. On January 26, Bonaparte was elected president of the Cisalpine republic, to be styled henceforth the Italian republic. This event seems to have taken the British government by surprise; they thought it a distinct indication that he still contemplated further aggressions in spite of the series of treaties by which he appeared to be securing peace, and were therefore much less inclined than formerly to make concessions. About the same time Bonaparte was not unreasonably enraged at the outrageous attacks made on him in the press conducted in London by French exiles, especially by Jean Peltier, the editor of a paper called L'Ambigu, and he blamed the British government for permitting their publication. He therefore instructed his brother Joseph to raise further difficulties over the garrison and permanent organisation of Malta, as well as over the proposed accession of the sultan to the treaty. Vain attempts were also made by Joseph to retain Otranto for France till the British should have evacuated Malta, and to secure the inclusion of the Ligurian republic in the treaty.

THE TREATY OF AMIENS.

At last on March 8 Napoleon agreed that no important difference remained, and urged his brother to conclude the treaty. A little more time was wasted in providing for a temporary occupation of Malta by Neapolitan troops, and a more marked division of opinion arose as to the compensation for the Prince of Orange. In spite of instructions to the contrary from Hawkesbury, Cornwallis accepted an engagement on the part of France to find a compensation, not defined, for the house of Nassau, instead of charging it on the Dutch government; and the treaty was finally concluded on March 25. It was signed by Great Britain, France, Spain, and the Batavian republic, while the Porte was admitted as an accessory power. It differed from the preliminary convention in no important respect, except in the illusory safeguards for the claims of the Prince of Orange, the secret arrangement for evading the cost of the French prisoners, and the provisions concerning Malta, pregnant with the seeds of future enmity. These provisions were as follows: Malta was to be restored to the knights of St. John, from whose order both French and British were hereafter to be excluded. The evacuation was to take place within three months of the ratification of the treaty, or sooner if possible. At that date Malta was to be given up, provided the grand master or commissaries of the order were present, and provided the Neapolitan garrison had arrived. Its independence was to be under the guarantee of France, Great Britain, Austria, Spain, Russia, and Prussia. Two thousand Neapolitan troops were to occupy it for one year, and until the order should have raised a force sufficient, in the judgment of the guaranteeing powers, for the defence of the islands.[3]

On October 29, 1801, parliament was opened with a speech from the throne briefly announcing the conclusion of a convention with the northern powers, and of preliminaries of peace with the French republic. General Lauriston, bearing the ratification of the preliminaries by the first consul, had reached London on the 10th, when he was received by the populace with tumultuous demonstrations of joy. Soon afterwards the "feast of the peace" was celebrated in Paris with equal enthusiasm. Short-lived as they proved to be, these pacific sentiments were doubtless genuine on both sides of the channel. The industrial, though not the military, resources of France were exhausted by her prodigious efforts during the last eight years; while England, suffering grievously from distress among the working-classes and financial difficulties, welcomed the prospect of cheaper provisions and easier times, as well as of emerging from the political difficulties originating in the French revolution.

The preliminary treaty, however, did not escape hostile criticism in either house of parliament. It was the subject of discussion in the lords on November 3, and in the commons on the 3rd and 4th. Its most strenuous assailants were Lord Grenville, who had been foreign secretary under Pitt, and the whigs who had joined Pitt's ministry in 1794, among whom Lords Spencer and Fitzwilliam and above all Windham call for special notice. Windham's powerful and comprehensive speech contained more than one shrewd forecast of the future. For once, Pitt and Fox supported the same measure, and Pitt, dwelling on security as our grand object in the war, specially deprecated any attempt on the part of Great Britain "to settle the affairs of the continent". Fox, in advocating peace, fiercely denounced the war against the French republic, and gloated over the discomfiture of the Bourbons.[4] It was admitted on all sides that France was stronger than ever in a military and political sense. She had already made treaties with Austria, Naples, Spain, and Portugal; other treaties with Russia and Turkey were on the point of being signed; while the still more important concordat with the pope was already ratified. On the other hand, Great Britain had largely increased her colonial possessions, and the chief question now discussed was whether she would be the weaker for abandoning some of these recent conquests. The general feeling of the nation was fitly expressed by Sheridan in the phrase: "This is a peace which all men are glad of, but no man can be proud of". Malmesbury, the negotiator of Lille, was absent from the debates; but he has recorded in his diary his disapproval both of the peace and of the violent opposition to it The king told Malmesbury on November 26 that he considered it an experimental peace, but unavoidable.[5]

DEBATES ON TREATY OF AMIENS.

The debates on the definitive treaty of Amiens took place on May 13 and 14, 1802, and though vigorously sustained, were to some extent a repetition of those on the preliminaries of peace. The opposition to it was headed by Grenville in the lords and in the commons by Windham, who compared it unfavourably with the preliminaries; and the stipulations with respect to Malta were justly criticised as one of its weakest points. Strange to say, Pitt took no effective part in the discussion, which ended in overwhelming majorities for the government. As in the previous session, domestic affairs, except in their bearing on foreign policy, received comparatively little attention from parliament. The income tax was repealed, almost in silence, as the first fruits of peace, and Addington, as chancellor of the exchequer, delivered an emphatic eulogy on the sinking fund by means of which he calculated that in forty-five years the national debt, then amounting to £500,000,000, might be entirely paid off. The house of commons showed no want of economical zeal in scrutinising the claims of the king on the civil list, and those of the Prince of Wales on the revenues of the duchy of Cornwall. Nor did it neglect such abuses as the non-residence of the parochial clergy, and the cruel practice of bull-baiting, though it rejected a bill for the suppression of this practice, after a characteristic apology for it from Windham, in which he dwelt upon its superiority to horse-racing. In this session, too, a grant of £10,000 was voted to Jenner for his recent invention of vaccination. In supporting it, Wilberforce stated that the victims of small-pox, in London alone, numbered 4,000 annually.

The parliament, which had now lasted six years, was dissolved by the king in person on June 28, and a general election was held during the month of July. The new house of commons did not differ materially from the old, and even in Ireland the recent national opposition to the union did not lead to the unseating of a single member who had voted for it.[6] Meanwhile the ministry was strengthened by the admission to office of Lord Castlereagh, already distinguished for his share in the negotiations precedent to the union with Ireland. On July 6 he was appointed president of the board of control in succession to Dartmouth, and was admitted to a seat in the cabinet in October. The new parliament did not meet till November 16. During the interval members of both houses, with vast numbers of their countrymen, flocked to Paris, which had been almost closed to English travellers since the early days of the revolution. Fox was presented to Napoleon, as Bonaparte, since the decree which made him consul for life, preferred to be styled. Napoleon conceived a great admiration for him, and afterwards persuaded himself that, had Fox survived, the friendly relations of England and France would not have been permanently interrupted. On the very day on which parliament assembled, a conspiracy was discovered, which, however insane it may now appear, attracted much attention at the time. A certain Colonel Despard with thirty-six followers, mainly labourers, had plotted to kill the king and seize all the government-buildings, with a view to the establishment of what he called the "constitutional independence of Ireland and Great Britain" and the "equalisation of all civic rights". The conspiracy had no wide ramifications, and the arrest of its leader and his companions brought it to an immediate end. Despard was found guilty of high treason and was executed on February 21, 1803.

When parliament met, the king's speech referred ominously to fresh disturbances in the balance of power on the continent; and votes were passed for large additions to the army and navy, in spite of Fox's declaration that he saw no reason why Napoleon, satisfied with military glory, should not henceforth devote himself to internal improvements in France. Nelson, on the contrary, speaking in the house of lords, while he professed himself a man of peace, insisted on the danger arising from "a restless and unjust ambition on the part of our neighbours," and Sheridan delivered a vigorous speech in a like spirit. On the whole, in January, 1803, the prospects of assured peace and prosperity were much gloomier than they had been in January, 1802, before the treaty of Amiens. The funds were going down, the bank restriction act was renewed, and Despard's conspiracy still agitated the public mind. In the month of February a strong anti-Gallican sentiment was roused by Mackintosh's powerful defence of the royalist Jean Peltier, accused and ultimately convicted of a gross libel on the first consul. On March 8 came the royal message calling out the militia, which heralded the rupture of the peace.

The renewal of the war, fraught with so much glory and misery to both nations, can have taken neither by surprise. The ink was scarcely dry on the treaty of Amiens when fresh causes of discord sprung up between France and Great Britain. More than one of these, indeed, had arisen between the signature of the preliminary convention and the actual conclusion of peace. During the negotiations, the first consul had, as we have seen, never ceased to protest against the violent attacks upon himself in the English press, while Cornwallis persistently warned his own government against the menacing attitude of France in Italy and elsewhere. The proclamation of the concordat in April, 1802, and the recognition of Napoleon as first consul for life in August, however they may have strengthened his position in France, were no legitimate subjects for resentment in England; but his acceptance of the presidency of the "Italian" republic in January, followed by his annexation of Piedmont in September, revived in all its intensity the British mistrust of his aggressive policy.

FRENCH AGGRESSIONS.

The month of October witnessed a renewed aggression on Switzerland. A French army, commanded by Ney, advanced into the interior of the country, and forced the Swiss, who were in the midst of a civil war, to accept the mediation of Napoleon. The new constitution which he framed attempted, by weakening the federal government, to place the direction of Helvetian external relations in the hands of the French first consul. Our government vainly endeavoured to resist this interference by sending agents with money and promises. In Germany the redistribution of territory necessitated by the peace of Lunéville was carried out professedly under the joint mediation of France and Russia, but really at the dictation of Napoleon. The final project, which destroyed all except three of the spiritual principalities and all except six of the free cities, was proposed by France on February 23, 1803, and accepted by the Emperor Francis on April 27.

Against these rearrangements, Great Britain could have nothing to say; their importance is that while the negotiations were pending, Austria, Prussia, and Russia all had a strong motive for standing well with France. Bonaparte's attitude towards Switzerland was, in so far as it was backed by force, an infringement of the treaty of Lunéville, to which, however, Great Britain was not a party. The neutrality of Piedmont had not been safeguarded either at Lunéville or at Amiens; it had already been occupied by France before the treaty was signed, and Napoleon claimed to have as much right to annex territory in Europe without the consent of Great Britain as Great Britain had to annex territory in India without the consent of France.

Napoleon's schemes of colonial expansion, though equally within the letter of the treaty, were not less disconcerting. The reconquest of San Domingo appeared necessary in order to obtain a base for the effective occupation of the new French possession, Louisiana. The despatch of an expedition for this purpose in December, 1801, had excited grave suspicion, and when two-thirds of the army had died of yellow fever and the remainder had returned home, fresh troops were sent out to take their place. A new naval expedition was prepared in the Dutch port of Helvoetsluis, but it was impossible to persuade British public opinion that its real destination was San Domingo. Finally, on the eve of hostilities, in the spring of 1803 Napoleon, despairing of advance in this direction and disregarding the Spanish right of pre-emption, sold Louisiana to the United States for 80,000,000 francs. Still more embarrassing was Bonaparte's eastern policy. In September, 1802, Colonel Sébastiani was sent as "commercial agent" to the Levant. He was instructed to inspect the condition of ports and arsenals, to assure the sheykhs of French favour, and to report on the military resources of Syria, Egypt, and the north African coast. His report, which was published in the Moniteur of January 30, 1803, set forth the opportunities that France would possess in the event of an immediate return to hostilities, and was naturally interpreted as disclosing an intention to renew the war on the first opportunity. Six thousand French would, he said, be enough to reconquer Egypt; the country was in favour of France. In March, 1803, Decaen left France with open instructions to receive the surrender of the five towns in India restored to France, but with secret orders to invite the alliance of Indian sovereigns opposed to Great Britain. On his appearance at Pondicherri, the British commander prepared to seize him, but he escaped to the Mauritius, which he put in a state of defence, and made a basis for attacks on British commerce which lasted from 1803 to 1811.

CAUSES OF MISTRUST AFTER AMIENS.

Ireland also was visited by political spies, passing as commercial agents. It may not be easy to say how far Emmet's rebellion, to be recorded hereafter, was the result of these visits. At all events a letter fell into the hands of the British government, addressed by Talleyrand to a French agent at Dublin, called Fauvelet, directing him to obtain answers to a series of questions about the military and naval circumstances of the district, and "to procure a plan of the ports, with the soundings and moorings, and to state the draught of water, and the wind best suited for ingress and egress". The British government naturally complained of these instructions, but Talleyrand persistently maintained that they were of a purely commercial character.[7] It is, of course, true that these preparations in view of a possible recurrence of hostilities, however obvious their intention, were not in themselves hostile acts. Still, they were just grounds for suspicion, and, with our retrospective knowledge of Napoleon's later career, we may seek in vain for the grounds of confidence which had made the conclusion of a treaty possible. Great Britain was guilty of more direct breaches of the peace of Amiens. Russia refused her guarantee for the independence of Malta, and the British government was therefore technically justified in retaining it. No similar justification could, however, be alleged for the retention of Alexandria and the French towns in India. These measures were, as will be seen, defended on broader grounds of public policy. Not the least of the causes of discontent with the new situation was the refusal of Napoleon to follow up the treaty of peace with a commercial treaty. He had even retained French troops in Holland, and thus shown that he meant to close its ports against British commerce. The hope of a renewal of trade with France had been a main cause of the popular desire for peace, and had reconciled the British public to the sacrifices with which the treaty of Amiens had been purchased. It soon became clear that further concessions would be made the price of a commercial treaty, and it was felt in consequence that the sacrifices already made were made in vain.

