A History of England, Period III. Constitutional Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

The Birmingham riots. July 1791.

But it was not only in Parliament that the strong division of opinion caused by the Revolution was beginning to be evident. The conservative temper of the upper and middle classes was shown clearly in the riots at Birmingham. The friends of the Revolution had determined to have a public dinner to celebrate the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille. The dinner was chiefly planned by Dr. Priestley, a Unitarian minister, a man of much scientific repute. Hearing that his movement was unpopular, he attempted to postpone the dinner, from which he was himself absent; some eighty persons however met, and in the evening a fierce riot broke out against them; from Thursday till Sunday the riots continued, Dr. Priestley's house and library were destroyed, and much wanton mischief done. It was constantly reported, though never proved, that the magistrates of the district, far from trying to check the rioters, had been seen urging them on.

Pitt's policy as yet unchanged.

Up till this point Pitt had certainly shown no sign of yielding to the conservative feeling of the country. He had declared distinctly that he intended to pursue a policy of neutrality, to hold carefully aloof from any interference in the domestic affairs of France, and had even entirely neutralized the effect of the Convention of Pilnitz (Aug. 1791) by refusing to accede to the project of concerted action on the part of European powers which had there been broached. He even felt so certain of the continuance of peace, that his Budget, in the spring of the year 1792, was framed entirely upon a peace footing. He suggested the diminution of the number of sailors by 2000; he allowed the subsidiary treaty with Hesse to come to an end, and drew up a plan for the reduction of the interest of the Funds from 4 to 3½ or 3 per cent. He even continued his measures of improvement; he again supported, in a speech of unusual excellence, the immediate abolition of the slave trade, although without success; while, in conjunction with his great opponent, he carried through a Bill for a change in the libel law known as Fox's Libel Bill, which placed in the hands of juries the right of determining not only the fact of the publication of a libel, but the more important question whether the matter published was in its character libellous or not. The opposition offered to this Bill by Lord Chancellor Thurlow cost him his position; the Great Seal was put into commission. But the crisis had in fact arrived. The events which had taken place in France, and which continued to take place during the year 1792, and the corresponding excitement aroused in England, were gradually driving the minister to the persuasion that his peaceful policy of non-intervention was no longer tenable.

Progress of the French Revolution.

After its removal to Paris in October 1789, the Assembly, now under the influence of the Jacobin Club, and watched by the Parisians, proceeded rapidly in its work of destruction and reconstitution. All local arrangements and provincial powers disappeared when France was divided into Departments; the Crown lost its hold upon the judicial system, which was now grounded upon a popular basis; the Church became a department of the State, and the necessities of the State were supplied by selling its vast property, or, as purchasers were not forthcoming, by issuing bills payable in Church lands, called assignats. It became plain that the power of the Crown, and with it the power of the executive, was entirely disappearing. Nothing could save it but one of two courses—the King might become a traitor to his country, throw himself into the arms of his brother potentates, and begin a war of kings against peoples, or, withdrawing from his capital, rally round him all the conservative elements which yet remained in France. The King's flight to Varennes. June 1791. This was the plan of the one great man of the Revolution, Mirabeau; but Mirabeau died in April 1791; and in June of the same year the King adopted the other and worse course, fled from Paris, and was arrested at Varennes. He was brought back a prisoner, and remained with suspended authority till the Assembly in September, hurriedly completing its work of constitution-making, resigned its office. The King then resumed his authority at the head of the new monarchical constitution, but with power strangely clipped, and with an Assembly the leading members of which, the Girondins (so called because their leaders were representatives from the Gironde, a district near Bordeaux), eager and ambitious men, preferred theoretically a republic, and believed that their power would be best secured by plunging France into a war. It is not in fact true to assert, as is commonly done, that it was the attacks of the combined monarchs of Europe which drove France to war. Much sympathy was no doubt felt for the disasters of the The Girondin ministry declares war. April 1792. royal family, and the representations of the emigrant nobles and princes had met with some success in Russia and Sweden. But both those countries were far off. The more immediate antagonists of France—Austria and Prussia—were prevented by their domestic jealousies, their fear of Russia, and their relations with Poland, from at first dreaming of an open assault upon France. It was for their own ends that the Girondins stirred up the war spirit in France, and it could best be fostered by exciting the popular feelings by suggestions of interference on the part of foreign kings with the new-born liberty of the country, and by hinting that the King himself was a party to this conspiracy. It was thus, taking advantage of the sympathy which foreign courts no doubt expressed for the King, that the Girondins demanded, in an overbearing tone, immediate and satisfactory replies to their diplomatic questions, and failing these, declared war upon Austria in the month of April 1792. Their declaration of war was speedily followed by the reality of that union between Austria and Prussia which they had falsely urged as an excuse for it. But the Girondins had overreached themselves: by exciting the popular feeling against the King they had played directly into the hands of the Jacobins; and when the King, in June 1792, discarded his Girondin ministry and attempted to rule with something like independence, it was only with the aid of the Jacobins that they ultimately returned to power. For it was by this extreme party, still further excited by the injudicious and The King suspended. Aug. 10. threatening manifesto which the Duke of Brunswick had issued on the 25th of May, and by the ill success of the opening of the war, that the great insurrection of the 10th of August was carried out. The King was suspended from his functions, the Tuileries were taken, and though the Gironde was nominally restored, the power of the State was really in the hands of the Jacobins and the revolutionary Commune. The Legislative Assembly lingered but a few weeks longer, to give place in September Massacres of September. to a National Democratic Convention. The brief space between the 10th of August and the 21st of September was filled by the terrible consequences of the unbridled triumph of the people. The royalist prisoners were murdered in the prisons, the revolutionary Commune established in Paris, and when the Declaration of the Republic. Sept. 21, 1792. Convention met, in the midst of fear at home and fear of the advancing Prussians abroad, its first step was of necessity the declaration of the Republic and the dethronement of the King.

