William Pitt and National Revival

Chapter XXVII The Triumph of Catharine II

A pretty piece of work Mr. Pitt has made of this Russian war. I think all the foxhounds will have a fine chase at him next session.—Lady Malmesbury to Sir Gilbert Elliot, 24th August 1791.

The success of Pitt in playing the part of Petruchio to Catharine depended mainly on the steadiness of the Prussian and British Governments, the honest neutrality of Leopold, the goodwill of Gustavus, and the conviction of the Czarina that she was hopelessly outmatched. We have already seen that the actions of the Austrian and Swedish sovereigns were ambiguous. It remains to consider the conduct of the Prussian monarch. On 11th March 1791 Frederick William wrote the following autograph letter to Count Redern, his Minister in London:

[Translation.]

Having a sure belief that Austria desires to draw closer to me and my Allies, and that the Emperor has declared to the Empress of Russia that he cannot assist her in a war that might result from her refusal to accept the status quo, I wish England to consider whether the best course of action would not be that of inducing Russia by means of superior forces, both naval and military, to follow the example of the Emperor. But, in case England cannot resolve on so vigorous a course of action, the cession of Oczakoff would be its natural outcome. It seems to me incontestable that Russia by the possession of that place gains over Turkey a superiority which may be very prejudicial to the interests even of England. As the decisive moment is drawing near, I await a definite declaration on this subject.

Here was a distinct challenge to our good faith as an ally of Prussia. The Duke of Leeds received it on 19th or 20th March. Jackson’s covering despatch supplied a curious commentary on the royal missive. He had found out that Hertzberg’s plan of aggrandisement at the expense of Poland was much more widely favoured at Berlin than he believed to be possible. General Möllendorf feared a war with Russia in view of the threatening attitude of Austria. Count Schulenberg thought the position very difficult, but hoped that the presence of a “large” British fleet in the Baltic might overawe Catharine and end the dispute. Even Bischoffswerder, who had returned from his mission to Vienna in the most buoyant spirits, expressed concern at the irresolute mood of Frederick William; but he promised to report progress after an interview which he was to have with him at a private dinner on that day. Late in the evening the favourite declared that he had convinced the monarch of the falseness of Hertzberg’s information about Austria. In fact, the dinner and Bischoffswerder’s conversation brought Frederick William to see the need of bold measures against Russia; and he drew up forthwith that inspiriting challenge to England. Bischoffswerder also assured our envoy that the anti-British intrigues were the work of Anglophobes like Prince Henry of Prussia, or of those who wished to maintain the influence of the reigning favourite, the Countess Dönhoff, and keep the King immersed in his pleasures.996

A more damning explanation of the King’s action cannot be conceived; and we learn with some surprise that the royal appeal carried the day at the British Cabinet’s meetings of 21st and 22nd March, when Ministers had before them the declaration of the Dutch admiral as to the comparative uselessness of Oczakoff. The final resolve was formed on 25th March, when the ultimatum to Russia was drawn up and sent to the King for his approval.997 Evidently it was the arrival of Frederick William’s letter that clinched the matter. On the 27th the Foreign Office sent off despatches to Berlin and St. Petersburg, warning Jackson and Whitworth of the definite demand of the Allies, that Catharine must restore to the Turks all her conquests exclusive of the Crimea. The Allies hoped to induce Gustavus by the joint offer of a sum of £200,000, or even £300,000, to grant the use of his ports to the British fleet destined for the Baltic.998

The British ultimatum to Russia took the form of a “representation,” the original of which is in Pitt’s handwriting. It pointed out that, the status quo having been adopted as the basis of the treaties concluded between Austria and the Porte and Russia and Sweden, the Allies had hoped that the Empress of Russia would accept the same reasonable terms for her peace with the Sultan. But, as this was not the case, the two Courts now desired to point out that any further accession of territory to Russia was far from necessary to her, and must seriously weaken the Turkish dominions. They therefore invited the Empress to declare her readiness to offer reasonable terms to the Sultan. The failure to give a favourable answer within ten days would be regarded as a refusal.999 Pitt also sought to infuse energy into the Dutch Government. On the same day he directed Auckland, our ambassador at The Hague, to request the equipment of a Dutch squadron with a view to a cruise to the Baltic along with the British fleet, it being certain that Catharine would give way before so great a superiority of force.1000

It seemed, then, that Pitt and his colleagues had nailed their colours to the mast; and their behaviour in Parliament betokened no lack of resolve. On the day following (28th March) Pitt presented the King’s message as to the need of further naval armaments. Fox, “with more than usual solemnity,” demanded that Parliament should know the reasons for the present request; but Pitt declined to promise any more information than that contained in the brief official statement. Fox at once censured this refusal as “a very new, violent and extraordinary step indeed.” Pitt here showed a want of tact. A more sympathetic nature would have felt the pulse of the House and discerned feverish symptoms. Already members had been alarmed by the outbreak of war against Tippoo Sahib; and though Ministers had convicted that potentate of aggressions against our ally, the Rajah of Travancore, yet the House evinced more than its usual jealousy respecting foreign entanglements, and resented Pitt’s demand for warlike preparations. In refusing to explain the grounds for his present action the Prime Minister behaved as a correct diplomatist, but an indifferent parliamentarian.

On 29th March the Whig leaders in the Lords showed their former fondness for the Russian alliance in a series of startling assertions. Earl Fitzwilliam denied that the retention of Oczakoff, or even Akerman, would in the slightest degree injure British interests. Lord Porchester reprobated the ambitious conduct of the Prime Minister, which almost led him to hope that France might recover her strength, so as to check his career. The country, he added, was in the deepest distress,1001 and would be ruined by the hostilities now imminent. The Earl of Carlisle declared that Russia was naturally our friend, and that we ought to have formed alliances that were useful, not such as would drag us into a criminal war. The naval armament against Spain had served merely to “pillage the public and make a show between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.” Lord Stormont then treated the House to a disquisition on Turkish history to prove that the Porte had always been the tool of France against the two Empires; and it was her game we now were asked to play. For the rest, it would be “extremely disagreeable” to send a fleet into the Baltic if Sweden, deserted by us, showed herself unfriendly. The Duke of Richmond damned the proposal with faint praise, and he was guardedly followed by the Lord Chancellor, Thurlow. Nevertheless, Ministers held their own by ninety-seven votes to thirty-four.

On the same day Pitt brought the matter before the Commons in a somewhat cold and ineffective manner. He showed that the interests of Europe demanded the restoration of the old boundaries in the East; and that the weakening of Turkey would undermine the defensive system which we had formed with Prussia. From the meagre report of his speech it would appear that he did not refer to the importance of upholding Poland or of hindering the approach of Russia to the Mediterranean. Consequently all the life and glow of the debate was on the side of the Opposition. Coke of Norfolk, in a characteristically acrid speech, declared that he believed neither in the abilities nor the integrity of the Prime Minister, who now, as in the case of the Spanish dispute, bade them throw away the nation’s money without showing a single reason why. Lambton followed in the same vein, asserting that a war with Russia would yield no prize in galleons and ingots, but merely in bear-skins. At what point, he asked, had Russia injured our interests or insulted our honour? Doubtless Ministers had promised the King of Prussia to go to war with the Czarina. If so, they should state it clearly. Other members then demanded more information before they supported the administration. For the defence, Steele spoke weakly, urging that the House must trust the executive.

Fox, on the contrary, declared that Pitt had “enveloped himself in mystery and importance,” and that his speech was “finely confused but very alarming.” The Minister had not shown how the balance of power was endangered by the Czarina’s policy. It would be time enough to go to war when she attacked Prussia, or sought to drive the Turks out of Europe—a scheme which the orator held up to ridicule. He then protested against our attacking Russia “for the recovery of a single town [sic],” and proceeded to indict Ministers because “they first stirred up the Turks to their own destruction to war upon Russia: they next raised the King of Sweden against the same Power, and afterwards they lost the benefit of his arms by shamefully abandoning him.” Finally they had disarmed, after settling the dispute with Spain, and thus put the nation to the expense of this new armament. It is difficult to think that Fox was so ill informed as to believe these charges, the falseness of which has been proved in Chapters XXII and XXIII. In fact, these indictments merely showed him to be the trustful receptacle of the anti-British slanders started by foreign Chanceries. Nevertheless, being urged with his wonted power, they struck home; for it is ever the bent of a popular Assembly to ascribe the worst motives for actions which it dislikes.

Pitt replied with admirable temper. He showed that the recent advance of Russia southwards brought about a situation wholly different from that which existed when Fox was in power; he declared that Russia had several times rejected our proffered friendship, and that our alliances with Prussia and Holland were most advantageous. Prussia, however, would be seriously weakened if the Muscovites triumphed completely over the Sultan, and would in that case be unable to cover the Dutch Netherlands or maintain the independence of Poland. He then showed how closely this latter topic touched us; for, if we upheld Poland and cultivated trade with her, she would send us the naval stores for the supply of which we at present depended on Russia. Commercial and political motives, therefore, alike bade us set bounds to the boundless ambitions of Russia.

The effect of his statesmanlike speech (the first in which the Eastern Question in its new phase received adequate treatment) was lessened by a vehement harangue from Burke, who was angry with Ministers for diverting attention from French affairs. At that time he and his son were striving to prepare the way for an armed intervention of the monarchs in the interests of Louis XVI; and he therefore upbraided the Cabinet for supporting “a horde of barbarous Asiatics” against the Czarina, a declared champion of royalty.1002 “All that is holy in religion,” he said, “all that is moral and humane, demands an abhorrence of everything which tends to extend the power of that cruel and wasteful Empire.” “Any Christian Power is to be preferred to these destructive savages.”... “Why are we to be alarmed at the Russians’ capture of a town? The Empire of Turkey is not dismembered by that. We are in possession of Gibraltar, and yet Spain is not dismembered.” This appeal to sentiment and this fine disregard of the facts of geography (for the district in question is about the size of Scotland) told with much effect; and it was with some difficulty that the Government mustered 228 votes as against 135 for the Opposition.1003

The next debates, of 12th and 15th April, brought up Grey, Whitbread, and Sheridan in their most combative moods. The last taunted Ministers with being led at the heel of Prussia, whose only desire was to seize Danzig and Thorn, and to have the upper hand at Warsaw. While not calling the tune, we were to pay the piper. He (Sheridan) was sick of the parrot cry, “Confidence! Confidence!” Ministers did not deserve it. Their conduct in Holland in 1787 had been a blow to popular liberty. And now the son of Chatham was intriguing in all the Courts of Europe, and figuring as “the posture-master of the Balance of Power.” Undismayed by this brilliant invective, Dundas once more appealed for a continuance of the confidence which Ministers had merited by their conduct; and the House accorded it by 253 votes to 173. On 15th April the figures were 254 to 162.1004

It is clear, then, that Pitt kept his party well together, despite the fact that his hands were tied by official reserve, while the Opposition ramped at large in the unalloyed bliss of ignorance. Storer might choose to tell Lord Auckland that “the country throughout have told Mr. Pitt that they will not go to war.”1005 But, apart from an influential deputation from Manchester, there was no decided protest. Seven weeks later Pitt admitted to Ewart that it would have been difficult to keep his party together in the event of war, and if he had “to state, as would then be indispensable, the precise ground on which it arose.”1006 But the news which arrived up to 27th March clearly warranted the hope that Russia would give way. Then, however, the diplomatic situation underwent a curious change.

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On the 27th, then, that is, on the very day on which the Cabinet sent off the decisive despatches referred to above, most disconcerting news from Lord Auckland reached the Foreign Office. It was to this effect:

With respect to the good disposition of the Count of Vienna, which is made the groundwork of His Prussian Majesty’s Instruction of the 11th inst. to M. de Redern, I think it material to mention to Your Grace that, in a subsequent letter of the 12th, in cypher, which is gone by this day’s mail to M. de Redern (and which I have happened to see), His Prussian Majesty states in terms of the strongest uneasiness that the Emperor’s conduct becomes more suspicious and that he evidently intends to defeat the whole Convention of Reichenbach; that he has given up his own opinion to that of Messrs. de Kaunitz and Cobenzl and, particularly, that he is collecting large magazines and preparations in the neighbourhood of Cologne, which M. de Redern is instructed to mention to Your Grace as a subject of just uneasiness.1007

This sudden transition from a warlike resolve to timorous prudence in part resulted from the Prussian monarch’s habit of listening to two sets of advisers. Hertzberg whispered peaceful advice into one ear, while the other took in the bellicose counsels of Bischoffswerder; and the royal mind sent forth to London both sets of impressions. Other proofs were soon at hand betokening a reaction towards pleasure and inertia. Hertzberg, so Jackson reported, sought to enforce the cession of Danzig and Thorn as a sine quâ non of Prussia’s acting conjointly with England—a step which obviously aimed at hindering such action.

Still more important was the news that came from Copenhagen. On 27th March there reached the Foreign Office a despatch from Francis Drake, our envoy at Copenhagen, who was destined one day to win unenviable notoriety as the dupe of Napoleon’s secret police, and to figure in French caricatures as a ruffled mallard flying off with bottles of invisible ink. At present he merely forwarded a pacific proposal of Count Bernstorff. In the hope of averting strifes in which Denmark must inevitably suffer, that Minister had begged the Czarina to accept the terms of the Allies if they were modified in her favour. When Catharine smiled on the proposal, Bernstorff assured Drake of his desire to reconcile the Courts of St. Petersburg and London without compromising the dignity of George III. He declared that Catharine had eagerly welcomed the prospect of a peaceful arrangement, and hoped that the Allies would appreciate the force of her reasons for rejecting the strict status quo ante, seeing that she had been unjustly attacked by the Turks, and had won a brilliant triumph. While restoring to them a large part of her conquests, she was determined to retain “a single fortress and a desert region in order to gain a safer frontier.” She therefore hoped that the Allies would show their moderation by substituting a limited status quo for their present demand. Bernstorff added the suggestion that she should have all the land up to the Dniester, on condition that the walls of Oczakoff were razed for all time, and that no military colonies should be founded in the ceded territory, which also should remain waste. He further hinted that Russia might be induced to grant England a favourable commercial treaty.1008

This last was added as a bait especially tempting to Pitt, who had been much annoyed by the failure of his efforts in that direction in 1787, and now found the Dutch obdurate to some parts of his proposed commercial treaty with them. Is it too much to assume that, if the news which arrived on 27th March concerning the shifting of Prussian policy and the reasonableness of the Czarina had reached him two or three days earlier, he would have led the Cabinet to a far different decision? The speeches of Ministers in Parliament were now marked by coolness and caution, characteristics which came out even more strongly on 12th and 15th April.

The searchings of heart in the Cabinet on the anxious days 30th March–10th April are laid bare in the memoranda of the Duke of Leeds. The Duke of Richmond and Grenville were opposed to the use of coercion against Russia. Pitt, Leeds, Thurlow, Camden, and Chatham at first resolutely maintained their position. At the second meeting of the Cabinet, on 31st March, Stafford joined Grenville and Richmond. Pitt also heard of the defection of the Duke of Grafton and his sons. Camden seemed shaken by the news before them; and Thurlow attained a prudent neutrality by diplomatic slumber. Pitt himself was now impressed with the need of circumspection; and, on the ground of the proposals from Denmark, advised the sending of a special messenger to Berlin, to request Jackson not to forward the ultimatum to Russia. Leeds objected to the Danish proposal being assigned as the reason for delay, and declared that if the despatch were sent in that form, Grenville must sign it, for he could not.1009 Pitt then agreed to tone down the despatch into a request for a few days’ delay. This was his first decided disagreement with Leeds. He sought to end it by friendly conversation, but in vain; for the Duke believed the honour of the Cabinet to be tarnished by so unworthy a surrender.

Pitt took a more sanguine view of the situation, as appears in some hitherto unpublished letters that passed between him and Ewart. That over-wrought envoy had departed for Buxton in the belief that he had persuaded the Cabinet of the certainty of Catharine acquiescing in the demands of the Triple Alliance. What must have been his chagrin, then, to receive a letter from Pitt, of 6th April, begging him to return to town at once. “Events have taken a turn here,” wrote Pitt, “which seem to leave little or no chance of pushing our Plan to its original extent, and that the best thing we shall have to —(?) it is some modification, which perhaps, however, may be so managed as to provide more fully than could have been expected for the general object.”1010 This sounds the hopeful note which was rarely missing from Pitt’s utterances. Evidently he wished that Ewart should return to Berlin to make the best of the situation. Ewart had an interview with him, on or about 10th April, which he described in a letter of 14th April to Jackson, his locum tenens at Berlin. He found Pitt as deeply impressed as ever with the importance of the political and commercial objects at issue, which were

well worthy of every exertion. “But,” continued Pitt, “all my efforts to make a majority of the House of Commons understand the subject have been fruitless; and I know for certain that, tho’ they may support me at present, I should not be able to carry the vote of credit. In short, Sir, you have seen that they can be embarked in a war from motives of passion, but they cannot be made to comprehend a case in which the most valuable interests of the country are at stake. What, then, remains to be done? Certainly, to risk my own situation, which my feelings and inclination would induce me to do without any hesitation; but there are unfortunately circumstances in the present state of this country which make it certain that confusion and the worst of consequences might be expected, and it would be abandoning the King.”

After stating several facts in confirmation [Ewart says], and repeating, even with the tears in his eyes, that it was the greatest mortification he had ever experienced, he said he was determined not to knock under but to keep up a good countenance: that the armaments should therefore continue to be made with vigour, and the fleet to be made ready for sailing; and that in the meantime he hoped means might be found to manage matters so as not to have the appearance of giving up the point, but modifying it so as to prevent any serious bad consequences from ensuing, tho’ he repeated that he was well aware that the difference between any such plan would always be very great and extremely mortifying.1011

This revelation of Pitt’s feelings and intentions is of the highest interest. Nowhere else do we hear of wounded pride bringing tears to his eyes; and nowhere do we find a clearer statement of his desire to resign, were it not that such a course would abandon the King and the country to a factious Opposition. He therefore resolved on a compromise, the weakness of which he clearly saw, because it would satisfy Parliament and his opponents in the Cabinet without too much offending Prussia or unduly exalting the horn of the Czarina. Ewart decided to return to Berlin to help on his chief, to whom he expressed unfaltering devotion. It is further noteworthy that Pitt at this time desired to send the fleet to the Baltic; and we may reasonably infer that the subsequent reversal of that salutary resolve was the work of Grenville.

One other detail in Ewart’s letter claims attention. Why did Pitt assign so great weight to the opposition in Parliament? Had he received private remonstrances? Rumour says that Dundas and others warned him to desist from his scheme. But, as we have seen, his majority held well together. On 12th April he beat Fox by eighty votes, and on the 15th by ninety-two. How is it possible to reconcile this increase with wavering or lukewarmness? I think it probable that Pitt chose now and at a later date to ascribe his change of front to parliamentary opposition (on which he could descant), while it really resulted from difficulties in the Cabinet, on which he had to keep silence. Further, he may have hoped that if Ewart, the soul of the forward policy, consented to return to Berlin, the Duke of Leeds would find it consonant with his own dignity to retain office.

