William Pitt and the Great War

by J. Holland Rose

In Ireland the organisation went on apace until Camden struck sharp blows through the military. In the middle of May 1797, when the malcontents were excited by news of the second mutiny at Portsmouth, they rose in the North, but in three or four engagements the loyal Militia and Yeomanry broke up their bands. The South remained quiet, and the efforts to seduce the army and Militia were fruitless; but Lord Clifden, writing to Abbot on 15th May, predicted a general rising when the French attempted a second invasion, as they certainly would.[485] On 19th June Beresford wrote from Dublin to Auckland, stating that, but for the repressive measures and wholesale seizures of arms, not a loyalist's head would have been safe.[486] The spring of 1797 was indeed a time of great risk. But for the weakness of the Dutch and French navies, a landing in Ireland could have taken place with every chance of success. As it was, Camden's vigorous measures so far cowed the malcontents that the rebellion was deferred for a year. This respite probably saved the British Empire. Amidst the financial and naval difficulties of the first half of the year 1797, a telling blow struck at Ireland could scarcely have failed of success. Rarely were the enemies of England so formidable; never were her means of defence so weak. Fortunately, no blow was aimed at her until the month of October; and then, when the Dutch fleet set out to convoy an expedition to Ireland, it was utterly crushed by Duncan at Camperdown. There was therefore little risk of an invasion in force after October 1797, the very month which saw Napoleon Bonaparte set free from his lengthy negotiations with Austria. Verily, if Fortune pressed hard on Pitt at Toulon and in Flanders and Hayti, she more than redressed the balance by her boons at sea in the year 1797.

Camden's letters to Pitt reveal the imminence of bankruptcy in Ireland throughout that year; and it is noteworthy that the loan raised for the Irish Government in January and February was the final cause of the Bank crisis in London. Even so, the Irish Exchequer was in dire need. On 25th April Camden informed Pitt that only £8,000 remained in the Exchequer, and he had no means for equipping the troops if the French should land. The sum of £200,000 must be sent at once. Such a demand at that time was impossible; and not until the end of May could Pitt forward the half of that sum, Camden meanwhile borrowing money in Dublin at 8 3/8 per cent. On 1st June he wrote to Pitt a confidential letter, laying bare his real aims. He urged him to do all in his power to procure peace from France. He had recommended this step in April; but now his language was most insistent. Assuming that it would be sheer madness to tempt fortune in another campaign, he suggested that, if the French terms were too onerous, Pitt should leave it to another Prime Minister to frame a peace. But whatever happened, Pitt must not lower his dignity by conceding Reform and Catholic Emancipation in Great Britain and Ireland. If those measures were inevitable, others must carry them. The latter would only satisfy the Irish Catholics for a time, their aim being to rule the country. The only way of escaping these difficulties was a Union of the Parliaments; but he (Camden) could not undertake to carry it, still less Catholic Emancipation. Finally he declared the Presbyterians of Ulster to be Republicans who would rise en masse if the French landed; but if Cornwallis were sent over to lead the troops, even that crisis might be overcome.[487]

Pitt received this letter at the height of the mutiny at the Nore. He seems to have sent no answer to it: indeed, silence is the best reply to such an effusion. Camden's letters to Pitt show that he longed for his recall. In that of 16th November 1796 he concluded with the significant remark that he looked forward to the time when they would once more live as country gentlemen in Kent. Pitt had the same longing; but he never wrote a line expressing a desire to leave the tiller at the height of the storm. Obviously Camden was weary of his work. Fear seems to have been the motive which prompted his proclamation of martial law in several counties and the offer of an amnesty to all who would surrender their arms before Midsummer 1797. Those enactments, together with the brutal methods of General Lake and the soldiery in Ulster and Leinster, crushed revolt for the present but kindled a flame of resentment which burst forth a year later. As the danger increased, so did the severities of the Protestant Yeomanry and Militia. Thus, fear begot rage, and rage intensified fear and its offspring, violence. The United Irishmen had their revenge. In the summer of 1797 their two delegates, Lewins and McNevin, did their utmost to defeat the efforts of Pitt to bring about peace with France; and the former had the promise of the Director, Barras, that France would never sheathe the sword until Ireland was free.[488]

Again Camden begged Pitt to seek the first opportunity of freeing him from his duties in order to disentangle his private affairs which were in much confusion, the excess of expenditure over income at Dublin being a further cause of embarrassment. In fact nothing but a sense of public duty, in view of a hostile invasion, kept him at his post. So far from the truth are those who, without knowledge of the inner motives of statesmen, accuse them of delight in cruelty and of intriguing to provoke a revolt.

Early in the year 1798 the hopes of malcontents centred in the naval preparations progressing at Brest and Toulon.[489] Bonaparte also seemed about to deal a blow at London. In February he surveyed the flotilla at Dunkirk and neighbouring ports; and the hearts of English Jacobins beat high at the thought of his landing in Kent or Sussex. The London Corresponding Society, after a time of suspended animation, had now become a revolutionary body. On 30th January its new secretaries, Crossfield and Thomas Evans, issued an encouraging address to the United Irishmen. Somewhat later Evans and Binns formed a society, the United Englishmen, which imposed on its members an oath to learn the use of arms, its constitution in local, or baronial, committees being modelled on that of the United Irishmen. A society of United Scotsmen was founded about the same time; a society of United Britons also came to being, and issued a fraternal address to the United Irishmen on 5th January.

