A History of England, Period III. Constitutional Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Sad close of Pitt's career.

The success in India was no doubt of great importance both in sustaining the courage of the people and in cheering the last days of Pitt; but he was not destined to close his life in happiness and triumph. He lived, indeed, long enough to see the great coalition for which he had been working completed, and to receive the adhesion to it of Russia, Austria, Sweden, and Naples; he lived long enough to see the English again triumphant upon the ocean, to hear the news of the greatest victory which had ever attended their arms, and to rejoice at the dispersion of the threatening cloud which for more than a year had hung over the country. But he also lived just long enough to see, as far as his foreign policy was concerned, the whole of his careful structure dashed to pieces, and the complete triumph of his arch enemy at the battle of Austerlitz.

Attack on Lord Melville.

If the close of his life as a foreign minister was sad, a still thicker mist of misfortune hung over the last years of his home government. The man on whom he most relied in the ministry was his old friend Lord Melville, who had fairly justified his confidence by the energy and success with which he had reconstituted the navy. It was through him that the Opposition found means to inflict a deadly blow upon the minister. Lord St. Vincent, though his general administration had been weak, had been laudably anxious to improve the condition of the Admiralty, especially Naval inquiries. Feb. 1805. in regard to its expenses. He had therefore established a commission of naval inquiry, which from time to time sent in its reports. The last of these, the tenth, had been sent in in February 1805. Even before its publication it was understood to reflect upon Lord Melville's conduct as Treasurer of the Navy, an office which he had held along with several others in Pitt's first administration. On one point he had certainly shown remissness. He had allowed Mr. Trotter, Paymaster of the Navy, to pay public money to his own account at his banker's, and to use it as his own. No loss had accrued to the State in consequence; but no doubt it was a highly censurable misapplication of public funds. But beyond this, it was asserted that Lord Melville had himself acted in a similar way, and undoubtedly there were certain sums unaccounted for. Lord Melville's own account of this matter was, that since his retirement from office he had destroyed all old vouchers; but that even if he possessed them, as he at that time held various offices, and did not keep the accounts entirely separate, he would not have been able to give a satisfactory account without disclosing confidential transactions of Government. This no doubt meant that the money had been employed for some secret service; but his enemies did not scruple to say that he had appropriated it to his own uses. Upon the report Mr. Whitbread founded a parliamentary attack upon Melville, and gave notice that he would bring in a vote of censure upon the 8th of April. Government had now to determine what they would do. Pitt and his own immediate friends, entirely disbelieving the charge against Melville, resolved to withstand it openly. But there was a division in his own Cabinet. Lord Sidmouth and Melville were great enemies, and, declaring that he regarded it as impossible for Melville to clear himself, Sidmouth warned Pitt that if he persisted in defending him he should be obliged to resign. As this would have been complete ruin, Pitt yielded to a middle course, and determined to request that the inquiry might be referred to a select committee. On the 8th the Vote of censure against Melville. April 8, 1805. great debate came on. It was plain that the question would rest with the votes of the independent members, and when Wilberforce, whose character carried great weight, declared that he must support the vote of censure, those members who were pledged to neither party were induced to follow his lead. The anxious moment for division arrived, and the numbers were declared to be equal—216 having voted on either side. The Speaker was then called upon to give his casting vote. The scene is thus described by Lord Fitzharris:—"I sat wedged close to Pitt himself the night when we were 216; and the Speaker Abbot, after looking as white as a sheet, and pausing for ten minutes, gave the casting vote against us. Pitt immediately put on the little cocked hat that he was in the habit of wearing when dressed for the evening, and jammed it deeply over his forehead, and I distinctly saw the tears trickling down his cheeks. We had heard one or two, such as Colonel Wardle, say they would see 'how Billy looked after it.' A few young ardent followers of Pitt, with myself, locked their arms together and formed a circle, in which he moved, I believe unconsciously, out of the House, and neither the Colonel nor his friends could approach him." The Opposition were not content with the vote of censure; although Melville at once resigned his office, Whitbread proceeded to move an address to the King that he should be removed from the King's Councils and presence for ever. The feeling of the House did not justify so extreme a measure, and the motion was withdrawn. But before long the minister thought it necessary so far to yield to public opinion as to have Lord Melville's name withdrawn from the Privy Council.

Sidmouth resigns. July 7.

The disagreement between Pitt and Sidmouth upon Lord Melville's conduct terminated in the withdrawal of the Lord President and his followers from the ministry. On the appointment of Sir Charles Middleton, a very old man, to the Admiralty, in which he had been the constant assistant of Melville, Sidmouth took the opportunity of expressing his displeasure and resigned. The charge against Lord Melville was pressed to impeachment. He delivered a defence before the House of Commons, but it was not regarded as satisfactory. The House of Lords were therefore called upon to decide the question, and when it subsequently came to the vote (June 12, 1806) a very large majority, on all the charges, declared the prisoner not guilty. But Pitt did not live to hear either this declaration of the innocence of his friend or to suffer from the desertion of his colleague Sidmouth. Parliament prorogued. July 12, 1805. The impeachment was not carried up to the Bar of the House of Lords till the 26th of June; on the 12th of July Parliament was prorogued, and Pitt did not live to see the opening of another session.

Progress of the war. 1804.

While misfortune was thus following the minister in Parliament, his great plans of European policy had been continued and had at last met with success. In fact, in this matter Napoleon had been his best ally, and had been gradually forcing the great powers of Europe into hostility. The ill feeling which had arisen between the Emperor Alexander and Bonaparte in the preceding year had been increased by subsequent events, and the Czar had been gradually taking up a position of more defined hostility. On the 24th of May 1804, he contracted a defensive alliance with Prussia, though not intending immediate war if it could be avoided. The murder of the Duc d'Enghien and the violation of neutral territory had forced him further in the same direction. So strongly had he resented this act, that it was through his representations to the Diet of Ratisbon (July) that Austria and Prussia, who would otherwise have passed it over in silence, were induced to take any notice of it, and at length, finding his indirect action through the German powers of no avail, he had remonstrated directly with France and withdrawn his ambassador from Paris (Aug. 18). Prussia, which pursued throughout a weak and vacillating policy, also expressed its disapprobation of Napoleon's conduct by a change of ministry, which removed Haugwitz, a constant friend of France, from office. But instead of seeking to allay its fears, Napoleon still further excited its jealousy by intriguing with the smaller States of Germany, and making a violent inroad into the territory of Hamburg (Oct. 25), to carry off thence the English minister. Austria too, though restrained by her weakness from overt action, in November contracted a treaty with Russia similar to that of Prussia. Very little was wanted to bring all three powers into open hostility with France.

The character of Alexander gave indeed to Napoleon an opportunity which he ought to have seized. He was full of high-flown notions for the regeneration of Europe, for the more equitable division of states, and some generally established system of public law. With some such scheme his minister Nowosiltzoff came to England in 1805. Pitt speedily modified his views, and proved to him that before so grand a scheme could be realized the practical work to be done was to insist upon the establishment of the terms of the treaties of Lunéville Treaty of St. Petersburg. April 11, 1805. and Amiens. Accordingly, on the 11th of April, the Treaty of St. Petersburg was signed. The two countries pledged themselves to support a general European league, for the purpose of demanding the evacuation of Hanover, Italy, and Elba, the real independence of Holland and Switzerland, and the complete establishment of the kingdom of Naples: they especially pledged themselves not to interfere with the internal government of France, and to close all questions by a general European congress. As England refused to evacuate Malta, the Czar declined to ratify the treaty, and determined to make one more effort singlehanded to avoid war. For this purpose he despatched an ambassador with much more favourable terms than those implied in the late treaty. But Napoleon declined to see him for two months, and in those two months he had had himself declared King of Italy (May 26), had accepted the offer of the Doge of Genoa to comprise the Ligurian Republic in his Italian kingdom (June 3), had created Lucca into a principality for the husband of his sister Eliza (July 21), and had received an ambassador from the Court of Naples with the most stinging threats and insults. The Russian ambassador was therefore recalled, and, though without declaration of war, the coalition was in fact in existence, and arrangements for a general attack The coalition practically formed. Sept. 1805. upon France began. The coalition was thus the fruit rather of Napoleon's conduct than of Pitt's diplomacy; the occupation of Hanover, the violation of the neutral territory of Baden, the murder of the Duc d'Enghien, the establishment of the kingdom of Italy, the annexation of Genoa and Lucca, and virtually of Holland and of Switzerland, supplied ample reasons to excite the alarm of Europe and to drive the powers into coalition.

Napoleon prepares to invade England.