One who knew Pitt well gave wise advice to his secretary, William Dacre Adams. "Attend to your meals regularly even if you sit up or rise the earlier for it to get through the business. I have often been told that half Mr. Pitt's complaints were originally brought on by fasting too long and indeed only eating when he found it convenient, which ruined the tone of his stomach."[731] These statements explain the reason for the collapse of Pitt's strength late in the year. Hester's concluding remark is somewhat hysterical, but it is nearer the truth than the charge that Pitt was greedy of power. He killed himself by persistent overwork on behalf of a nation which did not understand him, and in the service of a Monarch who refused to allow him to strengthen his Administration.

It is impossible now to feel one's way along all the threads which Pitt held in his hands. But occasionally a chance reference reveals his connection with designs of vast moment. The following is a case in point. Castlereagh wrote to him, probably on 20th August 1805, in terms which show that Pitt took a leading part in one of the decisions bearing on the fate of the naval campaign which culminated at Trafalgar. The daring and wisdom of his naval policy in 1805 has lately been fully vindicated.[732] But the following letter throws new light on the complex problem which arose after the indecisive success gained by Admiral Calder over Villeneuve's French and Spanish fleets off Cape Finisterre on 22nd July, and while the subsequent movements of those fleets were not yet definitely known. Baird's expedition at Cork was destined for the reduction of the Cape (ever Pitt's pre-occupation) so soon as the way was fairly safe.

Downing St Tuesday 3 P.M.[733]

MY DEAR SIR,

I have just seen Lord Hawkesbury and Lord Barham, Adml Cornwallis having anticipated your intentions by detaching 20 sail of the line off Ferrol, and the wind being now favourable, it appears to us that no time should be lost in ordering Sir D. Baird to sail. As Ld H. and Ld B. seem to entertain no doubt of your approving of this step, I shall send the orders without delay. I shall remain in town tonight and be at your disposal as best suits your engagements.

Ever yours, CASTLEREAGH.

The most interesting words in this letter are "your intentions." They seem to imply that the plan of detaching part of Admiral Cornwallis's fleet off Brest to the assistance of Calder off the North West of Spain was originally Pitt's own, not Lord Barham's, as has been hitherto supposed. They must not be pressed too much; for the advice of Barham, First Lord of the Admiralty, must have been paramount. Nevertheless the proposal was evidently Pitt's as well as Barham's. The fact that Cornwallis anticipated it bespeaks the resolve alike of Ministers and the admiral at all costs to stop Villeneuve off Finisterre and prevent the naval concentration in French waters on which Napoleon laid so much stress. The success of the British counter-stroke is well known. Villeneuve, having been roughly handled by Calder, put into Ferrol, and finally, a prey to discouragement, made off for Cadiz, thus upsetting Napoleon's scheme for the invasion of England. In due course Nelson returned to England for a brief time of rest at "dear, dear Merton," and then set off on his last cruise. Before his departure he had an interview with Pitt at Downing Street—the only occasion, I believe, on which they met—and found in the ante-room Sir Arthur Wellesley, just returned from India. At the end of the interview Pitt flattered the great seaman by an act of attention which he thus described: "Mr. Pitt paid me a compliment, which, I believe, he would not have paid to a Prince of the Blood. When I rose to go, he left the room with me and attended me to the carriage." By attentions such as these Chatham was wont to stimulate the patriotism of our warriors; and on this occasion his son played an equally inspiriting part. Imagination strives to picture the scene, especially when England's greatest statesman and greatest seaman passed through the ante-room where stood the future victor of Waterloo.[734]

Never again were those three heroes to meet. Nelson departed for Trafalgar. Pitt resumed the work which was wearing him to death, nerved, however, by the consciousness that the despatch of Nelson to the Mediterranean would foil Napoleon's project of making that sea a French lake, "the principal aim of my policy" as he declared it to be. In that quarter, then, Pitt won a decisive victory which was destined to save not only that sea, but the Continent from the domination of France. Whether a glimpse of the future course of events opened out to the wearied gaze of the statesman we know not. All we know is that in mid-December, when the "Victory" lay jury-masted and wind-bound for three days off Walmer Castle, the Lord Warden was at Bath, in hope of gaining health and strength for a struggle which concerned him even more nearly than that in the Mediterranean, namely, the liberation of North Germany and the Dutch Netherlands from the Napoleonic yoke.

FOOTNOTES:

[680] Pitt MSS., 102. Pitt to Whitworth, 28th May 1804; G. Rose, "Diaries," ii, 136. See, too, Rose, "Despatches relating to the ... Third Coalition," 27.

[681] Stanhope, iv, 199-201.

[682] Czartoryski, "Memoirs," ii, 35.

[683] "Creevey Papers," i, 28.

[684] Pretyman MSS.

[685] Rose, "Despatches relating to the ... Third Coalition" (Royal Hist. Soc., 1904), 14-19; also Rose, "Napoleonic Studies," 364-6, for the tentative Russian overture of November 1803.

[686] Rose and Broadley, "Dumouriez and the Defence of England against Napoleon," 260.

[687] Fortescue, v, 204-13. Half of the fine went to the overseers of the parish, who were bound under penalties to provide a parochial substitute.

[688] Fortescue, v, 239, 240.

[689] "Creevey Papers," i, 29.

[690] Pitt MSS., 157.

[691] Pretyman MSS. See "Ann. Reg." (1805) for the failure at Boulogne on 3rd October 1804.

[692] See Desbriere, "Projets ... de Debarquement, etc.," vol. v; J. Corbett, "The Campaign of Trafalgar," chs. ii, iii, ix.

[693] "Kentish Gazette," 26th October 1804. Apparently Moore agreed to the scheme, despite his opinion quoted above. For information on this topic I am indebted to Lieutenant-Colonel Fynmore of Sandgate. In the manoeuvres of 1910 regiments were told off to extemporize means of crossing the canal in the quickest and most effective way.

[694] "W. O.," 76; "Diary of Sir J. Moore," ii, 71-4.

[695] Pretyman MSS.

[696] Harrowby MSS.

[697] Mahan, ii, ch. xv, ad fin.; "Ann. Reg." (1804), 555; "Mems. of R. P. Ward," i, ch. vii. For the subsequent plan of Ministers to attack Ferrol, from which Moore dissuaded them, see "Diary of Sir J. Moore," ii, ch. xxi.

[698] Harrowby MSS.

[699] Rose, "Third Coalition," 32, 53, 61, 65, 67, 71, 75.

[700] Harrowby MSS.

[701] Lefebvre, "Cabinets de l'Europe," ii, 33.

[702] Pretyman MSS.

[703] Stanhope, iv, 244-8.

[704] See the letter in "Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies."

[705] "H. O." Ireland (Corresp.), 99.

[706] "Mems. of Fox," iv, 45, 68, 72, 75.

[707] See an interesting account by Dr. Hunt, "Transactions of the Royal Hist. Soc." (1908), pp. 7-16.

[708] Hansard, iv, 1013-22, 1060.

[709] Hansard, iv, 255-325; "Life of Wilberforce," iii, 219-23; "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 338, 347; "Lord Colchester's Diaries," i, 544-9.

[710] Chevening MSS.

[711] "Trial of Lord Melville" (1806), 256-9, 370, 378.

[712] "Creevey Papers," i, 34.

[713] "Barham Papers" (Navy Records Society), iii; Corbett, "Trafalgar Campaign," 70-2; Stanhope, iv, 287; Pellew, ii 356-64.

[714] Czartoryski, "Mems.," ii, ch. vii.

[715] "F. O.," Prussia, 70; Rose, "Napoleonic Studies," 54-8; Rose, "Napoleon," ii, 54.

[716] Garden, "Traites," viii, 317-23; Alison, App. to ch. xxxix.

[717] Toreno ("War of Independence in Spain," vol. i, ad fin.) had the story from Alava, who connected it with the arrival of the news of Ulm, on 2nd November. Pitt said: "All is not lost if I can succeed in raising up a national war in Europe, and this must have its commencement in Spain." But Malmesbury ("Diaries," iv, 340), who was present, does not name the incident, and states that Pitt disbelieved the news (see ch. xxiv).

[718] Pretyman MSS.

[719] Rose, "Third Coalition," 25, 32, 44, 61, 66, 73, 76, 87, 97, etc.; Mr. Julian Corbett, "The Trafalgar Campaign," chs. i, ii. For a critique on Pitt's Mediterranean plans, see Bunbury's "Great War with France," 183-95.

[720] Rose, "Third Coalition," 127-30.

[721] Czartoryski, "Mems.," ii, 74-6.

[722] Czartoryski, "Mems.," ii, 78; Rose, "Third Coalition," 155-64.

[723] Ibid., 232; Ulmann, "Russisch-preussische Politik"; Hansing, "Hardenberg und die dritte Coalition."

[724] "Paget Papers," ii, 186; Sir G. Jackson, "Diaries," i, 304, 458-60; Rose, "Third Coalition," 180.

[725] "Lettres inedites de Napoleon," i, 50.

[726] Rose, "Third Coalition," 279-82. On 9th August Austria allied herself to Russia.

[727] For a time her action was unknown at London; and Pitt and Mulgrave outlined a plan of campaign turning largely on the liberation of South and Central Italy. See Mr. Corbett, "Trafalgar Campaign," App. B.

[728] G. Rose, "Diaries," ii, 198-200.

[729] Pretyman MSS.

[730] "Lady Hester Stanhope's Mems.," ii, 63.

[731] Chevening MSS. See, too, G. Rose, "Diaries," ii, 235, as to Pitt's reliance on "cordial medicines."

[732] By Mr. Julian Corbett, "The Campaign of Trafalgar." Mr. Corbett has kindly helped me to fix the probable date of Castlereagh's letter.

[733] Pitt MSS., 121. In Pitt MSS., 111, is a hasty and undated note of Pitt to Middleton (probably of February 1805) asking him to consider "whether it might not be expedient to direct Sir John Warren to proceed to Cape de Verde, and if he there found that Sir James Duckworth was gone to the West Indies, but not upon certain information of the enemy having preceded him, that Sir J. Warren should be ordered on to the Cape, unless he received intelligence that the enemy had taken another course." He adds that this suggestion arises out of the news received from the Cape, where French troops were expected. In that case the operations would be protracted. Pitt hoped that Warren would be back in five months, that is by 1st June, before which time the French preparations for the invasion of England would not be far advanced. Evidently, then, Pitt sought Middleton's advice direct on the complex problem of defending England and guarding the overland and the sea routes to India at the same time. On this see Corbett, "Trafalgar Campaign," 236-8.

[734] Wellington in 1834 told Croker that they met in the anteroom of the Secretary of State, Castlereagh (Croker, "Diaries," ii, 234).



CHAPTER XXIV

THE LAST STRUGGLE

Heavens! What has Prussia to answer for! For nothing less, in my mind, than every calamity which has befallen Europe for more than ten years.—GENERAL PAGET TO SIR ARTHUR PAGET, 24th January 1806.

The opening moves in the great game between Pitt and Napoleon were divided with a curious evenness. As we have seen, the French Emperor's defiant annexation of Genoa obliterated the anger of the Czar at Pitt's insistence on the retention of Malta; and if Pitt's high-handed conduct forced Spain to declare against England, yet, on the other hand, Napoleon wantonly challenged Austria and Russia to a conflict. The first events of the war showed a similar balance. On 20th October the French Emperor compelled the Austrian commander, General Mack, to surrender at or near Ulm in Swabia with almost the whole of an army of some 70,000 men. On the next day Nelson destroyed the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar. So quickly did the forcefulness or ineptitude of four commanders determine the course of events. By the end of October the tricolour waved triumphant over Central Europe; but the Union Jack was thenceforth scarcely challenged by sea; and Britain began to exert that unseen but resistless pressure upon her enemy which gradually edged him to his ruin. Consequently the appalling failures of the Third Coalition on land only delayed the final triumph on which the serene genius of Pitt surely counted.

At first everything seemed to favour his designs. Part of Napoleon's army in its hurried march from North Germany towards Ulm violated the neutrality of the Prussian principality of Anspach, apparently by command of the Emperor. This short cut to success nearly entailed disaster; for it earned the sharp resentment of Prussia at a time when he especially valued her friendship. Indeed, so soon as he resolved to turn the "Army of England" against Austria, he despatched his most trusted aide-de-camp, Duroc, to Berlin, to tempt that Court with that alluring bait, Hanover. Russia and England were, however, making equal efforts in the hope of gaining the help of the magnificent army of Frederick William III. For a time Pitt also hoped to add the South German States, and in all to set in motion a mass of 650,000 men against France, Austria contributing 250,000, Russia 180,000, Prussia 100,000 (later on he bargained for 180,000), Sardinia 25,000, Naples 20,000, Sweden 16,000, and the small German States the remainder. Napoleon, on the other hand, strove to paralyse the efforts of the Coalition by securing the alliance or the friendly neutrality of Prussia. With 200,000 hostile or doubtful troops on her frontier, Austria could do little, and Russia still less. Further, as he still had French troops in one or two fortresses of Hanover, he could utter the words so often on the lips of Bismarck—Beati possidentes. Hanover belonged of right to George III; but Napoleon could will it away to Prussia.

Thus the fortunes of Europe depended largely on Frederick William. Unfortunately he was incapable of rising to the height of the situation; for he utterly lacked the virile qualities which raised the House of Hohenzollern above petty compeers in Swabia to fame and prosperity. Essentially mediocre, and conscious of his slender endowments, he, like Louis XVI, nearly always hesitated, and therefore generally lost. His character was a dull compound of negations. Prone neither to vice nor to passion, he was equally devoid of charm and graciousness. Freezing men by his coldness, he failed to overawe them by superiority; and, with a weak man's dislike of genius and strength, he avoided great men, preferring trimmers like Haugwitz and Lombard, who played upon his foibles, and saved him from disagreeable decisions. The commanding personality of Stein inspired in him nervous dislike which deepened into peevish dread. Only in the depths of disaster, into which his own weakness was to plunge him, did he have recourse to that saviour of Prussia.

By the side of Frederick William was that radiant figure, Queen Louisa, who recalls the contrast between Marie Antoinette and her uninteresting, hapless spouse. For Louisa, too, had ambition and the power of inspiring devotion, though etiquette and jealousy forbade her intervention in affairs of State;[735] otherwise the Prussian Government would have shaken off that paralysing indecision which left its people friendless and spiritless on the bursting of the storm a year later. For the present, the King's chief adviser, Hardenberg, sought to impart to Prussian policy a trend more favourable to England and Russia. Conscious of the need of a better frontier on the west and of the longing of his master for the greater part of Hanover, he sought to attain this end by means not wholly opposed to the feelings of George III and the policy of Pitt. Above all, he strove to end the humiliating subservience of his Court to France, which galled the spirit of all patriotic Prussians. Their great desire was to join the new Coalition even though such a step entailed war with Napoleon. They rejoiced at the news of Admiral Calder's victory off Finisterre, and hailed every sign of war at St. Petersburg and Vienna.[736] On the other hand, the French party was strong at Court. Haugwitz, its head, was still nominally Minister for Foreign Affairs, and, though often absent for long periods on his Silesian domain, resumed the control of them when he returned to Berlin. This singular arrangement enabled the King to keep up the game of political see-saw which brought relief to him, disgust to his would-be allies, and ruin to his country.

To tilt the balance in favour of the Coalition was now the chief aim of Pitt. And who shall say that, if Prussia, with strength still unimpaired, had played the part which her enfeebled people insisted on taking up in 1813, the doom of Napoleon might not have been assured in the autumn and winter which we associate with the names of Ulm and Austerlitz? All this was possible, nay, probable, had Frederick William surveyed the situation with the sound judgement of Pitt. But the British statesman laboured under one great disadvantage. He could not offer to Prussia what she most wanted. He could do no more than promise to extend her western confines to Antwerp and Ostend; and she far preferred Hanover, as solidifying her straggling western lands, without bringing her near to France. Here was an almost insuperable obstacle; and we can imagine that, like his father, he cursed Britain's connection with Hanover. His chief hope was, that Prussia would discern her true interest in acquiring less by honourable means than very much from Napoleon, whose gifts were often perilous. Russia, too, at that time seemed to adopt the British view of the Hanoverian question; and in the early autumn that Power mustered her second army on the borders of Prussia in a highly threatening manner. Finally, the Czar declared that if his troops were refused a passage through Silesia, he would make his way by force, the Pitt Cabinet informing him that, in that case, the liberal subsidies intended for Prussia, would be added to those already on their way to St. Petersburg. But even threats failed to bring Frederick William to a decision; and Hardenberg announced that a forcible entry of the Russians would involve war with Prussia.[737]

While Frederick William fumed at the Muscovite threats, came news of the violation of his Anspach domain on 3rd October. At once he declared his intention to avenge the insult and to expel Duroc from Prussian territory. He also raised high the hopes of the Allies by allowing the Russians to enter Silesia, and by favouring Pitt's plan of a joint expedition of the Allies to Hanover with a view to the liberation of Holland; and when he ordered the mobilization of the whole Prussian army, there appeared good grounds for expecting the speedy accession of at least 150,000 troops trained in the school of Frederick the Great. Even Haugwitz now suggested that if war came England must give Prussia a subsidy.[738] The Anglophil party at Berlin raised its head in triumph at the approach of the Russian Emperor; and when on 28th October he entered Berlin with enthusiastic greetings from the populace, Europe seemed about to be leagued against Napoleon. Chivalry and prudence alike counselled such a union, for on the morrow arrived news of the annihilation of Mack's army. Nothing but prompt action could save Germany from the Napoleonic deluge.

The first rumours of the disaster at Ulm did not reach London until 2nd November. Lord Malmesbury was dining with Pitt and mentioned the report to him, whereupon the Prime Minister exclaimed in loud and angry tones, "Don't believe a word of it: it is all a fiction."[739] But on the morrow a Dutch newspaper was brought, and Malmesbury translated the account, which was so clear and detailed as to leave little room for doubt. Pitt's countenance changed. There came over him that look which his friends saw imprinted more deeply with every week of deepening gloom. For a brief space it passed away. On 6th November London heard the joyful yet painful news of Trafalgar. It reached Downing Street at 3 a.m. Pitt was so moved by conflicting emotions that he, the soundest of sleepers, could not find repose, but roused himself for work. The Stock Exchange registered the swift oscillations from confidence to doubt, for though all fear of the French and Spanish fleet was at an end, yet, as Nelson perished, national security seemed imperilled, and Consols sank.

The contrast between the victorious constancy of Britain and the wavering and hapless counsels of the Germanic States inspired Pitt with one of the most magnanimous utterances of that age. At the Lord Mayor's banquet on 9th November, that dignitary proposed his health as the Saviour of Europe. Pitt concentrated his reply into these two memorable sentences: "I return you many thanks for the honour you have done me; but Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example." In its terseness and strength, its truth and modesty, its patriotism and hopefulness, this utterance stands unrivalled. The effect must have been all the greater because Pitt then bore on his countenance signs of that anxious forethought in which now lay the chief hope of European independence.

