Despite the opposition of the King and Grenville to the negotiations for peace, Pitt held firm; and early in 1796 advances were made through Wickham, our enterprising envoy in Switzerland. They were foredoomed to failure; on 26th March the Directory declared its resolve to listen to no proposals involving the surrender of any of the lands incorporated in France by the terms of the constitution of 1795. This implied that she would retain the Rhine boundary, along with Savoy, Nice, and Avignon. Grenville received the news with satisfaction, remarking to Wickham that the Directory had acted clumsily and "in fact played our game better than we could have hoped."[419] The effect on public opinion was even better when it appeared that France expected England to surrender her colonial conquests. That France should gain enormously on land while the British acquisitions oversea were surrendered, was so monstrous a claim as to arouse the temper of the nation. Even Fox admitted that if France retained her conquests in Europe, England must keep those gained at sea. As Pitt pointed out in his speech of 10th May 1796, the French demands blighted all hope of peace; and we must struggle on, "waiting for the return of reason in our deluded enemy."
Pitt regarded the French conquest of Italy as counterbalanced by the triumph of Jervis and Nelson at Cape St. Vincent in February 1797; and he therefore refused to consider the cession of Gibraltar to Spain. Wholeheartedly he sought for peace in that year. But it was to be peace with honour. In fact, Great Britain fared better after 1796 than before. As Allies fell away or joined the enemy, her real strength began to appear. The reasons for the paradox are not far to seek. Open enemies are less dangerous than false friends. Further, the complexities of the war, resulting from the conflicting aims of the Allies, vanished. England therefore could act in the way in which Pitt would all along have preferred her to act, namely, against the enemy's colonies. In Europe her attitude was defensive; and for a time in the summer and autumn of 1796 fears of invasion were rife. Accordingly the Quarter-Master-General, Sir David Dundas, drew up a scheme of coast defence, especially for the district between Pegwell Bay and Pevensey Bay; he also devised measures for "driving" the country in front of the enemy. In November of that year he recommended the construction of batteries or entrenchments at Shooter's Hill, Blackheath, on the hills near Lee, Lewisham, Sydenham, Norwood, Streatham, Merton, and Wandsworth. The failure of Hoche's attempt at Bantry Bay and the victory off Cape St. Vincent somewhat assuaged these fears; but, owing to the alarming state of Ireland, England remained on the defensive through the years 1797–8, until Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition enabled her to strike a crushing blow at the chief colonial enterprise of her antagonist. That adventure, together with the aggressions of France at Rome and in Switzerland, aroused the anger or fear of Russia, Austria, and Naples, and thereby led up to the war of the Second Coalition.
Amidst the conflict of aims which distracted the Allies in the First Coalition, Pitt's foresight was not seldom at fault. But only those who have weighed the importance of the diplomatic issues at stake, and have noted their warping influence on military affairs, have the right to accuse him of blindness and presumption. The problem before him was of unexampled complexity, and its solution could be effected only by a succession of experiments. That he put forth too many efforts at one time may be granted; and yet in each case, if the details are fully known, the reasons for making the attempt seem adequate. Did not Chatham fail in most of the expeditions which he sent against the coasts of France? Even those who censure Pitt for his blunders in the war will admit that the inspiring influence of his personality and patriotism nerved the nation and Parliament for the struggle. True, the Opposition indulged in petty nagging and in ingeniously unpatriotic tactics; but they only served to throw up in bold relief the consistent and courageous conduct of the Prime Minister. It was an easy task to refute the peevish efforts of Fox to justify the French Jacobins alike before the war, throughout its course, and in their rejection of the British overtures for peace. But in every encounter Pitt won more than a personal triumph. He proved that the war was forced upon us; that on our side it was a defensive effort; and that despite the perverse conduct of Prussia and Spain, England had won notable gains oversea and might expect an advantageous peace, provided only that the nation persevered.
One question remains. Why did not Pitt call the nation to arms? The reasons for his caution are doubtless to be found in the ingrained conservatism of the English character, and in the political ferment which marked the years 1794–5. The mere proposal to merge Line, Militia, and Volunteers in one national array would have seemed mere madness. For the populace had recently been protesting against the facilities given to the loyal to arm and drill themselves. It was rumoured that, by way of retort, the men of Sheffield, Southwark, and Norwich secretly mustered for practice with pikes. In such circumstances, conscription might well spell Revolution. Here was the weak place in Pitt's armour. By parting company with the reformers, he had embittered no small section of his countrymen. In 1794, as we have seen, he was considered a reactionary and an oppressor. He therefore could not appeal to the nation, as Carnot did in France. Even his Bill of March 1794 for increasing the Militia by an extension of the old custom of the ballot or the drawing of lots produced some discontent. A similar proposal, passed a year earlier by the Dublin Parliament for raising 16,000 additional Militiamen in Ireland, led to widespread rioting, especially in Ulster. Not until 1797 did the Scottish Militia Act ensure the adoption of similar methods by Scotland, though regiments of Fencibles were raised in the meantime.
The preparations for national defence continued to proceed in these parochial ways. Pitt's authority at Westminster was at no time more firmly founded than at the time of the meeting of the new Parliament in the autumn of 1796. Yet the piecemeal methods went on as before. He proposed to raise by means of the ballot a levy of 15,000 men in order to recruit the navy and the Line regiments; and he further asked for a levy of 60,000 men as a Supplementary Militia, one tenth being embodied by turns so as not to withdraw from work too many hands at one time. Nor was this all. For the purpose of strengthening the irregular cavalry, he proposed that every person who kept ten horses should be required to furnish one horseman and a horse for such a corps, and those who owned more than ten horses were to subscribe a proportionate sum towards its maintenance. He also required gamekeepers and those who took out licenses to shoot either to serve on horseback or to find a substitute. In all he expected to raise 20,000 horsemen by these means.
The attitude of the House was on the whole highly favourable to these proposals. Fox accused Ministers of raising an invasion scare in order to compass their own nefarious designs; but Pitt's first proposals passed without a division; that on the cavalry by 140 votes to 30. Nevertheless, Pitt did nothing towards securing cohesion in these diverse forces, except by a provision which obliged Volunteers to enrol in the Supplementary Militia, to take the oath as such, and to train by turns for twenty days at a time in any part of the country, instead of training once or twice a week in their own towns. This must have been beneficial where it was carried out; but, as the Militia was controlled by the Home Office, it is doubtful whether enough energy was thrown into the scheme to ensure success.
These arrangements are miserably inadequate in comparison with the levée en masse of Carnot, which baffled the calculations of foreign statesmen, flung back the armies of the Coalition, and opened up the path of glory for Bonaparte. Here the popular armament did not become in any sense national until after the renewal of war in 1803. The possibilities open to England, even in that trying year 1795, were set forth by Major Cartwright in a suggestive pamphlet—"The Commonwealth in Danger." After pointing out that, having been deserted by Prussia and Spain, we must now depend on ourselves alone, he depicted the contrast between England and France. The French Republic, relying on the populace, had more than a million of men under arms. Great Britain was "a disarmed, defenceless, unprepared people, scarcely more capable of resisting a torrent of French invaders than the herds and flocks of Smithfield." How, then, could the danger be averted? Solely (he replied) by trusting the people and by reviving the ancient laws which compelled householders to bear arms. But this implied the concession of the franchise. Be bold, he said. Make the Kingdom a Commonwealth and the nation will be saved. He continued in these noteworthy words: "The enemy is at the gates, and we must be friends or perish. Adversity is a school of the sublime virtues. Necessity is an eloquent reconciler of differences.... By saying to Britain—Be an armed nation, she secures her defence and seals her freedom. A million of armed men, supporting the State with their purse, and defending it with their lives, will know that none have so great a stake as themselves in the Government.... Arming the people and reforming Parliament are inseparable."
At first sight this seems mere rhetoric, but on reflection it will appear the path of prudence. By the talisman of trust in the people France conjured up those armed hosts which overthrew old Europe. At the stamp of Napoleon's heel a new Europe arose, wherein the most potent defiance came from the peoples which drew upon their inmost reserves of strength. That these consist in men, not in money, is clear from the course of the struggle against the great Emperor. Spain, Russia, and Prussia adopted truly national systems of defence, and quickly forged to the front. Britain and Austria clung to their old systems, and, thanks to Wellington's genius and Metternich's diplomacy, they survived. But they did not play the decisive part which they might have done if George III and Pitt, Francis II and Thugut, had early determined to trust and arm their peoples. Unfortunately for England, she underwent no military disaster; and therefore Pitt was fain to plod along in the old paths and use the nation's wealth, not its manhood. He organized it piecemeal, on a class basis, instead of embattling it as a whole. In the main his failure to realize the possibilities of the situation arose from his abandonment of those invigorating principles which nerved him to the achievements of the earlier and better part of his career. It is conceivable that, had he retained the idealism of his youth and discovered a British Scharnhorst, Waterloo might have been fought in 1796 and won solely by British troops.