1799.
ENGLAND ENTERS INTO A TREATY WITH RUSSIA AGAINST FRANCE—MR. THOMAS GRENVILLE'S MISSION TO THE CONTINENT—THE UNION BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND—SUSPENSE RESPECTING THE FATE OF MR. GRENVILLE—PROGRESS OF EVENTS ON THE CONTINENT—AUSTRIA JOINS THE COALITION—VACILLATIONS AND INACTIVITY OF PRUSSIA—EXPEDITION TO HOLLAND—FURTHER AUGMENTATION OF THE MILITIA—PROJECTS FOR THE ENSUING YEAR.
About the middle of December, 1798, a provisional treaty had been entered into between Russia and England, by which the Emperor bound himself, on condition of a monthly subsidy from Great Britain, to have a contingent of forty-five thousand men ready for the field, whenever the common cause should require their services. The original object of this treaty was to induce Prussia to join the confederacy of European powers which England was now endeavouring to form against France, with a view to bring the war to a conclusion by an overwhelming military combination; but Prussia, guarded and timid, declined to embark in the coalition; and, failing that result, Russia accepted the alternative of a subsidy proposed and guaranteed by the treaty. The value of her co-operation was not limited merely to the force she brought to bear against the enemy. England hoped that the influence of her example would stimulate the other Powers to concur in a general movement to repel the aggressions of the French, who were rapidly extending the scene of hostilities, and who, in the course of this year, carried their arms over the whole surface of Italy, swept the banks of the Rhine, penetrated Holland, and ravaged the valleys of Switzerland.
When Mr. Thomas Grenville set out upon his mission to the Courts of Vienna and Berlin, intelligence had arrived of the disasters that had recently befallen the King of Naples, who, alarmed at the approach of the French, had taken the field with twenty thousand men, and was driven back by Championet with a much inferior force, and compelled to act upon the defensive. The last news was that Naples had surrendered to the French after a gallant resistance, chiefly sustained by the Lazzaroni, who have an insuperable aversion to all changes in their government.
The first incident that befell Mr. Grenville on his departure from England was inauspicious and discouraging. The weather was unusually severe. On the night of Christmas Eve, the thermometer was 14° below freezing point; and for many weeks afterwards the snow lay so thickly on the ground that the service of the ordinary coaches was arrested, and the mails were forwarded on horseback. This delay and suspension of communication occasioned serious anxiety at a time when every item of intelligence was of importance to the country. The effect of the inclement state of the season was to force Mr. Grenville back to England. He embarked on his destination as had been arranged, but the sea was frozen up, and, unable to effect a landing, he was compelled to return and wait for a more favourable opportunity.
The Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland, which Ministers were now preparing, was recommended to the consideration of Parliament in a message from the King on the 22nd of January. The Rebellion had given a decisive impulse to the project by effectually demonstrating the want of power, energy, and influence of the local Parliament to control the insubordinate spirit of the country, or to provide adequate remedies for existing and acknowledged evils. It was considerably accelerated also by the despair of the Protestants and the landed proprietors generally, who, exhausted by the long and wasting struggles of faction, looked to England, across the ashes of a desolating insurrection, for the last hope of relief from anarchy and spoliation. In the letters that immediately follow, the views of Ministers in reference to the proposed plan are incidentally elucidated; and it appears, from Lord Grenville's allusions to the subject, that it was originally suggested to make the representation of the Irish Peerage in the Imperial Legislature elective under every new Parliament, like that of the Scotch Peerage; a mode of representation to which Lord Grenville objected, although, in other respects, he approved of the adoption of the Scotch Union as a model for imitation. He foresaw clearly the confusion and jealousies likely to be engendered in such a country as Ireland by repeated elections amongst a body whose title to the right of election rested on hereditary grounds, and he felt that the frequent recurrence to such contests would re-open old grievances and party feuds, and, instead of satisfying the expectations of the Peers, would only create a new element of discontent. The elective principle was the single feature in the Scotch Union which Lord Grenville seems to have considered injudicious and impolitic. We gather from many passages in his letters that he regarded harmony in the structure of the legislative body to be as essential to its effective action as unity in the executive; and that the nearer the House of Lords approached to permanency in the foundation of all its parts, the more completely would it realize, as a whole, the constitutional theory of an hereditary estate.
LORD GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
Cleveland Row, Jan. 4th, 1799.
My dearest Brother,
I have been so occupied this last week as really not to have had a moment to write to you. We have indeed nothing to write; this frost locks up all our communications; it has sent poor Tom back to us after nine days' sea-sickness, and when I hoped he was already at Berlin; and we are now told that less than a fortnight's thaw will not open the intercourse again. In that time how many things may be done, and what is worse, how many may not be done! Naples and Sardinia, with all that belongs to them, you will have seen in the French papers as fully as we, and we know no more.
In this interval the Union engrosses all my thoughts. I worked hard when Lord Castlereagh was here to assist in expediting his return, for I clearly see that without communication the thing will not do, and that there can be none but through him. I was better satisfied than I had expected with his manner of doing business, which I found both ready and clear; and he seems to me to have the success of this measure most thoroughly at heart. Your letters teach me still to indulge hopes of success, but the prospect is certainly less favourable than it was, and the difficulties of Government with its supporters will be proportionably increased.