V
Fox was the only genius in our political life at that time, while Pitt was a mere shadow in comparison, though it is fair to state that the former always believed that he and Pitt would have made a workable combination. As to the rest, they were pretty much on the level of the Lilliputians with whom the late traveller, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, had such intimate and troublesome relations. The book by the Dean of St. Patrick's, "Gulliver's Travels," is a perfect caricature of the political dwarfs of his time, and vividly represents the men who misruled this country in George III's reign. But the Dean's laughable history of the pompous antics of the Lilliputians is a picture which describes the constitution of our present administration who are managing the critical affairs of the nation so ill that disaster is inevitable in many forms, seen and unseen. The administrative machine is clogged with experimental human odds and ends who have neither wit, knowledge, nor wisdom to fill the post allotted to them, and the appalling thought is that the nation as a whole is being blustered by the intriguers who are forcing every national interest into certain destruction. Truly the Lilliputians are a plague on all human interests, real patriotism, and capacity: always mischievous, always incapable, just the same now as when, in the eighteenth century, their type forced a peaceful and neutral Power into war because they refused to yield their fleet to them; always seeing things that do not exist, and foreboding perils that would never have come but for their dwarfish interference. They discovered in their flights of frenzy and fancy that Napoleon intended to take possession by force of the Danish fleet, when, as a matter of fact, he had never shown any indication, by word or thought, of committing an act so unjust and hostile to his own interests. A strong point in his policy was to keep Denmark on terms of friendly neutrality. Moreover, he was not, as many writers have said (in loyalty to fashion), an unscrupulous breaker of treaties. It was an unworthy act of the British Government to send Mr. Jackson as their representative to bully the Danes into giving up their fleet to the British, on the plea that they had learned by reports through various channels what Napoleon's intentions were. Count Bernsdorf, to whom Jackson insolently conveyed the nightmare of his Government, very properly raged back at him that "the Danish Government had no such information, and that he was adducing false reports and mere surmises quite unworthy of credit to fill the measure of British injustice in forcing Denmark into a ruinous war. It was folly to suppose that Napoleon could gain anything by throwing Norway and Denmark into an alliance with England and Sweden." Then he adds, with a dignified sense of wrong, "that the Regent knew how to defend his neutrality." "It might be possible," retorts Mr. Jackson, "though appearances are against that supposition, that the Danish Government did not wish to lend itself to hostile views; still, it could not resist France." Then Bernsdorf, who has right on his side, said in accents of crushing anger, "So! because you think Napoleon has the intention of wounding us in the tenderest part, you would struggle with him for priority and be the first to do the deed?" "Yes," responds the distinguished representative of the upholders of the rights of nations, "Great Britain would insist upon a pledge of amity." "What pledge," demands the Count. "The pledge of uniting the Danish forces to those of Great Britain," is the reply.
It will be seen that nothing short of vassalism will satisfy the policy laid down by the stupid emancipationists of downtrodden nations, as represented by the impressive effrontery of the noble Jackson. What a terrible piece of wooden-headed history was the effort to force Denmark to break her neutrality or make war on her! They seized Zealand, and because the Prince Regent refused to agree to their perfidy, they kept possession of it. The Prince sent written instructions to burn all the ships and stores, but the messenger was captured and the faithful person to whom the delivery of the document was entrusted swallowed it (i.e. swallowed the instructions). Copenhagen had been bombarded and practically reduced to destruction by Nelson, who had settled with the Danes on favourable British terms, one of the conditions being that they were to leave with their booty in six weeks. The Regent subsequently declared war and outwitted the British designs (so it is said) on Zealand.
