[172] Pitt was first called “the Heaven-born Minister” by the loan-mongers of the City, because he tried to make war on loans instead of taxes. In 1792 he had a war deficit of £4,500,000 to meet. He raised a 4 per cent. loan in the City, for which they made him pay £4 3s. 4d. per cent.; in 1794 he borrowed £11,000,000 at £4 10s. 9d.; in 1795, £18,000,000 at £4 15s. 8d.; in 1796, £25,000,000 at £4 13s. 5d.; in 1797, £32,500,000 at £5 14s. 10d.; in 1798, £17,000,000 at £6 4s. 9d., and he had to give the usurers bonuses, commissions, and inducements to subscribe, which compelled him to add £34,000,000 of capital to the National Debt to get this £17,000,000. His system added £250,000,000 to our National Debt, for which the nation never really got a penny. In 1797 Pitt, however, saw that the country must soon be drained of its resources by the loan-mongers, and he made convulsive efforts to escape from their clutches. He began to raise taxes to meet his war expenditure and pay the principal and interest of his debts. He first tried to raise £7,000,000, and only got £4,000,000 by assessed taxes. In 1798 he returned to the charge, and increased the Income Tax by 40 per cent. That year the revenue was £23,100,000. In 1806, when he died, he had raised it by successive turns of the screw to £50,900,000. In 1807 an addition of 10 per cent. to the Income Tax raised the revenue to £59,300,000. Up to 1816 it fluctuated between £60,000,000 and £70,000,000, but between 1806 and 1816 the war charges and the interest on the Debt were all paid out of current revenue. In fact, after 1797 it is clear Pitt and his successors resolved to exact any sacrifices from the people, rather than float war loans in the City.
[173] Lord Shaftesbury, in a letter to Lord Aberdeen, dated 22nd of February, says that a conversation he held with the Prime Minister on the subject had “terrified” him. “It implied,” writes Lord Shaftesbury, “that the country had entered on a war which you could so little justify to your own conscience as to be unwilling, nay, almost unable, to advise the ordinance of public prayer for success on the undertaking. Why, then, have we begun it? You asked whether ‘the English nation would be brought to pray for the Turks?’ Surely, if they are brought to fight for them, they would be induced to pray for them in a just quarrel.”—Life and Work of Lord Shaftesbury, by Edwin Hodder, Vol. II., p. 466 (Cassell and Co.). See also Greville Memoirs—Third Part (Longmans), 1887.
[174] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LIV.
[175] Russia held the Sulina mouth of the Danube by the Treaty of Adrianople, and, though she took toll of passing ships, had neglected the channel, greatly to the hindrance of navigation.
[176] Dundonald would have been appointed instead of Napier, had it not been that he insisted on destroying Cronstadt by an “infernal” machine which he had invented. Greville Memoirs—Third Part, p. 136 (Longmans), 1887.
[177] Kinglake’s History of the Invasion of the Crimea, Vol. II., p. 249 and p. 407.
[178] “His (Mr. Kinglake’s) attempt to throw all the credit or blame of the expedition to Sebastopol upon the Duke of Newcastle is a complete delusion. His story about the sleepy Cabinet may be partially true, but the plan of the expedition had been discussed by the Cabinet at repeated sittings, and the despatch in question only embodied a foregone conclusion.”—Letters of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, p. 426. Sir George Lewis was Lord Clarendon’s brother-in-law, and Editor of the Edinburgh Review. His letters, and the articles in the Edinburgh on public affairs at this time, are of high authority. See also a very conclusive answer to Mr. Kinglake by Sir Theodore Martin in a Note in his Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LIV.
[179] In a letter to Sir Edmund Head (29th December, 1854), the common-sense view of the case is pithily put by Sir George Cornewall Lewis as follows: “The fact is that the Government were urged into the Sebastopol adventure by popular clamour; that they undertook it with an imperfect knowledge of the difficulties of the enterprise; and that the military men anticipated that if the army could once be landed the place would speedily fall. This delusion was shared by all the world in September, and even October last; but now events have dispelled the illusion, the people forget their own mistake, and visit its consequences on the head of the War Minister.”—Sir G. C. Lewis’ Letters, p. 288.
[180] Mr. Kinglake gives an entertaining description of a conversation between General Sir George Brown and Lord Raglan over the Ministerial order. Brown told his chief that they were all so ignorant about the Crimea that it was foolish to invade it; but that he had better obey, for refusal would only lead to his dismissal.
[181] But for Mr. Roberts the expedition must have been abandoned till the following spring. His services were contemptuously ignored, and he died heart-broken by the bitter ingratitude of the Government. He was an able officer—but without “interest.”