Six days before the arrival of news of the Austrian disaster, Pitt had sought to expedite a union with Prussia. In view of the urgency of the case, he decided to send his trusted friend, the Earl of Harrowby, the Dudley Ryder of former days. Harrowby's great abilities have never met with due recognition, probably owing to the persistent ill health which impaired alike his equanimity and his power of work; but Wilberforce had good cause for commending Pitt's choice; and he added in a letter of 25th October that the capacity of Harrowby was rated far higher by foreigners than by Englishmen.[740] The instructions to the Earl, drafted by Lord Mulgrave on 27th October, reveal Pitt's resolve to go very far in order to buy the support of Prussia. They empowered Harrowby to offer her the Belgic provinces and such German lands as would connect them with the Westphalian domains of Prussia. The need of money for the immediate equipment of her army being also urgent, Harrowby was to offer a yearly subsidy of L12 10s. for each Prussian soldier actually serving against France, the hope being expressed that from 150,000 to 200,000 men would be forthcoming. At the same time Pitt explained that at the general peace Great Britain would restore all her acquisitions oversea, Malta and the Cape of Good Hope alone excepted. Harrowby was also charged to do all in his power to effect the liberation of North Germany and Holland by the Russo-Swedish force then mustering at Stralsund. Such were the plans of Pitt. Even in this brief outline, their magnanimity is apparent. In order to assure the freedom of the Continent, he was ready to pour forth the wealth of Britain, and to sacrifice all her conquests, except those two bulwarks of Empire, Malta and the Cape.[741] Already even before Nelson gained the mastery of the seas at Trafalgar, Baird's force had set sail for the reduction of the Cape. It achieved its purpose in the month in which Pitt died. It is not generally known that the foundation of our South African Empire was due primarily to his foresight. The war having originated in Napoleon's aggressions and his threats respecting Egypt and the Orient generally, Pitt resolved that England should thenceforth dominate both the sea route and the overland route to the East Indies.

Unfortunately, owing to the fogs on the River Elbe and other delays at Hamburg, Harrowby did not reach Berlin until the middle of November;[742] and a fortnight earlier (3rd November) the sovereigns of Russia and Prussia had framed the Treaty of Potsdam. Ostensibly, it bound Prussia to side with the Allies unless within four weeks Napoleon accepted her armed mediation, which she proposed to offer forthwith. She required from the French Emperor a full recognition of the independence of Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and Naples, which of course implied the withdrawal of French troops from those lands. Napoleon was also to grant to the dispossessed King of Sardinia the following indemnities—Genoa, Parma, and Piacenza; while Austria was to recover Central Venetia as far as the River Mincio. The Allies flattered themselves that Napoleon would at once reject these terms and throw Prussia into their arms. Such, too, was the conviction of Pitt. While regretting that France should keep Piedmont and find no barrier opposed to her in Holland,[743] he felt so convinced of Napoleon's refusal and of Prussia's good faith that he prepared to satisfy her demand for a British subsidy. Prussian troops were marching into Hanover, as if with the aim of ousting the French and restoring the authority of George III; and Hardenberg assured Harrowby in their first interview, on 16th November, that that force would protect the flank of the Anglo-Russian expedition then about to enter the Electorate.

On the surface, then, everything seemed to augur a brilliant success for Pitt's policy. As had happened before, the recklessness of Napoleon favoured the British cause; and it is probable that, if Frederick William had sent to the French headquarters any one but Count Haugwitz, Prussia would have drawn the sword. Napoleon was in great danger. True, he met with little opposition in his advance to Vienna and thence into Moravia. But the deeper he plunged into that province, the worse would be his position if 180,000 Prussians were launched at his flank and rear. The Court of Berlin was well aware that the destinies of Europe lay in its hands; and for once a fatal confidence possessed Frederick William. He and his advisers used the crisis, not in the magnanimous spirit which impelled Pitt to sacrifice nearly the whole of Britain's naval conquests, but in order to assure Prussia's gain even at the expense of the solidarity of the European League. The Coalition's extremity was Prussia's opportunity. Hanover was her price for joining it. Such was the purport of a secret article of the Treaty of Potsdam, to which the Czar had most reluctantly given his consent.

In order to bring the utmost possible pressure to bear upon the British Government, a special Russian envoy, Count d'Oubril, set out from Berlin to London, crossing Harrowby on the way. Oubril arrived in London on or about 16th November; and after a short delay Vorontzoff and he communicated to Pitt the document containing the ominous demand. The Russian ambassador noted that Pitt, despite long training in the concealment of his feelings, displayed some emotion on reading the fateful words. In truth, they dealt the second of the strokes which struck him to the heart. But, collecting himself with an effort, he informed Vorontzoff that, so great was the King's attachment to Hanover, the patrimony of his family for upwards of a thousand years, that no Minister would venture ever to name the proposal, as it might either kill him or drive him mad. All the arguments of Vorontzoff and Oubril on behalf of the Prusso-Russian demand utterly failed. Pitt expressed a desire to meet Prussia's wishes for a better western frontier, but never at the expense of Hanover.[744] Thus he deliberately faced a terrible diplomatic reverse rather than expose the King to a recurrence of his mental malady. A little later he recovered his equanimity; for on 19th November he informed Harrowby that, though Hanover was out of the question, yet he hoped to find an equivalent which would satisfy Prussia. The two Emperors could not in their present plight object to her gaining a large accession of territory. Moreover it would be an infinite disgrace to them now to make a separate peace with Napoleon.

Still [he added] even if this should happen, we have a strong interest that a separate peace should provide all the security that can be obtained for the Continent. If decent terms are obtained, particularly if France is obliged really to evacuate Holland and leave it in a state of independence, and if the three great Continental Powers after extorting concessions from France in the moment of victory, unite cordially in an obligation to resist all future encroachments, not only Europe will have gained much, but we shall have gained for the separate objects of this country more than enough to compensate for all the expense of subsidies in this year; and we may return to a state of separate war with little to guard against but the single point of Boulogne and with increased means of concentrating both our naval and land defence. The first object therefore of my wishes is, the immediate rejection of the mediation[745] and the embarking Prussia at any rate in active and decisive operations towards Germany and Holland, leaving it to be considered afterwards what territorial arrangements can be agreed upon to secure her permanent co-operation. The next would be, in the event of negotiation, our being included in it, on the terms of restoring all our conquests except Malta and the Cape—and the third (and tho' the worst not a bad one) as good a separate peace as possible for our perfidious Allies, leaving us to fight our battle for ourselves....[746]

Pitt's indignation against Prussia did not lead him to fling a refusal at her. On the contrary, he sought to postpone that announcement until the expiration of the four weeks, within which she must make her decision to side with or against Napoleon. Such was the purport of his letter of 23rd November to Harrowby. He also announced an increase in the numbers of the British force destined to serve in Hanover. This expedition under General Don was now being pushed on with great zeal. It met with disapproval from Canning, who with much sagacity pointed out, on 29th November, that if the war were continued the gain of a month or two was a trifling object; whereas, if the Allies ended the war, France would certainly offer Hanover to Prussia.[747] The dash of pessimism in Canning's nature enabled him to discern difficulties and dangers which were hidden from Pitt's ever hopeful vision. Mulgrave seems to have shared Pitt's view; for he signed all the despatches relating to the Hanoverian expedition. On 23rd November he informed Harrowby that, early in the year 1806, as many as 70,000 British and Hanoverian troops would be ready for service, either in Hanover or wherever they could be employed to most effect. He therefore expected that by that time the Allies would have nearly 300,000 men in North Germany; and, as the resources of Austria were not depleted by the disaster at Ulm, she and Russia ought then to have nearly half a million of men on foot.[748]

* * * * *

Pitt's eagerness to receive news from Harrowby appears in the closing phrases of his letter of 29th November to that envoy: "We are counting moments till we hear in what state you found things on your arrival [at Berlin], and what has been Haugwitz's reception at the French headquarters." Again, on 5th December, he sent off to him a letter, which as being the last of any importance written by him at Downing Street, must be given in full:

Downing St. Dec. 5th, 1805.

DEAR HARROWBY,

I am grieved to hear by your letter of the 24th that you had been so much persecuted by headaches, and that you had allowed the secret article of Potsdam [sic] to give you so much uneasiness. You must I am sure be satisfied that the way in which you have treated it is the best possible, because it gives no hopes of the thing being consented to, and at the same time avoids the necessity of any formal and official negative. The great object I think is that Prussia should if possible, decide on the result of Ct Haugwitz's mission, without giving to the evil councillors of the King of Prussia the advantage of stating to him that this object is precluded for ever. At the same time we cannot in good faith give the least assurance that it is likely to be ever attainable. Woronzow [Vorontzoff] who has been in town for ten days but is gone again, writes to Alopeus that he has received from him the memoire raisonne on the exchange of Hanover, but cannot present it to us till he has orders to do so from his own Court. We are therefore supposed to know nothing more of the matter.