In September, 1802, Lord Whitworth was sent as ambassador extraordinary to the French Republic. The instructions which he carried with him from Hawkesbury fully reflect the prevailing spirit of mistrust. He was to watch for any new leagues which might prejudice England or disturb Europe; he was to discover any secret designs that might be formed against the East or West Indies; he was to maintain the closest surveillance over the internal politics of France, but especially over the dispositions of influential personages in the confidence of the first consul, as well as over the financial resources and armaments of the republic.[8] Two months later, he was expressly warned in a secret despatch not in any way to commit His Majesty to a restoration of Malta, even if the provisions made at Amiens for this purpose could be completely executed; and the principle was laid down, from which the British government never swerved, that Great Britain was entitled to compensation for any acquisitions made by France since the treaty was signed. Accordingly, the retention of Malta was justified as a counterpoise to French extensions of territory in Italy, the invasion of Switzerland, and the continued occupation of the Batavian republic.[9] This resolution was naturally confirmed by the publication of Sébastiani's report.

NAPOLEON AND WHITWORTH.

The long negotiations between Whitworth and the French government, during the winter of 1802 and the spring of 1803, only bring into stronger relief the importance of the issues thus raised, and the hopelessness of a pacific solution. Napoleon firmly took his stand throughout on the simple letter of the treaty, which pledged Great Britain, upon certain conditions, to place the knights of St. John in possession of Malta, but did not contemplate the case of further accessions of French territory on the continent. Although the conditions specified were never fully satisfied, it is abundantly clear that the British ministers, having at last grasped the value of Malta, created all the difficulties in their power, and determined to cancel this article of the treaty. They alleged, in self-defence, that the spirit of the treaty had been constantly violated by Napoleon, in repeated acts of hostility to British subjects, in the refusal of all redress for such grievances, and, above all, in that series of aggressions on the continent which he declared to be outside the treaty and beyond the province of Great Britain.[10] None of the compromises laboriously discussed in the winter of 1802 betoken any desire on the part of either government to retreat from its main position, though it does not follow that either sought to bring about a renewal of the war. Whitworth constantly reported that no formidable armaments were being prepared, and clung for months to a belief that Napoleon, knowing the instability of his own power and the ruinous state of his finances, would ultimately give way. On the other hand, Talleyrand and Joseph Bonaparte never ceased to hope that Great Britain would make concessions which might be accepted.

Such hopes were rudely dispelled by the king's message to parliament on March 8, 1803, complaining of aggressive preparations in the ports of France and Holland, and recommending immediate measures for the security of his dominions. This message, with the consequent embodiment of the militia, startled the whole continent, and was followed five days later by the famous scene in which the first consul addressed Whitworth in phrases little short of insult. During a public audience at the Tuileries on the 13th, Napoleon, after inquiring whether the British ambassador had received any news from home, broke out with the words: "And so you are determined to go to war". The altercation which ensued is best told in Whitworth's own words[11]:—

"'No, first consul,' I replied, 'we are too sensible of the advantages of peace.' 'We have,' said he, 'been fighting these fifteen years.' As he seemed to wait for an answer, I observed only, 'That is already too long'. 'But,' said he, 'you desire to fight for fifteen years more, and you are forcing me to it,' I told him that was very far from his majesty's intentions. He then proceeded to Count Marcoff and the Chevalier Azzara, who were standing together at a little distance from me, and said to them, 'The English are bent on war, but if they are the first to draw the sword, I shall be the last to put it back into the scabbard. They do not respect treaties. They must be covered with black crape.' I suppose he meant the treaties. He then went his round, and was thought by all those to whom he addressed himself to betray great signs of irritation. In a few minutes he came back to me, to my great annoyance, and resumed the conversation, if such it can be called, by something personally civil to me. He then began again, 'Why these armaments? Against whom these measures of precaution? I have not a single ship of the line in the French ports; but if you wish to arm, I will arm also; if you wish to fight, I will fight also. You may perhaps kill France, but will never intimidate her.' 'We wish,' said I, 'neither the one nor the other. We wish to live on good terms with her.' 'You must respect treaties then,' replied he; 'woe to those who do not respect treaties; they shall answer for it to all Europe.'"

Too much stress has been laid upon this incident, so characteristic of Napoleon's studied impetuosity. Little more than a fortnight later he received the British ambassador with courtesy. Overtures now succeeded overtures, and much was expected on both sides from the influence of the Tsar Alexander, to whom France suggested that Malta might be ceded.[12] At the last moment, a somewhat more conciliatory disposition was shown by the French diplomatists; and the British government was blamed by its opponents, alike for having failed to break off the negotiations earlier on the broadest grounds, and for breaking them off too abruptly on grounds of doubtful validity. But we now see that national enmity, fostered by the press on both sides, rendered friendly relations impossible, and that, even had Napoleon been willing to refrain from aggressions, peace was impossible. On May 12, two months after the king's message, Whitworth, having presented an ultimatum, finally quitted Paris. A few days later an order was issued for the detention of all British subjects then resident in France, and justified on the ground that French seamen (but not passengers) were liable to capture at sea. On June 10 Talleyrand announced the occupation of Hanover and the treatment as enemies of Hanoverian soldiers serving under the King of Great Britain. Meanwhile, on May 16, the rupture of peaceful relations was announced to both houses of parliament; on May 18 war was declared, and in June volunteers were already mustering to resist invasion.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] So Vansittart himself, in Pellew, Life of Sidmouth, i., 371. Southey and Captain Mahan have erroneously supposed that Vansittart accompanied the naval expedition and was sent by Parker in the frigate from the Skaw.

[2] Annual Register, xliii. (1801), chapter i. The average price of wheat in 1800 was 112s. 8d. the quarter, whereas the highest annual average in the half century before the war had been 64s. 6d. On March 5, 1801, the price of the quartern loaf stood as high as 1s. 10½d. On July 23 it was still 1s. 8d. The harvest of this year was, however, an excellent one. The price fell rapidly during August, and by November 12 was as low as 10½d.

[3] Cornwallis, Correspondence, iii., 382-487.

[4] In a letter to Charles Carey, dated October 22, Fox went the length of expressing extreme pleasure in the triumph of the French government over the English (Memorials of C. J. Fox, iii., 349).

[5] Malmesbury, Diaries, iv., 60, 62.

[6] Lecky, History Of Ireland, v., 465.

[7] Lanfrey, Napoleon I. (English edition), ii., 202; Pellew, Life of Sidmouth, ii., 164.

[8] Browning, England and Napoleon in 1803, pp. 1-6.

[9] Browning, ibid., pp. 6-10.

[10] See especially Hawkesbury's despatch in Browning, ibid., pp. 65-68, and Whitworth's despatches, ibid., pp. 73-75, 78-85.

[11] Whitworth's despatch of March 14, in Browning, England and Napoleon, p. 116.

[12] Browning, England and Napoleon, p. 218.

CHAPTER II.

THE RETURN OF PITT.

The period following the rupture of the peace of Amiens, though crowded with military events of the highest importance, was inevitably barren in social and political interest. Disappointed in its hopes of returning prosperity, the nation girded itself up with rare unanimity for a renewed contest. In July the income-tax was reinstituted and a bill was actually carried authorising a levy en masse in case of invasion. Pending its enforcement, the navy was vigorously recruited by means of the press-gang; the yeomanry were called out, and a force of infantry volunteers was enrolled, which reached a total of 300,000 in August, and of nearly 400,000 at the beginning of the next session. Pitt himself, as warden of the Cinque Ports, took command of 3,000 volunteers in Kent, and contrasted in parliament the warlike enthusiasm of the country with the alleged apathy of the ministry. On July 23 a rebellion broke out in Ireland, instigated by French agents and headed by a young man named Robert Emmet. The conspiracy was ill planned and in itself insignificant, but the recklessness of the conspirators was equalled by the weakness of the civil and military authorities, who neglected to take any precautions in spite of the plainest warnings. The rebels had intended to attack Dublin Castle and seize the person of the lord lieutenant, who was to be held as a hostage; but they dared not make the attempt, and after parading the streets for a few hours were dispersed by the spontaneous action of a few determined officers with a handful of troops, but not before Lord Kilwarden, the chief justice, and several other persons, had been cruelly murdered by Emmet's followers. Futile as the rising was, it sufficed to show that union was not a sovereign remedy for Irish disaffection.

Meanwhile the relations between the prime minister and his predecessor had been growing less and less cordial. Throughout the year 1801 Pitt was still the friend and informal adviser of the ministry, and it is difficult to overrate the value of his support as a ground of confidence in an administration, personally popular, but known to be deficient in intellectual brilliance. In 1802 he generally stood aloof, and though in June of that year he corrected the draft of the king's speech, he absented himself from parliament, for he was dissatisfied with the measures adopted by government. His dissatisfaction was known to his friends, and in November a movement was set on foot by Canning to induce Addington to withdraw in Pitt's favour; but Pitt, though willing to resume office, refused to allow the ministry to be approached on the subject. He preferred to wait till a general wish for his return to power should be manifested. In December he visited Grenville at Dropmore, and expressed a certain discontent with the government.[13] It was his intention still to treat the ministers with tenderness, but to return to parliament and criticise their policy. It is easy to see that his object at this date was not to drive the government from office, but to give rise to a desire to re-enlist his own talents in the service of the country, and thus prepare the way for a peaceable resumption of the position he had abandoned in the preceding year.

NEGOTIATIONS FOR PITT'S RETURN.

No sooner had rumours of Pitt's willingness to resume office reached Addington in the last days of December, than he opened negotiations with Pitt with a view to effecting this object. Pitt did not receive his overtures very warmly. He doubtless wished to be brought back because he was felt to be indispensable, without any appearance of intrigue. Time was in his favour, and he allowed the negotiations to proceed slowly. As the proposals took shape, it became clear that Addington did not wish to be openly superseded by Pitt, but preferred that they should serve together as secretaries of state under a third person; and Addington even suggested Pitt's brother, the Earl of Chatham, then master-general of the ordnance, as a suitable prime minister. Pitt's reply, communicated to Addington by Dundas, now Viscount Melville, in a letter dated March 22, 1803, was to the effect that Pitt would not accept any position in the government except that of prime minister, with which was to be coupled the office of chancellor of the exchequer. Addington readily acceded to Pitt's claim to this position, but Grenville refused to serve in a ministry where Addington and Hawkesbury held "any efficient offices of real business," and Addington declined to abandon ministerial office for a speakership of the house of lords, which Pitt proposed to create for him. Finally, on April 10, Pitt at a private conference with Addington proposed as an indispensable condition of his own return to office that Melville, Spencer, Grenville, and Windham should become members of his cabinet. This meant a reconstruction of the whole ministry, and Pitt stipulated that the changes should be made by the king's desire and on the recommendation of the existing ministry.

The situation had become an impossible one. Nothing was more reasonable than that Pitt, the friend and protector of the existing ministry, should assume the direction of affairs now that the nation appeared to be on the brink of war. But Pitt could not honourably desert those former colleagues, who had resigned with him on the catholic question. Two of these, however, Grenville and Windham, though doubtless men of the highest capacity, had bitterly attacked the existing ministry; and it was not to be expected that that ministry, supported as it still was by overwhelming majorities in both houses of parliament, supported as it had hitherto been by Pitt himself, should consent to admit its opponents to a share of office. It is highly improbable that Grenville and Windham would then have co-operated with Addington and Hawkesbury, and their admission to office would have ruined the cohesion of the cabinet, unless it had been accompanied by the retirement of the leading members of the existing ministry which Pitt's previous attitude, together with the actual balance of parties in parliament, rendered it impossible to demand. How difficult it was to induce Grenville and Windham to enter into any combination future years were to prove. For the present the ministry took not merely the wisest, but the only course open to it. Addington, after vainly endeavouring to induce Pitt to modify his terms, laid them before a cabinet council on April 13; they were immediately rejected, though the cabinet declared itself ready to admit to office Pitt himself and those of his colleagues who had hitherto acted with the Addington ministry. Pitt could hardly have expected any other reply. No ministry could have granted such terms except on the supposition that Pitt was indispensable, and Pitt for the present hardly claimed such a position.[14]

But if Pitt did not consider himself indispensable, his friends did, and both he and others came gradually to adopt their view. The rejection of his terms left him free to adopt the line of policy that he had sketched to Grenville in the previous December. He had not to wait long for an opportunity, but in the opinion of Pitt's friends at least the first provocation came from Addington. Unable to strengthen his ministry by any accession from Pitt and his followers, he had turned to the "old opposition," the whigs who, under the leadership of Fox, had consistently advocated a pacific policy. These had recently supported the ministry against the "new opposition," as the followers of Grenville and Windham were called. But since 1797 Fox and the majority of the "old opposition" had generally absented themselves from parliament, and George Tierney, member for Southwark, had led what was left of their party.[15] He now received and accepted the offer of the treasurership of the navy, one of the most important of the offices below cabinet rank. As a speaker Tierney was a valuable addition to the government which was sadly deficient in debating power; he had, however, been particularly bitter in his attacks on Pitt, with whom he had fought a duel in 1798, and had provoked the sarcastic wit of Canning, in whose well-known parody, "The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-grinder" (1798), the original illustration by Gillray depicted the friend of humanity with the features of Tierney and laid the scene in the borough of Southwark.

CHANGES IN ADDINGTON'S MINISTRY.

The appointment, which Pitt himself does not appear to have resented, was announced on June 1, and Tierney took his place on the treasury bench on the 3rd. On the same evening Colonel Patten moved a series of resolutions condemning, in extravagant terms, the conduct of the ministry in the negotiation with France. Pitt seized the opportunity to move the orders of the day. In other words, he proposed that the question should be left undecided. He expressed the opinion that the ministry was not free from blame, but declared himself unable to concur in all the charges against it. He considered further that to drive the existing ministers out of office would only throw the country into confusion, and that it was therefore inadvisable to pursue the question. To this the ministerial speakers replied by demanding a direct censure or a total acquittal, and the consequent division served only to display the weakness of the opposition. The Addington, Fox, and Grenville parties combined to oppose Pitt's motion, which was rejected by 333 votes against 56. Pitt and Fox, and their respective followers then left the house, leaving the ministerial party and the Grenville party to decide the fate of Patten's resolutions, which were negatived by 275 votes against 34. A comparison of the figures of the two divisions, allowing for tellers, gives as the voting strength of Pitt's party 58, of Grenville's 36, of Fox's 22, and of Addington's 277. Of these the Grenville party alone desired to eject the ministers from office, while Fox's party openly professed a preference for Addington over Pitt.