If so, he was disappointed. Before the Cabinet meeting of 10th April he had convinced himself that the pacific overtures of Catharine sent through Bernstorff were genuine and sincere. He also pointed out to the Duke that the violent language of the Opposition would certainly encourage the Empress to reject the absolute status quo. The inference was irresistible, that England and Prussia must be content with securing rather less for Turkey. Pitt decided in favour of this course, and on 15th and 16th April, drew up the drafts of despatches to this effect, in the hope that Leeds would sign them. The Duke, however, declined to do so, and, by the King’s leave, Grenville appended his signature.

This implied a ministerial change; and on 21st April Leeds returned the seals to the King after the Drawing Room at St. James’s Palace. Thus disappeared from the forefront of history a personality whose sprightliness and charm earned him a high place among the wits and amateur playwrights of that age, and whose jealousy for the honour of England at this crisis won the regard even of those who differed from him. He was far from being a great Foreign Minister. At every crisis Pitt took the reins into his own hands, and at other times the business of the Foreign Office went on somewhat loosely, Keith complaining at Vienna that in the year 1788 he received only one reply to fifty-three despatches sent from that capital.1012 The Duke’s tenure of office was marked by two of the greatest triumphs ever won by peaceful means, namely, over France in 1787 and Spain in 1790; but these, as we have seen, were essentially the work of Pitt. There could be but one successor to Leeds. Grenville, though a far from attractive personality, possessed qualities of shrewdness, good sense, and untiring assiduity. He was strong where Leeds was weak, namely, in system, thoroughness, and equability; but he was weak where Leeds was strong, namely, in managing men. George III certainly approved of the accession of Grenville to power, and sent to him the seals on the same day. After some delay, arising from Pitt’s desire that Cornwallis should succeed Grenville at the Home Office, Dundas took that appointment.1013

On 20th April, then, Ewart was instructed to return to Berlin for the purpose of explaining to Frederick William that the difficulties arising from the trend of public opinion and the opportunity afforded by the Danish proposals induced the British Government to seek for a peaceful compromise with Russia. Pitt also urged the desirability of Austria joining the Triple Alliance. As to the new Russo-Turkish boundary, it should be fixed if possible East of the Dniester, namely, at Lake Telegul, the lands eastward up to the River Bug being also left a desert.1014

Ewart arrived at Potsdam on 29th April (a remarkably quick journey), and found Frederick William in a gracious mood. The King agreed to Pitt’s new proposals, and highly approved of the overtures to Austria. While expressing mortification at the change of front towards Russia, he assured Ewart of his belief in the good intentions of the British Ministry. It is easy to see that Frederick William felt some relief at the prospect of avoiding a war, of which nearly all his counsellors expressed disapproval. Hertzberg on 24th April assured Lucchesini that a war with Russia would probably be the tomb of the Prussian monarchy.1015 There was, indeed, every need for caution, owing to the doubtful attitude of Austria. Lord Elgin followed the Emperor Leopold to Florence for the purpose of urging him to join the Triple Alliance; but, while receiving the overture with Tuscan graciousness, he in effect waived it aside. In vain did our envoy follow the Emperor from city to city for some weeks, and urge him to join the Allies. Leopold, with his usual penetration, saw that the situation favoured the two Empires, provided that they held together; and Pitt’s offer appeared to him merely an ingenious means of separating them. Further, Kaunitz detected the rift in the Anglo-Prussian concert, and the hatred of England which pervaded the letters of Marie Antoinette to the Emperor may also have strengthened his resolve to dally with Pitt’s proposals, even while he took the most effective means of thwarting them. The Polish Revolution of 3rd May 1791, soon to be described, also led Leopold to draw closer to Russia. Thus, despite affable converse with Elgin in the towns of Lombardy, he instructed his envoys at Sistova to raise their demands and assume an arrogant tone. The Turks received this rebuff with oriental composure, and, having the support of Keith and Lucchesini, resisted this flagrant attempt of Austria to shuffle out of the Reichenbach compact. Accordingly the early days of June 1791 witnessed a break in the negotiations and a rapid increase of warlike preparations on the Danube—a turn of affairs highly favourable to Catharine.1016

The indignation of Pitt and Grenville at the double-dealing of Leopold finds expression in a note of the latter to Auckland (6th July): “If the Emperor does break faith with us at last, he does it in a manner so directly and personally disgraceful to himself, that it is hard to suppose he can make up his mind to hear all that he must hear in such a case.”1017 In these words we see the cause of the distrust of the Emperor which clogged all attempts at an Anglo-Austrian compact directed against French democracy. Events, therefore, told heavily against Pitt’s efforts to bring about an honourable compromise with Russia. Nothing, however, is further from the truth than to represent his offers to Catharine as a humiliating surrender. The instructions to Fawkener, the special envoy to St. Petersburg, were as follows: Either the whole of the Oczakoff territory as far west as the River Dniester should be left neutral and uninhabited; or it should become Russian on condition of lying waste; or the Russian boundary should be drawn east of the Dniester, no fortress being constructed in the ceded territory.1018 It is worth noting that the Turkish envoy at Berlin thought these terms satisfactory. Fawkener was to agree to the third and least desirable alternative only in case Austria proved obdurate. But in this respect he was allowed a certain latitude, provided that Turkey retained adequate means of defence on that side. In order to avoid any appearance of menace, the British fleet was not to enter the Baltic or the Black Sea, a resolve much resented at Berlin and Warsaw.1019

Frederick William received Fawkener most cordially at Sans Souci on 11th May. He showed some concern at the Manchester petition to Pitt, as it would stiffen the tone of the Czarina; he urged the sending of a British squadron to the Black Sea to ward off the threatened attack on Constantinople, and stated his preference for the third of the alternatives named by Grenville. Fawkener therefore felt bound to place it first in his proposals to the Czarina: and it is noteworthy that Prussian diplomacy once again favoured a concession to Catharine larger than Pitt was disposed to grant. Inward satisfaction at the course of events was, as usual, accompanied by many sneers at the weakness of British policy.1020 Gustavus of Sweden adopted a similar tone. He assured Liston of his readiness to receive the British fleet and to arm against Russia, provided that the Allies would grant him the needful subsidies. Liston, knowing his shiftiness, received these offers with polite incredulity. Certainly they had no effect at Whitehall.

Pitt’s change of front ruined his influence in the North;1021 and in diplomacy prestige counts for so much that Catharine had virtually won her case by the end of May. Fawkener arrived at St. Petersburg on 24th May, and soon found himself involved in a series of gorgeous fêtes which proclaimed the wealth and power of the Empress and her entire indifference to all that England might do. For the irksome details of business he was referred to the Ministers and Prince Potemkin. The latter boasted in his lordly way of his resolve to seize Constantinople, wage eternal war on the miscreant Turks, and finally conquer Egypt. After a delay of three weeks the Empress received Fawkener graciously at a ball; she assured him of her admiration of Burke’s “Reflections” on the French Revolution, and expressed her horror of that event as well as her regret at the sympathy of Fox with it. She petted her grandson, Alexander, and ostentatiously avoided all reference to the subject of Fawkener’s mission, except that, when a dog chanced opportunely to bark, she said, “Dogs that bark do not always bite.” So matters dragged on, it being the aim of Catharine to gain another success on the Danube, to win over Leopold definitely to her side (as Fawkener found to be the case by 21st June), and to sow discord among Britons.1022

In this last she achieved a startling success. On 17th June there arrived at St. Petersburg Mr. (afterwards Sir) Robert Adair, who later on was to figure as a diplomatist under the Ministry of Fox and that of All the Talents. We may accept his solemn declaration, in a letter written in the year 1842, that Fox had no hand in sending him on this so-called “mission”;1023 but we are able to correct Adair’s version in several respects, from documents in the “Pitt Papers,” which Bishop Tomline, when challenged by Adair, thought fit to withhold.1024

Adair asserted in 1842 that his object in going to Russia was not to oppose Pitt’s policy of recovering Oczakoff, because that Minister had already renounced it in obedience to the mandate of Parliament. This, as we have seen, is incorrect; for when Adair left England, in May 1791, warlike preparations were still going on.1025 He admits that Fox said to him before starting, “Well: if you are determined to go, send us all the news”; and that Fox provided him with a cipher so that that news might elude the prying eyes of British diplomatists. It may be, as Adair says, that he and he alone was accountable for this odd attempt to direct the foreign policy of his country. But it is highly probable that Vorontzoff (Woronzow), the Russian ambassador in London, abetted the scheme. On 2nd May Whitworth wrote that Vorontzoff’s despatches had given great satisfaction at the Russian capital. “He assures his Court that Russia has many friends and partisans in England, and affirms pretty positively that His Majesty’s Ministry will have no small difficulty in carrying through their measures contrary to the interest of the country.”1026 Further, the account of Adair’s “mission,” given by William Lindsay, Whitworth’s secretary, states that Adair came with strong letters of recommendation from Vorontzoff, while the Duchess of Devonshire commended him to Whitworth. He travelled viâ Vienna, where he stayed with the Russian ambassador. At St. Petersburg he at first received countenance from the British embassy, owing to the high recommendations which he brought with him, and he was presented at Court by Whitworth himself!

Thus Adair found his path everywhere strewn with flowers. Catharine smiled on him and plied him with important questions, ironically asking him whether the British fleet had set sail. Fawkener, on the other hand, she treated with marked coldness. The British embassy, however, had its revenge; for Lindsay opened the letters, which Adair trustfully asked him to take to London, and apparently was able to decipher the ciphered parts, which gave hints to Fox for an attack on Pitt. But Adair was more than a purveyor of hints for the Whig orators. It is clear that he stiffened the resistance of the Russian Government. “He shows,” so Whitworth wrote privately to Grenville, on 21st July, “the most virulent opposition to His Majesty’s measures, and takes great pains to counteract the negotiation.”1027 In official documents Whitworth and Fawkener depict him as a vain, meddlesome, ignorant person, concerned with stockjobbing no less than with diplomacy. But it is certain that his presence at St. Petersburg, and the biassed information which he supplied, greatly harmed the cause of the Allies; and Pitt, after seeing copies of Adair’s letters, was justified in hinting that his action had prejudiced the success of Britain’s efforts at St. Petersburg. As for Fox, Catharine showed her regard for him by placing his bust between those of Demosthenes and Cicero in her palace; and Adair, on his departure, received from the hands of Potemkin a ring containing her miniature.1028

Such is the story of this singular “mission.” Even before its details were fully known at Whitehall, Ministers debated whether they should not take action against Adair. On 29th July Grenville wrote to Auckland, à propos also of a recent letter of Fox to Barnave: “Is not the idea of Ministers from Opposition to the different Courts of Europe a new one in this country? I never heard of it before, and should think that, if it can be proved, I mean legally proved, it would go very near to an impeachable misdemeanour.”1029 Ministers, however, decided to treat Adair’s “mission” with the silence of contempt. Probably their judgement was correct; for the finesse of Vorontzoff and Catharine, if fully revealed to the world, would have covered the Opposition with obloquy, but the Cabinet with ridicule; and in politics the latter alternative is more to be feared. Apart, therefore, from one scornfully vague reference by Pitt to the damage done to the nation’s interests by a partisan intrigue at St. Petersburg, little was heard of the affair.

The reader who wades through the dreary debates on the Russian Question early in 1792 will probably conclude that Adair’s tour belongs to the annals, not of diplomacy, but of electioneering.1030 Fox, Grey, Sheridan, and Whitbread proved to their own satisfaction, from Russian sources of information, that Pitt, besides wasting the public money on futile preparations for war, had been outwitted and publicly flouted by the Czarina. They did not prove that the occasion called for no effort to curb her ambition, or that Pitt was not justified in taking up the challenge which their factious conduct had emboldened her to fling down. In one sense it is unfortunate that the Foxites did make further diplomatic excursions; for the result might have been the addition of interesting gargoyles to the edifice of the party system in the form of Opposition embassies, worked by fallen Ministers, disappointed place-hunters, and discharged clerks.

Meanwhile other events were working against Pitt. The successes of the Russian arms had been crowned by the capture of Anapa, near the River Kuban, and their triumph seemed assured both in Asia and Europe. The Russian Black Sea fleet was preparing to deal a blow at Constantinople; and, for a time, as we have seen, the Turks were distracted by the prospect of the renewal of war with Austria.

Yet here again, by one of those sudden turns of fortune which have so often saved the Ottoman Empire, the designs of the Viennese Court were cut short. At Padua, during his Italian tour, the Emperor Leopold heard the news of the capture of the King and Queen of France by the rabble of Varennes. This ignominious ending of his schemes for a counter-revolution in France stirred the sluggish blood of the Emperor. On 6th July he wrote to his brother Maximilian that it was high time to save Marie Antoinette and stifle the French plague. A forward policy in the West implied moderation in the East, and even the Prussophobe Chancellor, Kaunitz, saw the need of a definite peace with the Sultan. Accordingly, Austria waived her demands for parts of Wallachia and Servia, and made peace with the Porte at Sistova on 4th August, on condition of receiving Old Orsova.1031 Thus the Varennes incident, which involved the royalist cause in ruin, brought salvation to the Moslems.

The desire of Leopold to crush the French Revolution was to have far-reaching consequences, which will concern us later. Here we may remark that the woes of Marie Antoinette and the volte-face of the Emperor produced a marked effect at St. Petersburg. Hitherto, all had been bluster and defiance. So late as 15th July Fawkener reported that the Empress had lately seemed inclined to conquer and keep all that she could; but the news from France impelled the Vice-Chancellor, Ostermann, to declare that all animosities should now be laid aside and “that every nation in Europe should unite [against France] whenever any proper plan could be agreed on.”1032 Thus, here again, the failure of the royalist attempt in France helped to avert the utter breakdown of the Anglo-Prussian case. Even so, the Czarina won the day at nearly every point. Little by little the Allies gave up all the safeguards on which Pitt had at first insisted; and on 26th July their envoys consented to the acquisition by Russia of all the Turkish lands east of the Dniester, provided that the Czarina agreed not to hinder the navigation of that river. On the whole, the Porte sustained no very serious loss, considering the collapse of its defence, the slight interest felt on its behalf both at London and Berlin, and the marked dislike of Catharine for England and Prussia. She hated Pitt, but she despised Frederick William. How then could she, in the midst of her military triumphs, give way to the demands of the Triple Alliance, whose inner weakness she had probed?

Nevertheless, the intervention of the Allies was not the failure that has often been represented. It checked the soaring ambitions of Potemkin. The Roumans, Bulgars, and Greeks had to thank the Allies for delivering them from this selfish adventurer. Their day of liberation was deferred, but it came ultimately in far better guise than as a gift from Catharine and her favourite. Strange to say, he fell a victim to fever, and expired by the roadside in Moldavia as he was proceeding to the front; and this event, which wrung the heart of Catharine, had no small share in facilitating the signature of the Russo-Turkish treaty (on the terms required by the Allies) at Jassy early in the following year.

Other influences were leading Catharine towards peace. In the spring of the year 1791 Poland entered on a new lease of life. That the Poles should alter their constitution without her permission was a grievous affront, for which she inveighed against them as rebels. Thenceforth Warsaw, rather than Constantinople, took the first place in her thoughts. Apart from this, the prospects of the Poles were radiant with promise; and the student who peruses the despatches of Hailes, British envoy at Warsaw, cannot but picture the results that might have occurred had the Poles received adequate support from Prussia and England against the Muscovites. The confederated Diet at Warsaw then showed a reforming zeal equal to that of the French National Assembly. In the middle of April it struck off the shackles from the burghers and made them citizens. Early in May, when the political horizon darkened, fear cowed even the Russophiles, while a storm of patriotic fervour swayed the Diet, and burst through the two barriers which hemmed in the national life. There was no hubbub in this memorable sitting. No swords flashed forth, as had happened on many a petty pretext. Emotion held the Assembly spellbound, while the majority swept away those curses of the land, serfdom and the elective kingship. Thereupon one of the leading obstructives aroused general astonishment by proposing that members should swear to uphold the new order of things. King Stanislaus evinced his patriotic zeal by calling on the Bishop of Cracow to administer the oath, which deputies and visitors alike recorded with shouts of joy. The exulting throng of nationalists and their recent converts then sallied forth and took the oath once more at the foot of the high altar of the Cathedral; and the sullen dissidence of some thirty of Russia’s henchmen served but to emphasize the overwhelming triumph of intelligence and patriotism.1033

Such was the peaceful Revolution of 3rd May 1791 at Warsaw. It sent a thrill of exultation through France, and moved Burke to a splendid panegyric, which he crowned with the startling statement that the events at Warsaw were probably the purest good ever conferred upon mankind.1034 Even Grenville’s cold and insular nature warmed and dilated at the news; and he bade Hailes express the interest of Great Britain in the new constitution, especially as it would benefit the cause of the Allies.1035

But the ill fortune which dogged the steps of the Poles willed that in this time of their revival the Alliance, from which alone they could hope for safety, should go to pieces. The refusal of England to send a fleet either to the Baltic or the Black Sea depressed the influence of England at Berlin. “Oh! how my blood boils, my dear Sir,” wrote Ewart to Keith on 18th June. “Our influence was all powerful so long as it was maintained with the necessary vigour; and the moment we flinched, all the Powers, as if by common consent, turned the tables upon us.”1036 This proved to be the case. The web of Ewart’s diplomacy, the toil of four years, which connected England with Prussia, Sweden, Poland, and Turkey, was unravelled in as many weeks. The general trend of events helped on the work of dissolution; and among the sinister influences at Berlin, jealousy of the reviving power of Poland played no small part. Hertzberg, whose fortunes were now on the decline, sought to postpone his fall (it came early in July) by exciting animosity against the Courts of London and Warsaw. To his reckless charge against Pitt, of seeking to ruin Prussia by a war against the Muscovites, he now added a jeremiad against the Polish reformers of Warsaw—“The Poles have just dealt the coup de grace to the Prussian monarchy by making their kingdom hereditary and adopting a constitution better than that of England.”1037 Dislike of its Allies was now the prevalent feeling at the Prussian Court, and by the end of June Frederick William decided to have an interview with Leopold for the purpose of coming to a friendly understanding.1038

This resolve, fraught with evil for Poland, was clinched by the news of the capture of the King and Queen of France at Varennes. Concern at their ignominious position now began to influence the Central and Eastern Powers. The wrath of the Czarina fell upon French democrats; for in the nature of this extraordinary woman sentiment and passion always ran an even race with foresight and reason. In her present mood the French Revolution and all its abettors were anathema. The results were curious. The bust of Voltaire was deposed from its place of honour and huddled away amidst lumber. Within a short space the bust of Fox, now that he had served her purpose, shared the same fate. More important, perhaps, if less striking to the imagination, is the fact that she now formed a close alliance with Sweden. Early in October Gustavus III ended his long balancings by espousing the side of Russia, with a view to eventual action against France.1039 The decline or collapse of the Anglo-Prussian Alliance followed as a matter of course so soon as Frederick decided to clasp the hand of Leopold. It is curious to find Pitt and Grenville, even at the end of August 1791, seeking to include Austria in the Triple Alliance, when statesmen at Berlin and Vienna were scoffing at England, and were adopting an offensive policy at variance with the pacific aims cherished at Whitehall. Kaunitz and Bischoffswerder looked about for a scape-goat, and found him in Joseph Ewart. Auckland had also been making a dead set at this able ambassador; and some hitch in the negotiations attending the marriage of the Duke of York with the eldest daughter of the King of Prussia served to increase his troubles at this time. But the following hopeful letter which Pitt wrote to him on 2nd September must have salved his mental wounds:

... Many events have certainly concurred to disappoint the accomplishment of very important objects, and to produce in some respects an unfavourable change both in Prussia and elsewhere. But the general state of Europe, taking in the whole, affords so favourable a prospect to this country that we have great reason to be contented. Any temporary fluctuation in the disposition at Berlin is therefore, at the moment, of less consequence. The connection between Prussia and Austria, whatever right we have to complain of the steps which have led to it, cannot, I think, produce any permanent mischief to our system; and, at least, I am convinced that the best chance of preventing it is to mark no suspicion on our part to preserve as much good humour and cordiality as possible. For the rest, in the singular and uncertain state of Europe, our chief business must be to watch events and keep ourselves quiet. I have been sincerely concerned not to have more favourable accounts of your health....