On the whole state of things, you will perhaps be angry with me for saying that my hopes are still sanguine. I think I see great chance of Prussia agreeing to co-operate either for a definite object or a limited time, in return for subsidies and for our assurance (which you know to be a very sincere one) of wishing to procure for them important acquisitions. The question of Hanover may I think be left aloof. As to plans of operations, it is almost idle to say anything. But you will have seen that we think the first and essential point is to act (as Prussia seems to intend) with a force sure of success in the rear of the French Army in Germany. Still I cannot conceive what can be the military reasons why an attack on Holland should not take place at the same time, or at least should not be prepared so as to be put into execution whenever the effect of any great success of the Allies, or a frost, or an appearance of good disposition in the country, should afford a favourable opening for such an enterprise, the advantages of which in its impression and consequences I need not state to you. We have finally decided with a view to this chance and for the sake of shewing at any rate our readiness to co-operate, to send the 12,000 men which have been prepared, to Embden [sic], and if this wind continues, I hope they will sail within three days. Endeavour to make Prussia send under General Kalkreuth (or whoever may be the general they destine for that quarter) not merely 10,000 men, but enough to make such an army as can scarce be resisted. Our force with the Russians (exclusive of the Swedes and after allowing for something to watch Hameln[749]) will be near 40,000 men. It surely cannot be difficult for Prussia to add 30,000 to that number within a very few weeks on increased subsidies beyond the number they now propose, and that without at all impairing the effort against Bonaparte's army. As to your stay at Berlin I can only say that if your health will permit, everything that we value most may depend on your remaining till you have seen the leading points of the negociation fairly through. As to details with Saxony and Hesse, they cannot be worth your waiting for, if they require any time, which, however, supposing you once to settle with Prussia, they cannot. The important moment seems to be that when the issue of Haugwitz's negociation shall have been known in Berlin and time given to communicate with Austria and Russia on the result. Under these circumstances it will I am afraid hardly be as pleasant to you as it is to me to know that Parliament will not meet till the 21st of Jany [1806] and that you have not on that account any reason for your immediate return. If, however, (as I most earnestly hope will not be the case) you should really find the fatigue and anxiety too much for you, it is certainly among the things that we value most, that you should return, having suffered as little as possible. A frigate will be sent to wait your orders at the Elbe, but I hope you will have no occasion to use it, till after you have signed a provisional treaty, and seen the Prussians on their march against the enemy.

Ever most sincerely yours, W. P.

Three days before Pitt poured forth this sanguine forecast, Napoleon struck the Coalition to the heart. As "the sun of Austerlitz" set, the two Emperors were in flight eastwards, while their armies streamed after them in hopeless rout, or struggled through the funnel of death between the two lakes (2nd December). Marbot's story of thousands of Russians sinking majestically under the ice is a piece of melodrama. But the reality was such as to stun the survivors. In his dazed condition the Emperor Francis forthwith sent proposals for a truce. It proved to be the precursor of the armistice of 6th December, which involved the departure of the Russian army and the exclusion of that of Prussia from Austrian territories. In the calculating balance maintained at Berlin, this diplomatic surrender proved to be a greater calamity than the military disaster. True, the news of the battle caused consternation; but for the present Frederick William held firm and on 8th December ordered part of the Prussian army (now 192,000 strong) to enter Bohemia for the succour of the Allies.[750] Not until after the 13th, after the arrival of news of the armistice, did he seek to evade his obligations to Russia; and, obviously, a new situation arose when Alexander gave up the campaign, and Francis promised to bar out the Prussians. Hardenberg sought to hide from Harrowby this change of front, hinting, however, that Prussia might have to consult her own interests. In the light of the events of 1795, that phrase was clear enough; and Harrowby forthwith sent orders to General Don to countermand the advance of his troops towards Hanover.[751]

To complete this chapter of misfortunes, Harrowby's health broke down. On discovering the truth about Prussia's secret demand for Hanover, he fell into the depths of despair and nervous prostration, as appears from the postscript of his letter of 24th November to Pitt:

This horrible secret article has finished me. It stood with its mouth open, and from mere cowardice I have run into it, and it will devour me. I am persuaded, however, that it would equally have caught me if I had run away. There is something, however, in every view of it which agonises me. I am anxious beyond imagination to know what passes in England upon it and conclude I shall by the next newspaper. Would it be impossible to prevail upon the King to listen to the idea of a sort of Barrier-treaty for Hanover, which would give Prussia a military frontier but not the territorial possession?[752]

On 8th December, after hearing the first news of Austerlitz, he writes in equally dolorous strains, concluding with a request that Pitt would send a frigate to the mouth of the Elbe to bring away his coffin. Again he writes in these pathetic terms:

Most secret. Berlin, 12 Dec. 1805.[753]

DEAR PITT,

The current of events has been so rapid, and the embarrassments they produce from every quarter is [sic] so intolerable, that, weakened as my brain has been by nervous spasms of giddiness, I hardly keep my senses. Cool judgment is required; and I can only take steps in a state of agitation—repent; and there is something more to be repented of. I shall not long stand it; but, in the meantime, what mischief may not have happened! The sacrifice of myself is nothing. All is over with me even if I survive. I am tolerably at intervals, but every fresh occurrence brings with it distraction. I tremble at the consequences. You can conceive no state of mind, or rather of mind and body operating upon each other; you cannot even pity it; you can only despise it. Good God. If it be possible, do not betray me. I may recover. I try to disguise my feelings. I write to my wife with affected cheerfulness. She would not survive. For heaven's sake, keep this to yourself.

Yours ever, HARROWBY.

To what mistake Harrowby here alludes is a mystery. But George Jackson states that he had three fits at Berlin, besides spasms every day. Indeed his state was so pitiable that his selection for this difficult post was matter of general comment. The physicians strongly urged him to return to England at once.[754] Pitt cannot have received Harrowby's pathetic confession when he replied as follows, probably to the letter of the 8th:

Bath, Dec. 21st, 1805.[755]

DEAR HARROWBY,

I was prevented from writing a few lines as I intended by the messenger we sent from hence yesterday. We are sending orders for another today to pass through Berlin on his way to the Emperor's head-quarters, to remind them of sending the ratification which we have never yet received. We have nothing very authentic from the armies later than your despatch of the 9th by estafette, but there are accounts thro' Hamburg from Berlin of the 10th, corroborated by reports from various quarters, which lead us to hope that the sequel of the battle at length terminated in great success on the part of Russia. If this proves true, I flatter myself your subsidiary treaty will have been soon brought to a prosperous issue, and you will be delivered from all your fatigue and anxiety. I am quite grieved to think how much you have suffered, tho' I trust your complaint is only temporary, and that a good battle and a good treaty will send you back to us in better health than you went. I see no danger of your exceeding our limit in the amount of subsidy, as we looked if necessary to an actual annual payment of L3,000,000, and the number proposed in the treaty, of 180,000 Prussians and 40,000 Allies, will not require more than L2,750,000, which still leaves room for 25,000 men more if they are wanted and can be had. I have been here for ten days and have already felt the effect of the waters in a pretty smart fit of the gout from which I am just recovering, and of which I expect soon to perceive the benefit.

Ever yours, W. PITT.

I need hardly tell you that every step you have taken has been exactly what we should have desired.

He who wrote these cheering words was in worse health than Harrowby. The latter lived on till the year 1847; Pitt had now taken his last journey but one. Sharp attacks of gout had reduced him to so weak and tremulous a state that he could scarcely lift a glass to his lips. So wrote Mrs. Jackson on 9th December, long before the news of Austerlitz reached these shores.[756] So far back as 27th November, Canning, in prophetic strains, begged him not to defer a projected visit to Bath until it was too late for the waters to do him good. But "the pilot that weathered the storm" refused to leave the tiller in case decisive news came from Harrowby. He also prepared to strengthen his Cabinet against the attacks certain to be made in the ensuing session, by including in it two excellent speakers, Canning and Charles Yorke, the latter taking the Board of Control. Why he did not complete these changes, as Canning begged him to do, is far from clear. Possibly the sharp though friendly criticism which Canning levelled against the Anglo-Russian expedition to Hanover made him apprehensive of divisions in the Cabinet on a question which was very near his heart. Certainly much could be said in favour of an expedition to Walcheren, which Canning urged should be entrusted to General M[oore?]. Pitt preferred the Hanoverian enterprise, doubtless because it would lay Russia and Prussia under a debt of honour to co-operate to the utmost of their power.

At last the strain became too great, and on 7th December Pitt set out for Bath, arriving there on the 11th. He resided at Harrowby's house, 11, Laura Place. His stay in Bath aroused interest so intense that he found it necessary to vary the time of his visits to the Pump Room in order to escape the crowd which would otherwise have incommoded him.[757] As has just appeared, he expected a speedy recovery; for, as was the case with his father, if the attack of gout ran a normal course, the system felt relief. Freedom from worry was the first condition of amendment. After his retirement from office in 1768 Chatham recovered so quickly that his opponents gibed at the illness as a political device.[758] Ten years later he succumbed to excitement and strain.

During the first part of his stay at Bath, Pitt was in good spirits and wrote cheerfully about his health. The following letter to his London physician, Sir Walter Farquhar, is not that of a man who feels death approaching:

Bath, Dec. 15. 1805.[759]

The gout continues pretty smartly in my foot; and I find from Mr. Crooks that it is attended with a feverish pulse and some other symptoms of the same nature. I have communicated to Mr. Crooks your directions, and he is to send me the saline draughts with some little addition, which he will explain to you. I thought he would detail symptoms more precisely than I could, and have therefore desired him to write to you. On the whole, I have no doubt the plan you have laid down will answer, and I do not at present see the smallest occasion to accept your kind and friendly offer of coming here.

P.S. 4.30 P.M. I enclose Mr. Crooks' letter to you. His account to me of the pulse was that it was not strong, but quick and beating near an hundred. One of the saline draughts which I have taken since I wrote the foregoing letter, seems, as far as I can judge from feeling, already to have had a very good effect.

Not until ten days later do we find signs of alarm in the letters of his friends; for it is characteristic of his buoyant nature that he never wrote despondingly about himself. There is a well-known story to the effect that, on hearing the news of Austerlitz, he called for a map of Europe, to see where the place was, and then said with a sigh: "Roll up that map: it will not be wanted these ten years." One version assigns the incident to Shockerwick House, near Bath. Pitt is looking over the picture gallery, and is gazing at Gainsborough's portrait of the actor Quin. His retentive memory calls up the lines in Churchill's "Characters":

Nature, in spite of all his skill, crept in— Horatio, Dorax, Falstaff—still 'twas Quin.