During the remainder of the session Pitt seldom took any part in parliamentary business, and never opposed the ministry on any question of importance. On August 12 parliament was prorogued after a session lasting nearly nine months, and the prime minister embraced the opportunity of making some slight reconstructions in the ministry. Pelham, who was removed from the home office, resigned his place in the cabinet, and was shortly afterwards consoled with the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster, an office which was not yet definitely recognised as political. Charles Philip Yorke, son of the chancellor who died in 1770 and half-brother of the third Earl of Hardwicke, resigned the office of secretary at war and succeeded to the home office on the 17th. It was also considered advisable to strengthen the ministry in the upper house, where Grenville's oratory gave the opposition a decided advantage in debating power, and Hawkesbury was accordingly summoned to the lords on November 16 in his father's barony of Hawkesbury. After this rearrangement the cabinet contained eight peers and three commoners, no illiberal allowance of commoners according to the ideas of the age. The recess was further marked by a violent war of pamphlets between the followers of Addington and Pitt, which began early in September, and which, although no politician of the first order took any direct part in it, did much to embitter the relations of their respective parties.[16] Not less irritating were the jeux d'esprit with which Canning continued to assail the ministry in the newspaper press.[17] The most famous of these is the couplet:—

Pitt is to Addington
As London is to Paddington.

A more openly abusive poem, entitled "Good Intentions," described the prime minister as "Happy Britain's guardian gander". The following verses refer to the appointment of Addington's brother, John Hiley Addington, to be paymaster-general of the forces, and of his brother-in-law, Charles Bragge, afterwards succeeded by Tierney, to be treasurer of the navy:—

How blest, how firm the statesman stands
(Him no low intrigue can move)
Circled by faithful kindred bands
And propped by fond fraternal love.

When his speeches hobble vilely,
What "Hear him's" burst from Brother Hiley;
When his faltering periods lag,
Hark to the cheers of Brother Bragge.

Each a gentleman at large,
Lodged and fed at public charge,
Paying (with a grace to charm ye)
This the Fleet, and that the Army.[18]

THE KING'S ILLNESS.

When parliament reassembled on November 22 the opposition was still disunited, and, though Windham severely condemned the inadequacy of the provision made for national defence, he did not venture to divide against the government. But during the Christmas recess a distinct step was made towards the consolidation of the opposition by the reunion of the two sections of the whig party. Grenville had conceived a chimerical project of replacing the existing administration by one which should include all statesmen possessed of real political talent, whatever their differences in the past might have been. True to this policy, he persuaded Fox in January, 1804, to join him in attempting to expel the Addington administration from office as an essential preliminary to any further action. Sheridan, however, with some of the Prince of Wales's friends, still refused to enter into any combination which might result in the return of Pitt to power. The parliamentary session was resumed on February 1, but the course of events was complicated by a recurrence of the king's malady. Symptoms of this were observed towards the end of January; the disease took a turn for the worse about February 12, and on the 14th it was made known to the public. For a short time the king's life appeared to be in danger; his reason was affected during a longer interval, but the attack was in every way milder than in 1789, and on March 7 Dr. Simmons reported to Addington that "the king was competent to perform any act of government".[19] It is true that for many months the king's health did not allow him to give his full attention to public business, but there was nothing to prevent him from attending to such routine work as was absolutely necessary. There could, however, be no question of a change of ministers till there should be a marked improvement in the king's health.

The king's illness was made the occasion on February 27 of a motion by Sir Robert Lawley for the adjournment of the house of commons. This was parried by Addington with the statement that there was no necessary suspension of such royal functions as it might be necessary for His Majesty to discharge at the present moment.[20] The emphasis here obviously lay on the word "necessary". A still bolder course was adopted shortly afterwards by the lord chancellor. When on March 9 the king's assent to several bills was given by commission, Fitzwilliam raised not unreasonable doubts as to whether the king was capable of resuming the functions of government. Eldon, however, declared that, as the result of a private interview with the king, he had come to the conclusion that the royal commissioners were warranted in assenting to the bills in question. Whether the chancellor was justified in assuming this responsibility must remain doubtful; at all events Pitt seems to have determined that the time was now ripe for a ministerial crisis. He had on February 27 criticised both the military and naval defences of the country, but he would not directly attack the government till the king's health was in a better condition. At last, on March 15, the first attack was made. Pitt selected the weak point in the administration. St. Vincent's obstinacy in refusing to believe in the possibility of a renewal of hostility and his excessive economy had brought about a marked deterioration in the strength and quality of the fleet. Pitt accordingly moved for an inquiry into the administration of the navy. Fox dissociated himself from Pitt's attacks on the first lord of the admiralty, but supported the motion on the ground that an inquiry would clear St. Vincent's character. On a division the government had a majority of 201 against 130. On the 19th, however, Pitt refused to join the Grenvilles in supporting Fox's motion for the re-committal of the volunteer consolidation bill. On the following day Eldon made overtures to Pitt, and on the 23rd Pitt dined tête-à-tête with the chancellor, but no record has been preserved of the nature of their negotiations.

On the 29th Pitt, in a letter to Melville, explained his position at length. He intended, as soon after the Easter recess as the king's health should permit, to write to the king explaining the dangers which, in his opinion, threatened the crown and people from the continuance of the existing government, and representing the urgent necessity of a speedy change; he would prefer an administration from which no political party should be excluded, but was unwilling, especially in view of the king's state of health, to force any minister upon him; if, therefore, he should be invited by the king to form a ministry from which the partisans of Fox and Grenville were to be excluded, he was prepared to form one from his own followers united with the more capable members of the existing government, excluding Addington himself and St. Vincent; should this measure fail of success, he would "have no hesitation in taking such ground in Parliament as would be most likely to attain the object".[21] As it happened, the parliamentary assault preceded the correspondence with the king. Immediately after the recess the ministry laid before parliament military proposals which Pitt felt bound to resist. On April 16 Pitt, supported by Windham, opposed the third reading of a bill for augmenting the Irish militia, and expressed a preference for the army of reserve. He was defeated by the narrow majority of 128 against 107. On the 23rd Fox proposed to refer the question of national defence to a committee of the whole house. He was supported by Pitt and Windham, and defeated by 256 votes only against 204. The division which sealed the fate of the ministry was taken two days later on a motion that the house should go into committee on a bill for the suspension of the army of reserve. This was opposed by Pitt, who expounded a rival plan for the diminution of the militia and increase of the army of reserve. Fox and Windham demanded for Pitt's scheme a right to consideration, and on a division the motion was carried by no more than 240 against 203. The division of April 16 had convinced Addington that a reconciliation with Pitt was necessary. On Pitt's refusing to confer with him, he agreed to recommend the king to charge Eldon with the task of discovering Pitt's views as to the formation of a new ministry, in case the king wished to learn them.

ADDINGTON'S RESIGNATION.

The king, however, expressed no such wish, and on April 22 Pitt sent an unsealed letter to Eldon to be laid before the king; announcing his dissatisfaction with the ministry and his intention of declaring this dissatisfaction in parliament.[22] It was not till the 27th that Eldon found a suitable opportunity of communicating Pitt's letter to the king. Before that date Addington, who considered that he could no longer remain in office with dignity after the divisions of the 23rd and 25th, had on the 26th informed the king of his intention to resign. The king reluctantly consented to his resignation, which was announced to the cabinet on the 29th. On the following day Eldon called on Pitt with a request from the king for a plan of a new administration. Pitt replied in a letter, setting forth at great length the arguments in favour of a combined administration, and requesting permission to confer with Fox and Grenville about the construction of the ministry.[23] The letter irritated the king, who demanded a renewed pledge against catholic emancipation, with which Grenville was specially associated in his mind, and refused to admit Pitt to office if he persevered in his purpose of consulting Fox and Grenville. Pitt then declared his adherence to the pledge given in 1801[24] and requested an interview with the king. The interview, which took place on May 7, lasted three hours, and ended in a compromise. The king agreed to admit Grenville and his friends to office, but, while ready to accept the friends of Fox, he refused, as much on personal as on political grounds, to give Fox a place in the cabinet. At the same time he declared himself ready to grant him a diplomatic appointment. At a later date the king went the length of declaring that, rather than accept Fox, he would have incurred the risk of civil war.

PITT'S RETURN TO OFFICE.

Fox readily agreed to his own exclusion, which he had fully expected, and urged his followers to join Pitt, but Grenville and his friends refused to serve without Fox, while the friends of Fox and the more immediate followers of Addington refused to serve without their respective leaders. Addington always considered that Pitt had treated him ungenerously in driving him from office, when it was open to him to return to the head of affairs with the full consent of the existing ministers. More recently it has been the fashion to blame Pitt for bringing too little pressure to bear upon the king and thus losing the support of Fox and Grenville. Neither charge appears to be justified. Through the whole length of the Addington administration Pitt showed himself fully sensitive of what was due to the king, with whom he had worked cordially for eighteen years, to Grenville who had resigned in his cause, and to Addington who had assumed office under his protection. There was no trace of faction in Pitt's attitude towards the ministry. He merely opposed what he believed to be dangerous to the country, and when he was convinced of the necessity of removing Addington from a share in public business, he endeavoured to effect his purpose in such a way as to give the minimum of offence.

On the other hand, Pitt's intended combination in a supreme crisis of his country's destiny with his life-long antagonist, Fox, was a heroic experiment, perhaps, but still only an experiment. The failure of the ministry of "All the Talents" renders it exceedingly doubtful whether such an alliance would have proved successful, and Fox's lukewarm patriotism would have been dearly purchased at the expense of the alienation of the king, perhaps even of his relapse into insanity. Nor is it certain that the strongest pressure would have induced George III. to accept Fox at this date. Addington was still undefeated and might have remained in office if Pitt had refused to assume the reins of government without Fox. Grenville is undoubtedly more responsible than any one else for the weakness of Pitt's second administration. It was from a sense of loyalty to Grenville that Pitt had suffered the negotiations for his return to office in 1803 to fall through, and now when the two statesmen could return together, and when, if ever, a strong government was needed, either a quixotic sense of honour or a wounded pride induced Grenville not only to stand aloof from the new administration himself, but to do his utmost to prevent others from giving it their support.[25] The new cabinet was quickly formed. Pitt received the seals of office on May 10, and took his seat in parliament after re-election on the 18th, the very day on which Napoleon was declared emperor by the French senate.

This event, long foreseen, was doubtless hastened by the disclosure of the plot formed by Moreau, Pichegru, and Georges Cadoudal against the first consul. There was no proof of Moreau's complicity in designs on Napoleon's life, and the mysterious death of Pichegru in prison left the extent of his complicity among the insoluble problems of history, but there can be no doubt that Cadoudal was justly executed for plotting assassination. Unfortunately some of the under-secretaries in the Addington administration had not only shared the plans of the conspirators so far as they aimed at a rising in France, but had procured for them material assistance. They appear, however, to have been innocent of any attempt on Napoleon's life. Drake, the British envoy at Munich, was, however, deeper in the plot. The evidence of British complicity naturally received the very worst construction in Paris.[26] Napoleon himself certainly believed in an Anglo-Bourbon conspiracy, organised by the Count of Artois and other French royalists, when he caused the Duke of Enghien to be kidnapped in Baden territory and hurried off to the castle of Vincennes. He was, however, already aware of his prisoner's innocence when on March 21 he had him shot there by torch-light after a mock trial before a military commission. All Europe was shocked by this atrocious assassination, and though Napoleon sometimes attempted to shift the guilt of it upon Talleyrand, he justified it at other times as a measure of self-defence, and left on record his deliberate approval of it, for the consideration of posterity. Two months later he became Emperor of the French.

When Pitt resumed office on May 10, 1804, he was no longer the heaven-born and buoyant young minister of 1783, strong in the confidence of the king and the anticipated confidence of the nation, with a minority of followers in the house of commons, but with the brightest prospects of political success before him. Nor was he the leader of a devoted majority, as when he resigned in 1801 rather than abandon his convictions on the catholic question. He had been compelled to waive these convictions, without fully regaining the confidence of the king, and, while the adherents of Fox retained their deep-seated hatred of a war-policy, the adherents of Addington and Grenville were in no mood to give him a loyal support. Windham and Spencer were no longer at his side, and his ministry was essentially the same as that of Addington, with the substitution of Dudley Ryder, now Lord Harrowby, for Hawkesbury as foreign secretary, Melville for St. Vincent as first lord of the admiralty, Earl Camden for Hobart as secretary for war and the colonies, and the Duke of Montrose for Auckland as president of the board of trade. Hawkesbury was transferred to the home office, vacated by Yorke, and the new chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Lord Mulgrave, was given a seat in the cabinet. Of Pitt's eleven colleagues in the cabinet Castlereagh alone, who remained president of the board of control—a wretched speaker though an able administrator—had a seat in the lower house.

PITT'S RECONCILIATION WITH ADDINGTON.