The prospects, so far as concerned the freedom of Poland and the peace of the West, were worse than Pitt anticipated. Ewart foresaw the course of events more correctly. A little later he obtained the recall for which he had some time been pressing; but he had the mortification of seeing Morton Eden, the brother of his rival, Lord Auckland, installed in his place. He retired to Bath for treatment by his brother, a medical man; but an internal disease of long standing developed very suddenly on 25th January 1792, and ended his life two days later amidst delirium. The details, as set forth in the family papers, show that the delirium of his last hours was the outcome of acute internal troubles, which resembled appendicitis. They serve also to refute the wild rumours that Ewart went raving mad as a result of political disappointments, or that he was poisoned by some Russian agent.1040 The last letter which Pitt wrote to this brilliant but most unfortunate diplomatist shows a chivalrous desire to screen him from needless anxiety:

Downing Street, Jan. 20, 1792.1041

Your letter having come at a time of very particular engagement, it was impossible for me to answer it sooner. Your recollection of what pass’d between the Duke of York and yourself is certainly different from the manner in which I am told that H.R.H. understands it; but no difficulty whatever will arise from this circumstance in settling the business; nor do I see any reason for your entertaining any apprehension of its producing any consequences disagreeable to yourself. I am very sorry that you should already have felt so much on the subject. The train in which the business now is will, I am in hopes, relieve you from any further anxiety or trouble respecting it, and makes it wholly unnecessary to dwell further upon it.

Worse than private misfortunes was the blow dealt to the Polish cause. The rebuff encountered by the Allies at St. Petersburg deeply depressed the reformers of Warsaw. On the return of Fawkener through the Polish capital, King Stanislaus expressed grave concern at the abandonment of all the safeguards for Turkey and Poland on which Pitt had at first insisted. The cession to Russia of all the land up to the Dniester seemed to him to presage ruin to the Poles—“Nor did my pointing out [added Hailes] the attention which had been paid to their interests by the preservation of the liberty of the Dniester produce any advantageous effect.”1042 In truth, Stanislaus knew Catharine well enough to see in her triumph the doom of his kingdom.1043 Just as the ascendancy which she acquired over Turkey by the Treaty of Kainardji led naturally, perhaps inevitably, to the First Partition of Poland, so now the principle of the Balance of Power impelled Austria and Prussia to look about for lands that would compensate them for the expansion of Russia. Those lands could be found most easily in Poland, less easily in France. So it came about that the principle which Pitt invoked for the greater security of the smaller States, became in the hands of Catharine and her powerful neighbours a pretext for schemes of aggrandisement and pillage.

Thus fell to pieces the “federative system,” whereby Pitt hoped to group the weaker States around England and Prussia. The scheme was due in the first instance to Ewart. Pitt adopted it when he believed the time to be ripe; but he postponed action too long. Had he pushed his plans forward in the autumn of 1790, as soon as the dispute with Spain was settled, and maintained the naval armaments at their full strength, he would probably have gained a peaceful triumph over Catharine. In that case the accession of Poland, Sweden, and Turkey to the Triple Alliance would naturally have followed. There would then have been no invasion of France by Austria and Prussia; still less would there have been any spoliation of Poland. The practical manner in which the Poles reformed their commonwealth opened up vast possibilities for the east of Europe; and the crushing of those hopes under the heel of a remorseless militarism is probably the severest loss which the national principle has sustained in modern times.

Nevertheless, though Pitt showed a lack of nerve at the crisis, yet, in view of the duplicity of Prussia, the doubtful attitude of Leopold and Gustavus, the marvellous resourcefulness of Catharine, and the factious opposition of the Whigs, he cannot be blamed. At times, new and subtle influences warp the efforts of statesmen. This was so in the year 1791. Pitt was striving to build on the basis of the Balance of Power. But that well-trodden ground now began to heave under the impact of forces mightier than those wielded by monarchs and chancellors. Democracy sent out its thrills from Paris as a centre, and the gaze of statesmen was turned from the East to the West. Thenceforth the instinct of self-preservation or of greed marshalled the continental chanceries against the two reforming States. The “Zeitgeist” breathed against the plans of Pitt, and they were not. In their place there came others of a far different kind, inspired by hopes of territorial gains in Poland and the overthrow of liberty in France.

Footnotes

1 Baines, “Hist. of Cotton Manufacture,” 226, 232–4. See Mr. G. P. Gooch’s “Politics and Culture,” for other coincidences.

2 The first trustworthy statistics of population were obtained in the census of 1801; but those given above are probably not very wide of the mark. The estimates are those of Rickman, quoted by Porter, “Progress of the Nation,” 13. The estimate of the “Statistical Journal” (xliii, 462), quoted by Dr. Cunningham, “Eng. Industry and Commerce,” 699, is 7,953,000 for the year 1780.

3 See Walter’s “Origin of Commerce,” iv, 401, for a full statement of this juggling with the nation’s finance.

4 “Diary of a Journey to England (1761–62),” by Count F. von Kielmansegge, 237.

5 “The Coltness Collections,” 116, quoted by J. H. Jesse; “Memoirs of the Reign of George III,” i, 29.

6 “Mems. of Queen Charlotte,” by J. Watkins, 1819, pt. i, ch. x. The Duchess of Devonshire had flaunted a head-plume of an ell and three inches.

7 See an excellent study, “Personal and Party Government (1760–1766),” by Mr. D. A. Winstanley, 1910.

8 “Corresp. of George III with Lord North,” ii, 323; Wraxall, i, 347.

9 “F. O.,” Prussia, 15, Carmarthen to Ewart, 6th January 1789.

10 For the influence exerted by George III on elections see Porritt, “The Unreformed House of Commons,” i, 409–15.

11 Pitt MSS., 195, pt. ii.

12 B. M. Add. MSS., 28062. Pitt’s answer is not among these papers. But Dr. Jackson did not gain the bishopric.

13 Lecky, v, 26.

14 Montesquieu, “Esprit des Lois,” bk. viii, ch. v.

15 See Sidney and Beatrice Webb, “The Parish and the County,” bk. i, ch. iv; bk. ii, ch. ii; Boutmy, “The Eng. Constitution” (Eng. edit.), pt. iii, sect. 3.

16 Howell, State Trials, xxiii, 231.

17 Delavoye, “Life of T. Graham,” 87.

18 “Letters from Lady Jane Coke to her friend, Mrs. Eyre, at Derby (1747–58).”

19 C. P. Moritz, “Travels in England in 1782”; W. Wales, “Inquiry into the... Population of England” (1781), estimated the number of houses in London at 100,000, and the population at 650,000.

20 See, too, Wroth’s “London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century.”

21 See ch. xx of this volume for details; also T. Clarkson’s “Hist. of the Abolition of the Slave Trade,” especially chs. xvii, xviii; and Prof. Ramsay Muir’s “Hist. of Liverpool,” ch. xii.

22 “Hamlet,” i, sc. 4.

23 “Wealth of Nations,” bk. iv, ch. iii, pt. 2.

24 H. Twiss, “Life of Lord Eldon,” vol. i, ch. ii.

25 H. Walpole, “Letters,” viii, 395.

26 “Mems. of Queen Charlotte,” 203.

27 See the new letter of Hugh Elliot to Pitt from Brighthelmstone, 17th Oct. 1785, quoted in ch. xvii, as to the danger of the Prince losing his life if he did not amend his ways.

28 “Mems. of Queen Charlotte,” 187.

29 “Travels in England in 1782,” by C. P. Moritz (Eng. trans., 1895), 53.

30 Rousseau, “Social Contract,” bk. iii, ch. xv.

31 Dr. Cunningham, “Eng. Industry and Commerce,” pt. ii, 546, 698.

32 Quoted by Baines, “History of the Cotton Manufacture,” 334.

33 W. Wales, op. cit., 5.

34 “Origin of Power-loom Weaving,” by W. Radcliffe, 59 et seq.

35 In Pitt MSS., 221, is a petition signed by many persons connected with the navy in favour of granting a pension to Mr. Cort, who had made “malleable iron with raw pit-coal, and manufactured the same by means of grooved rollers, by a process of his own invention.” The petitioners state that though the invention had brought no benefit to Cort, but rather the reverse, yet it had proved to be of national importance.

36 W. Wales, op. cit., 44 et seq., enumerates several cases where the rural population declined, but he attributed that fact not to the enclosures (for he states that the enclosures of wastes, which were more numerous than those of the open fields, increased employment), but rather to the refusal of landlords to build cottages, though they charged higher rents than before. For the question of enclosures, however, see Dr. Gilbert Slater’s recent work on the subject (Constable and Co., 1907).

37 See Dr. von Ruville’s work, “William Pitt, Earl of Chatham” (Eng. ed., 3 vols. 1907), for a full account of these forbears.

38 Ruville, i, 343–6.

39 Ibid., 345. Pitt finally bought about 100 acres, and further strained his resources by extensive building at Hayes.

40 “Pitt, some Chapters of his Life and Times,” by Lord Ashbourne, 161–6.

41 “The Life of William Wilberforce,” by his Sons, i, 304.

42 Pitt MSS., 11 and 13.

43 Stanhope, ii, 125.

44 “Correspondence of the Earl of Chatham,” iii, 27.

45 Notes by Bishop Tomline in the Pretyman MSS., Orwell Park.

46 Lord Fitzmaurice, “Life of Shelburne,” i, 72. See also two articles on the early life of the elder Pitt in the “Edinburgh Review” for 1910.

47 “Chatham Corresp.,” iii, 65.

48 “Chatham Corresp.,” iv, 538.

49 Pitt MSS., 11.

50 “Chatham Corresp.,” iv, 363.

51 Pitt MSS., 101. The disuse of past participles was a characteristic of that age. To write “rode” for “ridden” after the auxiliary verb was no more noticeable a defect than to walk unsteadily after dinner. One other early letter of Pitt’s bears date 1772 at Lyme Regis, and refers to some fun which he and his brothers and sisters had had on a cutter yacht. Another letter undated, but in Pitt’s round schoolboy hand, to a gentleman of Somerset, refers to sporting matters such as the lack of hares and the inability of his brother to catch those which he does start (Pitt MSS., 102).

52 From Mr. A. M. Broadley’s MSS.

53 By the kindness of the Countess Stanhope I was allowed to peruse this most interesting MS., which is preserved, along with many other Pitt treasures, at Chevening.

54 Pellew, “Sidmouth,” i, 28.

55 Ashbourne, op. cit., 7–8.

56 “Diary of Thomas Moore,” vol. v.

57 Pitt MSS., 11.

58 Ibid.

59 One remembers here the terrifying remark of Lord Acton that the mass of documents which the modern historian must consult inevitably tells against style.

60 See an interesting fragment, “Bishop Tomline’s Estimate of Pitt,” by the Earl of Rosebery (London, 1903), also in the “Monthly Review” for August 1903.

61 Dr. Pretyman was chaplain to George III, and later on Bishop of Lincoln and Dean of St. Paul’s.

62 Pitt MSS., 196. The notes and diagrams refer to the movement of bodies considered dynamically: there are also some problems in algebra. More numerous are the notes on English History, especially on the parliamentary crises of the years 1603–27, where, unfortunately, they break off. I have also found notes on Plutarch, and translations of the speech of Germanicus in Tacitus (“Annals,” Bk. I), and of parts of the Second Philippic.

63 His books went in large measure to Bishop Pretyman (Tomline), and many of them are in the library of Orwell Park.

64 “Chatham Corresp.,” iv, 289.

65 Chevening MSS.

66 Pretyman MSS., quoted by Lord Ashbourne, op. cit., 31, note.

67 “Private Papers of W. Wilberforce,” 65.

68 “Chatham Corresp.” iv, 376, 377.

69 Macaulay, “Miscellaneous Writings” (Essay on William Pitt).

70 Macaulay, “Miscellaneous Writings” (Essay on William Pitt), iv, 510.

71 “Corresp. of George III with Lord North,” ii, 154 (17th March 1778).

72 “Corresp. of George III with Lord North,” ii, 184.

73 Pitt MSS., 12.

74 Ashbourne, op. cit., 161, 162.

75 See Porritt, “The Unreformed House of Commons,” i, ch. ix, on the exclusion of poor men from Parliament.

76 Letter of 3rd July 1779. Stanhope, i, 31.

77 Chevening MSS.

78 Pitt MSS., 182.

79 “The Black Book of Lincoln’s Inn,” iv, Preface.

80 “Life of Burke,” by R. Bissett (1800), ii, 55–66.

81 Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 67–72.

82 Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 83.

83 “Black Book of Lincoln’s Inn,” iv, Preface; “Bland Burges Papers,” 58.

84 “Bland Burges Papers,” 60, 61.

85 “Life of William Pitt,” by Henry Cleland (1807).

86 As a rule, Lowther exacted strict obedience from his nominees. In 1788 he compelled them to vote against Pitt on the Regency Question.

87 Hansard, cliii, 1056, 1057.

88 Porritt, i, 315–7.

89 Burke, “Thoughts on the present Discontents” (1770).

90 For details of bribery see May, “Constitutional History,” i, 313–27; Porritt, i, 414–20.

91 “Life of Romilly,” i, 141.

92 “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 37, 38.

93 Selwyn, p. 140.

94 “Reminiscences of Charles Butler,” i, 172.

95 Wraxall, “Memoirs,” ii, 62; G. Rose, “Diaries,” i, 28.

96 Lecky, “Hist. of England in the XVIIIth Cent.,” iv, 228–34, does not absolve Shelburne of the charge of duplicity in the matter of the negotiations for peace; but Sir G. C. Lewis, “Administrations of Great Britain,” 31–48, minimizes the importance of the point at issue.

97 Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 118–21.

98 “Private Papers of W. Wilberforce,” 79.

99 Cartwright, “Take your Choice” (1776). In 1780 Cartwright founded “The Society for promoting Constitutional Information,” the first of the modern clubs that was purely political.

100 “The Speeches of William Pitt” (4 vols., 1806), i, 1–7.

101 “George Selwyn: his Letters and his Life,” p. 132 (Storer to Lord Carlisle, Feb. 28, 1781). He adds that Woodfall reported the debates “almost always faithfully.” I therefore see no reason for refraining, as Earl Stanhope did, from citing many passages of his speeches, on the ground that they were very imperfectly reported.

102 Ibid., p. 143.

103 These images are curiously like those used by Lord Shelburne on 25th January 1781. See Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 120.

104 Both letters are among the Chevening MSS.

105 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 17.

106 Ibid., v, 292.

107 Ashbourne, p. 159.

108 “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 68.

109 Lord Waldegrave’s “Memoirs,” p. 63.

110 Pitt MSS., 103.

111 Nicholl, “Recollections of George III,” i, 389.

112 Porritt, i, 409–15.

113 See May’s “Const. History,” i, 315 et seq. for the increase of the Secret Service Fund under George III.

114 Malmesbury Diaries, iii, 8.

115 Wraxall, ii, 434–5 (3rd edit.).

116 “Letters of George III to Lord North,” ii, 336.

117 “Life of Romilly,” i, 135.

118 Stanhope, i, 67.

119 May, “Const. History,” i, 458.

120 Rockingham, “Memoirs,” ii, 452–3.

121 Speech of 7th February 1782 (“Parl. Hist.,” xxii, p. 987).

122 Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 136.

123 “Dropmore P.,” i, 163; Lecky, iv ad fin.

124 Hood, Rodney’s second in command, asserted that if Rodney had fought and pursued vigorously he would have taken not five but twenty French ships of the line. See “Rodney’s Letters and Despatches,” ed. by D. Hannay for the Navy Records Society, p. 103.

125 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 1.

126 “Life of Romilly,” i, 162. Romilly, who was present, quotes a sentence of the speech, which did not appear in the official report: “This House is not the representative of the people of Great Britain; it is the representative of nominal boroughs, of ruined and exterminated towns, of noble families, of wealthy individuals, of foreign potentates.”

127 “Speeches of Lord Erskine” (edit. of 1880), p. 293; “The Papers of Christopher Wyvil,” i, 424–5; State Trials, xxii, 492–4.

128 See Mahon, “Hist. of England,” vii, 17; Porritt, i, 217.

129 “Buckingham Papers,” i, 50.

130 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 163.

131 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 175; “Life of Romilly,” i, 173. Fox had announced to the Cabinet his intention of resigning a few days before Rockingham’s death. See the “Memorials of Fox,” i, 435 et seq.

132 Sir G. C. Lewis, “Administrations of Great Britain,” pp. 31–48.

133 Lecky, iv, 239. The original Cabinet numbered five Rockingham Whigs and five Shelburne Whigs.

134 Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” vol. iii, chs. iv-vi.

135 “Buckingham Papers,” i, 76.

136 Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 305; Stanhope, “Pitt,” i, 86.

137 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 265.

138 Keppel resigned on the question of the terms of peace; the Duke of Richmond disapproved them; Grafton was lukewarm. See their speeches, 17th February 1783 (“Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 392–6). W. W. Grenville refused to move the resolution in the Commons in favour of the peace, as Pitt urged him to do (“Dropmore P.,” i, 194).

139 “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 33.

140 “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 37, 38; “Auckland Journals,” i, 40–5. Lord John Townshend, Adam, Eden, Lord Loughborough, and George North helped to bring about the Coalition. Burke favoured the plan, also Sheridan, though later on he vehemently declared the contrary (ibid., pp. 21–4).

141 Mr. Le B. Hammond, “Life of Fox,” pp. 57, 58.

142 “My friendships are eternal, my hatreds can be appeased.”

143 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 541.

144 Fox’s friends, Mr. Powys and Sir Cecil Wray, had reprobated his present action.

145 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 543–50. I may here note that after the resignation of Shelburne, Pitt framed a Bill for regulating in friendly terms commerce with the United States. It was sharply criticized and much altered in committee; but his Bill as well as the words quoted above prove the depth of his conviction as to the need of winning back if possible the goodwill of those young communities.

146 Horace, “Odes,” bk. iii, 29. From modesty he omitted the words “et mea Virtute me involvo.” (“If she [Fortune] abides, I commend her. If her fleet wings quiver for flight, I resign her gifts—and hail honest, dowerless poverty as mine.”)