Most significant of these effusions is one, dated 6 Pluviôse An VI [25th January 1798], by "the Secret Committee of England" to the French Directory, containing the assurance that Pitt had come to the end of his borrowing powers and that the people were ready to throw off his yoke. "United as we are," it concluded, "we now only await with impatience to see the Hero of Italy and the brave veterans of the great Nation. Myriads will hail their arrival with shouts of joy: they will soon finish the glorious campaign." This address was drawn up fourteen days before Bonaparte set out for Dunkirk. It is clear, then, that its compilers were not so ignorant as that consequential tailor, Francis Place, represented them. Their chief mistake lay in concluding that Bonaparte intended to "leap the ditch." As we now know, his tour on the northern coast was intended merely to satisfy the Directors and encourage the English and Irish malcontents to risk their necks, while he made ready his armada at Toulon for the Levant.[490] Meanwhile the United Britons and United Irishmen sought to undermine Pitt's Government so that it might fall with a crash at the advent of the hero of Italy. They knew not that the chief efforts of the "soldiers of liberty" were then being directed to the pillage of Rome and of the cantonal treasuries of Switzerland in order to provide funds for Bonaparte's oriental adventure.

Already Irish, English, and French democrats had been fraternizing. In January 1798 the United Englishmen sent over two delegates to Dublin to concert action, and about the same time a priest of Dundalk, named O'Coigly (Anglicé Quigley), came over from Ireland as a delegate from the United Irishmen to Evans's Society. Place asserts that his plan of proceeding to France was not known. But, as Place habitually toned down or ridiculed the doings of that Society, this is doubtful. Owing to secret information (probably from Turner, a British spy at Hamburg) the Government arrested Quigley, Arthur O'Connor, and Binns, a leading member of the London Corresponding Society, at Margate as they were about to board a hoy for France (28th February). A little later Colonel Despard, Bonham, and Evans were arrested. The evidence against all but Quigley was not conclusive, and they were released. The case against Quigley depended on a paper found by a police officer in his pocket, urging a French invasion of England. He was therefore condemned for high treason and was hanged on 7th June 1798. Probably Quigley had that paper from a London Society; but if so, why were not its officials seized? In some respects the Quigley affair still remains a mystery. Certainly it added fuel to the hatred felt for Pitt by British and Irish Jacobins.[491]

The evidence against O'Connor was weighty. It was proved that he was the leader of the party and that he knew Quigley well. He had a cipher in his possession, which was surely superfluous if, as he stated, he was travelling on private business. Probably his acquittal was due to his relationship to Lord Longueville, an influential Irish peer. Fox, Sheridan, and the Duke of Norfolk also proceeded to Maidstone to answer for the virtuous and patriotic character of O'Connor, a fact which probably led the judge to give a strangely favourable summing-up. The conduct of the Opposition leaders in this matter led their former comrade, the Earl of Carlisle, to declare that they had now sunk to a lower political hell than any yet reached. The Government, however, had not done with O'Connor. He was at once arrested at Maidstone on another charge (22nd May), and was in prison in Dublin during the rebellion. He then confessed that he had done more than any one to organize Leinster for revolt, also that he had had conferences with French generals with a view to invasion so far back as 1793; and he stated that he knew the member of the United Irishmen who in the winter of 1796 advised the French not to come until the spring of 1797.[492] There certainly was some misunderstanding between the Irish rebels and their would-be helpers; but the full details are not known. Finally O'Connor was allowed to retire to France; he became a French general, and helped Napoleon to concert plans for the invasion of Ireland, assuring him that, after the work of liberation was done, 200,000 Irishmen would help him to conquer England.

Meanwhile further news respecting the Franco-Irish plans reached Pitt through a man named Parish at Hamburg. An American friend of his at Brussels, while waiting at the municipal office for passports, saw those of two young Irishmen, named O'Finn, delegates of the United Irishmen of Cork. They had a large packet for the Directory at Paris, which contained the plans of the United Irishmen, the numbers and positions of the British troops and of the British warships between Dungeness and the North Foreland. The O'Finns stated this to the commissary of the Brussels bureau, who heard it with joy. The American secretly forwarded the news to Parish. The fact that the O'Finns had a list of the forces on the Kentish coast implied information from the English malcontents. Accordingly, on 19th April, Government seized the papers of the London Corresponding Society. They contained nothing of importance except the constitution of the Society, the oath to learn the use of arms, and the address to the United Irishmen. The Parliamentary Committee of Secrecy also believed that a plan was afoot for bringing to London a band of Irish fanatics to strike a blow which would paralyse Government while the French landed and Ireland revolted. This inference seems far-fetched; but the evidence at hand warranted the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, which Pitt procured from Parliament on the following day. Place, with his usual perverse ingenuity, argued that Pitt nursed the conspiracy in order to be able to create alarm and govern despotically.[493]

Events were now moving fast in Ireland. Chief among the exciting causes were the repressive measures of Camden and the licence of the Militia and Yeomanry. So able and active a commander as General Abercromby failed to keep discipline and prevent military outrages. Not long after his return from the West Indies he reluctantly accepted these thankless duties (November 1797). His dislike of the work appears in the following letter, addressed probably to one of Pitt's colleagues: