Here, then, the two cousins began sharply to differ. On 3rd November, during the debates on the Peace, Pitt rose to rebut the censures of Thomas Grenville on a policy which implied the surrender of the Mediterranean to France. He deprecated these sweeping criticisms; for he had ever been ready to frame a treaty which, though falling short of our just pretensions, was not inconsistent with honour and security. The present terms did not fulfil all his wishes; but the difference between them and the best possible terms was not worth the continuance of war. If both Trinidad and Malta could not be retained, he commended Ministers for choosing Trinidad; for the sight of the Union Jack at Malta would have hurt the pride of France. With regard to the Cape of Good Hope he deemed it a far more important possession than Hawkesbury had represented, though inferior to Ceylon. He deplored our failure to restore the House of Savoy to its capital, Turin; but the chief object of the war, the security of Great Britain, had been attained. True, the restoration of the French monarchy would have furnished a better safeguard for peace; but we had never insisted on it as essential, though it might have been assured if the Allies had fulfilled their duties. As to the future, if the First Consul aimed at founding a military despotism, he probably would not select England as the first object of his attack; and we had every prospect of enjoying a long peace. Remembering, perhaps, that he made the same prophecy early in 1792, he uttered this warning: "I am inclined to hope everything that is good; but I am bound to act as if I feared otherwise." In none of his speeches did Pitt display less foresight. The preference of Trinidad to Malta and of Ceylon to the Cape is curious enough; but the prophecy as to a long period of peace and the probable immunity of England from Bonaparte's attack argues singular blindness to the colonial trend of French policy since the year 1798. Despite acrid comments by Fox and Windham, the speech carried the day and firmly established Addington in power.
The sequel is well known. In the interval of six months, during which the aged and gouty Cornwallis sought to reduce the Preliminaries of London to the Treaty of Amiens (27th March 1802), Bonaparte remodelled the Batavian, Ligurian, and Cisalpine Republics in a way wholly at variance with the Treaty of Lunéville. Against these breaches of faith the Addington Cabinet made no protest; and the treaty in its final form provided a complex and unsatisfactory compromise on the Maltese question.[628] Canning and Windham strove to elicit from Pitt a public expression of his disapproval of the treaty; but their efforts were in vain. On 20th April 1802 Canning, while at his country seat, South Hill, Bracknell (Berks), wrote thus to Windham:[629]
... Do not suppose that this is because I have the slightest doubt as to the impression which may be made by pointing out the gross faults and omissions, the weakness, and baseness, and shuffling, and stupidity, that mark this Treaty even beyond the Preliminaries that led to it. But I think people do not want to be convinced of this; that they will not take it kindly, but rather otherwise, to have it forced upon their observation; that, if parted to a division, they will vote for the Treaty with all its imperfections upon its head.... Now as to Pitt himself. He cannot and does not think of this as he did of the Preliminary Treaty. But debate it; and he will, he must, debate as warmly for it. He can take no distinction without seeming to abandon Addington; and that he will not do. He cannot object to any part of the Peace in public, without weakening the grounds upon which he contends peace upon the whole to be preferable to war, and that he will not do. ... Leave it possible for Pitt to say six or eight months hence that the Preliminaries promised well, but that the Treaty did not come up to them. I do not promise you that he ever will say this. But I am fairly persuaded that, if you force from him a public approbation of the Treaty, you defer for at least as many months as have passed since the debates of October, the chance of his coming to see things almost as you and I see them....
April 27 1802.
Since I wrote to you, I have seen Lord Grenville, and I think the plan of action, which he tells me had been concerted between you and him, so perfect, that I retract everything in what I wrote to you (if anything there were) which could be construed as making against it. To debate "about it and about it," as much as you will, to move for papers, to move for taking the Treaty into consideration—all this may be done with great and good effect, but a condemnation of the Treaty, such as would force P[itt] into a defence of it, and identify him with the makers of it, is what of all things is to be avoided. I hope you think so.—Whether P[itt] will save us I do not know. But surely he is the only man that can.
All was in vain. Pitt, having promised to support Addington, deemed himself in honour bound to fulfil that pledge. But, as the events of the year 1802 showed more and more the imbecility of the Addington Cabinet, torturing doubts preyed upon his mind. His friends, especially Canning, now began to discern the pathos of his position, but sought to draw him from his seclusion at Walmer. An opportunity occurred in the month of May. Pitt's birthday was on the 28th. Would not all who foresaw ruin for England in the supremacy of "the Doctor" welcome a demonstration on behalf of his predecessor? For more than a year Pitt's friends had been puzzled and abashed by his unexplained retirement, witness the uncharitable surmise of the usually benevolent Dr. Burgh—"Can I see Addington climb upon the stooping neck of Mr. Pitt, and not believe that it is done in hostility or in a masked confederacy? If the former, how am I to estimate the man who comes in? If the latter, what judgement can I form of the man who goes out?"[630] Slander also was busy in the guise of that gadfly, Nicholls, who proposed to thank the King for dismissing him. By way of retort Pitt's friends triumphantly carried a motion of thanks to Pitt for his great services, against a carping minority of fifty-two; but members were heard to mutter their preference for Addington over all "the d—d men of genius."
Was it not time to arouse the country from sloth? The England of 1802 seemed to Wordsworth
a fen of stagnant waters.