147 Wraxall, iii, 15.

148 Chevening MSS. Yet on 25th February, Dundas wrote of the plan as “my project” (Stanhope, i, 105).

149 Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 369–70; Stanhope, i, 104–9; “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 40–2. The King’s letter to Shelburne refutes Horace Walpole’s statement that the King made the offer very drily and ungraciously: also that Pitt’s vanity was at first “staggered” by the offer.

150 “Buckingham P.,” i, 170.

151 “Buckingham P.,” i, 194.

152 Pitt MSS., 103.

153 Stanhope, i, App. III.

154 Wraxall, iii, 36.

155 Sichel, “Sheridan,” i, 133.

156 “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 28.

157 Wraxall, iii, 89, 143–5.

158 “Dropmore P.,” i, 197–212. Mr. Sichel (“Sheridan,” ii, ch. ii), following the earlier biographer, Thomas Moore, proves that Sheridan sought to dissuade Fox from the coalition with North. This is doubtless true. But determined opposition should have led him to refuse office.

159 “Buckingham P.,” i, 189, 219.

160 Horace Walpole’s Letters (8th May 1783). He thought Pitt’s motion “most dangerous. We know pretty well what good or evil the present state of the House of Commons can do. What an enlargement might achieve no man can tell.” Later on he notes that Pitt was very little supported, but shone marvellously in debate.

161 Mr. Sichel (“Sheridan,” ii, 36) admits the strong personal element in Sheridan’s opposition to Pitt.

162 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 926, 945, 1, 114.

163 “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 113. Jesse, “Memoirs of George III,” iii, 435, states that the Shelburne Ministry had named £100,000 as the allowance for the Prince. I find no proof of this.

164 “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 113, 119.

165 “Buckingham P.,” i, 303–5.

166 “Dropmore P.,” i, 216; also Earl Stanhope’s “Miscellanies,” ii, 23–6, who rightly places the date as 20th July.

167 “Buckingham P.,” i, 304; “Rutland P.,” iii, 70; Stanhope, “Misc.,” ii, 32–5.

168 Ibid., i, 218; “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 131–9.

169 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 1143.

170 “Dropmore P.,” i, 219, 220; Stanhope, “Misc.,” ii, 35.

171 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 38.

172 Lady Blennerhassett, “Life of Talleyrand,” i, 46. It is strange that the “Talleyrand Memoirs” do not mention the meeting.

173 G. Rose, “Diaries,” i, 32.

174 Wraxall, iii, 122.

175 “Early Life of Samuel Rogers,” 134.

176 D’Haussonville, “The Salon of Mme. Necker,” ii, 50 (Eng. ed.).

177 “Private Papers of W. Wilberforce,” 58. Strange to say, Horace Walpole does not mention the affair in his letters.

178 Horace Walpole (24th Feb. 1783).

179 Milton, “A Free Commonwealth.”

180 See, too, “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 98. Probably the second Bill contained more of the suggestions of Burke.

181 Wraxall, iii, 146, 155.

182 Paper dated 4th Dec. 1783, in Pitt MSS., 354.

183 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 1187–1208.

184 Ibid., 1209–11.

185 I cannot agree with Lecky’s statement (iv, 293) that Pitt’s charges were extravagant. Seven partisan commissioners, jobbing away vast patronage, would have been a canker in the State, whether they acted for their party or the Crown.

186 Pitt MSS., 102. Letter of 25th Nov. 1783.

187 Wraxall, iii, 161.

188 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 1312–86.

189 Wraxall, iii, 150.

190 “Buckingham P.,” i, 289.

191 Ibid., 285.

192 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 196–225.

193 “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 224.

194 Tomline (i, 233) gives the date as 21st December. The date is doubtful, in view of the two perfectly friendly letters of Pitt to his uncle on 23rd December, quoted by Stanhope (“Miscellanies,” ii, 36, 37). Wilberforce places the Earl’s resignation on 22nd December. I incline to place it late on the 23rd.

195 “Dropmore P.,” i, 163, 526–9. The Earl did not gain his desire, and deeply resented the refusal of George III to make him a duke.

196 Quoted in full in “Buckingham P.,” i, 291–3.

197 “Dropmore P.,” i, 239, 240.

198 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 48.

199 Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 406–13. Pitt soothed the feelings of the Earl by persuading the King to create him Marquis of Lansdowne. (Ibid., 419–25).

200 Grafton MSS. in the Chevening Library.

201 Wraxall, iii, 252.

202 The letter of George III to Pitt, quoted in “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies,” rebuts the statement of the editor of “The Cornwallis Correspondence” (i, 162, n.) that there is no trace of any offer of an office to Cornwallis. The letters of the Earl at that time show that he declined office because he believed Pitt’s administration must speedily fall, whereupon “the virtuous Coalition” would return in triumph.

203 “Mems. of the Whig Party,” ii, 5–7.

204 The Duke of Richmond did not join the Cabinet until 13th January. See Lord Carmarthen’s Mem. (“Leeds Mem.,” 94).

205 “Life and Letters of Sir G. Elliot,” i, 91.

206 “Rutland P.,” iii, 73.

207 Lord Carmarthen stated that in the Cabinet meeting of 13th January Pitt talked of giving up the struggle, but this is against all other contemporary evidence (“Leeds Mems.,” 94). These notes on the Cabinet meetings show how long were the discussions there respecting a dissolution, and Pitt’s anxiety to defer it to a favourable moment.

208 Pitt MSS., 353. I cannot accept Mr. Sichel’s statement (“Sheridan,” ii, 45), that Dundas prescribed Pitt’s India Bill, and Burke helped in it. Dundas doubtless helped in its compilation, but Pitt must have conferred directly with the Company and found out how far it was inclined to meet his views.

209 Wraxall, iii, 85.

210 Stanhope, i, App., p. viii.

211 “Ann. Reg.” (1784–5), 271; “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 238–41.

212 Hearn, “The Government of England,” 140–4, 147.

213 “Corresp. between Pitt and the Duke of Rutland,” 9. Cornwallis (“Corresp.,” i, 171) also prophesied after that vote that if Ministers acted wisely, they might hold office for many years.

214 “Leeds Mems.,” 99.

215 “Fox’s Martyrs: a new Book of the Sufferings of the Faithful” (London, 3rd edit., 1784).

216 Letter to Wilberforce, 6th April 1784.

217 I have found in the Pitt MSS. (No. 315) only two references to Pitt’s election for Cambridge. One is a letter of that year from “F. B.” giving numerous hints how this or that M.A. should be “got at” so as to secure his vote, and ending: “Go on and prosper, thou godlike young man, worthy of your immortal father.” The other is a note, not dated, signed J. T[urner?]:
“Dear Pretyman,
“Our canvas goes on very successfully, but we are yet very desirous of your being here to-morrow night if possible, since Mr. Pitt cannot come himself. His appearance on Thursday did immense service.... We depend on seeing you to-morrow; next to Mr. Pitt’s appearance yours will certainly be of the utmost importance.”

218 Wraxall, iii, 338.

219 For the daily figures see “Ann. Reg.” (1784), 34.

220 “Hist. of Westminster Election,” 483.

221 From the letter of George III to Pitt of 1st May it seems that the High Bailiff had previously decided to grant a scrutiny, if asked for, owing to the many doubtful votes that had been polled.

222 “Dropmore P.,” i, 177.

223 “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 244–6.

224 “Malmesbury Diaries,” iv, 22.

225 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1006.

226 Necker, “De l’Administration des Finances de la France,” 3 vols. (1784).

227 “Observations on Reversionary Payments,” by R. Price, i, 206. When all the expenses of the war were added, by the year 1786, the National Debt amounted to £245,466,855. See Parl. Paper, No. 443, Sept. 1858.

228 R. Price, “State of the Public Debts and Finances in January 1783,” 5, 8, 19.

229 Pitt reckoned a State lottery as yielding a profit of £140,000; but obviously he disliked this means of raising money (“Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 1307).

230 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1021.

231 Ibid., 1022–4.

232 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1015.

233 A. Young, “Farmer’s Letters,” 197.

234 “Wealth of Nations,” bk. i, ch. xi, pt. 3; “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1012.

235 “Wealth of Nations,” bk. v, ch. ii, § 4.

236 Dowell, “Hist. of Taxation,” ii, 183.

237 I owe this interesting fact to the Rev. Dr. Cunningham.

238 R. Price, op. cit., 18, 19 (note).

239 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1009.

240 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1354.

241 “Wealth of Nations,” bk. v, ch. ii, § 1.

242 Cunningham, 548.

243 Dowell, ii, 187, 188.

244 In Pitt MSS., 353, I have found a memoir of the East India Company containing this sentence: “Much will he deserve of his country who can devise a mode of anything like equal taxation by any single tax.”

245 “Corresp. of W. Wilberforce,” i, 9.

246 Chevening MSS.

247 R. Price, “Treatise on Reversionary Annuities” (1772).

248 “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 419–30.

249 Consols which touched 54¼ in January 1785 rose to 69¾-73½ in December of that year.

250 “Memoir and Works of R. Price,” by W. Morgan (1816), i, 120–5; “A Review of Dr. Price’s Writings on Finance,” by W. Morgan (1792).

251 Pitt MSS., 169.

252 “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 419–30, 1303.

253 Lecky, v, 51.

254 Pitt MSS., 169.

255 “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 1294–1312, 1367, 1368, 1416–30.

256 These formed the chief charges urged against the Sinking Fund by R. Hamilton, “An Inquiry concerning... the Management of the National Debt” (1813).

257 “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 1430–32.

258 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvi, 17–36. Earl Stanhope’s measure will be described by Miss Ghita Stanhope in her monograph on the Earl.

259 J. R. McCulloch, “Taxation and the Funding System,” 3rd edit., 1883, 477–81.

260 Hamilton, op. cit. McCulloch admits only half that amount. In the Pitt MSS. (No. 275) is an account of the stocks purchased for the Sinking Fund up to 5th January 1796. They amounted to £18,001,655 and Annuities equal to £89,675. See, too, Pitt’s Memoranda on the Sinking Fund in “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies.”

261 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 998.

262 Ibid., 1383.

263 From Mr. Broadley’s MSS.

264 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1396.

265 “Corresp. of Wyvill with Pitt,” pt. i, 1796, 13.

266 “Corresp. of Pitt with Wyvill,” pt. ii, 1797, 1–7.

267 In the “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies,” I include a Memorandum—“Notes on Reform of Parliament”—from the Pretyman MSS. It is undated; but the notes form undoubtedly the rough draft of the speech outlined above, except that there is no mention of the buying out proposals at the end. May we infer that this was an afterthought, due to Dundas?

268 “Rutland P.,” iii, 202.

269 “Corresp. of Pitt with the Duke of Rutland,” 84.

270 “Corresp. of Wilberforce,” i, 4; “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 77; “Corresp. of Wyvill with Pitt,” pt. i, 15 n.

271 Stanhope, i, xv; Wraxall, iii, 116.

272 Lecky, v, 62, 63; Jephson, “The Platform,” i, 166.

273 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 191.

274 I agree with Dr. W. Hunt (“Political Hist. of England,” x, 287) in his interpretation of the King’s letter quoted by Stanhope, i, App., xv.

275 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 113.

276 B.M. Add. MSS., 27808.

277 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvi, 1–5, 178–86; “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 114.

278 “Rutland P.,” iii, 202.

279 “Rutland P.,” iii, 198, 203; Letters of 11th and 23rd April 1785.

280 “Private Papers of W. Wilberforce,” 72.

281 “Corresp. of Pitt with the Duke of Rutland,” 150, 151.

282 Ibid., 174, 175.

283 Pitt MSS., 111. Printed in the “Barham Papers” (ii, 219), edited by Sir John Laughton for the Navy Records Society.

284 “Journals and Letters of Sir T. Byam Martin,” iii, 380–2 (Navy Records Society).

285 Wraxall, iv, 268–70. For some details on the inquiries at Portsmouth and Plymouth see the “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 195–8.

286 Porter, “Hist. of the Royal Engineers,” ii, 209–11. The Duke of Richmond was, however, able to fortify some points at Portsmouth before the war of 1793 with France. See “Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers,” xii (1886), 83, 86. Fort Monckton and smaller forts on Stokes Bay were built.

287 H. Twiss, “Life of Lord Eldon,” i, ch. iv.

288 Wraxall, iv, 436.

289 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvi, 780–832. On 8th May 1789, a similar motion by Beaufoy was defeated by 122 votes to 102 (Ibid., xxviii, 1–41).

290 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiv, 1086–99.

291 Pitt MSS., 353.

292 Mill, “Hist. of British India,” iv, 559 (4th edit.).

293 Lord Acton, “Letters to Mary Gladstone,” 45.

294 “Cornwallis Correspondence,” i, 180, 191.

295 Ibid., 220, 221.

296 Wraxall, iv, 142–4.

297 Malleson, “Life of Warren Hastings” (1894), 456.

298 Malleson, “Life of Warren Hastings” (1894), 455.

299 Wraxall, iv, 250; “Diary of Mme. d’Arblay,” iv, 60 (edit. 1854).

300 Malleson, op. cit., 449.

301 Wraxall, iv, 260.

302 Ibid., 261; “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 1094–5.

303 E.g., Malleson, op. cit., 450.

304 “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 1256.

305 The debate of 26th April seems to show that Burke was acquainted with the substance of those papers.

306 “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 1384–94.

307 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvi, 37–90.

308 “Zamindar” means no more than landowner. Hastings had confirmed Cheyt Singh in his powers. Sir Alfred Lyall and Mr. G. W. Hastings in their works on Warren Hastings lay stress on the fact that Cheyt Singh was a parvenu, not one of the old hereditary princes of India. I fail to see that this has any bearing on the justice or injustice of Hastings’ treatment of him.

309 “Auckland Journals,” i, 127.

310 “Auckland Correspondence,” i, 127; Wraxall, iv, 336.

311 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvi, 115.

312 “Lives of the Lord Chancellors,” ix, 175 (4th edit.). The words quoted above furnish no ground for the assertion of Sir H. Lyall in his “Warren Hastings” that Pitt heard news of Thurlow’s boast just before the debate of 13th June. Campbell’s words are quite vague, and are entitled to little credence.

313 Stanhope, i, App., xix.

314 For new letters of George III see “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies.”

315 Wraxall, iv, 342.

316 “Bland Burges P.,” 89, 90.

317 “Life of Wilberforce,” v, 340, 341.

318 “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 69, 70. A similar remark may be applied to Mr. Gladstone’s replies, which often disgusted simple men.

319 Pitt MSS., 169.

320 This opinion is repeated by Mr. G. W. Hastings, “A Vindication of Warren Hastings,” ch. vi.

321 For a hostile account of Pitt’s conduct here, see the “Bland Burges P.,” 81–9.

322 “Hist. of the Trial of Warren Hastings,” pt. v, 308, 309. His net fortune on 31st January 1786 was given as £65,313, exclusive of £12,000 made over to Mrs. Hastings.

323 It may belong to the spring of 1787, when, as we learn from the “Corresp. of Wilberforce,” i, 40, Dundas introduced Adam Smith to Pitt and Wilberforce; but the latter does not record the anecdote.

324 Of the 118 Parliamentary boroughs as many as 87 (including Belfast!) were “close,” that is, were controlled by Government or by a local magnate or the Corporation. See a list in “Castlereagh P.,” iv, 428–30; also Porritt, “Unreformed House of Commons,” ii, pt. vi.

325 Lecky, iv, 429, 440, 450.

326 “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 74, 96, 107, 119; “Rutland P.,” iii, 193.

327 Pitt MSS., 324.

328 “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 17, 19.

329 Ashbourne, 84, 85.

330 Ashbourne, 85–91.

331 Grenville, writing in November 1798, said that he considered the faulty procedure adopted in 1785 largely contributed to the failure. (“Buckingham P.,” ii, 412.)

332 “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 43.

333 “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 55–75.

334 Ibid., 73.

335 Ashbourne, 104 (Letter of Pitt to Orde, 1st February 1785). Irish exports to Great Britain for 1779 were £2,256,659, her imports thence only £1,644,770 (Pitt MSS., 322).

336 “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 311–14. Lecky, vi, 390, 395, and his “Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland,” 114.

337 “Rutland P.” (Hist. MSS. Comm.), iii, 162–68.

338 Pitt MSS., 320.

339 “Rutland P.,” iii, 191; “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 314; Ashbourne, 105, 108.

340 Chevening MSS.

341 “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 311–28.

342 “Dropmore P.,” i, 247, 248

343 Pitt MSS., 321.

344 This is refuted by the official wording of that Resolution as passed at Dublin, in “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 312.

345 Pitt MSS., 321.

346 Fifty-six petitions had been sent in against Lord North’s proposals in 1778. Daniel Pulteney wrote on 22nd March: “The selfishness, ignorance, and credulity of many more commercial towns has been too successfully practised on by Opposition.” He says Nottingham was worked on by “Portland’s emissaries.” The day before he expressed regret at Pitt’s obstinacy over the “cursed” Westminster scrutiny (“Rutland P.,” iii, 192, 193).

347 Ashbourne, 121.

348 “Report of the Lords of the Committee of Council” (1st March 1785). (J. Stockdale,) 4. Pitt stated in his letter of 6th January 1785 to Rutland, that Ireland bought far less from Great Britain than she sold to her.

349 Ibid., 8–30.

350 Ibid., 31–42.

351 Ibid., 43–49.

352 “Report of the Lords of the Committee of Council,” 50–55.

353 Ibid., 68.

354 Ibid., 78, 79.

355 “The Proposed System of Trade with Ireland explained” (1785).

356 Letter of 6th April to Duke of Rutland in “Rutland P.,” iii, 197.

357 T. Moore, “Life of Sheridan,” i, 424.

358 Wraxall, iv, 127–38.

359 Lord Morley (“Burke,” 125) allows that Burke was wrong in following Fox’s factious opposition, and that he “allowed his political integrity to be bewildered.”

360 The actual authors of these amusing poems were Tickell, General Fitzpatrick, Lord John Townsend, Richardson, George Ellis, and Burke’s friend and literary executor, Dr. Lawrence, who contributed the prose parts. (T. Moore, “Sheridan,” i, 421.)

361 “The Rolliad,” 90, 370.

362 “Dropmore P.,” i, 255. See ch. xii of this work for a new letter of Wilberforce to Pitt on the crisis.

363 “Auckland Journals,” i, 79.

364 Chevening MSS. Pitt continued to reside at the house on the north side of Putney Heath, next to Lord Ashburton’s, until October or November 1785, when he removed to Holwood Hill, Kent.

365 “Dropmore P.,” i, 254; “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 125–33.

366 Ashbourne, 146.

367 Wraxall, iii, 217.

368 Wilberforce gave up Lauriston House in 1786. A little later Dundas and Grenville came to reside at Wimbledon, on the east and west sides of the Green. Grenville’s is now called Eagle House. Dundas’s stood on the site of “Canizzaro.”

369 “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 111.

370 “Rutland P.,” iii, 177.

371 Ibid., 178; Wraxall, iv, 72–9, 98.

372 Wraxall, iv, 98.

373 Bruce, “Life of Sir W. Napier,” i, 28; quoted by Lecky, v, 16.

374 “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 69.

