The same fact is rendered obvious by the completion in this year of the consolidation of the new Tory party. Ever since the middle of 1792 the Duke of Portland and his friends had voted with Government, but they now openly joined it, and were admitted to some of the best places. The Duke of Portland became Secretary for the Home Department, Earl Fitzwilliam Lord President, and Mr. Wyndham Secretary at War. The one point which connected the new recruits with the ministry was the determination all felt to carry on the war. Pitt was therefore hampered in two directions. When Parliament was opened on the 13th of December 1794, there appeared to be a growing feeling in Desire for peace. favour of peace, and Pitt found himself opposed to many of his old friends, the country gentlemen; but his union with the Duke of Portland and his party rendered a change of policy at present impossible. He was in the hands of the war party; afraid of losing their support, and buoyed up by an idle belief in the financial exhaustion of France, he determined still to carry on the war vigorously. As he was quite paramount in Parliament[12] in spite of an increased minority, he had no difficulty in getting leave to raise a loan of eighteen millions, and to guarantee another large loan to purchase the co-operation of Austria. He nevertheless slightly changed his tone, and confessed that he should be satisfied with a peace that gave him security, and allowed later in the session that there was a possibility of treating with the present Government of France.
The Prince of Wales' marriage. April 8, 1795.
Amongst other minor difficulties which he had to meet was the constant embarrassment of the Prince of Wales. Seven years before he had purchased the payment of his debts by a lie concerning his wife; he was now again £700,000 in debt; the only terms on which he could hope to get relieved were that he should marry legally, and the King had chosen for him a Princess of Brunswick whom he had never seen. Lord Malmesbury arranged the negotiation, but unwisely suppressed, what he saw clearly himself, the absolute unfitness of the lady for the position she was to occupy. He found her frivolous, slovenly, and quite deficient in tact. It was impossible but that she should be distasteful to any English gentleman. Very shortly after the birth of her child a formal separation took place, and a scandalous dispute arose, which afterwards turned into a great party conflict. For the present however, the Prince received the price of his unfortunate bargain. The royal message demanding the assistance of Parliament was couched in humble language, and asked only for some arrangement by which the debts should be ultimately paid; but even thus it excited a perfect storm in the House. None even of the Prince's old friends rose to defend him, and Pitt himself, though no friend of the Prince, intreated that the matter might not be examined by a Parliamentary Committee, for fear of the damaging effect of such an inquiry on the principle of an hereditary monarchy. It was finally arranged that the Prince's income should be raised from £72,000 to £125,000 a year, that the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall should be set apart, which in twenty-seven years would extinguish the debt, and that £25,000 a year more should be devoted to pay the interest. To these enactments was added an extraordinary one, rendering the Prince's servants liable for any contract they should enter into on his behalf, and limiting legal remedy against the Prince to the term of three months.
Sufferings of the lower classes. 1795.
Such demands upon the public purse seemed very badly timed, when the working classes were suffering very heavily from depression of trade, from famine produced by two bad harvests, and from a constantly increasing burden of taxation. Discontent was in fact increasing widely, great political meetings were held in London and elsewhere to expose the abuses of monarchy and aristocracy. Riots and seditious writings were constantly on the increase, and the Government thought the state of affairs so critical that they determined upon an autumn session. Three days before Parliament met a monster meeting was held under the auspices of the Corresponding Society in Copenhagen Fields. The excitement thus produced found vent in an assault upon the Assault on the King. King as he went to open Parliament, one of the windows of his state coach was broken by a stone or bullet; on his return his coach was again surrounded by an angry mob, with shouts of "Bread, bread! peace, peace!" and he only escaped with difficulty by driving rapidly in his private carriage from St. James's to Buckingham Palace. The King, who throughout showed great courage, showed himself in the evening at Covent Garden theatre, where he was on the whole well received. This act of violence produced two coercive Bills, one to suppress seditious meetings, the other to extend the law of treason. Every public meeting was to be advertised by a paper signed by resident householders, and all meetings were liable to be dispersed according to the Riot Act if any two justices thought them dangerous; while by the second law, writing, preaching, and speaking, were created overt acts, thus rendering the offender guilty of treason, and writing or speaking against the established Government was made a highly punishable crime. These Bills were commonly known as the Sedition and Treason Bills. They were not passed without strong opposition, and the use of language on the part of Fox so vehement as to excite still further the anger of the Tories. This party was now enjoying its selfish triumph to the utmost. It became necessary again to augment the taxes, and Pitt hit upon the expedient of levying duties upon legacies and successions. The country gentlemen had sufficient influence to confine the Bill to the succession of money and personal property only, and to exclude real property from the action of the Bill. This glaring injustice was not remedied till 1853.
Changes in France give hopes of peace.
The burden of taxation had much to do with the overtures for peace which were set on foot in 1796. Nearly all classes in the kingdom had become weary of the war. Pitt, as has been seen, had been forced into it against his natural tendencies, and though, when once embarked in the war of opinion, he had used language of the most overbearing character, he was eager, now that he found his hope of a speedy bankruptcy of France frustrated, to bring about an honourable peace. Such an opportunity was offered by the changed character of the French Government. The Directory had held its position for upwards of a year, and seemed to give promise of such stability as would render negotiation possible. This change in the Government of France had been the outcome of a series of revolutions which had followed each other in rapid succession.
Retrospect of French affairs. 1793.
The Girondins had, contrary to their conscientious opinions, voted for the death of the King. It was in fact an act of suicide. After this it was useless to oppose any demand of the Jacobins; the attempt only produced a violent struggle in the Convention, which ended in the complete overthrow of the Girondins by the insurrection of the 1st of June. In the place of the party thus annihilated the Jacobins found themselves supreme. Upon them henceforward lay the duty of saving the Revolution within and rescuing France from foreign assaults from without. The machinery of Government to which they trusted to obtain these ends was a Committee of Public Safety, in whose hands the full powers of the executive were lodged. As far as the external defence of France was concerned, the restless energy of the new rulers was completely The Committee of Public Safety. successful. La Vendée, Toulon, and Lyons, the centres of opposition within France, were all reduced. Carnot struck out a new plan of warfare, and found means to employ with success the masses with which an almost unlimited conscription supplied the army, and from this time onwards the French were everywhere successful. But while exhibiting this energy abroad, in France the government of the Committee was in the last degree cruel and tyrannical. Nor could the Jacobins agree among themselves. On the one side was a party atheistical in their religion, communistic in their political views, foul and blasphemous in their language. This party, which predominated in the Commune, took its name from Hébert, the editor of an infamous paper called Père Duchesne. It shocked the feelings of the world by its excesses, abolishing religion, closing the churches, and holding a blasphemous service in Notre Dame in honour of Reason. On the other side was a party, headed by Danton, intent chiefly on success abroad, and inclined to believe that the work of destruction had gone far enough. Between the two was the party of the Purists, headed by Robespierre and St. Just, who looked with equal hatred on the scandalous and anarchical conduct of the Hébertists and the indulgent and somewhat loose lives of the followers of Danton. Robespierre was able to attack and destroy both these parties in turn. The Hébertists were the first to fall, but very shortly after the same fate befell the Dantonists.