Military exigencies now engrossed all thoughts, and the king's speech, in proroguing parliament on July 31, foreshadowed a new coalition, for which the murder of the Duke of Enghien had paved the way. The preparations for an invasion of England had been resumed, and Napoleon celebrated his birthday in great state at Boulogne, still postponing his final stroke until he should be crowned, on December 2, at Paris by the helpless pope, brought from Italy for the purpose.[27] A month later he personally addressed another pacific letter to the King of England, who replied in his speech from the throne on January 15, 1805, that he could not entertain overtures except in concert with Russia and the other powers. Meanwhile, Pitt, conscious as he was of failing powers, retained his undaunted courage, and while he was organising a third coalition, did not shrink from a bold measure which could hardly be justified by international law. This was the seizure on October 5, 1804, of three Spanish treasure-ships on the high seas, without a previous declaration of war against Spain, though not without a previous notice that hostilities might be opened at any moment unless Spain ceased to give underhand assistance to France. The excuse was that Spain had long been the obsequious ally of France, and, as the alliance now became open, Pitt's act was sanctioned by a large majority in both houses of parliament in January, 1805. The parliamentary session which opened in this month found Pitt's ministry apparently stronger than it had been at the beginning of the recess. Despairing of any help from Grenville, except in a vigorous prosecution of the war, he had sought a reconciliation with Addington, who became Viscount Sidmouth on January 12 and president of the council on the 14th. Along with Sidmouth his former colleague Hobart, now Earl of Buckinghamshire, returned to office as chancellor of the duchy. To make room for these new allies, Portland had consented to resign the presidency of the council, though he remained a member of the cabinet, while Mulgrave was appointed to the foreign office, in place of Harrowby, who was compelled by ill-health to retire.

But this new accession of strength was soon followed by a terrible mortification which probably contributed to shorten Pitt's life. Melville, his tried supporter and intimate friend, was charged on the report of a commission with having misapplied public money as treasurer of the navy in Pitt's former ministry. It appeared that he had been culpably careless, and had not prevented the paymaster, Trotter, from engaging in private speculations with the naval balances. Although Trotter's speculations involved no loss to the state they were, nevertheless, a contravention of an act of 1785. Melville had also supplied other departments of government with naval money, but was personally innocent of fraud. There was a divergence of feeling in the cabinet as to the attitude to be adopted towards Melville. Sidmouth, himself a man of the highest integrity, was a friend of St. Vincent, the late first lord of the admiralty, and had not forgiven Melville for his part in the expulsion of himself and St. Vincent from office. He had therefore both public and private grounds to incline him against Melville. On April 8, Samuel Whitbread moved a formal censure on Melville in the house of commons. Pitt, with the approval of Sidmouth and his friends, moved the previous question on Whitbread's motion, and declared his intention of introducing a motion of his own for a select committee to investigate the charges. In spite of the support which Pitt derived from the followers of Sidmouth the votes were equally divided on Whitbread's motion, 216 a side. Abbot, the speaker, gave his casting vote in favour of Whitbread, and the announcement was received by the whig members with unseemly exultation.[28]

MINISTERIAL CHANGES.

The censure was followed by an impeachment before the house of lords, where Melville was acquitted in the following year. Meanwhile, he had resigned office on April 9, the day after the vote of censure, and his place at the admiralty was taken by Sir Charles Middleton, who was raised to the peerage as Lord Barham. The appointment gave umbrage to Sidmouth, to whom Pitt had made promises of promotion for his own followers, and he was with difficulty induced to remain in the cabinet. Pitt was, however, irritated by the hostile votes of Sidmouth's followers, Hiley Addington and Bond, on the question of the impeachment, and regarded this as a reason for delaying their preferment. Sidmouth now complained of a breach of faith, as Pitt had promised to treat the question as an open one, and he resigned office on July 4. Buckinghamshire resigned next day. Camden was appointed to succeed Sidmouth as lord president, Castlereagh followed Camden as secretary for war and the colonies, retaining his previous position as president of the board of control, and Harrowby, whose health had improved since his resignation in January, took Buckinghamshire's place as chancellor of the duchy. Thus weakened at home, Pitt could derive little consolation from the aspect of continental affairs. On May 26, Napoleon was crowned King of Italy in the cathedral of Milan, and the Ligurian Republic became part of the French empire in the following month. The ascendency of France in Europe might well have appeared impregnable, and it might have been supposed that nothing remained for England but to guard her own coasts and recapture some of the French colonies given up by the treaty of Amiens.

But Pitt's spirit was still unbroken, and by the middle of July he succeeded in rallying three powers, Russia, Austria, and Sweden, into a league to withstand the further encroachments of France. Such a league had been proposed by Gustavus IV. of Sweden, early in 1804, but nothing definite was done till Pitt's ministry entered upon office. Meanwhile, the assassination of the Duke of Enghien had led to a rupture of diplomatic relations between France and Russia, though war was not declared. Negotiations were presently set on foot for a league, which, it was hoped, would be joined by Austria and Prussia in addition to Great Britain, Russia, and Sweden. An interesting feature in the negotiations was the tsar's scheme of a European polity, where the states should be independent and enjoy institutions "founded on the sacred rights of humanity," a foreshadowing, as it would seem, of the Holy Alliance. The discussion of details between Great Britain and Russia began towards the end of 1804. Difficulties, however, arose about the British retention of Malta and the British claim to search neutral ships for deserters. A treaty between the two powers was signed on April 11, 1805; but the tsar long refused his ratification, and it was only given in July, after a formal protest against the retention of Malta.

The object of this alliance was defined to be the expulsion of French troops from North Germany, the assured independence of the republics of Holland and Switzerland, and the restoration of the King of Sardinia in Piedmont; 500,000 men were to be provided for the war by Russia and such other continental powers as might join the coalition. Great Britain, instead of furnishing troops, was to supply £1,250,000 a year for every 100,000 men engaged in the war. After the close of the war an European congress was to define more closely the law of nations and establish an European federation. At the same time the allies disclaimed the intention of forcing any system of government on France against her will. It will be observed that the number of troops specified was far in excess of what Russia alone could place in the field; such numbers could only be obtained by the adhesion of Austria and of either Prussia or some of the smaller German states to the coalition. So far as Austria was concerned, Napoleon's Italian policy rendered war inevitable. Already in November, 1804, the Austrian court had entered into a secret agreement with Russia to make war on France in the event of further French aggressions in Italy. The coronation of Napoleon as King of Italy and the annexation of Liguria were, however, more than aggressions; they were open violations of the treaty of Lunéville which had guaranteed the independence of the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics. Austria hereupon determined on war, and secretly joined the coalition on August 9, 1805. Sweden, which was not a member of it, concluded separate treaties of alliance both with Great Britain and with Russia. Greater difficulties had to be surmounted in the case of Prussia. Frederick William III. cherished no enthusiasm for European liberty, and vacillated under the influence of Napoleon's offer of Hanover on the one hand and his numerous petty insults on the other. Prussia in consequence remained neutral throughout the most decisive period of the ensuing war.

NELSON AND VILLENEUVE.

Long before the coalition was ready Napoleon's mind had recurred to his venturesome project for the invasion of England. An army, the finest that he ever led to victory, which, even after it had been transferred to another scene of action, he still saw fit to call the "army of England," was encamped near Boulogne. It was constantly exercised in the process of embarking on board flat-bottomed boats or rafts, which were to be convoyed by Villeneuve, admiral of the Toulon fleet, and Gantheaume, admiral of the Brest fleet, for whose appearance the French signalmen vainly scanned the horizon. In the meantime, Nelson had been engaged for two years, without setting foot on shore, in that patient and sleepless watch, ranging over the whole Mediterranean, which must ever rank with the greatest of his matchless exploits. At last, he learned in the spring of 1805, that Villeneuve, following a plan concerted by Napoleon himself, had eluded him by sailing from Toulon towards Cadiz, had there been joined by the Spanish fleet, and was steering for the West Indies. Nelson followed with a much smaller number of ships, and might have forced an action in those waters, but he was misled by false intelligence and missed the enemy, though his dreaded presence was effectual in saving the British islands from any serious attack.

The combined fleets of France and Spain recrossed the Atlantic and in accordance with Napoleon's plans made for Ferrol on the coast of Galicia. After being repulsed with some loss off Cape Finisterre by Sir Robert Calder, who was court-martialled and severely reprimanded for neglecting to follow up his victory, they put in first at Vigo, and then with fifteen allied ships at Coruña. But, instead of venturing to carry out Napoleon's orders by challenging Admiral Cornwallis's fleet off Brest, and making a desperate effort to command the channel, Villeneuve now took advantage of his emperors recommendation to return to Cadiz in event of defeat, and set sail for that port in the middle of August. Nelson, ignorant of his movements, had vainly sought him off the Straits of Gibraltar, and came home to report himself at the admiralty. Arriving at Spithead on August 18, he was in England barely four weeks, most of which he spent in privacy at Merton. During this brief respite he received a general tribute of admiration and affection from his countrymen, which anticipated the verdict of posterity. On September 15 he sailed from Portsmouth, with a presentiment of his own fate, after having described to Sidmouth the general design of his crowning sea fight: he would, he said, break the enemy's line in two places; and he did so. He joined Admiral Collingwood off Cadiz on the 29th, and on October 19 he received news that Villeneuve, smarting under the prospect of being superseded, had put to sea with the combined fleet. Complicated naval manœuvres followed, but on the 21st the enemy was forced to give battle, a few leagues from Cape Trafalgar, and Nelson caused his immortal signal to be hoisted—"England expects that every man will do his duty".

THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR.

The French and Spanish fleet comprised thirty-three ships of the line, of which eighteen were French and fifteen Spanish; the British had only twenty-seven, but among these were seven three-deckers as against four on the side of the allies. It had the additional advantage of superior discipline and equipment, to say nothing of the genius of its commander. The British fleet advanced in two divisions, Nelson leading the weather division of twelve, and Collingwood the lee division of fifteen ships. According to Nelson's plan Collingwood was to attack the rear of the enemy's line, while he himself cut off and paralysed the centre and van. Both divisions advanced without regular formation, the ships bearing down with all the speed they could command and without waiting for laggards. Collingwood in the Royal Sovereign, steering E. by N., broke through the allies' line twelve ships from the rear, raking the Santa Ana, Alava's flagship, as he passed her stern, with a broadside which struck down 400 of her men. For some fifteen minutes the Royal Sovereign was alone in action; then others of the division came up and successively penetrated the line of the allies, and engaging ship to ship completely disposed of the enemy's rear, their twelve rear ships being all taken or destroyed.

Meanwhile, Nelson in the Victory, who had reserved to himself the more difficult task of containing twenty-one ships with twelve, held on his course, advancing so as to keep the allied van stationary and yet to prevent the centre from venturing to help the rear. He designed to pass through the end of the line in order to cut the enemy's van off from Cadiz, but, finding an opportunity, changed his course, passed down the line and attacked the centre. He passed through the line of the allied fleet, closely followed by four other ships of his division, and the five British ships concentrated their attacks on the Bucentaure, Villeneuve's flagship, the gigantic Spanish four-decker, the Santísima Trinidad, which was next ahead of her, and the Redoutable, which supported her. The centre of the allies was crushed and the van cut off from coming to the help of the rear, which was being destroyed by Collingwood.

Before the battle ended, the naval force of France, and with it Napoleon's projects of invasion, were utterly and hopelessly ruined. Eighteen prizes were taken, and, though many of these were lost in a gale, four ships which escaped were afterwards captured, and the remainder lay for the most part shattered hulks at Cadiz. By this battle the supremacy of Great Britain at sea was finally established. Nelson, who, during the ship-to-ship engagement which followed his penetration of the enemy's line, was mortally wounded by a sharp-shooter from the mizzen-top of the Redoutable, died before the battle was over, though he was spared to hear that a complete victory was secure. His death is among the heroic incidents of history, and his last achievement, both in its conception and its results, was the fitting climax of his fame. The plan for the battle which he drew up beforehand for the instruction of his captains, and the changes which he made in it to meet the conditions of the moment are alike worthy of his supreme genius as a naval tactician. His arrangements were carried out by men who had learned to love and trust him, and who were inspired by the fire of his spirit, and hence it was that the allied fleet of France and Spain perished at the "Nelson touch".[29]

Very different were the fortunes of war in central Europe, where Napoleon himself commanded the "army of England". It was not until the end of August that Napoleon knew that Villeneuve would be unable to appear in the Channel, but no sooner did he abandon his project of invasion in despair than he resolved on a campaign scarcely less arduous, and gave orders for a grand march into Germany. Pitt, as we have seen, had successfully negotiated an alliance with Russia and Austria, whose armies were converging upon the plains of Bavaria and were to have been reinforced by a large Prussian contingent. Unhappily, they had not effected a junction when Napoleon crossed the Rhine near Strassburg and the Danube near Donauwörth, while he detached large forces to check the advance of the Russians and the approach of reinforcements expected from Italy. One of these movements involved an open violation of Prussian territory, but he could rely on the well-tried servility of Frederick William. The first decisive result of his strategy was the surrender of Mack at Ulm, with 30,000 men and 60 pieces of ordnance. This event took place on October 20, the very day before the battle of Trafalgar, and opened the road to Vienna, which the French troops entered on November 13, occupying the great bridge by a ruse more skilful than honourable, during the negotiation of an armistice. Vienna was spared, while Napoleon pressed on to meet the remainder of the Austrian army, which had now been joined by a larger body of Russians near Brünn. The allies numbered about 100,000 men; Napoleon's army was numerically somewhat less, but possessed the same kind of superiority as the British navy at Trafalgar. The result was the crushing victory of Austerlitz on December 2, followed by the peace of Pressburg, between France and Austria, signed on the 26th. The principal articles of this treaty provided for the cession of Venetia, Istria, and Dalmatia to the kingdom of Italy, and the aggrandisement of Bavaria and Würtemberg, whose electors received the royal title as the price of their sympathetic alliance with France. Russia withdrew sullenly, having learned the hollowness of her league with Prussia, which had basely temporised while the fate of Germany was at stake, and whose minister, Haugwitz, suppressing the ultimatum which he was charged to deliver, had openly congratulated the conqueror of Austerlitz.