At that moment he hears the beat of a horse's hoofs. A courier dashes up. He comes in, splashed with mud, hands the despatches. Pitt tears them open and hurriedly reads them. His countenance changes, he calls for brandy, then for a map, and is finally helped to his carriage, uttering the historic phrase.[760] In another version he mournfully rolls out the words to Lady Hester Stanhope, as she welcomes him in the hall of Bowling Green House, after his last journey to his home on Putney Heath.[761] The words probably fell from him on some occasion. But at the risk of incurring the charge of pedantry, I must point out that the news of Austerlitz did not come on him as one overwhelming shock: it filtered through by degrees. As we have seen, he wrote to Harrowby on 21st December, stating that reports from Berlin and other quarters represented the sequel to the battle as a great success for the Russians. It appears that Thornton, our envoy at Hamburg, wrote as follows on 13th December to Mulgrave: "From everything I can learn (for the details are even yet far from being circumstantial and decisive) the tide of success had completely turned in favour of the Russian and Austrian armies, tho', as the conflict still continued to the 4th and perhaps to the 5th, it could not be positively said on which side the victory had been declared. The certain intelligence cannot now be long delayed."[762]

Castlereagh also, writing to Pitt on 19th December, assured him that he had heard similar news through various channels, and therefore cherished high hopes that something good had happened.[763] Mulgrave, who was then also at Bath along with Bathurst, Hawkesbury, and Canning, shared these hopes. Despite the first reports of Austerlitz, which were promptly contradicted, the Ministerial circle at Bath had no want of diversion. On 12th December Mulgrave sent to Pitt a short poem on Trafalgar for his correction, and Pitt touched up a few lines. On 21st December Mulgrave wrote to him: "I send you Woronzow [Vorontzoff] and Ward, faute de mieux. I was rejoiced to find you were gone out in your carriage when I called at your home after church. As Bathurst, Canning, and the gout have left you, I hope you will be able to return to the mess to-morrow." This does not imply that Pitt was living the life of an invalid, or was kept to so strict a diet as during his sojourn at Bath three years before.

Equally hopeful was the estimate of Canning. He spent a week with Pitt at Bath, and, after leaving him shortly before Christmas, informed a friend that Pitt was "recovering from a fit of the gout, which has done him abundance of good, and puts off the time of his driving after old Frere—I trust to an incalculable distance.... There wants only an official confirmation of all the good news (that has reached us through every possible channel except those of Office) to complete it."[764]

Canning, we may note here, had discussed with Pitt his projected poem—"Ulm and Trafalgar" (which bore the motto "Look here, upon this picture, and on that"). It began:

While Austria's yielded armies, vainly brave, Moved, in sad pomp, by Danube's blood-stained wave

and ended with a noble acclaim to Nelson:

Thou, bravest, gentlest Spirit, fare thee well.

On the first line Canning plumed himself until he remembered the warning of an old tutor at Magdalen, that when anything in your verses pleased you very much, it was best to strike it out. Canning referred the phrase "yielded armies" to Pitt, who probably found relief from his cares in touching up the poem.[765] That Christmastide, then, was a time of anxiety, but not of settled gloom. There is no sign that Pitt or his colleagues felt the position to be desperate until the end of the year. On Christmas Day Castlereagh wrote from Downing Street to Pitt: "I am sorry to add to your materials for criticism and speculation. I send you Cooke's 'Courant,' There is intelligence in the City from Amsterdam of the 21st. Nothing official known here of an armistice. You have received from Lord B[arham?] every information from that quarter."[766]

Indeed, the hopefulness of Ministers now involved them in greater difficulties. Building on Prussia's promises, they decided early in December to order the despatch of strong reinforcements to the British corps then on the point of entering Hanover.[767] In all, as many as 65,000 British and King's Germans were to be sent—the largest force that had ever set sail from these shores, a fact which testifies to the ardour of Pitt's desires for the liberation of Hanover and Holland. Even the immediate results of this decision were disastrous. Sixty-seven transports, forthwith setting sail, encountered a terrible storm, which flung three of them on the enemy's coast, while one sank with all hands on the Goodwins. Such was the purport of the news sent by Castlereagh to Pitt at Bath on 19th December. He added that, in spite of these losses, "the little Cabinet of five" (with Lord Barham in attendance) decided to order all the remaining transports to sail, so that Prussia might be encouraged to "throw her strength to the southward. We have acted for the best, and I hope you and your companions will approve."[768] Pitt, of course, did approve, not knowing that while England was encountering heavy risks in order to effect the liberation of North Germany, her Allies had come to terms with Napoleon.

At last, on 29th December, definite news concerning the armistice of 4th December reached London. It must have chilled the hearts of the boldest. For, trusting in the continued exertions of the Allies, England had sent to North Germany as many as 257 transports, and of these 8 were now known to be lost, involving the death of 664 men, and the capture of about 1,000 on the enemies' coasts. All this effort and loss of life now appeared to be useless, in view of the vacillating conduct of Prussia. Only with her good will could the British troops, with the Russian and Swedish contingents, hope to conquer Holland. If she declared against us, the whole force would be in jeopardy. Such were the tidings which Castlereagh bore with him to Pitt at the end of the year.[769] Not a line survives respecting that mournful interview; but we can picture the deathly look coming over Pitt's emaciated features as he now for the first time faced the prospect of the dissolution of the mighty league which he had toiled to construct. Probably it was this shock to the system which brought on a second attack of the gout, accompanied with great weakness and distaste for food.[770]

Nevertheless he clung to the hope that Prussia would stand firm. On 3rd January 1806 further news reached him from the Austrian and Prussian Governments. The Austrian despatches represented Austerlitz as a repulse, but not a disaster, and the armistice as a device for enabling Prussia to prepare her blow at Napoleon's flank or rear. On 5th January Mulgrave found in the despatches from Berlin grounds for believing that that Court might under certain conditions assist the two Emperors in Moravia and the British force in Hanover. On the morrow he wrote to Pitt in emphatic terms, urging him to offer to Prussia the Dutch Republic. That little State (he urged) could not again be independent, save in circumstances now scarcely imaginable, much less realizable. Further, the Stadholder having very tamely accepted the domain of Fulda as an indemnity, we need feel no qualms for the House of Nassau; and, as Prussia was influenced solely by territorial greed, and Hanover was out of the question, she might well acquire the Dutch Netherlands, which would link her to British interests.[771] Again we have to admit ignorance of Pitt's opinion on this degrading proposal. Certainly it never took definite shape.[772] Though willing to assign to Prussia the Belgic Netherlands, he laid great stress on the independence of the Dutch Netherlands, which indeed was the corner-stone of his foreign policy. Moreover, to barter away an unoffending little State was to repeat the international crimes of the partitions of Poland and Venetia. We may be sure that that proud and just spirit would rather have perished than stoop to such ignominy.

In effect, he fell a victim to his resolve never to barter away the patrimony of George III. We now know that Prussia's policy at this crisis turned mainly on the acquisition of Hanover. Her envoy, Haugwitz, whom she sent to Napoleon's headquarters charged with the offer of Prussia's armed mediation on behalf of Europe, had on 15th December signed with him the humiliating Convention of Schoenbrunn, whereby Prussia agreed to make certain cessions of territory on condition of acquiring Hanover. About Christmastide Frederick William decided to close with this offer, which involved the expulsion of the Anglo-Russian force from the Electorate. Premonitory signs of this change of front were soon visible at Berlin. Indeed, the trend of Prussian policy during the last decade prepared the British Ministry for the ruin of their hopes. Pitt must have been racked with anxiety lest Prussia should doff the lion's skin and don that of the jackal; for he alone knew of the nervous breakdown of Harrowby.

Perhaps it was the hope of helping on that negotiation from Downing Street, added to the verdict of Sir Walter Farquhar that the Bath waters were now of no avail, which induced him on 9th January to set out on his homeward journey. He was believed to be in better health than at the time of his arrival; such at least was the announcement of the "Bath Herald" on the 11th; and his hopeful outlook appears in a curious detail which afterwards came to light. In order to beguile the tedium of the journey he had taken out from a circulating library in Bath the following works, each in two volumes, "The Secret History of the Court of Petersburg," and Schiller's "History of the Thirty Years' War."[773] A man who believes death to be near does not undertake a study of the manifold intrigues of Catharine II, or of the Thirty Years' War. He also had the prospect of seeing the liveliest and most devoted of friends, Canning, at his country home, South Hill, Bracknell, in Windsor Forest. Canning sent the invitation on the 5th, and it was accepted on the 8th in terms which implied a sojourn of some days. He offered to accompany him from Bath, if he felt strong enough to converse on the way; but Pitt declined this offer, and it is doubtful whether he stayed at South Hill; for Malmesbury declares that he had to remain a long time in bed at Reading. On the other hand the Bishop of Lincoln declared that the journey took only two days, and that at its close Pitt showed no very marked signs of fatigue. Lady Hester Stanhope, however, was shocked by his wasted appearance on reaching his home, Bowling Green House, on Putney Heath.

Some eighteen months earlier he had leased that residence. It stands on the (old) Portsmouth Road, and had earlier been an inn frequented by lovers of that game and patrons of cockfighting. After enlargement it had been converted into a gentleman's abode which well suited the modest requirements of Pitt and of his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope.[774] There, not far from the scenes of his youthful frolics with Wilberforce, and only a quarter of a mile from the dell where he fought the duel with Tierney, he found solace from the ever-increasing cares of state. In those last months Hester felt for him feelings akin to adoration.