Castlereagh sought the aid of Lord Cathcart to find a dodge by which his Government could inveigle the Danes to commit a breach of the Convention, but the latter stood firm by the conditions, and the commanders, being disgusted with the whole affair, declined to aid their Chiefs in the Government in any act of double dealing. But they had the Emperor Alexander of Russia to deal with. He offered to act as intermediary between Great Britain and France in order to bring about an honourable peace. The British Government refused, and it is stated on incontrovertible authority that Alexander was furious, and upbraided the British with having used troops, which should have been sent to Russia's aid, to crush Denmark. The outrage of attacking a small State which was at peace and with which she had no quarrel was powerfully denounced by Alexander. He accused the British Government "of a monstrous violation of straight dealing, by ruining Denmark in the Baltic, which it knew was closed to foreign hostilities under a Russian guarantee."
This caused Alexander to break off relations with Great Britain and annul all treaties he had with her. Canning feebly replied to the Russian Emperor's taunts, and, amongst other things, accused him of throwing over the King of the Huns. No wonder that Russia and some of the other Powers resented the perfidious conduct of British statesmen, employing British military and naval forces to overthrow and destroy not only a friendly Power, but one of the smallest and most strictly neutral States in Europe! Alexander jibed at them for using their resources for this unjust purpose, instead of sending them to help him when he was being so desperately driven to defeat by Napoleon. What a loutish trick it was to imagine that any real political or practical benefit could be derived from it! The seizure of the Danish fleet was a low-down act, for which those who were responsible should have been pilloried. The reasons given could not be sustained at the time, and still remain entirely unsupported by fact. There is no more disgraceful proceeding to be found in the pages of history than our raid on this small and highly honourable, inoffensive, and brave people.
This bad statesmanship was deplorable. It set the spirit of butchery raging. It made a new enemy for ourselves, and in an economic sense added hundreds of thousands to our national debt, without deriving a vestige of benefit from either a military or political point of view. It undoubtedly prolonged the war, as all those squint-eyed enterprises are certain to do. It made us unpopular and mistrusted, and had no effect in damaging Napoleon's activities, nor of taking a single ally from him. There are occasions when nations have forced upon them cruel stratagems and alternatives, revolting in their abominable unworthiness, but in the case I am discussing I have found no substantial justification, nor has the deed been backed up to now or supported by a single real authority. Nothing but condemnation still hangs round the memory of those hapless ministers who made the world so full of misery. I repeat, the greatest of all perils is to have a Government composed of men whose brains are full of kinks, and who do not reach beyond the bounds of basing their policy on the idea that some foreigner or other has designs on our national wealth, our trade, or our vast protectorates. In recent years that view has been dissipated, and the plan of broadening the national goodwill to men has been adopted and encouraged by a body of sound, unpretentious thinkers who have taken pains to train important gifts in the art of good government in all its varied aspects and international complexities. The whole public have had to pay appalling penalties in the past because an impulsive handful of the population is of opinion that self-advertising, harum-scarum politicians, in and out of office, are the geniuses who make and keep prosperity. This uncontrolled, emotional trend of thought comes in cycles and is unerringly followed by bitter disillusionment. It was so during the wars at the beginning of the last century, and it is so now. We always reflect after the tragedy has been consummated. Safe and astute administrators are always termed the "old gang" by the political amateurs, and the calamity is that a large public is so often carried away by the flighty delusions of the real cranks who style themselves the saviours of their country. At the present time we have as sure an example as ever the known world has witnessed of the awful disaster the resignation of the "old gang" has been to the whole of the Powers interested in this world-war, especially to our own country. We shall realize this more fully by and by when the naked truth presents itself. The very people who are conspicuously responsible for the destruction of unity always bellow the loudest to maintain it after they have been the high conspirators in breaking it, aided by their guilty followers. What bitter lessons this land of ours has been subjected to in other days! For twenty years the country was kept in the vortex of a raging war, with no more justification than giving Mr. Jackson instructions that the one imperative idea to keep in his mind was to take possession of the Danish fleet. Nothing was to stand in the way of this great adventure, shameless though it might be.