375 Wraxall, ii, 234, 235.

376 “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 65; “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 78.

377 “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 66, 67.

378 “Life and Letters of the Earl of Minto,” ii, 5.

379 B.M. Add. MSS., 28061. This postscript to Harris’s letter of 18th July 1786 to Carmarthen is omitted from “The Malmesbury Diaries”; so, too are most personal touches, often of great interest.

380 “Auckland Journals,” i, 117.

381 Omond, G. W. T., “The Lord Advocates of Scotland,” ch. xiv.

382 Porritt, “Unreformed House of Commons,” ii, 8.

383 Wraxall, ii, 123.

384 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 179, 233, 350, 351; also iii, 212, for the decline of Dundas’s influence on Pitt. Omond, “Lord Advocates of Scotland,” vol. ii, ch. xiv.

385 Lord Macaulay told this to Earl Stanhope (author of the “Life of Pitt”) at the British Museum in December 1846 (Note of Earl Stanhope in the Chevening MSS.).

386 “Malmesbury Diaries,” iii, 292, 516, 590–2; “Dropmore P.,” iii, 167.

387 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 78.

388 Pitt MSS., 189.

389 Wraxall, iv, 151.

390 Pellew, “Life of Lord Sidmouth,” i, 4.

391 Pellew, “Life of Lord Sidmouth,” i, 38.

392 Wraxall, iii, ad fin.

393 I distrust the charges of corrupt dealing brought against Rose respecting the next election at Westminster.

394 “Diaries of George Rose,” i, 32–37.

395 “Corresp. of Wilberforce,” i, 9.

396 “Corresp. of Wilberforce,” i, 21–4.

397 The gross income was £4,100: see Mr. E. W. Hamilton’s estimate of Pitt’s income (the total being £10,532) in App. C of Lord Rosebery’s “Pitt.”

398 Pretyman MSS.

399 G. Croly, “Mems. of George IV,” i, 105, 106.

400 Ibid., 107.

401 Chevening MSS.

402 B.M. Add. MSS., 35684. In May 1790, Pitt drafted a letter to the members of the Senate of the University of Cambridge, asking for the support to his intended candidature for the office of High Steward, then vacant owing to the death of Lord Hardwicke. He expressed the hope that the crisis in public affairs would be deemed a sufficient excuse for not making the application in person. He was elected. The draft of the letter is in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

403 “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 13, 14.

404 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 113.

405 Ibid., ii, 10–13.

406 “Antony and Cleopatra,” v, sc. 2.

407 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 24–26, 49, 55. The character and career of Sir James Harris (the future Earl of Malmesbury) will concern us later. Herr F. K. Wittichen, “Preussen und England in der Europäischen Politik—1785–1788,” ad init., condemns the resentment of Frederick the Great as a mistake, fatal to the interests both of Prussia and England.

408 “Malmesbury Diaries,” i, 374, 402, 532. He thought her hasty, and swayed by passion or caprice; but events proved that she did not lack foresight or firmness.

409 Mahan, “Influence of Sea Power,” i, 11.

410 Martens, iii, 327.

411 “Leeds Memoranda” (edited by Mr. Oscar Browning), 101.

412 B.M. Add. MSS., 27914. This letter and other documents of interest will appear in my volume “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies.”

413 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060. “Lord C.” may be Lord Clarendon, who had previously given advice to Lord Carmarthen.

414 Ibid.

415 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060. It is endorsed, in Pitt’s hand: “Oct. 12, 1784, Mem^m for Instructions to Mr. Fitzherbert.” Carmarthen’s draft is almost certainly that which is printed by Mr. Oscar Browning in the “Leeds Memoranda,” p. 103 n.; but the evidence here given shows that that draft cannot be Pitt’s, as Mr. Browning at that time (1884) naturally inferred.

416 This is well set forth in the despatches of Lord Dalrymple, British Ambassador at Berlin, to Carmarthen. The latter wrote to Harris on 24th February 1786, that Vorontzoff would try to persuade Catharine II to restore the “good system,” and to induce Joseph II to help in the work; but nothing came of it (B.M. Add. MSS., 28061).

417 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 104. Memorandum of 2nd February 1785.

418 Even after the disasters of 1813 Napoleon wrote: “Holland is a French country and will remain so for ever” (“Lettres inédites,” 6th November 1813).

419 See Colenbrander, “De Patriottentijd,” i, 415, for the Prince’s difficulty in forming (February 1784) a permanent force of 8,000 sailors subject to the Council of War and not to the provincial Estates; also “A View of the Policy... of the United Provinces” (Dublin, 1787). As Grenville wrote to Pitt from The Hague on 31st July 1787, that the Dutch understood their Constitution very imperfectly (“Dropmore P.,” iii, 410), I may be pardoned for not seeking to unravel it here.

420 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 92–4, 222–4.

421 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060, Letter of 23rd August 1785. These “private” letters are often more interesting and important than those printed in the “Malmesbury Diaries,” which form but a small portion of the whole.

422 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060.

423 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060.

424 Ibid.

425 See the conversation of Joseph II with Sir R. M. Keith at Vienna in December 1785, on French designs on Egypt, as given in chap. xxi, ad init.

426 Salomon, “Pitt,” 309, 310; also Martens, iv, 133–9, for the treaty closing this dispute.

427 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060.

428 “Malmesbury Mems.,” ii, 113–21.

429 “Leeds Mem.” 111–13.

430 Wittichen, op. cit., 8, 25 et seq., and 173, 174; “Malmesbury Mems.,” 131.

431 Ibid., 118.

432 Tomline, ii, 108; “Leeds Mem.,” 116.

433 Colenbrander, iii, 16, quoted by Wittichen, 173.

434 Joseph Ewart had been secretary to Sir John Stepney, then was Secretary of the Berlin Embassy in 1785–7. In 1788–91 he was ambassador. For Anglo-Prussian relations and Ewart’s work, see Dr. Luckwaldt’s excellent monograph, “Die englisch-preussische Allianz von 1788,” 51 et seq. (Leipzig, 1902). By the kindness of General Sir Spencer Ewart, I was able to transcribe several of the letters of his forefather, Joseph Ewart. Some of them are published in an article in the “Edinburgh Review” for July 1909.

435 Luckwaldt, 52, 53.

436 “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 202–11.

437 “Malmesbury Diaries,” i, 157.

438 I disagree with Herr Salomon (“Pitt”) on this point. It seems to me that Pitt’s policy was essentially tentative, and remained so up to the year 1788.

439 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060. George III showed more sagacity than his Ministers, witness the phrase in his letter of 7th August to Pitt: “An experience of twenty years has taught me not to expect any return for the great assistance she [Catharine] has received from this country.”

440 As late as 5th February 1786 he wrote to Harris: “We are on more friendly terms with Russia than for a long time” (B.M. Add. MSS., 28061).

441 I have published this Memorandum along with other documents bearing on the years 1785–7 in the “Eng. Hist. Rev.” for 1909.

442 Garden, “Traités,” v, 60–72.

443 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 175.

444 On 7th March 1786 Harris reported to Carmarthen joint actions of the Dutch and French in the East, and that eight Dutch warships were to sail thither with troops on board. (B.M. Add. MSS., 28061.) The possession of the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch rendered our communications with India precarious.

445 “Dropmore P.,” i, 258.

446 “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 111.

447 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 172.

448 The Grand-Duke of Tuscany was a Hapsburg prince.

449 Pitt MSS., 332.

450 Dr. Cunningham, “Eng. Industry and Commerce” (pt. ii, 546).

451 B.M. Add. MSS., 28063. Eden to Carmarthen, 10th January 1788.

452 “F. O.,” France, 18.

453 Ibid.

454 “Wealth of Nations,” bk. iv, ch. iii.

455 “Politique de tous les Cabinets de l’Europe...,” ii, 402–3. It contains some “Mémoires” of Vergennes.

456 Fitzmaurice, “Shelburne,” iii, 260.

457 “Précis du Traité de Commerce de 1786,” by Count His de Butenval (Paris, 1869), 25.

458 “Wealth of Nations,” bk iv, ch. iii.

459 Butenval, 23.

460 B.M. Add. MSS., 28060.

461 “F. O.,” France, 14, Dorset to Carmarthen, 31st March 1785. See, too, L. Pingaud Choiseul-Gouffier, “La France en Orient sous Louis XVI” (Paris, 1887).

462 Pitt MSS., 337.

463 Ibid., 333. Hailes to Fraser, 26th January 1786.

464 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 112.

465 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 157.

466 “F. O.,” France, 16.

467 Ibid. The British Parliament in 1716 abrogated these clauses in favour of earlier and less liberal arrangements. Louis XIV consented to this.

468 “F. O.,” France, 16. Hailes to Carmarthen, 4th August 1785.

469 Ibid., Hailes to Carmarthen, 1st December 1785. The Chambers of Commerce at Paris, Versailles, and Montpellier protested against the arrêts. See Butenval, op. cit., 36.

470 Pitt MSS., 110. Eden to Pitt, 12th October 1785. See, too, “Carlisle Papers,” 644.

471 B.M. Add. MSS., 34420.

472 Butenval, 39

473 Carmarthen to Eden, 9th December 1785 (B.M. Add. MSS., 34420).

474 Pitt MSS., 333.

475 Pitt to Eden, 4th December 1785, in “Auckland Journals,” i, 87.

476 Vergennes to Carmarthen, 14th December 1785, in Pitt MSS., 333.

477 B.M. Add. MSS., 34420. Letter of John Lees, 1st April 1785.

478 “Auckland Journals,” i, 89; Wraxall, iv, 229.

479 J. Flammermont, “Correspondances des Agents diplomatiques étrangers avant la Révolution,” 508.

480 “Auckland Journals,” i, 106.

481 Pitt MSS., 110. I quote fully only from those letters which have not been published.

482 “Auckland Journals,” i, 112.

483 B.M. Add. MSS., 28061. Letter of 19th May 1786.

484 Ibid. Letter of 12th December 1786.

485 Ibid.

486 Pitt MSS., 333.

487 This letter of 6th June has no date of the year, and it has been bound up in vol. 28064 of the Add. MSS. in the British Museum for the year 1789 of the Auckland MSS. Internal evidence shows that the year should be 1786.

488 Their memorial, dated 22nd February 1786, is from the London silk trade (B.M. Add. MSS., 34420). It states that “no alteration or modification whatsoever, short of the present prohibition of all foreign wrought silks, can ensure the silk trade to this country.”

489 Pitt MSS., 110.

490 “Pitt-Rutland Corresp.,” 158; “Beaufort Papers” (Hist. MSS. Commission), 353.

491 Pitt MSS., 110. Eden to Pitt, 23rd August.

492 Ibid. Pitt to Eden, 12th September.

493 “F. O.,” France, 20. For further details see my article in the “Eng. Hist. Rev.” for October 1908.

494 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvi, 233–54; “Auckland Corresp.,” i, 495–515; Martens, “Traités,” iv, 155–80.

495 Pitt MSS., 169.

496 “F. O.,” France, 18.

497 “Auckland Journals,” i, 392, 6th October 1786.

498 “Dropmore P.,” i, 274.

499 “Auckland Journals,” i, 404.

500 “Auckland Journals,” i, 404; “Parl. Hist.,” xxvi, 342–78.

501 Ibid., 392, 394.

502 Ibid., 397, 398, 402, 424, 595. Mr. J. L. le B. Hammond in his able work, “Charles James Fox” (1903), defends his hero on the ground that monarchical France was the enemy of England.

503 Pitt MSS., 110. Eden to Pitt, 13th April 1786.

504 “F. O.,” France, 18.

505 “F. O.,” France, 18. Hailes to Carmarthen, 25th October 1786. The Duke of Dorset thought very little of Hailes, but Hailes’s despatches show far more knowledge of France than the Duke’s.

506 Flammermont, op. cit., 125.

507 See summaries of both in Butenval, op. cit., chs. xv, xvi.

508 Arthur Young’s “Travels in France” (Bohn edit., 1889), 8, 9, 69, 107, 284.

509 Levasseur, “Hist. des Classes ouvrières,” ii, 776.

510 This is the judgement of R. Stourm, “Les Finances de l’Ancien Régime et de la Révolution,” 59.

511 “Cambridge Mod. Hist.,” viii, 74.

512 “Auckland Journals,” i, 127. Pitt to Eden, 10th June 1786.

513 Martens, “Traites,” iv, 196–223. For these negotiations with Spain and Russia, see Salomon’s “Pitt,” 237–44. A little later Pitt started commercial negotiations with Prussia and Holland, but nothing came of them. It is clear, however, that he sought to revise the whole of our commercial relations.

514 The contributions of the Provinces to the needs of the Union show their respective resources. Out of every 100 florins of federal revenue, Holland contributed 57¾, Friesland 11½, Zealand 9, Groningen 5¾, Utrecht 5¾, Guelderland 5½, Overyssel 3½, Drent 1.

515 For details see Luckwaldt, op. cit. On a similar plan, Harris had written to Carmarthen on 3rd January 1786 that the idea of France keeping the Stadholder in his position and England then aiding him is so monstrous that Frederick “must think us mere novices in politicks” (B.M. Add. MSS., 28061).

516 B.M. Add. MSS., 28061 and 28062. Dalrymple to Carmarthen, 20th October 1786, 23rd January 1787.

517 “F. O.,” Prussia, 11. So Luckwaldt, op. cit., 52–7.

518 B.M. Add. MSS., 28061. See, too, “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 212, for Carmarthen’s view. “I never desire a connexion with Prussia unless Russia, and of course, Denmark, are included.”

519 All the despatches of this time serve to refute the statement of Lecky (v, 80) that the accession of Frederick William “greatly changed the situation” for the Princess of Orange.

520 Wittichen, op. cit., 63–5.

521 “F. O.,” Prussia, 11. Dalrymple to Carmarthen, 21st April 1787.

522 B.M. Add. MSS, 28060.

523 “F. O.,” France, 18.

524 Pitt MSS., 110.

525 Bouillé, “Mems.,” ch. i.

526 Grenville during his mission to The Hague in August 1787 got an inkling of the wider scheme described above, as appears in his phrase “One’s mind at once runs to Trincomale.” So late as August 1788 Pitt was nervous about the fate of that port. See his letter to Grenville as to the rumour of 800 French troops sailing thither (“Dropmore P.,” ii, 280, 353).

527 “Dropmore P.,” ii, 251–5.

528 Ibid., 267, 268; “Leeds Memoranda,” 117.

529 Pitt MSS., 151.

530 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 299. “I am certain if we begin to roar, France will shrink before us” (Harris to Carmarthen, 5th May). See, too, Wittichen, 67.

531 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 303–6.

532 “F. O.,” Holland, 14.

533 “F. O.,” Prussia, 11. Ewart to Carmarthen, 19th and 22nd May 1787.

534 “F. O.,” Holland, 14. Harris to Carmarthen, 1st June.

535 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 322.

536 “Auckland Journals,” i, 521; Oscar Browning, “The Flight to Varennes and other Essays,” 163.

537 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 329.

538 “F. O.,” Prussia, 11. Ewart to Carmarthen, 6th June 1787. Ewart was now chargé d’affaires at Berlin, Dalrymple having gone home on furlough. He did not return, and Ewart became ambassador in August 1788.

539 Ibid. Ewart’s note of 30th June.

540 “F. O.,” Holland, 15.

541 “F. O.,” Holland, 15; “F. O.,” Prussia, 11.

542 Luckwaldt, op. cit., 66, 67.

543 Wittichen (78, 79) holds that Frederick William’s hesitation came from concern about the Fürstenbund or the hope that France would join in a peaceful mediation in Holland.

544 Lusi’s report of 17th July 1787. Luckwaldt, op. cit., 68.

545 “F. O.,” Prussia, 11. Carmarthen to Ewart, 17th July. There is nothing in this despatch which warrants the statement of the editor of the “Malmesbury Diaries” (ii, 339 n.) that we then offered Prussia armed support if France attacked her, and promised to make a demonstration with forty ships of the line. That was not proposed until the middle of September, in reply to French threats.

546 “F. O.,” Austria, 14. Keith on 3rd August stated that the Emperor was friendly to us, but he was the ally of France, though he would not act with her in the Dutch Question.

547 “F. O.,” Prussia, 11. Carmarthen to Ewart, 27th July.

548 Wittichen, 81, shows that Wilhelmina herself worked hard to dissuade her brother from a mediation conjointly with France.

549 “F. O.,” France, 25. Eden to Carmarthen, 4th August 1787.

550 Ibid., 8th August.

551 “F. O.,” France, 25.

552 “Auckland Journals,” i, 520. Lord Loughborough, in a letter of 13th October 1787 to Lord Carlisle stated that Grenville’s mission was not due to distrust of Harris (“Carlisle P.,” 652). But this seems to me very doubtful in view of the letters between Pitt and Grenville.

553 “Dropmore P.,” iii, 408–15. For the missions of Grenville to The Hague and Paris, see my article in the “Eng. Hist. Rev.” for April 1909.

554 Pitt MSS., 102.

555 “F. O.,” France, 25. Eden to Carmarthen, 16th August 1787.

556 Ibid. Carmarthen to Eden, 24th August.

557 Pitt MSS., 102; and “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 333–7.

558 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 371.

559 “Méms. du Comte de Portes,” (1904), 92.

560 “Auckland Journals,” i, 234, 259.

561 B.M. Add. MSS., 28061.

562 “Dropmore P.,” iii, 418.

563 “F. O.,” France, 25, 26. Eden to Carmarthen, 29th August and 11th September.

564 The feuds in his Ministry, and his consistently peaceful attitude, seem to absolve him from the charge of duplicity. French troops, disguised as Free Corps, were afterwards captured in Holland and had on them orders and instructions written by de Ségur, the French War Minister, who resigned in August 1787 (“Auckland Journals,” i, 259). It seems probable therefore that some Ministers egged on the French agents and the Patriots, while Montmorin strove to hold them in check. Louis XVI also used his influence to prevent a war with Prussia, which he disliked (see Garden, “Traités,” v, 85 n.). The appointment of Loménie de Brienne to a kind of dictatorship seems also to have made for peace; it coincides with the resolve, formed about 20th August (see Barral de Montferrat, op. cit., 214), to recall Vérac from The Hague; and on 31st August Montmorin signed with Eden a convention for ending irritating disputes in East Indian affairs. I have no space to go into that question; but it had been reported (e.g., by Eden on 9th November 1786, Pitt MSS., 110) that the French were about to gain control over Dutch East India ports. Rumours to that effect had embittered the contest in Holland, and they were laid to rest by that convention.

565 See the MSS. of P. V. Smith in the “Beaufort P.” (Hist. MSS. Commission) 357, for the parts of Pitt’s letter of 8th September, omitted, very strangely, by the editor of the “Auckland Journals” (i, 191–2), also ibid., i, 198.

566 Luckwaldt, 71.

567 “F. O.,” Holland, 17.

568 “F. O.,” Prussia, 11. Carmarthen to Ewart, 24th August.

569 Luckwaldt, 80 n., here corrects one of many mis-statements in P. de Witt’s “Une Invasion prussienne en Hollande,” 285, that the Prussians were ready to march by 20th July.

