On the day following (January 21st, 1793), almost all England went into mourning, and Chauvelin received his passports. An order of recall had already been sent him from Paris. On the 1st of February the Convention declared war against Holland. The terrible burden of the defence of Europe against the advance of the arms and doctrines of the French Revolution was to fall principally upon England, and the sagacious minister who directed her policy. The reverses which his country was to experience, and the obstacles which she was to overcome, saddened the latter part of the life of Mr. Pitt, and partly obscured his glory. The principles which he advocated were nevertheless true and eternal, and the services that he rendered to preserve the peace and equilibrium of Europe were incomparable. He succumbed beneath the weight of a struggle, the obstinacy of which was not foreseen by Lord Chatham during his triumphs in 1760; by his courageous persistence he prepared the way for the victories of Wellington. His name, but recently reviled by so many tongues upon the continent, and even in his own country, has remained the foremost among those who have sustained the cause of independence and of the liberty of nations in Europe. He has alone had the signal honor to maintain England within the bounds of constitutional order during the midst of revolutionary tempests, and the still greater glory of leaving her free.
It was not without much effort and severe internal struggles, that the English government succeeded in preserving order and repressing the dangerous tendencies which manifested themselves upon divers occasions. During many years past, societies favorable to the principles of the French revolution, destined to spread its doctrines and create sympathies for its enthusiasts, had been formed. Two foreigners. Dr. Joseph Priestley, the chief of the English Unitarians, and Thomas Paine, the celebrated author of "The Rights of Man," had been elected members of the National Convention. The latter had taken his seat there. The license of the revolutionary press surpassed all bounds; the declarations and anarchical appeals engendered conspiracies as culpable as powerless. Mr. Pitt used severe measures to repress these. He was urged on by the chancellor, Lord Loughborough, himself a recent and zealous convert. The charges and trials against the press were numerous, and were more violent in Scotland than in England, where the revolutionary maneuvres were less bold. The trials of Muir, and of Palmer, in 1793, and that of Hamilton Rowan in Ireland, in 1794, preceded that of Walker at Manchester, in April, 1794, and of Thomas Hardy, of Daniel Adams, and of John Horne-Tooke at London, in the month of May of the same year. The accused were at the head of the two principal revolutionary societies: "The Society for Constitutional Information" and "The London Corresponding Society." Mr. Pitt proposed to Parliament the suspension of the habeas corpus; in spite of the vigorous opposition of Fox and Sheridan, the bill was passed by a large majority. Public opinion was powerfully aroused against the excesses and crimes which deluged France with blood. The exaggerated fright which the intrigues of the English revolutionists caused, increased the agitation, and in consequence the rigors of the government were approved by public opinion. In Parliament the Whigs were divided. The Duke of Portland and his friends openly sustained the minister.
General Dumouriez had vainly endeavored to resist the power of the Convention. He had formed culpable relations with the enemies of France. Obliged to quit his army, he had taken refuge in England at the moment when his friends the Girondins were overthrown and destroyed by the Jacobins, in Paris. The Committee of Public Safety reigned in France, and the Reign of Terror extended its sombre veil throughout that unhappy country. The allied forces took possession of Belgium; the French garrison at Mayence had just surrendered, after a brave resistance; the Austrians had seized Valenciennes and Condé, not in the name of the young captive king, but as personal conquests of the Emperor Francis. The national enthusiasm of France, violently excited by these reverses, sent to the frontiers troops barely disciplined, generals of various origin, servants of the ancient régime or new geniuses which rose suddenly from the ranks, but all equally animated by an ardent patriotism. The Duke of York was repulsed before Dunkirk by General Hoche, as the Prince of Orange at Hondschoote. The Prince of Coburg, whose name is always found united with that of Pitt, in revolutionary execrations, found himself constrained to raise the siege of Maubeuge, and to recross the Sambre. In the interior, civil war desolated Vendée; it ravished the city of Lyons. Toulon, held in the name of Louis XVII., had called to its aid the English fleet under Admiral Howe. The siege was eagerly pushed by the republican troops. The artillery was commanded by a young Corsican officer, who was soon to become General Bonaparte, and ten years later the Emperor Napoleon. On the 18th of December, 1793, the redoubts were taken, and the allied forces were compelled to put to sea. The English and Spanish vessels were crowded with provincial royalists who fled the vengeance of their compatriots. Toulon was delivered to fire and sword.