On the morrow, Sunday, their circle was enlarged by the arrival of his old friend and counsellor, Bishop Tomline, who was shocked at the change which had taken place in him since he left for Bath. The physicians, Farquhar, Reynolds, and Baillie, however, saw no cause for alarm, the only disquieting symptoms being intense weakness and dislike of animal food. There is a forcibly significant phrase in a recent letter of George Rose to Tomline, that he dreaded the effect on the invalid of an excessive use of medicines.[775] Evidently Rose believed the digestive organs to be impaired by this habit. Pitt's daily potations of port wine for many years past must further have told against recovery. Whether Farquhar and his colleagues cut off medicine and sought to build up that emaciated frame is uncertain. All that we know is that they prescribed complete quiet, and therefore requested the bishop to open all Pitt's letters so as to preclude all chance of excitement.

On 12th January, Pitt wrote an affectionate letter to the Marquis Wellesley, welcoming him on his return from his memorable Vice-royalty in India. He begged him to come to Bowling Green House at the earliest opportunity. The letter closes with these remarkable words: "I am recovering rather slowly from a series of stomach complaints, followed by severe attacks of gout, but I believe I am now in the way of real amendment."[776] The Bishop also describes him as gaining ground until Monday the 13th. On that day he went out in his coach in the morning, but in the evening Lords Castlereagh and Hawkesbury, having obtained permission from the physicians to interview their chief, communicated news which had a most agitating effect. Pitt afterwards assured the Bishop "that he felt during that conversation some sensation in his stomach which he feared it might be difficult to remove."[777] It is surprising that the physicians allowed an interview of an agitating nature; but the ministerial pressure brought to bear on them may have overborne their better judgement. In matters of Cabinet discipline Pitt was an autocrat, insisting that no important action should be taken without his cognizance. Probably, then, it was his own sense of responsibility which exposed him to the death blow.

Certainly the question at issue was of the gravest kind. Should Ministers order the return of the British reinforcements last sent to Hanover? That expedition was the work of Pitt. He it was who had reared the fabric of a European Coalition; and, even after the withdrawal of Austria, he clung to the hope that Prussia would take her place, and, with the help of British, Prussian, Russian, and Swedish troops, drive the French from North Germany and the Dutch Republic. How could his colleagues order back a large part of the British force, thereby justifying the vacillations of Prussia and ensuring a parliamentary triumph to Fox and Grenville? And yet Ministers knew, better than Pitt could know, the danger of relying on the Court of Berlin. Though not yet fully aware of its resolve to take Napoleon's side, they had strong reasons for expecting this course of action; and in that case the British expedition would be in grave danger between the Prussians on the east, the Franco-Dutch forces on the south-west and the ice-floes which were forming on the River Weser. Prudence counselled the timely return of our troops who were yet on board ship at or near Bremen.[778] Patriotic pride prompted a bold offensive. But the King and Pitt alone could utter the decisive words. The King approved the return of the last reinforcements, and Pitt, it seems, must have conceded the point. But the concession struck him to the heart. It was the last of the deadly stabs which fate dealt him thick and fast in his time of weakness.

Nevertheless, on the morrow he drove out in his carriage, but was visibly weaker than before the interview. For a few minutes he saw his brother and then Lord Wellesley. The latter found his mind as clear as ever; and he uttered these remarkable words about Sir Arthur Wellesley: "He states every difficulty before he undertakes any service, but none after he has undertaken it." What a prophecy of Vittoria and Waterloo there is in these words—the swan-song of Pitt. It was too much for him. He fainted before Wellesley left the room. On the 18th he rallied for a time, and the doctors saw a gleam of hope.[779]

In reality there was only one faint chance of recovery, that good news might arrive. The chief cause of physical collapse was the torture of the brain; and it was possible that the whole system might even now rally under the vitalizing thrills of hope. But as day by day passed by and brought nearer that dreaded occasion, the opening of Parliament on 22nd January, this last chance vanished. The news which reached the Foreign Office became more and more gloomy. On 10th January Mulgrave decided, when recalling Harrowby, to entrust his mission at Berlin to the Earl of Harrington, in the hope that that Court would keep troth.[780] But all negotiation was useless. By the 19th the conduct of Prussia respecting Hanover appeared so threatening that Ministers ordered the immediate recall of the whole British force.[781] Thus, England had sent forth some 60,000 troops in order to bring them back again. She had paid a million sterling to Austria, and the results were Ulm and Austerlitz. Nearly as much had gone to Russia, and the outcome was the armistice. A British subsidy had been claimed by Prussia, and in return she was about to take Hanover as a gift from Napoleon. It is to be hoped that Ministers kept the last bitter truth from Pitt; but from their silence he must have augured the worst. Surely death itself was better than to be driven from power by the combined attacks of Fox, Grenville, and Windham, the success of which was now assured.

A touching instance of Pitt's thoughtfulness during these days of waning strength is recorded by Robert Plumer Ward. He had accepted office as Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs; but, in the event of the overthrow of the Ministry, he would be in a far worse position than before. Pitt remembered this fact, and whispered to Farquhar the words "Robert Ward." He also made signs for paper and ink and sought to pen a request for a pension; but he succeeded only in tracing strokes which could not be deciphered.[782] His thoughts were also with his nieces, especially Lady Hester Stanhope. Farquhar sought to prevent a parting interview with her; but during his temporary absence she slipped into the bedroom, there to receive the blessing of her uncle and an affectionate farewell. To her brother James, who then came in, he said; "Dear soul, I know she loves me. Where is Hester? Is Hester gone?" Early on the 22nd he dictated these words to the bishop: "I wish L1,000 or L1,500 a year to be given to my nieces if the public should think my long services deserving it; but I do not presume to think I have earned it."[783] He then named those to whom since 1801 he owed sums of money: Long, Steele, Lords Camden and Carrington, the Bishop of Lincoln and Joseph Smith; he also entrusted his papers to the bishop and to Lord Chatham.

Already Bishop Tomline had warned him of his approaching change and besought him to prepare his mind for the Sacrament. This he declined, alleging his unworthiness to receive it. Thereupon the bishop prayed with him. He calmly murmured the responses and humbly confessed that he had too much neglected prayer. Nevertheless, he affirmed the steadiness of his religious faith and principles, and declared that he had ever sought to fulfil his duty to God and to mankind, though with many errors and failures. While the bishop was overcome with emotion, the dying man thanked him earnestly for all his kindness throughout life. Once his thoughts recurred to his own conduct; he expressed heartfelt satisfaction at the innocency of his life, and declared that he died in perfect charity with all mankind.[784]

He lingered on to the early hours of 23rd January, the twenty-fifth anniversary of his entry into Parliament. During that night the cares of state once more pressed upon him. He spoke often about a private letter from Lord Harrowby, probably the pathetic effusion quoted above. At times he asked his nephew the direction of the wind, and on hearing it was in the east he murmured: "East—ah that will do: that will bring him quick."[785] Then he fell into conversation with a messenger, or, again, he murmured "Hear, hear," until sleep enfolded him. The last thoughts of Napoleon are said to have centred in his early love and his army—"Josephine:—Tete d'armee" he gasped as he neared his end. In Pitt's being there was but one master passion; and to it his wandering fancies returned during a last brief spell of consciousness. As James Stanhope listened to the breathing, there fell on his ears with a strange clearness the words: "My country! How I leave my country!" Then the sufferer fell once more into a deep sleep; and so he lay, until, some three hours before the dawn, his spirit passed away in a long-drawn sigh.

FOOTNOTES:

[735] G. Jackson ("Diaries," i, 270) gives a supposed instance of her interference in favour of Haugwitz.

[736] Ibid., i, 301, 305, 314-9.

[737] Metternich, "Mems.," i, 57 (Eng. ed.); Hardenberg, "Mems.," ii, 220-4.

[738] Hardenberg, "Mems.," ii, 292-300.

[739] "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 340.

[740] Pretyman MSS.; "Life of Wilberforce," iii, 412.

[741] Rose, "Third Coalition," 208-20. In "F. O.," Russia, 59, is a ciphered despatch of 25th October 1805 that, if circumstances favoured, a second British expedition (i.e., besides that destined for Hanover) would be made ready to seize Walcheren.

[742] Pitt MSS., 142.

[743] See Hansing, "Hardenberg und die dritte Coalition" (Appendix), for a comparison of these terms with those of the Anglo-Russian treaty of 11th April 1805.

[744] Czartoryski, "Mems.," ii, ch. ix. The editor wrongly gives the date of Vorontzoff's letter as 17/29 September 1805, though it contains references to Ulm and Trafalgar. It is of 18th-21st November. "F. O.," Prussia, 70. Mulgrave to Harrowby, 23rd November.

[745] I.e., the Prussian mediation by Napoleon.

[746] Harrowby MSS.

[747] See "Pitt and Napoleon Miscellanies" for the letter in full.

[748] Rose, "Third Coalition," 230-5.

[749] The French held the fortress of Hameln.

[750] Rose, "Third Coalition," 259.

[751] Ibid., 260, 261.

[752] Pitt MSS., 142.

[753] Pretyman MSS.

[754] G. Jackson, "Diaries," i, 377, 381, 384. Harrowby left Berlin on 7th or 8th January 1806 (ibid., 390).

[755] Harrowby MSS.

[756] G. Jackson, "Diaries," i, 381.

[757] Peach, "Historic Houses of Bath." The "Bath Herald" of 11th January 1806 has an ode containing the lines:

Oh prepare, prepare The renovating draught! He comes by stealth (For so unconscious worth is ever seen) With thoughts uplifted but retiring mien.

[758] Ruville, "Chatham," iii, 246.

[759] Chevening MSS.