570 Hertzberg, “Recueil des Traités,” ii, 428–30; “F. O.,” Prussia, 12. Ewart to Carmarthen, 4th and 8th September.

571 Ibid. 8th September.

572 “The prevailing opinion of this Court is the Emperor will... sacrifice his alliance with Russia to that of 1756 [with France]” (Ewart to Keith, 11th September 1787. B.M. Add. MSS., 35539).

573 Wittichen, 92–4; also ibid., 97, for the Anglo-Prussian Convention of 2nd October.

574 “Auckland Journals,” i, 192.

575 Ibid., 195.

576 “F. O.,” France, 26. Eden to Carmarthen, 11th and 13th September.

577 The original, in Pitt’s handwriting, is in “F. O.,” Russia, 15, dated 21st September, and inscribed “To all the King’s Ministers abroad except Paris and The Hague.”

578 “Dropmore P.,” iii, 426–36; E. D. Adams, op. cit., 6, 7; “Buckingham P.,” i, 326–31.

579 Ibid. Eden to Carmarthen, 20th September.

580 “Dropmore P.,” iii, 435; “Méms. de Dedem de Gelder,” 7.

581 Ibid., iii, 435.

582 “F. O.,” Holland, 19. Carmarthen to Harris, 12th October; “Auckland Journals,” i, 234.

583 B.M. Add. MSS., 29475.

584 “F. O.,” Austria, 14. Keith to Carmarthen, 24th October 1787. On 14th November Joseph II informed Keith that he thoroughly approved of the Dutch settlement.

585 “Auckland Journals,” i, 217, 221.

586 Ibid., 227, 228.

587 Ibid., 255–8; “Ann. Reg.” (1787), 283.

588 “Auckland Journals,” i, 264.

589 Ibid., 263.

590 B.M. Add. MSS., 28063. Harris to Pitt, 22nd February 1788.

591 Martens, iv, 372–7; Garden, v, 89–92.

592 “F. O.,” Prussia, 12. Ewart to Carmarthen, 27th September 1787.

593 Pitt MSS., 119.

594 Pitt MSS., 119. Carmarthen to Ewart, 2nd December 1787. Fraser, our envoy at St. Petersburg, reported on 1st November that Austria was proposing there a Triple Alliance, but it was coolly received (“F. O.,” Russia, 15).

595 Ibid. Carmarthen to Ewart, 26th December.

596 See Ewart’s masterly Memorandum in “Dropmore P.,” ii, 44–9.

597 Luckwaldt, 100 et seq. Ewart found out the secret instructions issued to Dietz, and forwarded them to London on 8th April. They show that Prussia sought by all means to encourage the Turks, but laid her plans so as to get an indemnity in land in case Austria gained land in the south-east.

598 “F. O.,” Prussia, 13. Ewart to Carmarthen, 15th March 1788.

599 Ibid. Ewart to Carmarthen, 15th January 1788. Lecky (v, 232) assigns the first rumours of Prussian indemnities in land to January 1789; but Ewart reported the beginnings of Hertzberg’s plan in January 1788.

600 Ibid. Carmarthen to Ewart, 2nd April.

601 See his letter of 24th November 1787 to Dietz at Constantinople in Häusser, “Deutsche Geschichte,” i, 225–6.

602 “F. O.,” Prussia, 13. Carmarthen to Ewart, 14th May 1788.

603 Ibid. Ewart to Carmarthen, 27th and 31st May 1788; Wittichen, ch. xx.

604 B.M. Add. MSS., 28063.

605 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 421.

606 The secret articles are in Ranke’s “Fürstenbund,” ii, 358; for the published treaties of 13th June and 13th August see Martens, iv, 382–5, 390–3; for the negotiations, Luckwaldt, 114–16, Salomon, “Pitt,” 344–51. The accounts of these important events given by Tomline, Stanhope, and Lecky are brief and unsatisfactory.

607 So Wittichen, 148.

608 “Records of Stirring Times,” 58, by the authoress of “Old Days in Diplomacy.”

609 Certain letters of the Earl of Liverpool recently sold in London show that there was an open breach between King and Queen in 1804, and that Pitt helped to patch it up.

610 Huish, “Mems. of George IV,” i, 60–2.

611 H. Walpole’s “Last Journals,” ii, 480–1.

612 Fox does not seem to have introduced the prince into bad company. See Jesse, ii, 367–9, and Huish, i, 122–4.

613 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 125.

614 Pitt MSS., 228.

615 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 129–31.

616 Pitt MSS., 105.

617 W. H. Wilkins, “Mrs. Fitzherbert and George IV,” i, 81–105.

618 Ibid., i, 135–7; Langdale, “Mems. of Mrs. Fitzherbert,” 127–8, 141, 142; Jesse, ii, 512, 513.

619 Pitt MSS., 122. Sir Carnaby is Sir Carnaby Haggerston, who married Frances, the youngest sister of Mrs. Fitzherbert (née Smythe). Her mother was a daughter of John Errington of the Northumberland family of that name. His brother was the confidante of the Prince, as described above.

620 W. H. Wilkins, op. cit., i, 97.

621 Wraxall, iv, 306.

622 “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 1348–56; Wraxall, iv, 304–6.

623 Pitt MSS., 103. For other references see the King’s letters to Pitt in “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies.”

624 The King altered this to “written message.”

625 Pitt MSS., 105.

626 W. H. Wilkins, op. cit., i, 161.

627 This letter refutes the statement of Huish (op. cit., i, 169) that Pitt was as pertinacious as the King in refusing to help the Prince.

628 “Dropmore P.,” i, 362.

629 Major-General Smith, M.P., was twice unseated for bribery. His nickname was “Hyder Ali.”

630 “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 374, 375. Payne was a confidential friend of the Prince, who made him Comptroller of his Household and Lord Warden of the Stanneries in Cornwall.

631 “Buckingham P.” i, 363, 364.

In the Pitt MSS., 228, is a Memorandum, endorsed January 1794, entitled “Heads of a Plan for a new Arrangement of the Prince of Wales’s Affairs.” It states that his debts then amounted to £412,511 5s. 8d. he owed £60,000 to Mr. Coutts the banker (Pitt’s banker); and he might at any time be called on to pay as much as £170,000. It would be difficult to induce Parliament to pay any part of these debts. Moreover, such a demand “would afford a fresh topic of declamation to those who already use the expenses of Royalty as an engine to operate upon weak minds in order to effectuate their ultimate purpose, the overthrow of everything dignified, everything sacred, everything valuable and respectable in social life.” The anonymous compiler therefore suggests the raising of a loan at 3½ per cent., so as to cover the “urgent” debts amounting to £349,511. Creditors would probably consent to the “defalcation” of 20 per cent. from what was owed them and be content with 3½ per cent. interest on the remainder.

A Mr. W. Fitzwilliam, of 45, Sloane Street, in May 1795 suggested a lottery for raising £2,100,000, of which £650,000 should go to the discharge of the Prince’s debts, £1,000,000 to the archbishops for the forming of a fund for raising the stipend of every clergyman to £100 a year; £100,000 to be reserved as prizes in the lottery; and £50,000 to be set apart for expenses.

632 “Buckingham P.,” i, 361; Wraxall, iv, 458; v, 77–9.

633 “Dropmore P.,” i, 353. Grenville replied on 1st September that he thought the frequent changes in France would undermine her power and so check “that sort of intrigue and restlessness which keeps us in hot water even while we are most confident of the impossibility of any serious effect from their schemes.” He then suggests an agreement as to the forces to be kept by the two Powers in the East (Pitt MSS., 140).

634 G. Rose, “Diaries,” i, 86. The date of this interview is probably between 10th and 24th October 1788.

635 “Fanny Burney’s Diary,” iv, 122. In a rare pamphlet, “A History of the Royal Malady,” by a Page of the Presence (1789), it is stated that the King, while driving in Windsor Park, alighted and shook hands with a branch of an oak tree, asserting it to be the King of Prussia, and was with difficulty persuaded to remount.

636 “Court and Private Life in the Time of Queen Charlotte,” by Mrs. Papendiek. 2 vols. (1887); vol. ii, ad init.

637 “Buckingham P.,” i, 342.

638 G. Rose, “Diaries,” i, 87.

639 T. Moore, “Life of Sheridan,” ii, 27, where Payne also suggests that Sheridan should question Pitt about the public amusements, as it would embarrass him “either way.”

640 W. Sichel, “Sheridan,” ii, 400.

641 T. Moore, “Life of Sheridan,” ii, 31–5; Campbell, “Lives of the Lord Chancellors,” vii, 248, 239 (edit. of 1857).

642 T. Moore, op. cit., p. 29.

643 Campbell, op. cit., p. 251, who had the story from Thomas Grenville. See, too, Wilberforce, i, 386, 387.

644 Dr. W. Hunt, “Political Hist. of England,” x, 64–5.

645 This letter fixes the date of Pitt’s letter to Grenville, headed merely “Tuesday morning,” in “Dropmore P.” (i, 361). Pitt quotes the phrase “perfectly maniacal,” and adds “I begin to fear the physicians have been more in the right than we thought.”

646 Pretyman MSS.

647 Chevening MSS.

648 “Buckingham P.,” ii, 9.

649 G. Rose, “Diaries,” i, 87.

650 G. Rose, “Diaries,” i, 90.

651 Ibid., 94; “Buckingham P.,” i, 446; “Quarterly Rev.,” cv, 490.

652 “Bland Burges Papers,” 118.

653 See his private reports to Pitt in “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies.”

654 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 697, gives the period as three months; “Buckingham P.,” ii, 47, gives it (erroneously, I think) as five months.

655 Wraxall, v, 243.

656 May, “Constitutional Hist.,” i, 148.

657 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 709.

658 “Buckingham P.,” ii, 71.

659 Sichel, “Sheridan,” ii, 415.

660 So thought the Duchess of Devonshire’s friends. Sichel, “Sheridan,” ii, 416.

661 T. Moore, “Life of Sheridan,” ii, 42, 43; “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 730, 731.

662 Lecky, v, 148.

663 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 705–13.

664 Tomline, “Life of Pitt,” ii, 388–92. There is a copy of this in the Pretyman archives at Orwell Park.

665 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 732–47. The date is given wrongly as 1st December; it should be 16th December. So, too, on p. 778, are the numbers in the division, which should be: for Government, 268, Opposition, 204.

666 Ibid., 678.

667 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 680. That Thurlow or his friends expected his dismissal, even late in the year 1789, appears from a letter of Pitt to George Rose contradicting a rumour to that effect (G. Rose, “Diaries,” i, 98, 99).

668 W. Sichel, “Sheridan,” ii, 421–3. I cannot agree with Mr. Sichel (ibid., ii, 192) that the letter was Sheridan’s. The Duchess’s diary shows it to have been a joint production. For the so-called Prince’s letter see “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 909–912, or “Ann. Reg.” (1789), 298–302. For Pitt’s reply see Stanhope, ii, 18–20.

669 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 946–7. Able speeches on the Government side were made by the Speaker (Grenville) and the Solicitor-General, Sir John Scott, the future Lord Eldon. See Twiss, “Life of Lord Eldon,” i, ch. ix.

670 See May, “Constitutional Hist.,” i, 155, 156, for the arguments for and against this proposal.

671 For the intrigues and corruption at Dublin see “Dropmore P.,” i, 385, 389, 395, et seq. The majority at Dublin dwindled away as soon as the King’s recovery was known (ibid., i, 417–25), a fact which damages Lecky’s case.

672 “Bland Burges P.,” 116, 117; Wraxall, v, 242, 243.

673 B.M. Add. MSS., 28064.

674 “Reflections on the Formation of a Regency” (Debrett, 1788), 17.

675 “Thoughts on the present Proceedings of the House of Commons” (Debrett, 1788), 18.

676 “Answer to the Considerations on... a Regency” (Debrett, 1788), 21.

677 “A short View of the present Great Question” (Debrett, 1788), 11–15.

678 Op. cit., p. 6. Huish, “Mems. of George IV,” i, 209, repeats some of these slanders against Pitt.

679 “Dropmore P.,” i, 377.

680 “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 302.

681 Pitt MSS., 228. This is the last of Willis’s reports to Pitt. It is undated, but must be of 23rd February. Willis ceased to attend the King on 11th March; but was at Windsor a short time in April and May.

682 “Buckingham P.,” ii, 125.

683 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 1293–5; “Buckingham P.,” ii, 122, 123.

684 “Auckland Journals,” ii, 288, 289.

685 “Paradise Lost,” x, 504–17.

686 “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 419.

687 “Life of Sir G. Elliot,” i, 272.

688 “Dropmore P.,” i, 386.

689 The Prince promised this post to Sandwich; but on the remonstrance of the Duke of Portland and Fox, waived the point (W. Sichel, “Sheridan,” ii, 415, 416).

690 “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 419. Another and more probable version was that Earl Fitzwilliam would be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Burke had striven hard to obtain the India Board of Control, “for the services and adherence of thirty years.” So wrote James Macpherson to John Robinson. He adds: “If they agree, all the fat will be in the fire. A hint to the Prince would prevent it, for I plainly see his object is to carry on business as smoothly as he can” (“Abergavenny P.,” 70).

691 “Cornwallis Corresp.,” i, 422.

692 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 190, 191.

693 “Dropmore P.,” i, 363.

694 “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 329.

695 Wraxall, v, 336.

696 For some good results of transportation see Lecky, vi, 253.

697 “Parl. Hist.,” xxv, 430–2.

698 “Dropmore P.,” i, 257.

699 Evan Nepean in a Report to Pitt sketched the career of Matra. He was afterwards Consul for Morocco (Pitt MSS., 163).

700 “New South Wales Despatches,” vol. i, pt. ii, 1–5.

701 “New South Wales Despatches,” 6, 7; E. Jenks, “Hist. of the Australasian Colonies,” 25.

702 “New South Wales Despatches,” 11–13. A copy of this “Plan” is in Pitt MSS., 342.

703 Pitt MSS., 169.

704 “New South Wales Despatches,” 14–23.

705 Ibid., 32.

706 Pitt MSS., 119.

707 “New South Wales Despatches,” i, pt. ii, 30. See later (pp. 67–70) for the details of the Act of Parliament.

708 J. Bonwick, “The First Twenty Years of Australia,” 6.

709 “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 1221–5. For an account of the new settlement see “The History of New Holland, 1616–1787.”

710 Sabine, “The American Loyalists,” 51 et seq.

711 Sir C. P. Lucas, “Hist. Geography of the Brit. Colonies,” v (Canada), 73.

712 Kingsford, “Hist. of Canada,” vii, 216.

713 I cannot agree with Professor E. Channing (“The United States, 1765–1865,” 118) that the action of the States towards the Loyalists “was not an infraction of the treaty.” The terms bound the United States to do their utmost to induce the component States to compensate the Loyalists. But they took only the slightest and most perfunctory steps in that direction. Pitt, as we saw in Chapter VI, distinctly enjoined it as a debt of honour on the United States, and cannot surely be held responsible for its evasion.

714 Kingsford, “Hist. of Canada,” vii, 215; Sir C. P. Lucas, “Hist. of Canada, 1763–1812,” 214.

715 Pitt MSS., 344.

716 Ibid. The cases of Samuel Gale, Sir John Johnson, F. J. D. Smyth, and R. F. Pitt seem especially hard.

717 See J. E. Wilmott, “Hist. View of the Commission... of the American Loyalists” (London, 1815).

718 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 610–19. The total expenses incurred on behalf of the American Loyalists as shown in the Budgets of the years 1784 to 1789 are as follows: £82,750; £190,019; £315,873; £132,856; £82,346; £362,922; or a total of £1,084,016. These sums are distinct from the special votes of £1,228,239 and £113,952 above referred to; which raise the total for those six years to, £2,426,207. I take these figures from the Budgets as given in the Annual Registers. It is impossible to harmonize them with Wilmott’s figures. He gives £3,112,455 as the total up to and including the year 1790.

719 Pitt MSS., 102. Colonel Delancey named by Pitt was probably Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen Delancey (1740–98), who helped to raise a loyal battalion at New York and finally became Governor of Tobago. His son, Sir William Delancey, was Wellington’s Quarter-Master-General at Waterloo, where he was killed.

720 Greswell (“Hist, of the Dominion of Canada,” 144) states that,£4,000,000 was then allotted to the settlers in Upper Canada. I can nowhere find any confirmation of this. Kingsford, “Hist. of Canada,” mentions only grants of land and small sums of money; but states (vii, 217) that in all the sum of £3,886,087 was granted to the Loyalists in Great Britain.

721 Sir C. P. Lucas, “Hist. of Canada” (1763–1812), 230–2.

722 “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 505 (debate of 8th March 1790).

723 Kingsford, op. cit., vii, 234–236.

724 “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 503, 627.

725 “Dropmore P.,” i, 507 (Grenville to Thurlow, 12th September 1789).

726 “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 1377–79.

727 “Report on Canadian Archives,” by D. Brymer (Ottawa, 1891).

728 “Dropmore P.,” i, 496, 497.

729 See some good remarks on this by Sir C. P. Lucas, op. cit., 268–70.

730 Clarkson, “Hist. of the Abolition of the Slave Trade,” i, 110–113. See p. 259 for a chart showing the names of those who had protested against the Trade from the times of Charles V, Ximenes, and G. Fox.

731 Ibid., 114, 115.

732 B.M. Add. MSS., 18272 (on the Slave Trade).

733 Macpherson, “Annals of Commerce,” iii, 484.

734 “Parl. Hist.,” xxiii, 1026.

735 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 151; for a photograph of the tree see “Private Papers of W. Wilberforce,” 17.

736 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 152. The Minute Books of the Committee are in the B.M. Add. MSS., 21254, 21255.

737 “Auckland Journals,” i, 307.

738 Pitt MSS., 310.

739 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 166.

740 Ibid.

741 “Auckland Journals,” i, 240.

742 Ibid., i, 267.

743 Pitt MSS., 102. For Eden’s reply, see “Auckland Journals,” i, 285.

744 “Auckland Journals,” i, 307.

745 “Dropmore P.,” i, 353.

746 “Auckland Journals,” i, 304; “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 170. See Pitt’s letter of consent of 8th April 1788, in “Private Papers of W. Wilberforce,” 17–19.

747 B.M. Add. MSS., 21255.

748 “Parl. Hist.,” xxvii, 495–506, 598; “Dropmore P.,” i, 342; Wraxall, v, 146, 149.

749 “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 41–75.

750 Prof. Ramsay Muir, “Hist. of Liverpool,” 193.

751 Ibid., 56. Out of 3,170 men who sailed in the slavers from Liverpool in 1787, 642 died and 1,100 were got rid of or deserted in the West Indies.

752 See a curious letter in “Woodfall’s Register” for 12th June 1789, in answer to authentic accounts of the horrors of the Slave Trade lately given in that paper by C. D. Wadstrom.

753 “Dropmore P.,” i, 278.

754 Ibid., i, 487.

755 “Auckland Journals,” i, 221; Wraxall, v, 139.

756 Stanhope, ii, App., ix, xi.

757 “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 711–14; “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 266, 267. The evidence ran to 1400 folio pages (ibid., i, 281).

758 “F. O.,” France, 34. Fitzgerald to Leeds, 2nd April 1790.

759 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 284.