Great Britain had had no direct share in the conflict in Southern Germany and Moravia; she had, however, joined in two expeditions, the one in Southern, the other in Northern Europe. In spite of a treaty of neutrality between France and the Two Sicilies, ratified on October 8, an Anglo-Russian squadron was permitted to land a force of 10,000 British troops under Sir James Craig, and 14,000 Russians on the shore of the Bay of Naples. These troops effected nothing, and the violation of neutrality was, as we shall see, destined to involve the Neapolitan monarchy in ruin. The expedition to North Germany was planned on a larger scale. Hanover had been occupied by France since June, 1803. Its recovery was attempted by an Anglo-Hanoverian force under Cathcart, which was to have been supported by a Russian and Swedish force acting from Stralsund. The co-operation of Prussia was also expected. In order to secure this alliance the British government offered Prussia an extension of territory so as to include Antwerp, Liège, Luxemburg, and Cologne, in the event of victory. In November the expedition landed. In December Prussia had definitely given her protection to the Russian troops in Hanover and offered it to the Hanoverians. Pitt computed that at the beginning of the next campaign nearly 300,000 men would be available in North Germany. But the vacillation of Prussia ruined all. On December 15 Haugwitz signed the treaty of Schönbrunn, by which Prussia was to enter into an offensive and defensive alliance with France and was to receive Hanover in return for Ansbach, Cleves, and Neuchâtel. Frederick William could not yet stoop to such a degree of infamy, and therefore, instead of ratifying the treaty, resolved on January 3, 1806, to propose a compromise, which involved among other provisions the temporary occupation of Hanover by Prussia. In consequence of this determination he sent, on January 7, a request for the withdrawal of the British forces, which were accordingly recalled.[30]

THE DEATH OF PITT.

The collapse of his last coalition was the death-blow of Pitt, cheered though he was for the moment by the news of Trafalgar. The fatal consequences of Austerlitz were reported to him at Bath, whence he returned by easy stages to his villa at Putney in January, 1806. His noble spirit was broken at last by the defection of Prussia, and after lingering a while, he died on the 23rd of that month, leaving a name second to none among the greatest statesmen of his country. His sagacious mind grasped the advantage to be gained by freeing trade from unnecessary restrictions, and anticipated catholic emancipation, parliamentary reform, and the abolition of slavery. He gave the nation, in the union with Ireland, the one constructive measure of the first order achieved in his time, and only marred by the weakness of more pliable successors in a lesser age. His dauntless soul, which bore him up against the bitterest disappointments, the desertion of friends, and the depression of mortal disease, inspired the governing classes of England to endure ten more years of exhausting war, to save Europe (as he foretold) by their example, and to crown his own work at Waterloo. His lofty eloquence, which has been described as a gift independent of statesmanship, was indeed a product of statesmanship, for it consisted in no mere witchery of words, but in a luminous and convincing presentation of essential facts. He may have been inferior to his own father in fiery rhetoric, to Peel in comprehensive grasp of domestic policy, and to Gladstone in the political experience gained by sixty years of political life, but in capacity for command he was inferior to none. If he was not an ideal war minister, he was not a war minister by his own choice; his lot was cast in times which suppressed the exercise of his best powers; and he was matched in the organisation of war, though not in the field, against the greatest organising genius known to history. He must be judged by what he actually did and meditated as a peace minister; his conduct of the war must be compared with that of those able but not gifted men who strove to bend the bow which he left behind him; and we must assuredly conclude that none of his colleagues or rivals was his peer either in powers or in public spirit.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Buckingham, Court and Cabinets, iii., 242; Lewis, Administrations of Great Britain, p. 225.

[14] Buckingham, Court and Cabinets, iii., 282-90; Pellew, Life of Sidmouth, ii., 113-31; Stanhope, Life of Pitt, iv., 20-39.

[15] See vol. x., p. 399.

[16] Pellew, Life of Sidmouth, ii., 145-47; Stanhope, Life of Pitt, iv., 88-93.

[17] For a list of Canning's squibs, belonging to this period, see Lewis, Administrations, p. 249, note.

[18] It was not fair to hold Addington entirely responsible for the promotion of his brother, who had been a junior lord of the treasury under Pitt. The taunt came with a particularly bad grace from Canning, who had himself been paymaster-general in the last administration.

[19] Pellew, Life of Sidmouth, ii., 250.

[20] Annual Register, xlvi. (1804), p. 34.

[21] Stanhope, Life of Pitt, iv., 135-44.

[22] See the letter in Stanhope, Life of Pitt, iv., appendix, pp. i.-iii.

[23] There is preserved a sketch in Pitt's handwriting of a combined administration with Melville, Fox, and Fitzwilliam as secretaries of state, and Grenville as lord president.

[24] Stanhope, Life of Pitt, iv., appendix, pp. xi., xii.

[25] The best account of Pitt's return to power is to be found in Stanhope, Life of Pitt, iv., 113-95; appendix, pp. i.-xiii. The story is told in a very spirited manner by Lord Rosebery, Pitt, pp. 238-44.

[26] Rose, Life of Napoleon I., i., 450-53.

[27] Napoleon actually crowned himself, although he had originally intended to be crowned by the pope.

[28] Malmesbury, Diaries, iv., 338.

[29] Nelson's tactics at Trafalgar are explained in a series of remarkable articles in The Times of September 16, 19, 22, 26, 28, 30, and October 19, 1905. For incidents of the battle see Mahan, Life of Nelson, ii., 363 sqq.

[30] Rose, Life of Napoleon I., ii., 53-57, 63-65.

CHAPTER III.

GRENVILLE AND PORTLAND.

The immediate effect of Pitt's death was the dissolution of his government. The king turned at first to Hawkesbury, afterwards destined as Earl of Liverpool to hold the office of premier for nearly fifteen years; but he then felt himself unequal to such a burden. He next sent for Grenville, who insisted on the co-operation of Fox, to which the king assented without demur, and the short-lived ministry of "All the Talents" was formed within a few days. It was essentially a whig cabinet, but it included two tories, Sidmouth as lord privy seal, and Lord Ellenborough, the lord chief justice. Grenville himself was first lord of the treasury, Fox foreign secretary, and Erskine lord chancellor. Charles Grey, the future Earl Grey, was first lord of the admiralty. Spencer home secretary, Windham secretary for war and the colonies, and Lord Henry Petty, the future Marquis of Lansdowne, chancellor of the exchequer. Fitzwilliam was lord president, and the Earl of Moira master-general of the ordnance. Ellenborough owed his place in the cabinet to the influence of Sidmouth. The appointment was a departure from the established constitutional practice. Since Lord Mansfield, who had ceased to be an efficient member in 1765, no chief justice had been a member of the cabinet, and it was argued in parliament by the opposition that a seat in the cabinet was inconsistent with the independence which a common law judge ought to maintain. It is also important to observe that Sidmouth when accepting office gave express notice to Grenville and Fox that under all circumstances "he would ever resist the catholic question".[31]

The friendly relations of the king with Fox were creditable to both of them, and in the last few months of his life Fox showed himself a statesman. Besides the abolition of the slave trade, his grand object was the restoration of peace on a durable basis. There were some grounds for believing that this was possible. France, under an emperor, seemed no longer to represent a new principle in European politics, and was not necessarily a menace to her neighbours; the coalition was fairly beaten on land, while British supremacy had been reasserted on sea, and Napoleon might well wish for peace to enable him to consolidate his position on land and regain the power of using the sea, just as he had done in 1801. Fox lost no time in renewing a pacific correspondence with Talleyrand, afterwards carried on through the agency of Lord Yarmouth, an English traveller detained in France, and Lord Lauderdale, who was sent over as plenipotentiary. The principle of the negotiation was that of uti possidetis, but it failed, as Whitworth's efforts had failed, because the pretensions of France were constantly shifting, and especially because France, anxious to isolate Great Britain, insisted on negotiating separately with Great Britain and Russia, while Fox very properly refused to make peace without our ally. Grey himself, now Lord Howick, afterwards declared that France showed no disposition to grant any terms which could be accepted by Great Britain. On September 13, Fox died, and was buried in Westminster Abbey almost side by side with his great rival.

While he was earnestly striving for peace, there was no cessation of warlike movements or political changes either in Central Europe or in Italy. In June, 1806, Napoleon converted the Batavian Republic into the kingdom of Holland, over which he set his brother Louis. In July the discord of Germany, which had long ceased to be a nation, was consummated by the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine, which separated all the western states from the Holy Roman empire, and united them under the protection and control of France. On August 6, Francis II., who had assumed the title of Emperor of Austria in 1804, formally renounced the title of Roman Emperor, and the Holy Roman Empire became extinct. The King of Prussia, with singular disregard of good faith and national interest, finally accepted on February 15 the bribe of Hanover for adhesion to France, but without the offensive and defensive alliance offered him in the previous December, and with the additional humiliation of being compelled to close his ports to English ships. He vainly strove to conceal this shameful bargain, and was, as will be seen, punished by the destruction of Prussian commerce. After all, he found himself overreached by Napoleon in duplicity, and was at last provoked into risking a single-handed contest with his imperious ally. He declared war on October 1, and within a fortnight the army of Prussia, inheriting the system and traditions of the great Frederick, was all but annihilated in the twin battles of Jena and Auerstädt fought on October 14.

SMALL EXPEDITIONS.

The British government, though not unwilling to forgive the perfidy of its former confederate, was powerless to strike a blow on his behalf until it was too late. Indeed, the only warlike operation undertaken by Great Britain in Europe during the year was in the extreme south of Italy. Ferdinand, King of the Two Sicilies, had been driven out of his capital to make way for Joseph Bonaparte, who entered Naples on February 15, and the exiled monarch took refuge in the island of Sicily. In accordance with the shortsighted policy of small expeditions, a British force under Sir John Stuart was landed in Calabria to raise the peasantry, and on July 4, defeated the French at the point of the bayonet in the battle of Maida. This action shook the confidence of Europe in the superiority of the French infantry, and saved Sicily from France, but the French troops remained in possession of the Italian mainland. The prestige of Great Britain was raised by the conquest of the Dutch colony of the Cape of Good Hope in January by a naval and military force sent out by Pitt under the command of Sir Home Popham and General, now Sir David, Baird, but was damaged by a futile expedition to South America, undertaken by Popham without orders from the home government. The city of Buenos Ayres was taken, indeed, in June by General Beresford, but it was retaken by the Spaniards in August, and soldiers who could ill be spared from the European conflict now impending were lavished on a chimerical project on the other side of the Atlantic.

The short administration of Grenville, so inactive in its foreign policy, is memorable only for one redeeming measure of home-policy—the abolition of the slave trade. Before Fox's death, the attention of parliament had been divided mainly between Windham's abortive scheme for a vast standing army, to be raised on the basis of limited service, and the secret inquiry into the conduct of the Princess of Wales. This resulted in her being acquitted of the more scandalous charges against her, but on the advice of the cabinet, she was censured by the king for unseemly levity of behaviour. On October 24 parliament was dissolved. It was a foolish dissolution, for ministerial convenience only, and aimed not merely at strengthening the ministry, but at weakening the tory section within the ministry. The election was not well managed, and the king withheld the subscription of £12,000 with which he was accustomed to assist his ministers for the time being at a general election. Still the ministry obtained a considerable majority.[32] The new parliament met on December 15, and on March 25, 1807, the abolition bill, having passed the house of lords in spite of strong opposition, was carried in the commons by 283 to 16. Thus ended a philanthropic struggle, which began in 1783, when the quakers petitioned against the trade. Three years later Clarkson began his crusade. Two bills in favour of abolition were carried by the house of commons before the close of the eighteenth century, but were thrown out in the house of lords. The same fate befell a bill for a temporary suspension of the slave trade, which passed the commons in 1804 under the spell of Wilberforce's persuasive eloquence; but Pitt's government caused a royal proclamation to be issued, which at least checked the spread of the nefarious traffic in the newly conquered colonies. A larger measure failed to pass the house of commons in 1805, but in 1806 Fox and Grenville succeeded in committing both houses to an open condemnation of the trade. This was followed on March 25, 1807, by an enactment entirely prohibiting the slave trade from and after January 1, 1808, though it was not made felony to engage in it until a further act was carried by Brougham in 1811.

FALL OF GRENVILLE'S MINISTRY.

In default of important legislative tasks, the parliament which expired in 1806 devoted much attention to various features of the military system, as well as to proposed reforms in the public accounts. It sanctioned the principle of raising a great part of the war-expenses by special taxes rather than by loan. A property-tax of 10 per cent. was freely voted, and this was then represented to be its permanent limit. The assessed taxes were increased at the same time by 10 per cent., but with an allowance in favour of poorer taxpayers for every child above the number of two. It is worthy of notice that, while Grenville's ministry was in office, Whitbread brought forward an elaborate plan not only for reforming the poor laws but also for establishing a system of national education. Some changes in the cabinet were necessitated by the death of Fox. Howick became foreign secretary and was succeeded at the admiralty by Thomas Grenville, brother of the prime minister, most famous as a book-collector. Fitzwilliam retired at the same time on the ground of ill-health. He retained his seat in the cabinet, but was succeeded as lord president by Sidmouth, while Fox's nephew, Lord Holland, succeeded Sidmouth as lord privy seal.

