William Pitt and the Great War. J. Holland Rose
clubs of Great Britain regarded it as their cherished privilege to state their opinions on foreign affairs with Athenian loquacity; and the months of October and November 1792, when we vainly seek to know the inner feelings of Pitt, are enlivened by resolutions expressing joy at the downfall of tyrants, and fervent beliefs in the advent of a fraternal millennium, the first fruits of which were the election of Paine as deputy for Calais to the National Convention.
In the dealings of nations, as of individuals, feelings often count for more than interests. This was the case in the last four months of the year 1792, when the subjects in dispute bulked small in comparison with the passions and prejudices which magnified and distorted them. The psychology of the time therefore demands no less attention than its diplomacy. Its first weeks were darkened by news of the September massacres. Even now the details of that cowardly crime arouse horror: and surely no part of Carlyle's epic sinks so low as that in which he seeks to compare that loathsome butchery with the bloodshed of a battlefield.[90] No such special pleading was attempted by leaders of thought of that period. On 10th September Romilly, a friend of human progress, wrote to Dumont: "How could we ever be so deceived in the character of the French nation as to think them capable of liberty? … One might as well think of establishing a republic of tigers in some forest of Africa." To which the collaborator of Mirabeau replied: "Let us burn all our books; let us cease to think and dream of the best system of legislation, since men make so diabolical a use of every truth and every principle."[91] These feelings were general among Frenchmen. Buzot stated that the loss of morality, with all its attendant evils, dated from the September massacres.
It seems strange that the democratic cause made headway in England after this fell event. Probably its details were but dimly known to the poor, who were at this time the victims of a bad harvest and severe dearth. The months of September and October were marked by heavy and persistent rains. The Marquis of Buckingham on 23rd September wrote at Stowe to his brother, Lord Grenville, that he was living amidst a vortex of mud, clay, and water such as was never known before—the result of six weeks of unsettled weather, which must impair the harvest and increase the difficulty of maintaining order.[92] Certainly the stars in their courses fought against the ancien régime. The rains which made a receptive seed-bed for the writings of Paine also hampered the progress of Brunswick towards the Argonne, crowded his hospitals with invalids, and in part induced that inglorious retreat. As the storms lasted far into the autumn, disaffection increased apace.
The results serve to enliven the dull tones of our Home Office archives. There one reads of bread riots and meal riots so far back as May 1792, in which stalls are overturned and despoiled; also of more persistent agitation in the factory towns of the North. Liverpool leads off with a dock-strike that is with difficulty ended. Then the colliers of Wigan stop work and seek to persuade all their comrades to follow their example. Most threatening of all is the situation at Manchester and Sheffield. There, in addition to disorder among the townsfolk, disaffection gains ground among the troops sent to keep order. This again is traceable to the dearness of food, for which the scanty pay of the trooper by no means suffices. Here, then, is the opportunity for the apostle of discontent judiciously to offer a cheap edition of the "Rights of Man," on which fare the troop becomes half-mutinous and sends in a petition for higher pay. This the perplexed authorities do not grant, but build barracks, a proceeding eyed askance by publicans and patriots as the beginning of military rule.[93]
The South of England, too, is beset by fears of a novel kind. After the overthrow of the French monarchy on 10th August fugitives from France come fast to the coasts of Kent and Sussex. The flights become thicker day by day up to the end of that fell month of September. Orthodox priests, always in disguise, form the bulk of the new arrivals. As many as 700 of them land at Eastbourne, and strain the hospitality of that little town. About as many reach Portsmouth and Gosport, to the perplexity of the authorities. When assured that they are staunch royalists and not apostles of Revolution, the commander allots shelter in the barracks at Forton, where for the present they exist on two pence a day each. Plymouth, which receives fewer of them, frowns on the newcomers as politically suspect and economically ruinous. The mayor assures Dundas that, if more priests arrive, or are sent there, they will be driven away by the townsfolk for fear of dearth of corn. In Jersey the food question eclipses all others; for 2,000 priests (so it is said) land there, until all ideas of hospitality are cast to the winds and the refugees are threatened with expulsion. Only in the vast obscurantism of London is there safety for these exiles. A subscription list is started on their behalf; the King offers the royal house at Winchester for the overplus at Portsmouth: and by degrees the scared throngs huddle down into the dire poverty and uneasy rest that are to be their lot for many a year.[94]