760 Pitt MSS., 12.

761 “Parl. Hist.,” xxix, 250–359.

762 “Hist. de la Rév. à Saint Domingue,” by A. M. Delmas. 2 vols. Paris, 1814; “Hist. Survey of... San Domingo,” by Bryan Edwards. 1797.

763 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 295–6, 340, 342.

764 Ibid., i, 344.

765 Virg. “Georg.,” i, 250: “On us the rising sun first breathed with panting steeds, there ruddy Vesper full late kindles his fires.”

766 “Parl. Hist.,” xxix, 1133–58.

767 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 346. Lord Auckland (who, as Mr. Eden, had been a philanthropist) referred sarcastically to Pitt’s speech: “Mr. Pitt has raised his imagination to the belief that the trade ought, at all events and risks, to be instantly discontinued.... Some people are urging this business upon a mischievous principle” (“Auckland Journals,” ii, 400).

768 Chevening MSS.

769 Clarkson, op. cit., ii, 460.

770 “Malmesbury Diaries,” ii, 464.

771 Pitt MSS., 310. See “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 305, 307, 323.

772 “Life of Wilberforce,” ii, 196; Clarkson, op. cit., ii, 475.

773 See “Life of Wilberforce” (ii, 224) for an accusation against Pitt and the Government in this matter.

774 Pitt MSS., 189.

775 Lord Liverpool (as Mr. Jenkinson) had opposed on the ground that France, etc., would take up the trade if we let it fall.

776 Clarkson, op. cit., ii, 485.

777 Letter of James Stephen (June 1797) in “Life of Wilberforce,” ii, 225.

778 As in June 1798. See “Life of Wilberforce,” ii, 286.

779 For this letter see “Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies.”

780 Lecky, v, 64–6; J. L. le B. Hammond, “Fox,” 60.

781 “Diary of Sir John Moore,” i, 234.

782 It has been said that the journey was undertaken partly with the view of seeing whether Potemkin had honestly used the money given him for the warlike preparations in the South; and that he hastily did his utmost to impress the Czarina favourably. This last is of course highly probable; but, as we shall see presently, the journey had been projected in 1785. Moreover, Potemkin, while improvising crowds of peasants, could not improvise the warships launched at Kherson.

783 “F. O.,” Russia, 15. Fitzherbert to Carmarthen, 3rd May 1787. Fitzherbert accompanied the Empress throughout this tour. His letters are of high interest.

784 See Sorel, “La Question d’Orient,” 300 et seq.

785 “F. O.,” Austria, 11. Keith to Carmarthen, 3rd and 7th December 1785.

786 “Malmesbury Diaries,” i, 204, 534.

787 Wazilewski, “Le Roman d’une Impératrice,” 418.

788 Keith reported on 30th August 1787 (“F. O.,” Austria, 14) that the Emperor “saw this storm coming with deep regret,” and that the ferment in his Belgian lands would prevent his taking action against Turkey.

789 “F. O.,” Turkey, 8.

790 Ibid. Ainslie to Carmarthen, 9th August 1787.

791 “F. O.,” Turkey, 8. Ainslie to Carmarthen, 17th August 1787.

792 “F. O.,” Russia, 15. Despatch of 22nd September. Fitzherbert was then coming home ill. His place was filled by Fraser.

793 In view of these facts I cannot agree with the statement of Prof. Lodge (“Camb. Mod. Hist.,” viii, 316) that the action of the Turks “was dictated by passion rather than by policy.” It seems to me a skilful move, especially as they already had reason to hope for help from Prussia and Sweden. Häusser (i, 225) wrongly terms it a “desperate resolve.”

794 “F. O.,” Russia, 15. Fraser to Carmarthen, 5th October 1787.

795 See Ewart’s Memorandum to Pitt in “Dropmore P.,” ii, 44–9 for an admirable survey of events; also Wittichen, 130–5, and Häusser, i, 223–5.

The surprise of Prussian statesmen at the outbreak of war seems quite sincere; and evidence is strongly against the statement of Sorel (“L’Europe et la Rév. franç.,” i, p. 524) that Hertzberg egged on the Turks, and later on Sweden, to war.

796 “F. O.,” Russia, 15. Carmarthen to Fraser, 18th March 1788.

797 Ibid. Fraser to Carmarthen, 9th May.

798 “F. O.,” Austria, 14. On 23rd September Ewart reported that Spain had “positively declined the pressing overtures of France to enter into a Quadruple Alliance with her and the two Imperial Courts” (“F. O.,” Prussia, 14).

799 “F. O.,” Austria, 14. Keith to Carmarthen, 6th October 1787. On 10th October he reported that France would acquiesce in Joseph’s eastern policy if he would help her against England and Prussia in the Dutch dispute. On 24th October he stated that Austria refused to do so. On 14th November Joseph II informed him privately that he must make war on Turkey.

800 Nisbet Bain, “Gustavus III and his Contemporaries,” ch. ix.

801 B.M. Add. MSS., 28063.

802 Greig and the other Britons had long been in the Russian service. I cannot find that they were recalled.

803 “F. O.,” Sweden, 7. Keene on 26th August 1788 reported to Carmarthen the facts so far as he knew them, and also in a later “Account.” His bias against the King is obvious, and leads me to discount his assertions, e.g., that of 9th September, that the war with Russia was at an end, owing to the offer of peace to Catharine by the Swedish officers, and had become merely “a domestic quarrel between the King and nation.” Doubtless it was for this and similar statements that Keene was recalled in December 1788, Liston taking his place.

804 “F. O.,” Turkey, 9. So, too, Lecky, v, 231.

805 See, too, Frederick William’s words on this topic in Dembinski, “Documents relatifs à l’histoire... de la Pologne (1788–91),” i, 21.

806 “F. O.,” Prussia, 13. See, too, “Dropmore P.,” ii, 47.

807 “F. O.,” Prussia, 14.

808 “Dropmore P.,” i, 353.

809 “F. O.,” Prussia, 14.

810 “Memoir of Hugh Elliot” by the Countess of Minto.

811 “F. O.,” Denmark, 10. Elliot to Carmarthen, 2nd, 6th August 1788.

812 “F. O.,” Denmark, 10. Carmarthen to Elliot, 15th August.

813 Ibid. This draft, in Pitt’s handwriting, was copied and sent off without alteration.

814 “F. O.,” Prussia, 14. Ewart to Carmarthen, 16th September 1788.

815 “F. O.,” Prussia, 14. Elliot to Carmarthen, 17th September. He states that Ewart had strongly urged him to go and see the King of Sweden in person. So, once again, we note the daring and initiative of Ewart. For a sharp critique on Ewart’s excess of zeal see Luckwaldt, “Zur Vorgeschichte der Konvention von Reichenbach” (Berlin, G. Stilke, 1908), 237–9.

816 The statements of Keene (“F. O.,” Sweden, 7) imply that the King was at the end of his resources at Stockholm, and had but a limited success among the dalesmen. They rebut the statements in the “Memoir of Hugh Elliot,” 304.

817 Keene on 26th September wrote that the Allies’ offer of mediation had made a great impression at Stockholm. Count Düben, the Minister, thanked him for it, but said it would perplex the King, as he did not wish to disoblige France. A truce of eight months was necessary; but the King would not make peace with Russia unless Russian Finland were restored to him.

818 “F. O.,” Sweden, 7.

819 The rebuke may have been due to Elliot’s silence; for in a P.S. to a letter of 16th October to Ewart, Elliot said: “Write everything about me to London; I have never written myself, having acted hitherto without instructions” (“F. O.,” Prussia, 14). As we have seen, he had acted largely on the advice of Ewart; and Liston, on finding this out, suggested to Carmarthen the need of cautioning Ewart not to go too fast (Luckwaldt, op. cit., 238).

820 “F. O.,” Denmark, 10. Despatches of 30th November, 5th and 27th December. On 10th April 1789 Carmarthen assured Elliot of the desire of H.M. for a Danish alliance. He also commended him less coldly than before (“F. O.,” Denmark, 11).

821 “F. O.,” Sweden, 7. Keene to Carmarthen, 30th December, 1788.

822 “F. O.,” Denmark, 11. Elliot to the Duke of Leeds, 30th May 1789.

823 “F. O.,” Denmark, 11. Leeds to Elliot, 24th June.

824 Ibid., Leeds to Elliot, 21st August 1789.

825 “Vorontzoff Archives,” xvi, 258–67.

826 “F. O.,” Prussia, 15. Ewart to Carmarthen, 17th January 1789.

827 On 22nd May Ainslie reported the slothful preparations for war. He had stated earlier that Russian money was at work at Constantinople to bring about a mediation by the Bourbon Courts in favour of peace (“F. O.,” Turkey, 10).

828 See Häusser, i, 225–37, for its earlier developments; also for the more warlike plans at Berlin of a general alliance with Poland, England, Sweden, and Denmark for the humbling of Russia and Austria.

829 I quote from the instructions drawn up by Hertzberg on 26th May, for Dietz, which he imparted to Ewart, who sent them on to Whitehall on 28th May—a step which earned him the distrust of Hertzberg (“F. O.,” Prussia, 15). The Pitt Ministry knew of them earlier than other Courts.

830 Dembinski, i, 240.

831 “F. O.,” Prussia, 15. Leeds to Ewart, 24th June 1789.

832 “F. O.,” Prussia, 15. Ewart to Leeds, 12th July. In it he pointed out that the alternative Prussian plan, that of forcing Turkey to give up Moldavia and Wallachia to Austria, she giving up Galicia to the Poles, and they Danzig and Thorn to Prussia, was most objectionable; but Hertzberg felt able to force even that through. Leeds commended Ewart for opposing those extreme proposals.

833 Ibid. Ewart to Leeds, 10th and 11th August, 3rd September. It is not surprising to find from Ainslie’s letter of 22nd October to Ewart that the Porte distrusted all the Christian Powers (France and Spain were still offering their mediation) but England least (“F. O.,” Turkey, 10). Dietz held scornfully aloof from Ainslie, and played his own game.

834 “Corresp. of W. A. Miles,” ii, 142.

835 Letter of the Grand Pensionary of 1st August, in Ewart’s despatch of 10th August (“F. O.,” Prussia, 16).

836 “F. O.,” Prussia, 15. Leeds to Ewart, 14th September 1789.

837 “F. O.,” France, 33. Fitzgerald to Leeds, 22nd October 1789.

838 Pitt MSS., 102. The Count renewed his proposal early in 1790, but received a similar rebuff on 1st February 1790.

839 “F. O.,” Prussia, 16. Ewart to Leeds, 28th November and 8th December 1789.

840 “Leeds Memoranda,” 147.

841 “F. O.,” Prussia, 16. Leeds to Ewart, 13th December 1789.

842 “F. O.,” Prussia, 17. Ewart to Leeds, 18th February 1790. I can find neither in our archives nor in the Pitt MSS. any confirmation of the statement of Father Delplace (“Joseph II et la Rév. Brabançonne,” 148) that Pitt suggested to the “ambassador” of the Belgian Estates their election of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and that the ambassador demurred, because he was a Protestant. Pitt never recognized any Belgian envoy as having official powers, and took no step that implied Belgian independence.

843 “F. O.,” Prussia, 17.

844 “F. O.,” Prussia, 17. Ewart to Leeds, 22nd February 1790.

845 Lord Acton, “Lects. on Mod. Hist.,” 304.

846 Keith’s “Mems.,” ii, 257.

847 On 19th March Fitzgerald reported to Leeds (“F. O.,” France, 34): “M. Van der Noote has made a second application to His Most Christian Majesty and the National Assembly, which has met with a similar reception with [sic] the former, the letters having been returned unopened.” Lafayette moved an amendment, but it was shelved.

848 “F. O.,” Prussia, 17. Leeds to Ewart, 26th February. Several sentences of the draft of this despatch are in Pitt’s writing.

849 Dembinski, i, 62–73, 274–8.

850 Hertzberg, “Recueil,” iii, 1–8. Ewart reported on 4th January 1790 that Hertzberg was holding over the Polish treaty, and that it would be wholly “vague and ostensible.” Clearly Ewart thought that Hertzberg would leave the door open to coerce Poland into giving up Danzig and Thorn (“F. O.,” Prussia, 17). Article 2 of the treaty made this still possible. See, too, Frederick William’s letter of 11th April 1790 to the King of Poland, and the projected treaty of commerce, in Martens, iv, 126–35.

The statement of the “Ann. Reg.” of 1791 (p. 12), that the Triple Alliance became “a species of Sextuple Alliance,” by the inclusion of Poland, the Porte, and Sweden, is incorrect.

851 Dembinski, i, 281, 283, 285.

852 “F. O.,” Poland, 4. Hailes to Leeds, 6th and 7th January, 27th February, 29th March 1790.

853 Ibid. On 14th August Hailes reported a remark of Lucchesini, that Prussia could easily seize Danzig and Thorn at the next war. Lucchesini was replaced by the young and inexperienced von Goltz in October. For a sketch of Lucchesini see Keith’s “Mems.,” ii, 360.

854 “F. O.,” Austria, 20. Keith to Leeds, 3rd, 7th, and 14th April.

855 “F. O.,” Prussia, 17. Ewart to Leeds, 18th March.

856 B.M. Add. MSS., 35542. Auckland to Keith, 19th March and 6th April 1790.

857 B.M. Add. MSS., 35542. Leeds to Ewart, 19th and 30th March.

858 “F. O.,” Austria, 19. Leeds to Keith, 30th March; Ranke, “Fürstenbund,” ii, 375; Kaunitz to Leopold, 16th March.

859 Ibid. Keith to Leeds, 24th April, 1st and 15th May; Keith’s “Mems.,” ii, 261.

860 Dembinski, i, 279.

861 “F. O.,” Austria, 19. Keith to Leeds, 10th May.

862 Hertzberg, “Recueil,” iii, 58.

863 “F. O.,” Prussia, 17. Leeds to Ewart, 21st May. Gustavus had pressed Prussia to advance to him 8,000,000 Swedish crowns, and 7,000,000 more next year if the war continued. He urged her to attack Russia at once. Sweden must obtain the wider boundaries of the Peace of Nystadt (Ewart to Leeds, 10th May). Early in June Prussia advanced 100,000 as a subsidy to Sweden, and as many more on behalf of England, on condition that Gustavus would not make a separate peace with Russia (Ewart to Leeds, 4th June).

864 “F. O.,” Austria, 20. Leeds to Keith, 23rd May (“Secret and Confidential”). Frederick William’s plan of exchanges drawn up on 12th May was curiously similar (see Dembinski, i, 303, 305).

865 “F. O.,” Austria, 20. Leeds to Keith, 8th June.

866 Ibid. Keith to Leeds, 16th, 19th, 20th, and 30th June.

In face of these facts I reject the account given by Kaunitz on 24th July 1790 (in Vivenot, “Kaiserpolitik Oesterreich’s”) that Austria had consistently sought to treat at Reichenbach on the English basis of the status quo.

867 Pitt and Leeds thought it a device to evade England’s offer of mediation (Leeds to Ewart, 25th June).

868 “F. O.,” Prussia, 18. Ewart to Leeds, 11th June. He encloses a copy of the Prussian despatch of 5th May from Constantinople, sent by Knobelsdorff. (See also Hertzberg’s “Recueil,” iii, 76–8.)

869 “F. O.,” Prussia, 18. Ewart to Leeds, 27th June.

870 Ranke, “Fürstenbund,” ii, 376–85; Dembinski, 82–4, 314; “Bland Burges P.” 142–4.

871 “F. O.,” Prussia, 18. Ewart to Leeds, 16th July. See too Vivenot, 5.

872 For the protest of the Belgian Congress against the Reichenbach compromise, which dashed their hopes of independence, see Van der Spiegel, “Négociations... des Pays Bas autrichiens,” 303–6.

873 Ranke, “Fürstenbund,” ii, 387.

874 On 7th September Bland Burges wrote to Lord Auckland that Russia had paid heavily for the Swedish peace (B.M. Add. MSS., 34433).

875 “F. O.,” Sweden, 11. Liston to Leeds, 17th and 24th August, 3rd, 7th, and 10th September.

876 Ibid. Liston to Leeds, 23rd November; Dembinski, i, 84.

877 “F. O.,” Sweden, 11. Liston to Leeds, 23rd November 1790.

878 Vivenot, 9, 10, 39–52; Hertzberg, “Recueil,” iii, 175–83; also 111–74 for correspondence on the Bishopric of Liége.

879 B.M. Add. MSS., 34435.

880 On 26th July 1791 Grenville, then Foreign Minister, wrote to Ewart that he hoped the sad straits of the Royal Family at Paris would induce Leopold to ratify the Hague Convention, and that the Allies must settle the Belgian constitution in such a way as to satisfy the rights of the sovereign and the just demands of that people (B.M. Add. MSS., 34438). See, too, Sybel, bk. ii, ch. vi.

881 It is too large a topic to discuss here why the Revolution did not break out in those lands; but I may hazard these suggestions: (1) Feudalism was there still a reality. The lords mostly lived on their estates, spent their money there, and performed the duties which the French nobles delegated to bailiffs, while they themselves squandered the proceeds at Paris or Versailles. Hence (2) a perilous concentration of wealth at those centres, which attracted thither the miserable, especially in times of distress like the severe winter of 1787–8. (3) In the other lands named above, the barriers of princely and feudal rule kept the people isolated in small States or domains and prevented common action. (4) Political and social speculations were brought home to the French as to no other people by the return of the French troops serving in the United States. (5) The mistakes of Louis XVI and Necker in May–June 1789, and the precipitation of the reformers at Versailles caused a rupture which was by no means inevitable, and which few if any had expected.

882 Rousseau, “Confessions,” bk. iv.

883 Prof. Aulard (“La Rév. Franç.,” chs. iv-vi) has proved that there was no republican party in France until December 1790, and that it had no importance until the flight of the King to Varennes at Midsummer 1791.

884 A. Young, “Travels in France,” 213 [Bohn edit.].

885 “Mems. of Fox,” ii, 361.

886 “Dropmore P.,” i, 353–5.

887 Stanhope, ii, 38.

888 Pitt MSS., 163.

889 Ibid. 102.

890 “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 226–31. For the tricks used in order to get corn exported to France, see “Auckland Journals,” ii, 367.

891 “Dropmore P.,” i, 549, 550; “Corresp. of W. A. Miles,” i, 739.

892 “F. O.,” France, 32. Mem. by Hippisley, 31st July 1789. Calonne for some time resided at Wimbledon House. He was received, though very coolly, at Court.

893 They were set forth in much detail in Paris newspapers of 25th July.

894 “F. O.,” France, 33. Leeds to Fitzgerald, 31st July. In B.M. Add. MSS., 28063, is a letter of the Duke of Richmond to the Marquis of Carmarthen of 21st September 1788, thanking him for sending to the Paris embassy his nephew, Lord R. Fitzgerald, in place of Daniel Hailes.

895 See the threats of Lafayette to the Duke of Orleans in Huber’s letter of 15th October 1789 to Lord Auckland (“Auckland Journals,” ii, 365).