Revolutionary character of the war.

Almost on the same day that the Convention opened, the advance of the Prussians had been suddenly and unexpectedly checked. Dumouriez had occupied the Passes of the Argonnes, Kellermann had fought the cannonade of Valmy, and the Prussians, bargaining for a safe retreat, began to hurry homeward with ignoble speed. From this time onward the character of the war changed, and became really dangerous to Europe. A party more energetic than the Girondins was now in power. Dumouriez had always recommended the conquest of Belgium for political reasons; but war assumed a different aspect now that it was in the hands of the Jacobins; it went hand in hand with the propagation of revolutionary ideas. The victory of Jemmappes opened the road to Belgium; in the South, Nice and Savoy completed the desired frontier of the Alps; and the temper in which these conquests had been achieved was rendered obvious when, a few days after the battle of Jemmappes, the celebrated decree of the 19th of November Edict of Fraternity. Nov. 19, 1792. was issued, promising fraternity to all nations desirous of liberty, and when, two days afterwards, Savoy was formed into a new department as the Department of Mont Blanc. If further proof was needed of the character of the war, it was afforded by the peremptory orders which were issued to disregard all treaty obligations and to open the navigation of the Scheldt, which treaty after treaty, guaranteed by France and other countries, had closed, and the opening of which could not but bring France directly into opposition both to Holland and to England. The chief points to be remembered as affecting England are the declaration of war with Austria, sought by the French, and upon old fashioned principles; the fall of the Girondins, practically completed on the 10th of August; the union of Austria and Prussia produced by the war, but not contracted formally till after the death of Leopold; the advance of the allies, the consequent establishment of the Jacobins; the massacres of September; the summoning of the Convention; the check to the allies at Valmy; the renewal of the war of aggression upon different principles and with different success, those principles being illustrated by the ordering of the opening of the Scheldt and the appropriation of Savoy; while in Paris the completion of the second stage of the Revolution was marked by the suspension and trial of the King.

Change of opinion in England as to the Revolution.

It was thus, with an enlarged knowledge of the principles and inevitable course of the French Revolution, that Pitt had to choose his conduct, and that in the course of this year (1792) the English people finally divided itself into parties, and in Parliament the old party names of Whig and Tory, which had in fact since the Hanoverian succession lost their significance, assumed a new meaning. The first movements of the Revolution were generally hailed with enthusiasm in England. In the grand march of the first days of the States-General and National Assembly there was nothing at first obvious to shock English feeling. On the surface it appeared only as if France had discovered, and was determined to realize, the same truths which England had already discovered; the people and the Crown appeared to be preparing to act hand in hand against the monopoly of the privileged classes, against the Divine right of kings, and for the establishment of that official royalty which already existed among us. To the leaders of the Whigs, who still erroneously believed that that party was the really Liberal party, there was everything to excite enthusiasm in the movement of the people, while Pitt himself could scarcely fail to recognize that the very same process was being carried out to which he owed his own elevation. But, by extraordinary mismanagement on the part of the French Court, and by the sluggish, uncertain character of the King, it came to pass that the cause of royalty became unfortunately and indissolubly connected with the cause of the privileged classes. The direction of the Revolution was shifted, and the assault was directed not only against them, but against the Crown; and not only against the Crown, in the sense that hereditary kingship was attacked, but also against all vigorous executive of which the King, even in his official capacity, might be regarded as the representative. Now Pitt's administration may be regarded as a popular triumph due to the union of King and people. It was quite untrue in England that the interests of the Crown and aristocracy were one; the power of the Crown, in so far as it was antagonistic to the power of the great families, was favourable to liberty. Nevertheless, the ideas of the French Revolution did in fact receive considerable sympathy in England, as was rendered more and more visible daily. The amount of that sympathy assumed an exaggerated appearance under the influence of the fear and horror created by the excesses in Paris, and the relation of classes which had not existed in England, but which those who sympathized with the Revolution chose to believe existed, did in fact arise. The choice seemed again to be offered between people and King. And all the privileged classes, and all the propertied classes, recognizing that a strong executive meant order, and that a strong executive was represented by the King, speedily made their choice, and gathered round the King.