And when some future Earl of Pembroke shall devote his splendid leisure, under the cedar groves of Wilton, to preparing for the information of the twentieth century the memoirs of his great ancestor, Mr. Secretary Herbert, posterity will then run some chance of discovering—what is kept a close secret from the public just now—whether any domestic causes exist to justify the invasion-panic under which the nation has recently been shivering.
The insular position of England, her lofty cliffs, her stormy seas, her winter fogs, fortify her with everlasting fortifications, as no other European power is fortified. She is rich, she is populous, she contains within herself an abundance of coal, iron, timber, and almost all other munitions of war; railways intersect and encircle her on all sides; in patriotism, in loyalty, in manliness, in intelligence, her sons yield to no other race of men. Blest with all these advantages, she ought, of all the nations of Europe, to be the last to fear, the readiest to repel invasion; yet, strange to say, of all the nations of Europe, England appears to apprehend invasion most!
There must be some good and sufficient reason for this extraordinary state of things. Many reasons are daily assigned for it, all differing from each other, all in turn disputed and denied by those who know the real reason best.
The statesman and the soldier declare that the fault lies with parliament and the people. They complain that parliament is niggardly in placing sufficient means at the disposal of the executive, and that the people are distrustful and over-inquisitive as to their application; ever too ready to attribute evil motives and incapacity to those set in authority over them. Parliament and the people, on the other hand, reply, that ample means are yearly allotted for the defence of the country, and that more would readily be forthcoming, had they reason to suppose that what has already been spent, has been well spent; their Humes and their Brights loudly and harshly denounce the nepotism, the incapacity, and the greed, which, according to them, disgrace the governing classes, and waste and weaken the resources of the land. And so the painful squabble ferments—no probable end to it being in view. Indeed, the public are permitted to know so little of the conduct of their most important affairs—silence is so strictly enjoined to the men at the helm—that the most carefully prepared indictment against an official delinquent is invariably evaded by the introduction of some new feature into his case, hitherto unknown to any but his brother officials, which at once casts upon the assailant the stigma of having arraigned a public servant on incomplete information, and puts him out of court.
But if, in this the year of our Lord 1860, we have no means of discovering why millions of strong, brave, well-armed Englishmen should be so moved at the prospect of a possible attack from twenty or thirty thousand French, we have recently been placed in possession of the means of ascertaining why, some sixty years ago, this powerful nation was afflicted with a similar fit of timidity.
The first American war had then just ended—not gloriously for the British arms. Lord Amherst, the commander-in-chief at home, had been compelled by his age and infirmities to retire from office, having, it was said, been indulgently permitted by his royal master to retain it longer than had been good for the credit and discipline of the service. The Duke of York, an enthusiastic and practical soldier, in the prime of life, fresh from an active command in Flanders, had succeeded him. In that day there were few open-mouthed and vulgar demagogues to carp at the public expenditure and to revile the privileged classes; and the few that there were had a very bad time of it. Public money was sown broadcast, both at home and abroad, with a reckless hand; regulars, militia, yeomanry, and volunteers, fearfully and wonderfully attired, bristled in thousands wherever a landing was conceived possible; and, best of all, that noble school of Great British seamen, which had reared us a Nelson, had reared us many other valiant guardians of our shores scarcely less worthy than he. But in spite of her Yorks and her Nelsons, England felt uneasy and unsafe. Confident in her navy, she had little confidence in her army, which at that time was entirely and absolutely in the hands and under the management of the court; parliament and the people being only permitted to pay for it.
Yet the royal commander-in-chief was declared by the general officers most in favour at court to know his business well, and to be carrying vigorously into effect the necessary reforms suggested by our American mishaps; his personal acquaintance with the officers of the army was said to have enabled him to form his military family of the most capable men in the service;[5] his exalted position, and his enormous income, were supposed to place him above the temptation of jobbing: in short, the Duke of York was universally held up to the nation by his military friends—and a royal commander-in-chief has many and warm military friends—as the regenerator of the British army, which just then happened to be sadly in need of regeneration.
A work has recently been published which tells us very plainly now many things which it would have been treasonable even to suspect sixty years ago. It is entitled The Cornwallis Correspondence, and contains the private papers and letters of the first Marquis Cornwallis, one of the foremost Englishmen of his time. Bred a soldier, he served with distinction in Germany and in America. He then proceeded to India in the double capacity of governor-general and commander-in-chief. On his return from that service he filled for some years the post of master-general of the Ordnance, refused a seat in the Cabinet, offered him by Mr. Pitt; and, although again named governor-general of India, on the breaking out of the Irish rebellion of 1798 was hurried to Dublin as lord-lieutenant and commander-in-chief. He was subsequently employed to negotiate the peace of Amiens, and, in 1805, died at Ghazeepore, in India, having been appointed its governor-general for the third time.
From the correspondence of this distinguished statesman and soldier, we may now ascertain whether, sixty years ago, the people of England had or had not good grounds for dreading invasion by the French, and whether the governing classes or the governed were most in fault on that occasion for the doubtful condition of their native land.
George the Third was verging upon insanity. So detested and despised was the Prince of Wales, his successor, that those who directed his Majesty’s councils, as well as the people at large, clung eagerly to the hopes of the king’s welfare; trusting that the evil days of a regency might be postponed. And it would seem from the Cornwallis Correspondence, that the English were just in their estimation of that bad man. H. R. H. having quarrelled shamefully with his parents, and with Pitt, had thrown himself into the hands of the Opposition, and appears to have corresponded occasionally with Cornwallis, who had two votes at his command in the Commons, during that nobleman’s first Indian administration. In 1790, Lord Cornwallis, writing to his brother, the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, says: “You tell me that I am accused of being remiss in my correspondence with a certain great personage. Nothing can be more false, for I have answered every letter from him by the first ship that sailed from hence after I received it. The style of them, although personally kind to excess, has not been very agreeable to me, as they have always pressed upon me some infamous and unjustifiable job, which I have uniformly been obliged to refuse, and contained much gross and false abuse of Mr. Pitt, and improper charges against other and greater personages, about whom, to me at least, he ought to be silent.”[6]