The prospects, so far as concerned the freedom of Poland and the peace of the West, were worse than Pitt anticipated. Ewart foresaw the course of events more correctly. A little later he obtained the recall for which he had some time been pressing; but he had the mortification of seeing Morton Eden, the brother of his rival, Lord Auckland, installed in his place. He retired to Bath for treatment by his brother, a medical man; but an internal disease of long standing developed very suddenly on 25th January 1792, and ended his life two days later amidst delirium. The details, as set forth in the family papers, show that the delirium of his last hours was the outcome of acute internal troubles, which resembled appendicitis. They serve also to refute the wild rumours that Ewart went raving mad as a result of political disappointments, or that he was poisoned by some Russian agent.[1040] The last letter which Pitt wrote to this brilliant but most unfortunate diplomatist shows a chivalrous desire to screen him from needless anxiety:
Downing Street, Jan. 20, 1792.[1041]
Your letter having come at a time of very particular engagement, it was impossible for me to answer it sooner. Your recollection of what pass’d between the Duke of York and yourself is certainly different from the manner in which I am told that H.R.H. understands it; but no difficulty whatever will arise from this circumstance in settling the business; nor do I see any reason for your entertaining any apprehension of its producing any consequences disagreeable to yourself. I am very sorry that you should already have felt so much on the subject. The train in which the business now is will, I am in hopes, relieve you from any further anxiety or trouble respecting it, and makes it wholly unnecessary to dwell further upon it.
Worse than private misfortunes was the blow dealt to the Polish cause. The rebuff encountered by the Allies at St. Petersburg deeply depressed the reformers of Warsaw. On the return of Fawkener through the Polish capital, King Stanislaus expressed grave concern at the abandonment of all the safeguards for Turkey and Poland on which Pitt had at first insisted. The cession to Russia of all the land up to the Dniester seemed to him to presage ruin to the Poles—“Nor did my pointing out [added Hailes] the attention which had been paid to their interests by the preservation of the liberty of the Dniester produce any advantageous effect.”[1042] In truth, Stanislaus knew Catharine well enough to see in her triumph the doom of his kingdom.[1043] Just as the ascendancy which she acquired over Turkey by the Treaty of Kainardji led naturally, perhaps inevitably, to the First Partition of Poland, so now the principle of the Balance of Power impelled Austria and Prussia to look about for lands that would compensate them for the expansion of Russia. Those lands could be found most easily in Poland, less easily in France. So it came about that the principle which Pitt invoked for the greater security of the smaller States, became in the hands of Catharine and her powerful neighbours a pretext for schemes of aggrandisement and pillage.
Thus fell to pieces the “federative system,” whereby Pitt hoped to group the weaker States around England and Prussia. The scheme was due in the first instance to Ewart. Pitt adopted it when he believed the time to be ripe; but he postponed action too long. Had he pushed his plans forward in the autumn of 1790, as soon as the dispute with Spain was settled, and maintained the naval armaments at their full strength, he would probably have gained a peaceful triumph over Catharine. In that case the accession of Poland, Sweden, and Turkey to the Triple Alliance would naturally have followed. There would then have been no invasion of France by Austria and Prussia; still less would there have been any spoliation of Poland. The practical manner in which the Poles reformed their commonwealth opened up vast possibilities for the east of Europe; and the crushing of those hopes under the heel of a remorseless militarism is probably the severest loss which the national principle has sustained in modern times.
Nevertheless, though Pitt showed a lack of nerve at the crisis, yet, in view of the duplicity of Prussia, the doubtful attitude of Leopold and Gustavus, the marvellous resourcefulness of Catharine, and the factious opposition of the Whigs, he cannot be blamed. At times, new and subtle influences warp the efforts of statesmen. This was so in the year 1791. Pitt was striving to build on the basis of the Balance of Power. But that well-trodden ground now began to heave under the impact of forces mightier than those wielded by monarchs and chancellors. Democracy sent out its thrills from Paris as a centre, and the gaze of statesmen was turned from the East to the West. Thenceforth the instinct of self-preservation or of greed marshalled the continental chanceries against the two reforming States. The “Zeitgeist” breathed against the plans of Pitt, and they were not. In their place there came others of a far different kind, inspired by hopes of territorial gains in Poland and the overthrow of liberty in France.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Baines, “Hist. of Cotton Manufacture,” 226, 232–4. See Mr. G. P. Gooch’s “Politics and Culture,” for other coincidences.
[2] The first trustworthy statistics of population were obtained in the census of 1801; but those given above are probably not very wide of the mark. The estimates are those of Rickman, quoted by Porter, “Progress of the Nation,” 13. The estimate of the “Statistical Journal” (xliii, 462), quoted by Dr. Cunningham, “Eng. Industry and Commerce,” 699, is 7,953,000 for the year 1780.
[3] See Walter’s “Origin of Commerce,” iv, 401, for a full statement of this juggling with the nation’s finance.