Lord Malmesbury writes in his diary: "Capture of Danish fleet by surprise on account of most undoubted information received from the Prince Regent of Portugal of Bonaparte's intention to use the Portuguese and Danish fleets for invasion of England. First hint of the plan given by the Prince of Wales to the Duke of Portland. The Portuguese refused the demand, and told the British Government of it; the Danes accepted, kept silence, and afterwards denied it." The entry in Malmesbury's diary has been proved to be a string of pure inventions, for which he or some other informants are responsible. I have said no record has been left to show that Napoleon ever had any intention of occupying the ports of Holstein or of using the Danish fleet for the invasion of Great Britain and Ireland. Members of Parliament in the House of Commons and members of the House of Lords proved beyond question that ministers' statements, taking the dates into account, were entirely erroneous. Canning defended the sending of the expedition, which was natural, as he was one of the principal advocates of it. But the House would stand none of his tricks of evasion or repudiation. He, like some more modern ministers, ventured on the hazardous plan of deceiving Parliament, and, as was said at the time, setting fair dealing at defiance. Canning, like all tricksters, read extracts from documents, authentic and otherwise, to prove that Denmark was hostile to Britain, but when a demand was made for their inspection, he impudently refused to allow the very documents he had based his case of justification on to be scrutinized, and in consequence no other conclusion could be arrived at than that he was unscrupulously misleading the country. In fact, the Government's case was so bad it would not bear the light of God's day!
I venture to say that Mr. Fox knew more of the character, political intricacies, and ambitions of the French race than any public man or writer of history of his own or in subsequent years. He always based his conclusions on a sound logical point. He was an accurate thinker, who refused to form his judgments on light, faulty and inaccurate newspaper paragraphs about what was going on around him. He was opposed to Pitt and his supporters' policy of carrying on war with France. He wanted peace, but they wanted the Bourbons, because the Bourbon section in France and the old autocracy in his own and other kingly countries were opposed to the new ruler the masses in France had chosen. He ridiculed the folly of our mental nonentities for "making such a fuss about acknowledging the new Emperor. May not the people give their own Magistrate the name they choose?" he asks. "On what logical grounds did we claim the right to revoke by the force of arms the selection by the French people of a ruler on whom they wished to bestow the title of Emperor?" Fox poured lavishly his withering contempt on those miscreants who arrogantly claimed the right to be consulted (for that is practically what their war policy amounted to) as to who the French should put on the throne and what his title should be. They had acknowledged Napoleon in the capacity of First Consul, but they shuddered at the consequences to the human race of having an Emperor sprung upon them whose glory was putting kingship into obscurity. Besides, an Emperor who combined humble origin with democratic genius and ambition created by the Revolution was a challenge to the legitimacy of the Divine Right of Kings and a reversal of the order of ages. George III raged at Pitt for including Fox in his Ministry when he was asked to form a Government. "Does Mr. Pitt," said he, "not know that Mr. Fox was of all persons most offensive to him?" "Had not Fox always cheered the popular Government of France, and had he not always advocated peace with bloodstained rebels? And be it remembered the indecorous language he had frequently used against his sovereign, and consider his influence over the Prince of Wales. Bring whom you like, Mr. Pitt, but Fox never."
George III, King by the Grace of God, relented somewhat in his dislike of Fox before the latter died, and his wayward son, the Prince of Wales, said "that his father was well pleased with Mr. Fox in all their dealings after he came into office." It is an amazing form of intelligence that commits a nation to join in a war against another for having brought about a revolution and for creating their first soldier-statesman an "Emperor," and ranks him and his compatriots as "bloodstained rebels." To class Napoleon as a bloodstained rebel and to put him on a level with the Robespierres and the Dantons is an historic outrage of the truth. He had nothing whatever to do with bringing about the Revolution, though his services saved it, and out of the terrible tumult and wreck superhumanly re-created France and made her the envy of the modern world. The great defender of the Rights of Kings and of the colossal European fabric was appealed to by the man whom George III associated with the "bloodstained rebels" to come to some common understanding so that the shedding of blood might cease, but that robust advocate of peace (!) contemptuously ignored his appeals to negotiate. In 1805 he was raised to the Imperial dignity, and one of his first acts was to write with his own hand that famous letter which I have previously quoted, pleading, with majestic dignity, for the King of England, in the name of humanity, to co-operate with him in a way that will bring about friendly relations between the two Governments and the spilling of blood to an end. The King "by the Grace of God" and his horde of bloodsucking, incompetent ministers insulted the French nation and the great captain who ruled over its destinies by sending through Lord Mulgrave an insolent, hypocritical reply to the French ministers.