The National Convention voted, at the instigation of Barère, a decree ordaining that henceforth no quarter should be given to either English or Hanoverian soldiers. The Duke of York immediately published an order of the day—dignified and noble: "His Royal Highness foresees the indignation which will naturally be aroused in the minds of the brave troops whom he addresses. He desires to remind them that mercy to the vanquished is the brightest gem in the soldier's character; and to exhort them not to suffer their resentment to lead them to any precipitate act of cruelty, which may sully the reputation they have acquired in the world. The English and Hanoverian armies are not willing to believe that the French nation, even in its present blindness, can so far forget its military instincts as to pay the least attention to a decree as injurious to the troops, as disgraceful to those who voted it." The French army justified this noble confidence. "Kill our prisoners!" said a sergeant, "no, no, not that! Send them all to the Convention, that the representatives may shoot them if they wish; the savages might also eat them, if they chose." Everywhere in Flanders the success of the French arms was brilliant; Brussels was retaken. Nevertheless Corsica revolted and was annexed to Great Britain.
Admiral Howe, on the 1st of June, 1794, gained a great victory over the French fleet off the harbor of Brest. The bloody fall of Robespierre and his friends, raised, for a moment, pacific hopes in Europe; but the "war spirit" of France was not yet appeased. General Jourdan drove back the Austrians beyond the Rhine. Pichegru threatened Holland. Mr. Pitt advised placing the entire military force of that country under a single commander; this position was offered to the Duke of Brunswick, who refused it. Upon the entreaties of Mr. Pitt, and much to his regret, George III. recalled the young and inexperienced Duke of York. Before the end of January, 1795, Holland was entirely in the hands of the French, who proclaimed the Republic. The stadtholder had fled to England.
The disquietude and agitation were great. Upon the question of war, Wilberforce and his friends had separated themselves from the Cabinet. The general distress in Europe was extreme. The public cry in London, as in Paris, was for Bread, Bread, Bread! Riots took place in many localities; the windows of Mr. Pitt, in Downing street, were broken, and the revolutionary intrigues redoubled their ardor. The Society for Constitutional Information raised its head, and claimed universal suffrage and annual parliaments. Mr. Pitt was troubled; his gloomy forebodings, at times, knew no bounds. "If I resign," said he, one day to Lord Mornington, "in less than six months I will not have a head upon my shoulders."
A congress assembled at Basle; the French Republic treated there with Tuscany, Prussia, and Sweden. England secretly prepared a descent upon the coast of Brittany, to second the royalist uprisings of the French noblemen and peasants designated by the name of Chouans. M. de Puisaye, who had negotiated this measure with Mr. Pitt, had charge of the Emigré's. The English fleet was successful at first. Lord Bridport captured two vessels from Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse. The French refugees disembarked in the Bay of Quiberon; but the command was divided, and the orders contradictory. Disorder caused inaction. The arrival of the Count d'Artois was anxiously awaited, but he did not appear. General Hoche successfully attacked the little body of Emigré's. The roughness of the sea rendered the succor of the English ineffectual. The massacre was horrible. A certain number of noblemen capitulated; the conditions of the surrender were not respected; the prisoners were executed. The last military hope of the royalists disappeared in this bloody and unfortunate enterprise. The war of the Vendéeans and that of the Choans terminated at the same time.
The Constitution of the third year of the republic had just been proclaimed in France, and the Directory had been constituted. An attempt of the ancient Jacobins had been crushed, on the 13th Vendémaire (October 5th, 1795), by the prompt and energetic intervention of General Bonaparte.