Strange adventures befell many of the French nobles in their escape. The Duc de Liancourt, commanding the troops at Rouen, was fain to flee to the coast, hire a deckless craft, and conceal himself under faggots. In that manner he put to sea and finally made the opposite coast at Hastings. There, still nervous, he made his way to the nearest inn, and, to proclaim his insularity, called for porter. The beverage was too much for him, and he retired to his room in a state of unconscious passivity. On his awaking, the strange surroundings seemed those of a French lock-up; but as he crept down to make his escape, the mugs caught his eye; and their brightness convinced him that he was in England. Such was his story, told to the family at Bury, where Fanny Burney was staying. Several of the wealthier French refugees settled at Richmond, and there found Horace Walpole as charmer and friend. But the most distinguished group was that at Juniper Hall, near Dorking where finally Mme. de Staël and Talleyrand enlivened the dull days and long drives with unfailing stores of wit. We shall later on make the acquaintance of the French émigrés in a more active and bellicose mood.
Such, then, was the mental condition of our folk. Depressed by rain and dear food, beset by stories of plotters from Paris, or harrowed by the tales of misery of the French émigrés, Britons came to look on France as a land peopled by demons, who sought to involve other lands in the ruin to which they had reduced their own. In this state of nervousness and excitement little was needed to bring about a furious reaction on behalf of Church and King.
The follies of English democrats helped on this reaction. Whispers went about of strange and threatening orders of arms at Birmingham. A correspondent at the midland capital informed Dundas at the end of September that a Dr. Maxwell, of York, had ordered 20,000 daggers, which were to be 12 inches in the blade and 5¼ inches in the handle. The informant convinced the manufacturer that he must apprise the Home Secretary of this order and send him a specimen of the weapon. Probably it was the same which Burke melodramatically cast down on the floor of the House of Commons during his speech of 28th December. The dimensions exactly tally with those named by the biographer of Lord Eldon, who retained that dagger, though Bland Burges also put in a claim to have possessed it. The scepticism which one feels about this prodigious order of daggers, which others give as 3,000, is somewhat lessened by finding another letter, of 2nd October 1792, addressed to Dundas by James Maxwell of York, who stated that he highly disapproved of the "French" opinions of his younger brother (specimens of whose letters he enclosed), and had just given him £500 so as to dissuade him from going to Manchester to stir up discontent there.[95] This unbrotherly conduct condemns the elder Maxwell, but his information to some extent corroborated that which came from Birmingham. The whole affair may have been merely a device to frighten Ministers; but report says that Pitt took it seriously and ascribed to him the singular statement that Ministers soon might not have a hand to act with or a tongue to speak with.[96]
Certainly there was a good deal of discontent in the manufacturing towns, but it is not easy to say whether it resulted more from dear food or from political reasons. At Stockport a new club styled "The Friends of universal Peace and the Rights of Man," issued and circulated a manifesto asserting their right to inquire into political affairs:
It is our labour that supports monarchy, aristocracy, and the priesthood. … We are not the "swinish multitude" that Mr. Burke speaks of. A majority of the House of Commons is returned by less than 6,000 voters; whereas, if the representation were equal (and we sincerely hope that it shortly will be), nearly that number will elect every single member. Not one-twentieth part of the commoners of Great Britain are electors. … We have a National Debt of more than £270,000,000, and pay £17,000,000 a year in taxes. More than one fourth of our incomes goes in taxes.[97]