The fall of the whig government in March, 1807, was due to a cause similar to that which had brought about the retirement of Pitt in 1801. The Duke of Bedford, who was lord lieutenant of Ireland, had urged the importance of making some concessions to Roman catholics. An Irish act of 1793 had opened commissions in the army as high as the rank of colonel to Roman catholics, and the ministry obtained the reluctant consent of the king to the extension of this concession to Roman catholics throughout his dominions. Without having fully ascertained the king's mind, Howick, on behalf of his colleagues, moved for leave to bring in a bill opening all commissions in the army and navy to Roman catholics. The king at once refused his sanction, and the government, finding that they could not carry their bill, agreed to withdraw it. This decision was announced to the king in a cabinet minute, drawn up at a meeting from which Ellenborough, Erskine, and Sidmouth, who sympathised with the king, were excluded, and from which Fitzwilliam and Spencer were absent owing to ill-health. The minute went on to record their adhesion to the policy embodied in the bill, reserving the right to advise the king on any future occasion in accordance with that policy. Thereupon, Sidmouth, who had already sent in his resignation, Eldon, Portland, and Malmesbury, with the concurrence of the Duke of York and Spencer Perceval, urged the king to make a stand upon his prerogative. He did so, by requiring the ministers who had signed the minute, to give him a written pledge that they would never press upon him further concessions, direct or indirect, to the Roman catholics. This pledge they properly declined, and accepted the consequence by resignation. Spencer was present at the meeting which arrived at this conclusion and concurred in the decision of his colleagues.[33]

A new administration was formed by Portland, as nominal head, but with Perceval as its real leader and chancellor of the exchequer, Canning as foreign secretary, Hawkesbury as home secretary, and Castlereagh as minister for war and the colonies. Camden, Eldon, Westmorland, and Chatham resumed the offices they had held before the death of Pitt, Mulgrave became first lord of the admiralty, and Earl Bathurst president of the board of trade. In this government, too, Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, who had returned in 1805 from a brilliant military career in India, held office outside the cabinet as chief secretary for Ireland. Spencer Perceval was a half-brother of the Earl of Egmont and brother of Lord Arden. He enjoyed a large practice at the bar and had made his mark as a parliamentary debater when filling the offices, first of solicitor-general, and then of attorney-general under Addington. He had held the latter office again under Pitt. Not the least source of his influence was his steady and determined opposition to the Roman catholic claims.

NON-INTERVENTION.

After a short but animated debate on the important constitutional question raised by the circumstances of the change of ministers, parliament was again dissolved on April 27. The king's speech in closing the session was virtually a personal appeal to his people, and a majority was returned in favour of the new ministry. This result may be said to mark the last triumph of George III. in maintaining the principle of personal government. "A just and enlightened toleration" was announced as the substitute for catholic relief. Still, a certain revival of independent popular opinion may be traced in the return of Sir Francis Burdett and Lord Cochrane for Westminster. It was not until June 22 that parliament assembled, and the engrossing interest of foreign events left but little room for discussions on home-policy. A motion by Whitbread, however, bore fruit in a bill for establishing parochial schools, which Eldon successfully opposed in the house of lords, mainly on the ground that it would take popular education out of the hands of the clergy. The same not unnatural apathy about home affairs prevailed throughout the session of 1808, which began on January 31, and though a large number of acts were placed on the statute book in this and succeeding years, the mass of them, including many relating to Ireland, were essentially of a local or occasional character. An exception must be recognised in the partial success of a motion for the reform of the criminal law, which was proposed by Sir Samuel Romilly, famous for his efforts in the cause of humanity, and which resulted in the abolition of capital punishment for the offence of pocket-picking.

During this critical period, when Great Britain was gradually drifting into a position of isolation, the course of parliamentary history becomes inseparable from the progress of those mighty events on the continent, which Grenville's government would fain have treated as outside the sphere of British interests. For, notwithstanding Windham's schemes for a reconstruction of the army, that government had allowed the naval and military establishments of Great Britain to fall below their former standard. The leading idea of their policy was non-intervention, and at the opening of 1807, there was no longer any thought of sending a force to cope with Napoleon's veterans on the continent When in 1805 a British force was operating in North Germany, it was possible that if Prussia had been faithful to her engagements, the disaster of Austerlitz might at least have been partially retrieved. It was otherwise when, after the collapse of Prussia, France and Russia stood face to face with each other. The drawn battle of Eylau in East Prussia, marked by fearful carnage, was fought on February 8, 1807. This check, breaking the spell of Napoleon's victorious career, had a remarkable effect in raising the spirits of the allies, Russia, Sweden, and Prussia, some remains of whose army were still in the field. These powers now drew closer together, but they received a lukewarm support from Great Britain, which might have done much to save Europe by timely reinforcements and liberal subsidies. In reply to an urgent appeal from the tsar for a loan of £6,000,000, the Grenville ministry doled out £500,000 to Russia, and a still more pitiful gift to Prussia. No troops were sent to aid Sweden on the Baltic coast, although, when, at Napoleon's instigation, Turkey declared war against Russia, expeditions were despatched to Alexandria and the Dardanelles. The notion of making war on a large scale, in concert with allies, on the continent of Europe, as in the days of Marlborough, and even of Lord Granby, seems to have vanished from the minds of English statesmen, except Castlereagh, who always advocated concentrated action.

The succession of Portland and Canning to Grenville and Howick brought no immediate change in our insular policy and the new government had been in office for above three months before a British force at last appeared in the Swedish island of Rügen. It arrived too late, Danzig surrendered in May, and on June 14 Napoleon obtained a decisive victory over the Russian army and its Prussian contingent at Friedland. Russia now gave a supreme example of that national selfishness, and contempt for the rights of independent states which had dominated the counsels of sovereigns ever since the first partition of Poland. Doubtless the tsar might plead that Great Britain, too, had been wasting her strength in selfish attempts to secure her mastery of the seas, and to open new markets for her trade. He also deeply resented her recent failure to aid him in the hour of his utmost need, while he still cherished the policy of the "armed neutrality," and was eager to prosecute his designs against Turkey. Dazzled and flattered by Napoleon, he welcomed overtures for peace at the expense of Great Britain, and there is no doubt that his imaginative nature indulged in the vision of a regenerated Europe, divided between himself as emperor of the east and Napoleon as emperor of the west. It is therefore far from surprising that he should have held a private interview with Napoleon, on a raft in the Niemen, which led to the treaty of Tilsit on July 7.

THE TREATY OF TILSIT.

This treaty, in which the King of Prussia shared as a helpless partner, contained both public and secret articles, but the distinction was not very material, for the secret articles almost immediately became known to Canning. The general effect of the whole agreement was the utter humiliation of Prussia, the recognition by that country and Russia of all Napoleon's acquisitions, and their combination with France against the maritime claims and conquests of Great Britain. The western provinces of Prussia were to be incorporated with other German annexations to form the new kingdom of Westphalia; Prussian Poland was to be converted into the duchy of Warsaw under the crown of Saxony, to which a right of passage through Silesia was reserved; and Berlin with other great Prussian fortresses were to remain in the hands of the French until an exorbitant war indemnity should have been paid.[34] At one stroke Prussia was thus reduced to a second-rate power, with a territory little greater than it possessed before the first partition of Poland. The rule of Joseph Bonaparte at Naples, that of Louis in Holland, and the confederation of the Rhine, were solemnly confirmed. Above all, Russia pledged herself to join France in coercing Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal into an adoption of the organised commercial exclusion, known as the "continental system," and hostility to Great Britain in the event of her resistance. If Sweden refused to join this league, Denmark was to be compelled to declare war on her.

No sooner did it receive information of this alliance than the British government despatched a naval armament to Denmark and landed troops, which were soon reinforced by those withdrawn from Rügen. There had been no open rupture with Denmark, though much irritation existed between Denmark and Great Britain with reference to neutral commerce. But there were the best reasons for believing that the Danish fleet, as well as that of Portugal, would be demanded by France and Russia, to be employed against Great Britain, and it was certain that Denmark could not withstand such pressure. The British envoy, Jackson, was accordingly instructed to offer Denmark a treaty of alliance, of which one condition was to be the deposit of her fleet on hire with the British government. The proposal was accompanied by a threat of force, and the crown prince, with a spirit worthy of admiration, refused the terms. In consequence a peremptory summons to deliver up her ships of war and naval stores was addressed to the governor of Copenhagen by the British commanders, Admiral Gambier and Lord Cathcart, under whom Sir Arthur Wellesley was entrusted with the reserve. The surrender, if made peaceably, was to be in the nature of a deposit, and the fleet was to be restored at the end of the war. The governor returned a temporising reply, and a bombardment of Copenhagen followed (September 2); the fleet was brought to England as prize of war; and Denmark naturally became the enemy of Great Britain.[35] Sweden declined the proffered alliance of France and Russia, and actually invaded Norway, then a part of the Danish kingdom. The result was the loss of Finland and Swedish Pomerania. The king, Gustavus IV., resembled Charles XII. in quixotic temperament, but not in ability; and Sir John Moore, sent to his support with an army of 10,000 men, found it hopeless to co-operate with him. Shortly afterwards, his subjects formed the same opinion, and he was compelled to make way for his uncle, who succeeded as Charles XIII. with Marshal Bernadotte as crown prince. In consequence of this change Sweden became reconciled to Russia, and estranged from Great Britain.

The seizure of the Danish fleet, in time of so-called peace, roused great indignation throughout most of Europe, and, in some degree, strained the conscience of the British parliament itself. The justice and wisdom of it were strenuously challenged in both houses, especially by Grenville, Sidmouth, and Lord Darnley, who moved an address to the crown embodying an impressive protest against it. It was defended, however, by the high authority of the Marquis Wellesley, as well as by Canning and other ministers, on the simple ground of military necessity. Napoleon himself never ceased to denounce it as an international outrage of the highest enormity. This did not prevent his doing his best to justify it and to imitate it by sending Junot's expedition to Portugal, with instructions to seize the Portuguese fleet at Lisbon. It is strange that in the debates on this subject, peace with France was still treated on both sides as a possibility; but Canning declared that neither Russian nor Austrian mediation could have been accepted as impartial, or as affording the least hope of pacification. However, on September 25, the king addressed a declaration to Europe, in which, after justifying himself in regard to Copenhagen, he professed his readiness to accept conditions of peace "consistent with the maritime rights and political existence of Great Britain".

COMMERCIAL EXCLUSION.

Still more reasonable attacks, supported by strong petitions, were made by the opposition upon the "orders in council," whereby the British government retaliated against Napoleon's "continental system". This system was founded on a firm belief, shared by the French people, that Great Britain, as mistress of the seas, was the one great obstacle to his imperial ambition, and the most formidable enemy of French aggrandisement, only to be crushed by the ruin of her trade. Prussia had, in conformity with her treaty of February 15, 1806, issued a proclamation on March 28 of that year, closing her ports, which would now include those of Hanover, against British trade. The British government replied by first laying an embargo on Prussian vessels in the harbours of Great Britain and Ireland, and by proclaiming a blockade of the coast of Europe from Brest to the Elbe. This was followed on May 14 by an order in council for seizing all vessels found navigating under Prussian colours. As yet the policy of commercial exclusion had not been carried to any great length, but the Berlin decree issued by Napoleon on November 21 after the battle of Jena proclaimed the whole of the British Isles to be in a state of blockade, prohibited all commerce with them from the ports of France and her dependent states, confiscated all British merchandise in such ports, and declared all British subjects in countries occupied by French troops to be prisoners of war. Howick replied by further orders in council in January, 1807, forbidding neutrals to trade between the ports of France and her allies, or between the ports of nations which should observe the Berlin decree, on pain of the confiscation of the ship and cargo. On the 27th another decree, issued at Warsaw, ordered the seizure in the Hanse Towns of all British goods and colonial produce. The reply of Great Britain was a stricter blockade of the North German coast.

The accession of Russia to Napoleon's commercial policy at Tilsit seemed to have brought the combination against British trade to its furthest development, and it was answered by new orders in council, treating any port from which the British flag was excluded as if actually blockaded, and further limiting the carriage by neutral vessels of produce from hostile colonies. The Milan decree issued on December 17, and further orders in council published during the same winter, carried to greater extremes, if possible, this intolerable form of commercial warfare, under which neutral commerce was gradually crushed out of existence. Great Britain, owing to her command of the sea, was more independent of this kind of commerce than her rival, and both the decrees and the orders in council inflicted far more damage on France and her allies than on Great Britain. But neither party was able to enforce completely its policy of commercial exclusion. Europe could not dispense with British goods or colonial produce carried in British vessels. The law was deliberately set aside by a regular licensing system, and evaded by wholesale smuggling; neutral ships continued to ply between continental ports, and Napoleon did not disdain to clothe his troops with 50,000 British overcoats during the Eylau campaign. Still, Great Britain was enabled to cripple, if not to destroy, the merchant shipping of all other countries, and the interests of consumers all over Europe were enlisted against the author of the continental system. On the other hand, a heavy blow was dealt to friendly relations between Great Britain and the United States, the chief victim of these belligerent pretensions.[36]

FRUITLESS EXPEDITIONS.

In the meantime, the prestige of Great Britain had been injured by three petty and abortive expeditions projected by the Grenville ministry. The first of these was sent out to complete the conquest of Buenos Ayres, the recapture of which was unknown in England. Sir Samuel Auchmuty, who commanded it, finding himself too late to occupy that city, attacked and took Monte Video by storm with much skill and spirit, on February 3, 1807. Shortly afterwards, he was superseded by General Whitelocke, bringing reinforcements, with orders to recover Buenos Ayres. In this he signally failed, owing to gross tactical errors. The British troops were almost passively slaughtered in the streets, and Whitelocke agreed to withdraw the remains of his force, and give up Monte Video, on condition of all prisoners being surrendered. On his return home, he was tried by a court-martial and cashiered, being also declared "totally unfit to serve his majesty in any military capacity whatever".

