Take another man of our own time, the Right Hon. Arthur Balfour. He would have parleyed and schemed until the time had passed for any useful object to be gained by our joining in the war, always provided that the Jingo spirit were not too irrepressible for him to overpower and bewilder with his engaging philosophy. If George III had been blessed with these types of statesmen to advise him instead of the Castlereaghs, he might not have lost his reason. Napoleon would never have gone to Egypt, and our shores would never have been threatened with invasion. Nor would British and neutral trade have been paralysed in such a way as to bring in its wake ruin, riots, bankruptcies, and every form of devastation in 1811. And as a natural corollary, we were plunged into a war with America which lasted from 1812 to 1814, and which left, as it well might, long years of bitter and vindictive memories in the minds of a people who were of our race and kindred. Our people as a whole (but especially the poorer classes) were treated in a manner akin to barbarism, while their rulers invoked them to bear like patriots the suffering they had bestowed upon them.
But the canker had eaten so deeply into their souls that it culminated in fierce riots breaking out in Lancashire and London which spread to other parts and were only suppressed by measures that are familiar to the arrogant despots who, by their clumsy acts, are the immediate cause of revolt. Pitt and Castlereagh were the High Commissioners of the military spirit which the Whigs detested, and when the former died in 1806 the latter became the natural leader.
Pitt was buried peaceably enough in the Abbey, but when his successor's tragic end came in 1822, the populace avenged themselves of the wrongs for which they believed he was responsible by throwing stones at the coffin as it was being solemnly borne to its last resting place beside William Pitt. Both men made war on Napoleon because they believed him to be the implacable disturber of peace and a danger to their country. Pitt, as we have seen, left among his MS. his opinion of the great soldier, and here is the latter's opinion of Pitt, expressed to his ministers on the eve of his leaving Paris for his last campaign against his relentless foes.
"I do not know," he said (to his ministers in speaking to them of the new constitution he had granted), "how in my absence you will manage to lead the Chambers. Monsieur Fouché thinks that popular assemblies are to be controlled by gaining over some old jobbers, or flattering some young enthusiasts. That is only intrigue, and intrigue does not carry one far. In England, such means are not altogether neglected; but there are greater and nobler ones. Remember Mr. Pitt, and look at Lord Castlereagh! With a sign from his eyebrows, Mr. Pitt could control the House of Commons, and so can Lord Castlereagh now! Ah! if I had such instruments, I should not be afraid of the Chambers. But have I anything to resemble these?"[22]
This piece of pathetic history is given to us by the French historian, M. Thiers, the lifelong enemy of his Imperial master, Napoleon III. We are faced now with the Power that we helped to build up against ourselves at the expense of the wreck of the First French Empire.
The political situation then and now bears no comparison. We made war on the French without any real justification, and stained our high sense of justice by driving them to frenzy. We bought soldiers and sailors to fight them from impecunious German and Hanoverian princes. We subsidized Russia, Prussia, Austria, Portugal, Spain, and that foul cesspool, Naples, at the expense of the starvation of the poorest classes in our own country. The bellicose portion of the population, composed mainly of the upper and middle classes, shrieked their deluded terrors of extinction into the minds of the people and believed that if we did not make common cause with the downtrodden sanctified allies who were fighting a man-eating ogre who was overrunning their respective countries, putting every one to the sword, we should become the objects of his fierce attention, be invaded and ground down to slavery for ever and ever. Our statesmen, hypocritically full of the gospel of pity, could not speak of our ally of other days without weeping, while at the same time pouring further subsidies into their greedy traitorous laps, in order that they might secure their co-ordination.
It is futile for historian apologists to attempt to vindicate men who obviously were afflicted with moral cupidity, begotten of intellectual paralysis. It is merely an unwholesome subterfuge to state that they were free from enmity against the French nation, and that their quarrel was with the head of it. There would be just as much common sense in contending that the French Government had no hostile feeling against the British people, and that their quarrel was only against George III. Devices such as these, under any circumstances, are not only unworthy, but childish, and their sole object is to throw dust in the eyes of those they flippantly call the common people. As a matter of fact, it was not only the Emperor Napoleon whom they made it their policy to charge with being a public danger to the world, but the principles of the Revolution which he sprang from obscurity to save, which was slyly kept at the back of their heads.
But the Republic, which was the outcome of the Revolution, was an approved ordinance of the people, and in addition to Napoleon being their duly elected representative, he was regarded by them as the incarnation of the Republic. The difference between him and the other monarchs of Europe was, that while they inherited their position, his election was democratically ratified by millions of votes. These votes were given by the people with whom a foreign Government declared it was at peace while at the same time it was at war with their Chief, whom they had from time to time duly elected. This is a method of warfare which represents no high form of thought or action, and to the everlasting credit of the French people be it said, they not only resented it, but stood loyally by their Emperor and their country until they were overpowered by the insidious poison of treason and intrigue from within and without.
What a howl there would have been if the German Kaiser had sent out a proclamation that he was not at war with the British nation, but with their King and Government! Suppose he had committed the same act of arrogance towards the President of the United States, the revulsion of feeling would be irrepressible in every part of the world.
We recognize at the same time that Napoleon's position was made insecure by an important element of his own countrymen, composed of the Bourbons and their supporters, who never ceased to intrigue for their return. Besides, there was a strong Republican element who never forgave him for allowing himself to become Emperor. But the most serious defection was that of some of his most important Generals, amongst whom were Marmont and Bertheur. The former subsequently became the military tutor of his son, the King of Rome, who died at Schonbrunn on the 22nd July, 1832, eleven years after his father's death at St. Helena.