[760] Thomas Hardy ("The Dynasts," i, Act vi, sc. 7) places the incident in the week after Austerlitz. The date is impossible.

[761] Stanhope, iv, 369.

[762] Pitt MSS., 337.

[763] Ibid., 121. See, too, in his letter of 23rd December ("Castlereagh Corresp.," vi, 92).

[764] J. Bagot, "Canning and his Friends," i, 227. The statement about the gout corrects Malmesbury ("Diaries," iv, 343) that the attack of gout left Pitt far weaker and with digestion impaired. Malmesbury was not at Bath. Frere's father had lately died.

[765] Bagot, "Canning, etc.," 415-9; H. Newbolt, "Year of Trafalgar," 190-3.

[766] Pitt MSS., 121.

[767] "Castlereagh Corresp.," vi, 70-85.

[768] Pitt MSS., 121.

[769] "Castlereagh Corresp.," vi, 100; "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 344.

[770] Gifford, "Life of Pitt," vi, 802; Lord Rosebery, "Tomline's Estimate of Pitt" (1903), p. 16.

[771] Pitt MSS., 142.

[772] In the "Hardenberg Memoirs" (ii, 353) it is stated that Harrowby offered Holland to Prussia. Every despatch that I have read runs counter to this assertion. If Harrowby made the offer, it was in sheer desperation and on his own authority; but he nowhere mentions it.

[773] Chevening MSS.; "Notes and Queries," 12th November 1864. Mr. John Upham of Bath on 10th March 1806 sent these particulars to Lord Chatham. Gifford ("Life of Pitt," vi, 803) wrongly states that the journey took four days.

[774] The house has been very little altered since 1806, and not at all on the side shown in the accompanying sketch, which, by kind permission of Mr. and Mrs. Doulton, was done by my daughter. The room over the veranda is that in which Pitt died.

[775] Pretyman MSS.

[776] Stanhope, iv, 374.

[777] Pretyman MSS.

[778] "Castlereagh Corresp.," vi, 103-112, 119.

[779] Stanhope, iv, 375; "Malmesbury Diaries," iv, 346; "Dropmore P.," vii, 327

[780] "F. O.," Austria, 77. Mulgrave to Harrington, 10th January 1806.

[781] "Castlereagh Corresp.," vi, 126.

[782] R. P. Ward, "Memoirs," i, 176.

[783] Pretyman MSS.

[784] Lord Rosebery, "Tomline's Estimate of Pitt," 18; "Dropmore P.," vii, 330.

[785] Stanhope, iv, 381.



EPILOGUE

Now is the stately column broke The beacon-light is quench'd in smoke, The trumpet's silver sound is still The warder silent on the hill. SCOTT, Marmion.

This noble epitaph to the memory of Pitt conveys an impression alike of heroic endeavour and of irretrievable failure. It is the Funeral March of Chopin, not of Handel, and it echoes the feeling of the time. An impenetrable darkness hung over England. Ulm, Austerlitz, the armistice, and the desertion of the Allies by Prussia were successive waves of calamity, which obliterated all landmarks and all means of safety. The dying words of Pitt found response in every breast, with this difference, that, while he was proudly conscious of the correctness of his aims, the many, who judge solely by tangible results, imputed to him the disasters of the war and the collapse of the Coalition. Even Auckland exclaimed that the continental alliances had been wretchedly mismanaged, a remark which Malmesbury treated with quiet contempt. Grenville, who was about to move a vote of censure on the Ministry, burst into an agony of tears on hearing that Pitt was at death's door. His distress of mind probably arose from a belated perception of the factiousness of his own conduct and from grief at the unrelieved gloom of the end of a career whose meridian splendour had shed lustre upon him.

The House of Commons did not whole-heartedly accord to the deceased statesman a burial in Westminster Abbey in the tomb of Chatham. A motion to that effect, moved by Lascelles and seconded by the Marquis of Titchfield, was strongly opposed by Fox, George Ponsonby, Windham, and three other speakers. It passed by 258 votes to 59. Still more painful was the discussion in the Common Council of the City of London, where a proposal to erect a monument to Pitt was carried only by 77 votes to 71. It is safe to say that, if the fortune of war had gone against France at Ulm and Austerlitz, Pitt would have been ecstatically hailed as the saviour of Europe, as indeed he was at the Guildhall after Trafalgar. How long was it before it dawned on Auckland, Windham, and the seventy-one councillors of the City of London, that the censures cast on the memory of Pitt ought to have been levelled at the defender of Ulm, the Czar Alexander and his equally presumptuous advisers at Austerlitz, and most of all at the cringing politicians of Berlin?

It is now abundantly clear that Pitt fell a victim to his confidence in the rulers of three great monarchies, whose means were vast, whose promises were lofty, and whose surrender after the first reverses baffled all forecasts. The descendants of Maria Theresa and Catharine tamely retired from the fray after a single adverse blow; and the successor of the great Frederick sheathed his sword after the unpardonable insult at Anspach.

In truth, the career of Pitt came to a climax at a time of unexampled decadence of the ancient dynasties. The destinies of the allied Houses of Bourbon rested upon Louis XVI of France and Charles IV of Spain. To the ineptitude of the former the French Revolution was in large measure due. To the weakness and falsity of the latter we may ascribe the desertion of the royalist cause by Spain in 1795-6, with the train of disastrous results in the Mediterranean and the West Indies. In Central Europe Francis of Austria was scarcely more than a tool in the hands of those subtle schemers, Thugut and Cobenzl. The boundless resources of Russia were at the disposal of Paul and Alexander, who, with all their generous impulses, were incapable of steadily applying them to one definite end. Only after weary years of subservience to Napoleon did Alexander develop that firmness of character which finally brought salvation to the Continent. From Frederick William even deeper humiliations failed to evoke any heroic resolve. Among the statesmen of those three monarchies at the time of Pitt there is but one who was a fit compeer to him; and the fates willed that Stein should not control affairs until the year 1807. The age of Pitt was the age of Godoy, Thugut, and Haugwitz—weavers of old-world schemes of partition or barter, and blind to the storm gathering in the West.

The importance of his achievements in curbing their ambitions and saving the smaller States has not received due recognition. He did much to rescue the Dutch Netherlands from anarchy, and Sweden and Turkey from the clutches of powerful neighbours. He failed, indeed, in his diplomatic contest with Catharine; but the duplicity of the Court of Berlin, and the factious opposition of the Whigs, made success impossible; and he had thereafter to look on helplessly at the final Partitions of Poland. Only those who have probed the policy of Russia, Austria, and Prussia in the years 1787-92 can fully realize the difficulties which attended his efforts to frame a solid league against Revolutionary France. As well might one attempt out of rubble to build a cannon-proof rampart.

At home Pitt had to deal with George III. Now, even under a limited monarchy the fortunes of a statesman depend largely on the character of his Sovereign. While possessing the initiative which proffers timely advice, it should be under the control of unfailing tact. Dowered with insight into character and foresight as to the trend of events, the Monarch must, for the most part, subordinate energy to self-repression and the prophetic instinct to the warnings of courtly sagacity. Yet the ideal British ruler must at times assert his will, albeit indirectly, and with the personal charm which ensures the smooth working of this delicately poised machine. He should therefore be the embodiment of all the political virtues. Will even the admirers of George claim that he realized that ideal? However excellent as Elector of Hanover, he was a doubtful blessing as King of Great Britain and Ireland.

In truth, the Hanoverian strain in his nature had not been toned to the degree of fineness needful for the kingly office in these islands. In a time of peculiar difficulty he sought to govern almost absolutely by means which ensured the temporary subservience of Parliament, and in a spirit which brought disruption upon the Empire. The former half of Pitt's career was largely occupied in repairing the financial waste consequent on the American War, or in making good long arrears of legislation. Here, indeed, is his most abiding contribution to the national welfare. But his indebtedness to the King on questions of foreign and domestic policy is rarely apparent. Reform, whether Economical or Parliamentary, encountered the more or less declared opposition of the Sovereign. On the other hand, George showed marked ability in the support of corporate interests and the management of men; so that his relations to Pitt were not unlike those of the Duke of Newcastle to Chatham. The Pitts supplied the brain power while the Monarch or the Duke by the award of favours ensured the needful degree of subservience at the polls or in the lobbies of St. Stephens.

After the "surrender" at the close of the American War, the attitude of George towards his British subjects was one of scarcely concealed scorn. Now and again his feelings burst forth uncontrollably. Shortly before his second attack of lunacy, which occurred near the end of the fortieth year of his reign, he astonished the congregation in church by repeating in loud and emphatic tones the response: "Forty years long was I grieved with this generation and said: 'It is a people that do err in their hearts, for they have not known My ways.'" The tones of the voice betokened the approach of lunacy, but the conviction of the mind was always the same. For the most part, however, scorn was tempered by calculation. His letters to Pitt are full of commendation of the House of Commons when it unquestioningly passed Government Bills or the Supplies; whereas he looked on Fox and Burke as baneful and wearisome talkers, consumers of time, and foes to healthful slumber. Similarly, in his political catechism, the whole duty of Parliament was to help Ministers to govern; while their proper function was to raise the maximum of revenue with the minimum of fuss and change. In short, to maintain the existing social order; to allow no change in a constitution which aroused the wonder or envy of other nations; to use peerages and bishoprics, pocket boroughs and sinecures, as a means of buttressing that fabric, such were the aims of the third George.