Equally ill-managed was the naval expedition, directed to support Russia, then in close alliance with Great Britain, by coercing the sultan into a rupture with France. Collingwood, who was not consulted, was required to entrust the command of this expedition, which started in February, 1807, to Sir John Duckworth. Everything depended on promptitude, and the admiral found little difficulty in forcing the passage of the Dardanelles, as it was then almost unfortified. Having reached Constantinople, he allowed himself to waste time in fruitless negotiations, contrary to Collingwood's earnest advice, and not only effected nothing but gravely imperilled his return. Instructed by the French minister Sébastiani, the Turks had armed their coasts, and erected batteries along the Dardanelles, through which the British fleet made its way with considerable loss. Instead of being detached from the French alliance, the Porte was thrown into its arms and became more embittered than ever against Russia. It was soon involved in a serious conflict with that country—for the possession of Wallachia and Moldavia—only to be deserted again by France under the compact made at Tilsit. The expedition to Egypt, planned in combination with the expedition to the Dardanelles, ended in a still worse disaster. Though General Fraser, its commander, was able to surprise Alexandria on March 30, he awaited in vain the expected news of Duckworth's success; he proceeded to attack Rosetta with as little generalship as Whitelocke had shown at Buenos Ayres, and encountered a similar repulse. An attempt to besiege the town met with no better fortune: the British troops submitted to a capitulation, evacuated Egypt, and sailed for Sicily in September, 1807. In an imperial manifesto addressed to the French nation at the end of this year, the British failures at Buenos Ayres, Constantinople, and Alexandria were paraded, together with our alleged crime against the rights of nations at Copenhagen.

In the early months of 1808 the continental system was extended by the establishment of French administration at Rome, and the annexation of the eastern ports of the Papal States to the kingdom of Italy. On February 18 of the same year Austria under French pressure adopted the system. Sweden and Turkey were now the only continental countries left outside it, but the retention of Sicily by the Bourbon king rendered it easy for British commerce to enter Italy through that island. The irritation of neutrals increased as the area of commercial exclusion widened, but the United States were now the only neutral power of any consequence. After April 17 Napoleon took the high-handed step of confiscating all American shipping in his ports. In spite of this aggression, the president and congress of the United States continued to favour France against Great Britain. The story of the commercial warfare between Great Britain and the United States will be related more fully hereafter. For the present, it is sufficient to mention that an act, placing an embargo on foreign vessels in American ports, was passed by congress on December 22, 1807, and another on March 1, 1809, forbidding commercial intercourse with Great Britain and France and the colonies occupied by them.

Meanwhile Great Britain continued to enforce her maritime rights, including that of searching American merchantmen for British-born sailors, and impressing them at the will of British naval officers. These grievances ultimately led to a war between Great Britain and America in 1812. The continental system, however, did not long remain so complete as in the beginning of 1808. Junot's expedition to Portugal had led to a French occupation of that country before the end of 1807. The conquest of Portugal was followed, as we shall see later, by a partial conquest of Spain. This threw the Spaniards back upon the British alliance and afforded an opportunity for the liberation of Portugal, so that from May, 1808, Great Britain once more had a large seaboard open to her commerce. The early success of the Spanish resistance to France, and other events in the peninsula hereafter to be recorded, encouraged Austria to arm again; and on the news of the capitulation of the French army at Baylen in July, she pushed forward her preparations with redoubled energy. A national movement arose simultaneously in North Germany, but the Prussian government dared not head it so long as Russia remained faithful to the French alliance.

NAPOLEON AT ERFURT.

Notwithstanding a peremptory declaration from the tsar after the seizure of the Danish fleet, Russia had nothing to gain by war with Great Britain. She was bound to France by the prospect held forth to her at Tilsit of the conquest of Finland and the partition of Turkey, but she was inwardly desirous of peace with Great Britain. Napoleon, on the other hand, saw in the partition of Turkey an opportunity of striking at India, and had actually given orders for naval preparations to be made in Spain, when all thought of eastern conquest had to be postponed owing to the success of the Spanish patriots. After a conference between Napoleon and the tsar at Erfurt a secret convention was signed on October 12, by which France sanctioned Russian conquests in Finland and the Danubian provinces, and Russia recognised the Bonaparte dynasty in Spain and promised to assist France in a defensive war against Austria. The two powers despatched a joint note to Great Britain inviting her to make peace, on the principle of uti possidetis. Canning replied that he was prepared to negotiate if his allies, especially Sweden and the Spanish patriots, who were at that time in actual possession of almost the entire country, were included in the peace. On November 19 Napoleon expressed his willingness to treat with the British allies, but not with the Spanish "rebels," as he styled them. Alexander took up a similar position, speaking of the Spanish "insurgents," and expressly recognising Joseph as King of Spain. Thus ended these pacific overtures, and on November 3 the official exposé, annually issued in Paris, described Great Britain as "the enemy of the world".

The year 1808 is memorable in English history for the active intervention of Great Britain in the affairs of Spain which developed into the "Peninsular war".[37] This intervention was rendered possible and effective by the organisation of our army system in 1807, which was due to Castlereagh, though he received little credit for it. Under this system, the old constitutional force of the militia was made the basis of the whole military establishment. By the militia balloting bill and the militia transfer bill, that force, largely composed of substitutes, and bound only to home-service, was practically converted into a recruiting-ground for the regular army, and proved sufficient to make good all the losses incurred during the long campaigns in Portugal and Spain. The army thus raised contained, no doubt, many soldiers of bad character, whose misdeeds, after the furious excitement of an escalade, or under the heart-breaking stress of a retreat, sometimes brought disgrace upon the British name. But these men, side by side with steadier comrades, bore themselves like heroes on many a bloodstained field; they quailed not before the conquering legions of Austerlitz and Wagram; they could "go anywhere or do anything" under trusted leaders; and they restored the military reputation of their country before the eyes of Europe. To have forged such an instrument of war was no mean administrative exploit. To have maintained its efficiency steadily on the whole, though sometimes with a faint-hearted parsimony, and to have loyally supported its commander against the cavils of a factious opposition superior in parliamentary ability, for a period of seven years, must be held to redeem the tory government from the charge of political weakness.

PARLIAMENTARY ZEAL.

At the beginning of 1809, however, the interest of parliament was less concentrated on Sir Arthur Wellesley's first campaign in Portugal, or even on the convention of Cintra, than on the scandals attaching to the office of commander-in-chief, held by the Duke of York. Though an incapable general, the duke had shown himself, on the whole, an excellent administrator, and in the opinion of the best officers had done much for the discipline and efficiency of the British army. Unfortunately, Mrs. Clarke, his former mistress, had received bribes for using her influence with the duke to procure military appointments. Colonel Wardle, an obscure member of parliament, to whom Mrs. Clarke had temporarily transferred herself after being discarded by the duke, animated by a desire to damage the ministry, came forward with charges directly implicating him in her corrupt practices, and incidentally brought similar accusations against Portland and Eldon. The government foolishly agreed to an inquiry on the Duke of York's behalf, and it was conducted before a committee of the whole house, which sat from January 26 to March 20. In the course of this inquiry, Sir Arthur Wellesley bore strong testimony in his favour, and the duke addressed a letter to the speaker, declaring his innocence of corruption. Though Wardle and his associates pressed for his dismissal, Perceval ultimately carried a motion acquitting him not only of corruption but of connivance with corruption. The majority, however, was small, and the duke thought it necessary to resign on March 20, whereupon the house of commons decided to proceed no further. A curious sequel of this case was an action against Wardle by an upholsterer, who had furnished a house for Mrs. Clarke by Wardle's orders, in consideration of her services in giving hostile evidence against her former protector. The plaintiff obtained £2,000 damages, and the law-suit was the means of producing a reaction in popular feeling in favour of the duke.

This scandal in high places quickened the zeal of parliament for general purity of administration, and led to a disclosure of some grave abuses. One of these, connected with the disposal of captured Dutch property, dated as far back as 1795. Others were found to exist in the navy department and the distribution of Indian patronage; others related to parliamentary elections. Perceval brought in a bill to check the sale and brokerage of offices, nor did Castlereagh himself escape the charge of having procured the election of Lord Clancarty to parliament by the offer of an Indian writership to a borough-monger. A frank explanation saved him from censure, especially as it appeared that the offer had never taken effect. The charge was renewed, in a different form, against both him and Perceval, and their accusers moved for a trial at bar. But as it turned out that undue influence rather than corruption was their alleged offence, and as the avowed object of the resolution was to force on parliamentary reform, it was negatived by an immense majority. Nevertheless, the object was not wholly defeated.

The removal of the Duke of York from the command of the army was singularly inopportune, for Sir David Dundas had scarcely been appointed as his successor when a juncture arose specially demanding a combination of energy and experience. The British government, already engaged in the Peninsular war, had at last resolved to take a vigorous part in the new and desperate struggle between France and Austria in Southern Germany. The latent spirit of German nationality, aroused by Napoleon's ruthless treatment of Prussia, and quickened into a flame by sympathy with the uprising in Spain, was embodied in the secret association of the Tugendbund; and Austria, smarting under a sense of her own humiliation, mustered up courage to assume the leadership of a national movement. South Germany, governed by old dynasties, which profited by the French alliance, displayed as yet no symptoms of disaffection to France; but in North Germany the old dynasties had been either humbled or deposed, and the general ferment among the people, needed, as the Austrians believed, only the presence of a regular army to break out into a national revolt against the foreigner. Prussia, it is true, was still unwilling to move, because Russia was hostile; but the Austrian court knew well the lukewarmness of Russia's attachment to France, and hoped that a national upheaval would carry the Prussian government along with it. No one, in fact, had played a more active part in rousing Northern Germany than the Prussian minister, Stein, whom Frederick William, by Napoleon's advice, had called to his councils after Tilsit, and who was now compelled to resign his office and take refuge in Austria.

NAPOLEON IN AUSTRIA.

The British government was aware of the situation in Germany when it received a request in January, 1809, for the despatch of a British force to the mouth of the Elbe. Austria was, however, still nominally at war with Great Britain, and George III., perhaps not unreasonably, refused to give her active military assistance till peace was concluded. Meanwhile a subsidy of £250,000 in bullion was despatched to Trieste, and inquiries were set on foot as to the means of supplying such a military expedition as Austria desired.[38] On March 22, Dundas, who had only been a few days in office as commander-in-chief, reported that 15,000 men could not be spared from home service, and, in consequence, no extensive preparations were made until the muster rolls in June showed that 40,000 troops might safely be employed abroad. This convinced the government that a large force could be sent without interfering with home defence, as Castlereagh had long contended; and throughout June and July the naval and military departments were busy in preparing for what has since left a sinister memory as the Walcheren expedition. Meanwhile, as if the passion of frittering away resources were irresistible, a smaller force was despatched, as a kind of feint, against the kingdom of Naples. It consisted of 15,000 British troops and a body of Sicilians. Bailing from Palermo early in June it captured the islands of Ischia and Procida and the castle of Scylla, and threw Naples into consternation. But the attack was not pushed, and it was too late to be of any assistance to the Austrians who had already been expelled from the Italian peninsula. At last, in July, the treaty of peace with Austria was signed and the great armament was ready to sail.

But Napoleon had not awaited the deliberations of British statesmen. Hurrying back from Spain, he remained in Paris only long enough to organise a campaign in South Germany, and left the capital to join his armies on April 13. A week earlier, the Archduke Charles, having remodelled the Austrian army, issued a proclamation affirming Austria to be the champion of European liberty. On the 9th Austria declared war against Bavaria, the ally of France, and her troops crossed the Inn. On the 17th, when Napoleon arrived at Donauwörth, he found the archduke in occupation of Ratisbon. His presence turned the tide, and, after three victories, he was once more on the road to Vienna. The most important of these victories was that of Eckmühl, and he regarded the manœuvre by which it was won as the finest in his military career. On May 13 the French entered Vienna, but the Archduke Charles with an army of nearly 200,000 men was facing him on the left bank of the Danube. Napoleon's army crossed and encountered the Austrians on the great plain between Aspern and Essling. He was repulsed and fell back upon Lobau, between which and the Vienna side of the Danube the bridge of boats had been swept away by a rise of the river and by balks of timber floated down by the Austrians. In this dangerous position he remained shut up for several weeks. He finally succeeded in throwing across a light bridge by which his army regained the left bank on the night of July 4. Finding their position turned the Austrians took up their stand on the tableland of Wagram. On July 6 another pitched battle was fought, which, in the number of combatants engaged and in the losses inflicted on both sides, must rank with the later conflicts of Borodino and Leipzig. A hard won victory rested with the French, but it was not such a victory as that of Austerlitz or Jena, though it secured the neutrality, at least, of Austria for the next four years. Her army retreated into Bohemia, and on July 12 an armistice was signed at Znaim in Moravia, which formed the basis of a peace concluded at Vienna on October 14.

THE WALCHEREN EXPEDITION.

Nothing remained for Great Britain but to abandon the auxiliary enterprise so long planned, but so often delayed, or to carry it through independently, with little hope of a decisive issue. The latter alternative was adopted. The very day on which the news of the armistice arrived witnessed the departure of the greatest single armament ever sent out fully equipped from the shores of Great Britain. The deplorable failure of the Walcheren expedition has obscured both its magnitude and its probable importance had it only proved successful. The command of the fleet was given to Sir Richard Strachan, a competent admiral; that of the army to Chatham, who sat in the cabinet as master-general of the ordnance, an incompetent general, who owed his nomination to royal favour. This was the first blunder; the second was the utter neglect of medical and sanitary precautions against the notoriously unhealthy climate of Walcheren in the autumn months. The armament sailed from the Downs on July 28, in the finest weather and with a display of intense national enthusiasm. It consisted of thirty-five ships of the line, with a swarm of smaller war-vessels and transports, carrying nearly 40,000 troops, two battering-trains, and a complete apparatus of military stores. Its destination, though more than suspected by the enemy, had been officially kept secret at home. Castlereagh must be held largely responsible for the delays and for the unwise choice of a general which marred its success, but he showed true military sagacity in designating the point of attack. Inspired by him, the British government, distrusting the national movement in North Germany, had decided to strike at Antwerp, which Napoleon had supplied with new docks, and which, now that the mouth of the Scheldt had been reopened, threatened to become the commercial rival of London. The town was entirely unprepared, and a blow dealt here seemed the best way of doing as much harm as possible to France and at the same time gaining a national advantage for Great Britain.