896 Burke, “Corresp.,” iii, 211.

897 B.M. Add. MSS., 27914.

898 Pitt MSS., 102. No reason is assigned for this expatriation, which was probably due to the return of the prince from Geneva without permission. That the commander at Gibraltar, General O’Hara, received a hint to be strict with the young prince seems likely from his rebuke on a trifling occasion: “If you do not do your duty, I will make you do it” (“Napoleon and Sir Hudson Lowe,” by R. C. Seaton, 32).

899 Pitt MSS., 102. I have not found Pitt’s letter to Calonne, though there are two others of 1795 to him.

900 “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 351.

901 Dumont, “Souvenirs sur Mirabeau,” ch. x.

902 He calls it “a parent of settlement, not a nursery of future Revolutions.”

903 Burke’s “Works,” iii, 345 (Bohn edit.).

904 Burke, “Corresp.,” iii, 285–8.

905 “Parl. Hist.,” xxix, 364–88.

906 Burke’s “Works,” iii, 347–93 (Bohn edit.).

907 “Private Papers of Wilberforce,” 71.

908 Burke, “Corresp.” iii, 344.

909 “Life of Wilberforce,” i, 284.

910 Burke, “Corresp.,” iii, 238, 239, 255, 267, 274, 275, 278, 291, 302, 308, 336, 342.

911 The following narrative is founded mainly on documents in “F. O.,” Spain, 17, 18, 19; but I have found a monograph by Dr. W. R. Manning, “The Nootka Sound Controversy” (Washington, 1905), most serviceable.

912 I cannot agree with Dr. Manning (p. 360) that there were no signs of a British occupation of Nootka when Martinez arrived. The reverse is antecedently probable, and is asserted in Meares’ “Memorial.”

913 The “Memorial” is among the British archives in “F. O.,” Spain, 17. For a critique of it see Manning.

914 Liston to Auckland, 14th September 1790 (B.M. Add. MSS., 34433).

915 “F. O.,” Spain, 16.

916 Ibid. That this resolve was that of the whole Cabinet appears in the following letter in the Pitt MSS. It is from Pitt to Leeds:

“Downing Street, Tuesday morning, Feb. 23, 1790.

“I cannot help begging to remind your Grace of the wish expressed that the answer to the Spanish ambassador should if possible be circulated before our meeting to-day. I am the more anxious about this, as no one would like to give a final opinion on the terms of a paper of so much delicacy and importance without having had an opportunity of considering them beforehand.”

917 See del Campo’s note of 20th April, in Manning, 374, 375.

918 “Dropmore P.,” i, 579, 580; “F. O.,” Spain, 17.

919 “Journals of Sir T. Byam Martin” (Navy Records Soc.), iii, 381, 382.

920 “The Barham P.” (Navy Records Soc.), ii, 337–47.

921 Manning, 408.

922 “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 785.

923 “Wealth of Nations,” bk. iv, ch. vii, pt. 2.

924 B.M. Add. MSS., 35542. Miranda’s relations with Pitt were renewed in 1804. On 13th June 1805 he sought to dispel some suspicions which Pitt had formed of him, and added: “Je n’ai jamais départi un instant des principes politiques et moraux qui formèrent notre première liaison politique en 1790.” See, too, an interesting article on Miranda in the “Amer. Hist. Rev.,” vol. vi, for proofs of the dealings of Pitt with Miranda at that time. On 12th September 1791 Pitt wrote to him stating that he could not grant him the pension he asked for, or the sum of £1,000: £500 must suffice for the expenses incurred during his stay in London (Pitt MSS., 102).

925 “F. O.,” Spain, 17.

926 “Travaux de Mirabeau” (1792), iii, 319.

927 W. Legg, “Select Documents on the Fr. Rev.,” i, 226 and F. Masson, “Département des Affaires étrangères,” 79, 80.

928 B.M. Add. MSS., 29475.

929 Pretyman MSS.

930 “F. O.,” Spain, 17.

931 “Dropmore P.,” i, 585, 588. Auckland to Grenville, 15th May and 8th June 1790. On 22nd May Kaunitz, the Austrian Chancellor, assured Keith, our ambassador, that he heartily wished for the settlement of the Nootka Sound dispute. He blamed Floridablanca as rash (“F. O.,” Austria, 20).

932 “F. O.,” Spain, 17. Fitzherbert to Leeds, 16th June 1790. Earl Camden, a valued member of the Cabinet, wrote on 29th June to Pitt expressing grave concern at this answer from the Spanish Court. He added these words: “War, as I always thought, was inevitable, and to temporize impossible. The jealousy of that Court gave the first provocation, and their pride refuses satisfaction. The consequence is evident. We have no choice, for the outrage at Nouska [sic] cannot be a subject of discussion. I trust in the spirit of the Kingdom and your own wisdom and good fortune, and have no doubt this will terminate to your honour” (Pitt MSS., 119).

933 “F. O.,” Spain, 18. Leeds to Fitzherbert, 5th July.

934 “F. O.,” Spain, 18. Despatch of 5th July to Fitzherbert. Of course, this does not imply that Pitt would never admit arbitration, but only that he judged it inadmissible in the present case.

935 Ibid. Fitzherbert to Leeds, 12th July.

936 Ibid. Leeds to Fitzherbert, 17th August.

937 Manning, 405, 406; “Dropmore P.,” i, 603, 606.

938 “Despatches of Earl Gower (1790–1792),” 23, edited by Mr. Oscar Browning. Gower succeeded Dorset as ambassador at Paris on 20th June 1790.

939 “Travaux de Mirabeau,” iv, 24–49, which shows that this was not the work of the Assembly, but the proposal of Mirabeau. W. A. Miles reported (“Corresp.,” i, 255), that Mirabeau received from the Spanish ambassador one thousand louis d’or for carrying this proposal.

940 “F. O.,” Spain, 18. Fitzherbert to Leeds, 17th August.

941 “Gower’s Despatches,” 29; “Corresp. of W.A. Miles,” i, 162, 163.

942 Ibid., i, 41–8, 150.

943 In the Pitt MSS. there is a packet (No. 159) of Miles’s letters to Pitt, beginning with 1785. On 13th May 1790 Miles wrote to Pitt that George Rose had informed him he could not see how Pitt could employ him. Miles begged Pitt for a pension as a literary man. There is no other letter to Pitt until 10th December 1790, dated Paris:—“My attachment to your interest and a sincere desire to give every possible support to your Administration induced me to engage without difficulty in the enterprise proposed by Mr. Rose, and to accept of a salary inadequate to the expenses of the most frugal establishment,” viz., £400 a year. He adds that he has trenched on his private property, and concludes by asking for the consulate at Ostend.

944 “Corresp. of W. A. Miles,” i, 171, 172, 199.

945 “Beaufort P.,” etc. (Hist. MSS. Comm.), 368.

946 Pitt MSS., 335.

947 Ibid., 139. See, too, “Gower’s Despatches,” 38, 39, with note.

948 Pitt MSS., 139.

949 Stanhope, ii, 60, 61.

950 Pitt MSS., 139.

951 F. Masson, “Département des Affaires étrangères,” 86 et seq.

In the Pretyman MSS. is an undated letter of Elliot to Pitt (probably of November 1790) referring to his interview with Pitt that morning, and explaining that his phrase to the Diplomatic Committee, “the glorious Revolution,” was meant only for Frenchmen!

952 “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 907.

953 “F. O.,” Spain, 19.

954 Machiavelli, “The Prince,” ch. iii.

955 McDonald’s affidavit of 25th September 1790. On this case Bland Burges wrote to Auckland on 30th September (B.M. Add. MSS., 34433) that he was convinced of its authenticity, and that Spain was clearly seeking a quarrel with us. He referred to the signature of the Reichenbach Convention as strengthening our position. On 21st September he wrote to Auckland of the “intolerable suspense” of the Spanish affair, and hinted that Spanish gold had probably bought the recent peace between Sweden and Russia. The position of Bland Burges as permanent secretary at the Foreign Office gives weight to these remarks.

956 “F. O.,” Spain, 19. Despatch of 8th October. For details see Manning, op. cit., chs. xi-xiii. I cannot, however, agree with Dr. Manning’s assertion (p. 440) that it looks as if Pitt and Leeds desired war. The terms of Fitzherbert’s despatch of 16th September, which Dr. Manning does not notice, surely convinced Pitt that Spain would on no account use the French alliance on Mirabeau’s conditions.

957 Pretyman MSS.

958 “F. O.,” Spain, 49 (Drafts of Lord Grenville), shows that the sum of £50,000 was finally demanded from Spain as compensation. For the Convention of 28th October 1790 see “Parl. Hist.,” xxviii, 916–18, and Martens, iv, 492–9.

959 “Auckland Journals,” ii, 374.

960 For this see Hertz, “British Imperialism in the XVIIIth Century.”

961 Stanhope, ii, 63; Lecky, v, 209; Lord Rosebery, “Pitt,” 102; Mr. C. Whibley, “Pitt,” 129.

962 “F. O.,” Russia, 20. Trade Report of the Baltic ports for 1790.

963 “Mems. of Sir R. M. Keith,” ii, 355–74; Sybel, bk. ii, ch. vi. The Congress of Sistova was adjourned on 10th February for some weeks.

964 Vivenot, 5.

965 Ibid., 9, 10; Beer, “Die orientalische Politik Oesterreichs,” App. I.

966 “F. O.,” Russia, 20. “The Emperor still continues, notwithstanding his professions, to flatter the Empress that he may yet enter the lists in her favour” (Whitworth to Leeds, 18th January 1791). See Keith’s letters from Sistova, showing the resolve of Austria to evade the Reichenbach terms, and wring Orsova from the Turks (“Mems. of Sir R. M. Keith,” ii, 365 et seq.).

967 B.M. Add. MSS., 34435.

968 “F. O.,” Sweden, 11.

969 R. Nisbet Bain, “Gustavus III,” ii, 120–3. See, too, Geffroy, “Gustave III et la Cour de France.”

970 Pitt MSS., 332.

971 “F. O.,” Poland, 4. Hailes to Leeds, 12th June 1790.

972 The Prussians forced the Danzig trade to Elbing. Dembinski, i, 101.

973 “Mems. de Michel Oginski,” i, 92–9.

974 “F. O.,” Poland, 5. Hailes’s despatches of January 1791.

975 “F. O.,” Poland, 4. Hailes to Leeds, 1st and 11th December 1790.

976 Dembinski, i, 103, 104. Alopeus to Ostermann, 6th December 1790 (N.S.). The British archives show that Hertzberg continued to smile on our efforts to coerce Russia, and encouraged the Turks to do their utmost against her. Jackson to Leeds, 4th January 1791 (“F. O.,” Prussia, 20).

977 Dembinski, i, 108–10. Ostermann to Alopeus, 1st January 1791 (N.S.).

978 “F. O.,” Russia, 20. Whitworth to Leeds, 8th January 1790.

979 Pitt MSS., 332. Ewart to Pitt, 16th November 1790.

980 “F. O.,” Poland, 5. Leeds to Hailes, 8th January 1791. This evidence and the facts stated later on, in my judgement refute the statement of Lecky (v, 287) that the political security of Poland did not enter into the motives of Pitt’s policy.

981 “F. O.,” Prussia, 20. Leeds to Jackson, 8th January 1791.

982 Ibid. Jackson’s despatches of 23rd January, 12th, 17th, 26th February, 1st March; “F. O.,” Russia, 20. Whitworth’s despatches of 14th, 18th, 25th January (on the “defection” of Spain from Russia); “F. O.,” Sweden, 20, Liston to Leeds, 17th February. For the fears of Marie Antoinette and the French Court that British armaments were aimed at France, see Sorel, ii, 181, 182.

983 Vivenot, op. cit., 78, 79.

984 Ibid., 98 et seq. Cobenzl to Kaunitz, 4th March 1791; Beer, “Leopold II, Franz I, und Catharina,” 39 et seq.

985 I differ from Dr. Salomon (“Pitt,” 514) as to the motives which impelled the Prussian King at this time.

986 On 29th July 1791 Auckland wrote to Grenville about Ewart’s “misconceived energy and violence” (B.M. Add. MSS., 34438). See, too, “Auckland Journals,” ii, 392–3.

987 B.M. Add. MSS., 34436. Ewart must somehow have seen this letter, for he quoted some of its phrases in his letter of 11th February to Pitt (Pitt MSS., 332). See, too, his letters of 8th February and 5th March to Lord Grenville in “Dropmore P.,” ii, 31, 38.

988 B.M. Add. MSS., 34436.

989 Ibid.

990 “Auckland Journals,” ii, 382.

991 B.M. Add. MSS., 34436. Auckland to Leeds, 15th March 1791; also in “F. O.,” Holland, 34 (received on 19th March).

992 Pitt MSS., 337.

993 B.M. Add. MSS., 34436.

994 “Mems. of Sir R. M. Keith,” ii, 367–70, 379.

995 “F. O.,” Prussia, 20. Jackson to Leeds, 9th March. See Heidrich, “Preussen im Kampfe gegen die Franz. Revolution” (1908), ch. i, for the causes of the double face worn by Prussian policy at this time.

996 “F. O.,” Prussia, 20. Jackson to Leeds, 11th March 1791 (received 19th March).

997 “Leeds Mem.,” 150–2.

998 Leeds to Jackson, 27th March 1791. Russia then was seeking to form an alliance with Sweden and Denmark with a view to declaring the Baltic a mare clausum (“F. O.,” Russia, 20. Whitworth to Leeds, 25th March 1791).

999 “F. O.,” Russia, 20. Leeds to Whitworth, 27th March 1791.

1000 “F. O.,” Holland, 34. Pitt to Auckland, 27th March.

1001 Contrast with this the admission of Storer: “Our taxes have proved this year beyond example productive” (“Auckland Journals,” ii, 389).

1002 See Burke’s “Correspondence,” iii, 268, where he calls Ewart “a little, busy, meddling man, little heard of till lately.”

1003 “Parl. Hist.,” xxix, 33–79.

1004 Earl Stanhope (ii, 115) does not give the last figures, which show that the Ministry regained ground on 15th April.

1005 “Auckland Journals,” ii, 388.

1006 Pitt to Ewart, 24th May 1791; Stanhope, ii, 116; Tomline, iii, 260.

1007 “F. O.,” Holland, 34.

1008 “F. O.,” Denmark, 13. Drake to Leeds, 12th March.

In B.M. Add. MSS., 34436, I have found proofs that Auckland on 19th March forwarded by special packet duplicates of the proposals described above, adding his own comments to them, of course in a favourable sense. They probably reached Whitehall about 24th March, but by that time the Cabinet’s bellicose decision had gone to Windsor and received the King’s assent.

1009 “Leeds Mem.,” 157, 158; also despatch of 31st March to Jackson, in “F. O.,” Prussia, 20.

1010 From Major-General Sir Spencer Ewart’s MSS.

1011 From Major-General Sir Spencer Ewart’s MSS.

1012 “Keith Mems.,” ii, 219, 228.

1013 “Dropmore P.,” ii, 54–6; Dr. Hunt, “Pol. Hist. of England,” x, 328.

1014 “F. O.,” Prussia, 21. Grenville to Ewart, 20th April 1791. The details given above refute Sorel’s statement (ii, 208) that Pitt changed front brusquement, and charged Fawkener to say that he would give way about Oczakoff.

1015 Dembinski, i, 449.

1016 Vivenot, i, 126–37, 172–6; Clapham “Causes of the War of 1792,” ch. iv; “Keith’s Mems.,” ii, 436–41, 448. So, too, Whitworth to Leeds, 22nd April 1791: “Count Cobenzl continues buoying them [the Russians] up with the hopes of his Court taking a part in the war” (“F. O.,” Russia, 20).

1017 B.M. Add. MSS., 34438. The despatches printed in Vivenot (i, 172–81) show that the arrival of Bischoffswerder at Milan on 11th June helped to thwart the efforts of Lord Elgin. Elgin suggested to Pitt on 15th June that, if war broke out, he could convict the Emperor of hindering the pacification (Pitt MSS., 132).

1018 “F. O.,” Prussia, 21. Ewart to Grenville, 13th May.

1019 “F. O.,” Russia, 21. Grenville to Fawkener, 6th May; “F. O.,” Poland, 5. Hailes to Grenville, 19th May. Yet as late as 6th July Grenville informed Ewart that in the last resort England would fight on behalf of Prussia, though Ewart was to work hard to avert war (“Dropmore P.,” ii, 124).

1020 “Dropmore P.,” ii, 93, 94. Ewart to Grenville, 8th June. Hertzberg’s influence was lessened by the addition of Schulenberg and Alvensleben to the Foreign Department at Berlin early in May.

1021 B.M. Add. MSS., 34437. Liston to Grenville, 27th May 1791.

1022 “F. O.,” Russia, 21. Fawkener and Whitworth to Grenville, 19th, 27th, 31st May, 18th and 21st June. So, too, Ewart wrote to Grenville, on 18th June (after receiving news from St. Petersburg): “No answer will be given (by the Russian Ministers) to the Allies till after the return of the last messenger to London, for the purpose of knowing if they might rely with certainty on the English Government being unable to take active measures in any case” (“F. O.,” Prussia, 21).

1023 “Memorials of Fox,” ii, 383–7.

1024 Pitt MSS., 337; Tomline, iii, 308–12.

1025 “Auckland Journals,” ii, 388.

1026 “F. O.,” Russia, 20. 2nd May. “I have long thought Woronzow decidedly and personally hostile to the present Government in England, and am persuaded that he suggested the idea of employing Mr. Adair as an envoy from Mr. Fox to the Empress.” Grenville to Auckland, 1st August 1791. (B.M. Add. MSS., 34439.)

1027 B.M. Add. MSS., 34438.

1028 “F. O.,” Russia, 22. Whitworth to Grenville, 5th August.

1029 B.M. Add. MSS., 34438. Wraxall (i, 202; ii, 34) thought Fox deserved impeachment for sending Adair.

1030 “Parl. Hist.,” xxix, 849–1000. Whitbread’s motion was finally negatived by 244 to 116 (1st March 1792).

1031 Vivenot, i, 547; Martens, v, 244–9.

1032 B.M. Add. MSS., 34438.

1033 “F. O.,” Poland, 5. Hailes to Grenville, 5th May, along with a letter by a Polish deputy.

1034 Burke, “Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs.” Burke did not see that by fighting Russia’s battle in Parliament, he was helping to undermine the liberties of Poland.

1035 “F. O.,” Poland, 5. Grenville to Hailes, 25th May.

1036 “Keith Mems.,” ii, 448, 449.

1037 Dembinski, i, 451. Hertzberg to Lucchesini, 7th May 1791.

1038 “F. O.,” Prussia, 21. Ewart to Grenville, 25th June. For Bischofffswerder’s second mission to Vienna see Sybel, bk. ii, ch. vi.

1039 Martens, v, 262–71.

1040 I am indebted to Major-General Sir Spencer Ewart for these particulars and for permission to copy and publish these letters of Pitt. The poison story first became current in one of Fox’s letters published in the “Mems. of Fox.” For letters of Dr. Ewart at Bath on his brother’s affairs see “Dropmore P.,” ii, 181, 253, 256.

1041 Pitt MSS., 102.

1042 “F. O.,” Poland, 5. Hailes to Grenville, 21st August 1791.

1043 Herrmann, “Geschichte Russlands,” vi, 445.