Failing materially to weaken the force of this mighty engine of patronage, Pitt was fain to make the best of things as they were. The defeat of his Reform Bill in 1785 was the chief crisis in his early career; for it involved the failure of the Abolition Bill, perhaps also of the schemes for the relief of the poor which he outlined in 1797. In fact, after the year 1785, and still more so after 1790, he had to govern mainly as King's Minister, not as the people's Minister. Worst of all, the centre of political gravity remained dangerously high throughout the storms of the Revolutionary Era. How much of the nation's energy then went forth in justifiable discontent and futile efforts at repression has already appeared. Up to the year 1798 the struggle against France was largely one of the governing class against a nation; and for this the King and the British oligarchy, not Pitt, were responsible. Personal charm and the magnetic gift of evoking enthusiasm have in some monarchs counterbalanced defects of narrowness and intolerance. George was not deficient in courtly grace and tact—witness his remark to Pitt at their first interview after the long separation of the years 1801-1804. When Pitt ventured to compliment the King on his looking better than after the illness of 1801, the latter at once replied: "That is not to be wondered at: I was then on the point of parting with an old friend. Now I am about to regain one." But these gracious remarks came rarely in his closing years, which were marked by increasing harshness to his family, petulance on the most trivial affairs, and an outlook more narrowly personal than ever.

Such a nature chafes its surroundings. It arouses no enthusiasm; it merely begets heat by friction. Pitt has been blamed for spending too much time and energy in speeches about the war. But there was no other way of kindling the nation's zeal. The Princes very rarely spoke in the House of Lords, except under an overmastering fear of the abolition of the Slave Trade. None of the Ministers, except Windham, had the gift of oratory. On Pitt alone devolved the task of arousing a national spirit; and a cruel destiny cut short his life at the very time when his inspiring presence was most needed. How much England then lost can never be known. Vorontzoff, Russian ambassador at London, who had earlier been a bitter enemy of Pitt, now expressed the fervent desire that death had carried off his weary old frame, rather than that of the potential Saviour of Europe. The words are instinct with prescience. The personality and the actions of Pitt were alike a summons to a life of dignity and manly independence. His successors had perforce to take a course not unlike that which they were about to censure in him; and the distrust which the Czar Alexander felt for them in part accounts for the collapse at Tilsit and the ensuing years of bondage to Napoleon.

The disintegrating effects of the party system, or rather of its factious use by the Whig leaders, have been explained in these pages. Its first result was seen in the divergence of the careers of Pitt and Fox. The cause of Reform ought to have received their undivided support; but little by little they were edged apart, and their hostility was perhaps the most lasting of the many evils wrought by the unnatural Coalition of Fox and North. For a time Pitt gathered around him a national party, which became avowedly so on the junction of the Old Whigs in 1794. But in the last years of his life the denuding influences of partisan and personal feuds disastrously thinned his following. From the refusal of George to grant Catholic Emancipation, and the consequent resignation of Pitt in the spring of 1801, we may trace three sinister results. The Union with Ireland was bereft of its natural sequel, Catholic Emancipation; the Ministerial ranks were cleft in twain; and the crisis brought to the front Addington, a man utterly incapable of confronting Napoleon. Had Pitt remained in power, the Peace of Amiens would have been less one-sided, its maintenance more dignified; and the First Consul, who respected the strong but bullied the weak, would probably have acquiesced in a settlement consonant with the reviving prestige of England. But though the Union Jack won notable triumphs in the spring of 1801, yet at London everything went awry. Moved by consideration for the King, then recovering from lunacy, Pitt weakly promised not to bring forward Catholic Emancipation during his life, an act which annoyed the Grenville-Windham group. His rash promise to support Addington tied his hands in the following years; and even after the renewal of war he too scrupulously refrained from overthrowing a Ministry whose weakness had invited foreign aggressions and was powerless to avenge them. Finally, the Grenvilles joined Fox; and thus the King's perversity nullified the efforts of Pitt to form an Administration worthy to cope with Napoleon.

Nevertheless, the challenge flung down to England by the French regicides in 1793 was such as to enhance the person of the Monarch in these islands; and the Revolutionary War, which was fatal to several dynasties on the Continent, served to consolidate the power of the House of Brunswick. For, though Pitt sought to keep the war from becoming a royalist crusade, it almost inevitably assumed that character. During hostilities there can be but two sharply defined parties. Accordingly, Pitt, who opened his career with a bold attack upon the prerogatives of George III, ended it as his champion, even consenting to surrender a cherished conviction in order that the Monarch's peace of mind might not be troubled. Was ever a Minister beset by more baffling problems, by more hampering restrictions? Peace might have solved and shattered them. But peace he could not secure in the years 1796, 1797; and when finally it came it proved to be no peace, merely a pause before a still greater cycle of war.

The grandeur of Pitt's efforts for ensuring the independence of Europe has somewhat obscured his services as Empire builder. Yet, with the possible exception of Chatham, no statesman has exercised a greater influence on the destinies of the British race. On two occasions he sternly set his face against the cession of Gibraltar; he took keen interest in the settlement of New South Wales; his arrangements for the government of Canada deserve far higher praise than they have usually secured; and his firmness in repelling the archaic claims of Spain to the shores of the Northern Pacific gained for his people the future colony of British Columbia. Cherishing a belief in the pacific nature of Bonaparte's policy at the time of the Treaty of Amiens, he condoned the retrocession of the Cape of Good Hope and of Malta, on condition of the gain of Ceylon and Trinidad; but after the revival of French schemes of aggression in the East he saw the imperative need of planting or maintaining the Union Jack at those commanding points. He, who has been accused of excessive trust in allies, prepared to forego the alliance of Russia rather than give up Malta; and, even before Nelson gained the mastery at sea, Pitt sent forth an expedition to conquer the Cape. In his magnanimous desire of securing to Europe the blessings of a lasting peace he was ready to surrender maritime conquests of greater pecuniary value so long as England held the keys of the overland and sea routes to India. To that empire his just and statesmanlike policy brought a new sense of confidence and therefore a time of comparative rest, until the threatening orientation of Bonaparte's plans once more placed everything at hazard. Thanks to the exertions of Dundas and the Wellesleys, the crisis was averted; but the policy which assured British supremacy in the East was essentially that of Pitt.

* * * * *

It is far easier to assess the importance of the life work of Pitt than to set forth his character in living traits. Those who knew him well agree as the charm of his personality; but they supply few illuminating details, perhaps out of respect for the reserve which was his usual panoply. Like Chatham he rarely revealed his inmost self. The beauties of his conversation, informed with learning, sparkling with wit, always vivacious yet never spiteful, never appeared in their full glow except in the circle of his dearest friends; but by singular ill fortune they who could have handed on those treasures, were satisfied with entries such as: "Pitt talked a great deal among his friends"; or, "In society he was remarkably cheerful and pleasant, full of wit and playfulness";[786] or again, "His great delight was society. There he shone with a degree of calm and steady lustre which often astonished me more than his most splendid efforts in Parliament; ... he seemed utterly unconscious of his own superiority and much more disposed to listen than to talk; ... his appearance dispelled all care, his brow was never clouded even in the severest public trials."[787] These are only the hors d'oeuvres of what must have been a feast of delight; but even they suffice to refute the Whig slanders as to Pitt's austerity and selfishness. Under happier auspices he would have been known as the most lovable of English statesmen; and his exceptional fondness for children would alone suffice to expose the falsity of his alleged reply to a manufacturer who complained that he could not get enough men—"Then you must take the children."[788] Cynicism at the expense of the weak was a trait utterly alien to him. It is also incorrect to assert, with Macaulay, that "pride pervaded the whole man, was written in the harsh rigid lines of his face, was marked by the way in which he walked, in which he sat, in which he stood, and, above all, in which he bowed." The Whig historian, here following the Whig tradition, formed his estimate of the whole man from what was merely a parliamentary mannerism. Pitt, as we have seen, was a prey to shyness and gaucherie; and the rigid attitude which he adopted for the House was not so much the outcome of a sense of superiority (though he had an able man's consciousness of worth) as a screen to hide those defects. A curiously stilted manner has been the bane of many gifted orators and actors; but the real test is whether they could throw it off in private. That Pitt threw it off in the circle of his friends they all agree. The only defects which Wilberforce saw in him were an inadequate knowledge of human nature, a too sanguine estimate of men and of the course of events, and, in later years, occasional displays of petulance in face of opposition.[789] The first are the defects of a noble nature, the last those of a man whose strength has long been overtaxed.

In fact, Pitt's constitution was unequal to the prolonged strain. In childhood his astonishingly precocious powers needed judicious repression. Instead, they were unduly forced by the paternal pride of Chatham. At Cambridge, at Lincoln's Inn, and in Parliament the intellectual pressure was maintained, with the result that his weakly frame was constantly overwrought and attenuated by a too active mind. Further, the pressure at Westminster was so continuous as to preclude all chance of widening his nature by foreign travel. He caught but a glimpse of the life of France in 1783; and his knowledge of other peoples and politics was therefore perforce derived from books. It is therefore surprising that the young Prime Minister displayed the sagacity and tolerance which marked his career.

But his faculties, though not transcendently great, were singularly well balanced, besides being controlled by an indomitable will and tact that rarely was at fault. In oratory he did not equal Sheridan in wit and brilliance, Burke in richness of thought and majesty of diction, or Fox in massive strength and debating facility; but, while falling little short of Fox in debate, he excelled him in elegance and conciseness, Burke in point and common sense, Sheridan in dignity and argumentative power, and all of them in the felicitous wedding of elevated thought or vigorous argument to noble diction. By the side of his serried yet persuasive periods the efforts of Fox seemed ragged, those of Burke philosophic essays, those of Sheridan rhetorical tinsel. And this harmony was not the effect of long and painful training. His maiden speech of 26th February 1781 displayed the grace and forcefulness which marked his classic utterance at the Lord Mayor's banquet ten weeks before his death.