Chatham had received very precise instructions from Castlereagh, the objects prescribed to him being, (1) the capture or destruction of the enemy's ships, either building or afloat at Antwerp or Flushing, or afloat in the Scheldt; (2) the destruction of the arsenals and dockyards at Antwerp, Terneuze, and Flushing; (3) the reduction of the island of Walcheren; (4) the rendering of the Scheldt no longer navigable to ships of war. These objects were named, as far as possible, in the order of their importance, and Chatham was specially directed to land troops at Sandvliet and push on straight to Antwerp, with the view of taking it by a coup de main. Napoleon, who clearly foretold the catastrophe awaiting the British troops in the malarious swamps of Walcheren, afterwards admitted that Antwerp could have been captured by a sudden assault. Chatham obeyed his general orders, but, instead of taking them in the order of importance, gave precedence to the objects which could most easily be accomplished. By prompt action the French fleet, which was moored off Flushing, might have been captured, but it was allowed to escape to Antwerp. By August 2 the British were in complete possession of the mouth of the Scheldt, and had taken Bath opposite Sandvliet, while Antwerp was still almost unprotected. But Chatham concentrated his attention on the siege of Flushing, which surrendered, after three days' bombardment, on August 16, contrary to Napoleon's expectation. Antwerp had meanwhile been put in a state of defence, and was now protected by the enemy's fleet, while French and Dutch troops were pouring down to the Scheldt. After ten days of inactivity, Chatham advanced his headquarters to Bath, found that further advance was impossible, and recommended the government to recall the expedition, leaving 15,000 men to defend the island of Walcheren. This advice was adopted, but the garrison left in Walcheren suffered most severely from fever in that swampy island. Eventually, on December 24, Walcheren was abandoned, the works and naval basins of Flushing having been previously destroyed. The destruction of Flushing was the sole result of this expedition.

The failure of the British to make any serious impression on the French either in the Low Countries or in Spain induced Austria to consent to peace with France. By the peace of Vienna, signed on October 14, she ceded Salzburg and a part of Upper Austria to Bavaria, West Galicia to the duchy of Warsaw, and a part of Carinthia with Trieste and the Illyrian provinces to France. A small strip of Galicia was ceded to the Russian tsar, who had rendered France some very half-hearted assistance and was further alienated by the extension of the duchy of Warsaw. Austria was enslaved to the will of Napoleon. She had abandoned the Tyrolese peasants whose loyal insurrection against the Bavarians was the most heroic incident in the war, and she now joined the other nations of the continent in excluding the commerce of Great Britain, which had made a powerful diversion in Spain and an imposing though futile diversion on the Scheldt to save her from national annihilation.

While the Walcheren expedition was preparing, two additions were made to the cabinet. Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, brother of the Marquis of Stafford, was admitted in June as secretary at war, and in July Harrowby, who was created an earl, became president of the board of control with a seat in the cabinet. After the fate of the expedition became known, though before its final withdrawal, a serious quarrel took place between Canning and Castlereagh. Personal jealousies had long existed between these two statesmen, both half-Irish, half-English, and of approximately the same age, yet widely different in character. Canning was the most brilliant orator of his day, and no less persuasive in private conversation than in public orations, gifted with an agile brain that leaped readily from one idea or one project to another, but cursed with a bitter wit which lightly aroused enduring enmities, and which, coupled with an excessive vanity, rendered him unpopular with his colleagues, and made it difficult for any one to take him seriously; while his rival, not less able, and much more steady and trustworthy, a skilful manager of men, was scarcely able to pronounce a coherent sentence. Early in April Canning pressed upon the Duke of Portland the transfer of Castlereagh to another office. Private communications followed between various members of the cabinet, and it was understood that Camden, as Castlereagh's friend, should apprise him of the prevailing view, which the king himself had approved under a threat of Canning's resignation. The duke, however, begged Camden to postpone the disclosure, and others of Castlereagh's friends urged Canning not to insist upon the change pending the completion of the Walcheren expedition.

DUEL BETWEEN CANNING AND CASTLEREAGH.

As the scheme took shape in July Camden was to resign, and thus make possible a shifting of offices, which was to result in the Marquis Wellesley succeeding Castlereagh as secretary for war. At last, on September 6, the duke informed Canning of his own intention to retire on the ground of ill-health, and at the same time disclosed the fact that no steps had been taken to prepare Castlereagh for the proposed change in his position. Thereupon Canning promptly sent in his own resignation, the duke resigned the same day, and Castlereagh, learning what had passed, followed his example two days later.[39] Believing that Canning had been intriguing against him behind his back, under the guise of friendship, he demanded satisfaction on the 19th, and on the 21st[40] the duel was fought, in which Canning received a slight wound. Such events provoked little censure in those days, and it is pleasant to know that Canning and Castlereagh afterwards acted cordially together as colleagues. Their enmity broke up the government. The Duke of Portland did not long survive his withdrawal from office, and died on October 29; Leveson-Gower insisted on following Canning into retirement.

Perceval was entrusted with the task of forming an administration, but the new ministry was not formed without considerable negotiation. Canning vainly endeavoured to impress first on his colleagues and then on the king his own pretensions to the highest office, while attempts, to which the king gave a reluctant assent, had been made to enlist the co-operation of Grenville and Howick, who succeeded his father as Earl Grey, in 1807, but they failed as all later attempts were destined to fail. The most influential motive governing their conduct was, doubtless, their feeling that they would not as ministers possess the king's confidence. Sidmouth's following had also been approached. Sidmouth himself was considered too obnoxious to some of Pitt's followers to be a safe member of the new cabinet, but Vansittart was offered the chancellorship of the exchequer and Bragge, who had taken the additional surname of Bathurst, the office of secretary at war. They refused, however, to enter the ministry, unless accompanied by Sidmouth himself.

Perceval eventually became prime minister, retaining his former offices; Lord Bathurst, while remaining at the board of trade, presided temporarily at the foreign office, which was offered to the Marquis Wellesley, then serving as British ambassador to the Spanish junta at Seville, and taken over by him in December. Hawkesbury, now Earl of Liverpool, succeeded Castlereagh as secretary for war and the colonies, and was followed at the home office by Richard Ryder, a brother of Harrowby. Harrowby himself gave up the board of control in November to Melville's son, Robert Dundas, who, however, was not made a member of the cabinet. Lord Palmerston, who had been a junior lord of the admiralty under Portland, declined the chancellorship of the exchequer, and though he accepted Leveson-Gower's post as secretary at war, he was by his own desire excluded from the cabinet.

NEW BRITISH CONQUESTS.

While the close of the year 1809 was darkened by national disappointment and political anxieties, the honour of British arms had been amply vindicated in the Spanish peninsula, and the brilliant exploit of Lord Cochrane in Basque Roads had recalled the glories of the Nile. Cochrane had already achieved marvels under Collingwood in the Mediterranean, and notably off the Spanish coast, when he was selected to conduct an attack by fireships on the French squadron blockaded under the shelter of the islands of Aix and Oléron. This he carried out on the night of April 11, with a dash and skill worthy of Nelson, and unless checked by Gambier, the admiral in command, who had been raised to the peerage after the seizure of the Danish fleet in 1807, he must have succeeded in destroying the whole of the enemy's ships. Gambier was afterwards acquitted by a court martial of negligence, but the verdict of the public was against him. In the autumn Collingwood reduced the seven Ionian islands, and gained an important advantage by cutting out a considerable detachment of the Toulon fleet in the Bay of Genoa. In the course of the year, too, all the remaining French territory in the West Indies, as well as the Isle of Bourbon in the Indian Ocean, was captured by the British navy. But this unchallenged supremacy on the high seas did not prevent the depredations of French gunboats on British merchantmen in the channel. Indeed after the battle of Trafalgar, the French "sea-wasps" infesting the Channel were more active and destructive than ever.

On October 25, being the forty-ninth anniversary of his accession, the jubilee of George III. was celebrated with hearty and sincere rejoicings. His popularity was not unmerited. He was politically shortsighted, but within his range of vision few saw facts so clearly; he was obstinate and prejudiced, but his obstinacy was redeemed by a moral intrepidity of the highest order, and his prejudices were shared by the mass of his people. Having lived through the seven years' war, the war of the American revolution, and the successive wars of Great Britain against the French monarchy and the French republic, he was now supporting, with indomitable firmness, a war against the all-conquering French empire—the most perilous in which this country was ever engaged. The colonial and Indian dominions of Great Britain, reduced by the loss of the North American colonies, had been greatly extended during his reign in other quarters of the globe. His subjects regarded him as an Englishman to the core; they knew him to be honest, religious, virtuous, and homely in his life; they justly believed him, in spite of his failings, to be a power for good in the land; and they rewarded him with a respect and affection granted to no other British sovereign of modern times before Queen Victoria. They had good cause to desire the continuance of his life and reason, knowing the character of his heir-apparent, and contrasting the domestic habits of Windsor with the licence of Carlton House.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Colchester, Diary (Feb. 4, 1806), ii., 35, 36.

[32] Holland, Memoirs of the Whig Party, ii., 91-94.

[33] Holland, Memoirs of the Whig Party, ii., 173-205, 270-320; Colchester, Diary, ii., 92-115; Malmesbury, Diaries, iv., 357-72; Walpole, Life of Perceval, i., 223-33; Buckingham, Courts and Cabinets, iv., 117-50. Holland accuses the king of treachery and duplicity, and Lewis (Administrations of Great Britain, p. 294) repeats this charge in milder terms. But the documents quoted do not prove any want of straightforwardness, and the king's conduct was the logical consequence of his action in 1801.

[34] In the following year Napoleon consented to evacuate all the Prussian fortresses except three, on condition that the Prussian army should not exceed a total of 40,000 men.

[35] Annual Register, xlix. (1807), 249-70, 731-38; Rose, in English Historical Review, xi. (1896), 82-92.

[36] Captain Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, ii., 272-357, shows that the policy of the orders in council was essential to British safety.

[37] The course of this war is related continuously in [chap. v.]

[38] Rose, Life of Napoleon I., ii., 190, note.

[39] The best account of the quarrel, especially in its relation to the composition of the cabinet, is to be found in Walpole's Life of Perceval, vol. i., chap. ix., and vol. ii., chap. i. Lewis, Administrations, pp. 314-15, finds a double ground for Canning's resignation in his failure to obtain the removal of Castlereagh from the war office and in the refusal of the king and cabinet to allow him to succeed Portland as prime minister. It is quite clear, however, that at the time of Canning's resignation no decision had been come to about a successor to Portland. Some correspondence had passed between Canning and Perceval, in which each had refused to serve under the other, but that this correspondence was unknown to the cabinet as a whole is proved by Mulgrave's letters to Lord Lonsdale of September 11 and 15 (Phipps, Memoir of Ward, pp. 210-17); in the former of these he discusses Canning's probable conduct without referring to this correspondence, while in the latter he only knows of such negotiations as subsequent to the resignations of September 6 and 8. So, too, Eldon's letter to his wife of September 11 (Twiss, Life of Eldon, ii., 88-90), places the whole correspondence between Canning and Perceval after Portland's resignation on September 6. The king was not informed of Canning's views as to a successor to Portland till September 13, and the cabinet minute of September 18, advising co-operation with Grenville and Grey, mentions the selection of Canning as prime minister as a course open to the king.

[40] This is the date commonly given. The Annual Register, li. (1809), 239, gives the 22nd, while Perceval refers to the result of the duel in a letter dated the 20th (Colchester, Diary, ii., 209). It is clear, however, that Canning did not receive Castlereagh's challenge till the morning of the 20th (see his letter in Annual Register, loc. cit., 505, also his detailed statement to Camden, ibid., 525), and therefore the duel cannot have taken place till the 21st. Lord Folkestone in a letter dated the 21st refers to the duel as having been fought at "7 o'clock this morning" (Creevey Papers, i., 96).

CHAPTER IV.

PERCEVAL AND LIVERPOOL.

The administration of Perceval, covering the period from October, 1809, to May, 1812, coincided with a lull in the continental war save in the Peninsula, though it saw no pause in the progress of French annexation. Nor was it marked by many events of historical interest in domestic affairs. When parliament was opened on January 23, 1810, it was natural that attention should chiefly be devoted to the Walcheren expedition, which the opposition illogically and unscrupulously contrived to use to disparage the operations of Sir Arthur Wellesley, now Viscount Wellington, in Spain. Grenville, who argued with some reason that 40,000 British troops could have been employed to far better purpose in North Germany, would have been on stronger ground if he had complained that for want of them the British army had been unable to occupy Madrid. Castlereagh, indeed, had confessed to Wellesley that he could not spare the necessary reinforcements, after the reserves had been exhausted in Walcheren; but it is by no means certain that Wellesley could have collected provisions enough to feed a much larger force, or specie enough to pay for them. Liverpool was driven in reply to Grenville to magnify the value of the capture of Flushing, as the necessary basis of the naval armaments which Napoleon had intended to launch against England from the Scheldt. The government was also defended by the young Robert Peel, lately elected to parliament. As the calamity was irreparable, a committee of the whole house spent most of its time on a constitutional question, regarding a private memorandum placed before the king by Chatham in his own defence. So irregular a proceeding was properly condemned, and Chatham resigned the mastership of the ordnance, but the policy of the Walcheren expedition was approved by a vote of the house of commons. Mulgrave received the office Chatham had vacated, and was himself succeeded by Yorke at the admiralty.