The rage of war continued for another decade. If George III yearned for peace as he and his ministers pretended, why did the King not write a courteous autograph letter back to Napoleon, even though he regarded him as an inferior and a mere military adventurer? The nation had to pay a heavy toll in blood and money in order that the assumptions and dignity of this insensate monarch might be maintained, whose abhorrence of "bloodstained rebels" did not prevent him and his equally insensate advisers from plunging the American colonists into a bloody rebellion, which ended so gloriously for them and so disastrously for the motherland. They had asked for reforms that were palpably reasonable and necessary, and received insulting replies to their courteous demands, which compelled them to take up arms against the King of England, with a vow that they would not sheathe the sword until they had won complete independence from the arrogant autocracy that had driven them to war.
They were led by the noble genius of George Washington and Dr. Franklin, who were in turn strongly supported by and united to colleagues of high constructive and administrative talents. Their task was long and fierce, but the gallant, elusive Washington led them through the tremendous struggle to victory, which culminated in founding the greatest and best constituted of all republics, whose sons are fighting side by side with the descendants of those who were forced into fighting their own race, through the maladministration of the King and his guilty Government, at the head of which was the genial but ultra-reactionary Lord North, who was a special favourite of George because he was accommodating; and indeed, all the King's friends were reactionary and dangerous to the real interests of the State when in power. The King's terrific responsibility for the great calamities that befell the country during his reign can only be absolved by the knowledge that he was subject to fits of prolonged lunacy; in fact, it may be said that even in his saner periods his acts were frequently those of an idiot. Though he cannot be accused of lacking in integrity, he disliked men who were possessed of that virtue, coupled with enlightened views, having anything to do with the government of the State. In short, he was totally unsuited to govern at any time, but especially when the atmosphere was charged with violent human convulsions. He loved lick-spittles, because they did his will for value received in various sordid forms, and, as I have said, he loathed the incorruptible and brilliant Charles James Fox, because he refused to support his fatal policies and that of the cocksparrow members of his Government, who from time to time threatened the very foundations of our national existence.
The more George persisted, the louder became Fox's protests. Posterity can never accurately estimate how much it owes to statesmen who acted with Fox, but the influences the King had behind him were too formidable for Fox to grapple with. He would have saved us from the fratricidal war with America, and from the unpardonable wickedness of involving the country in the wars with France, who was fighting out her own prodigious destiny on the Continent, which was no concern of ours, except that the sane policy of the King and his Government should have been to encourage the democratizing of the Continental States. It was no love of liberty, or for the people, or for reforms of any kind, that led George III and his satellites to wage war against the man of the French Revolution. It was the fear of placing more power in the hands of the people and allowing less to remain in his own. But the main fear of the King and his autocratic subjects was lest Napoleon would become so powerful that he would destroy the whole monarchy of Europe! It was the view of small-minded men. Even Napoleon had his limitations, even if this had been his object. But there was no symptom, except that of panic, to justify the assertion that he ever intended to include war on the United Kingdom in his policy. There never was a truer statement made by the Emperor than "C'est avec des hochets qu'on mène les hommes"; which is, "Men are led by trifles." Hence we went to war with him, and the result of it is that the race that he mistrusted most and saw the necessity of keeping severely within limits has risen up against civilization and created a world-war into which we and our Allies have been obliged to enter in self-defence. That is the inevitable penalty we are having to pay for the action we took in helping the Germans to destroy France. I know it is asserted it was not France but Napoleon whose power they aimed at breaking, but the one could not be broken without the other.