Pitt's prestige was for a time seriously injured by this failure and people talked of a possible change of government. Leeds considered that as foreign secretary he was specially compromised, and resigned the seals. As it was more difficult to find a foreign than a home secretary, Pitt recommended that Grenville should be transferred to the foreign department, that Cornwallis should take Grenville's place, and that, until Cornwallis returned from India, Dundas should have the seals, and further suggested that Lord Hawkesbury (Jenkinson), then president of the board of trade, should be called to the cabinet. George agreed, but as Cornwallis declined the offer Dundas remained home secretary. Pitt learnt that Ochakov was not so important as he at first imagined; indeed the possession of it by the Turks would not have rendered Constantinople safe from attack nor protected Poland from further partition. His failure, however, to carry out his scheme of coercing Russia was a serious matter; it destroyed his hopes of an extension of the defensive alliance, and the triple alliance itself, on which his foreign policy had been built, virtually came to an end. Frederick William was deeply annoyed and, in order to strengthen his position with regard to Russia, made advances to Austria, which led to an alliance between the two powers and to their joint invasion of France.
The opinion of the great majority of the nation with regard to the revolution in France was decided by the publication of Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution in November, 1790. This famous work was primarily intended to rebut the assertions of Price and others that the revolution in France was a more perfect development of the ideas of the English revolution of 1688, that Englishmen had a right to choose their own governors, cashier them for misconduct, and frame a government for themselves. It describes the constitution as an inheritance to be handed down to posterity uninjured and, if needs be, improved, and exhibits and condemns the measures of the French assembly as precipitate, unjust, and doomed to failure. Splendid alike as a literary achievement and as a store-house of political wisdom, it is also remarkable as a proof of Burke's prescience, for though he wrote at an early stage of the revolution, before those savage excesses which have made it a by-word, he foretold its future course, not indeed without errors, but with wonderful sagacity. Superbly national in sentiment, the book met the propaganda of French ideas by appealing to the pride with which Englishmen regarded their own institutions. Its success was immense. Paine answered it in his Rights of Man, expressing revolutionary ideas with a crude force which influenced thousands too ignorant to detect its fallacies; and Mackintosh in his Vindiciæ Gallicæ expounded in polished sentences the position of the whig sympathisers with the revolution. Neither undid the effect of Burke's work. Of the well-to-do of all classes there was scarcely one man in twenty who did not become an ardent anti-jacobin.
RUPTURE BETWEEN BURKE AND FOX.
Stimulated by the success of the Reflections, Fox lost no opportunity of declaring his admiration of the revolution in parliament, and his followers irritated Burke by thwarting his attempts to reply. At last the crisis came during a debate on a bill for the government of Canada. After the settlement of the United Empire Loyalists in western Canada, the demands of the British colonists for the repeal of the Quebec act of 1774 became urgent. Pitt recognised the value of the French population as a conservative force, a check on revolt, and in order to do justice to both peoples, introduced a bill dividing the dominion into two provinces, Upper and Lower Canada, each with its own governor, elective assembly, and legislative council. Burke supported this measure, which was passed, and is known as the constitutional act of 1791. Fox objected to the principle of the bill on the ground that the French and English inhabitants should coalesce, and to two special provisions in it, one that the sovereign might grant hereditary titles with a right to sit in the council, the other reserving certain crown lands for the support of the protestant clergy. He blamed the proposal to revive titles of honour in Canada when they had been abolished in France, and jeered at Burke's lament in the Reflections on the extinction of the spirit of chivalry among the French. A few days later, on May 6, Burke, after much baiting by Fox's party, spoke strongly of the danger of French propagandism, and declared that at the risk of the desertion of friends he would exclaim with his latest breath, "Fly from the French constitution!" "There is no loss of friends," Fox whispered. "Yes," he said, "there is a loss of friends. I have done my duty at the price of my friend; our friendship is at an end." When Fox rose to reply the tears trickled down his cheeks. The rupture was permanent. Burke stood alone. His former friends treated him as a renegade, and the whig newspapers showered abuse upon him. His answer was a powerful vindication of the consistency of his position in his Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, which had a decided effect on the opinions of many of Fox's party.
In June came the French king's flight to Varennes and his enforced return to Paris. His queen Marie Antoinette appealed to her brother the emperor for help. Leopold would do nothing save in concert with the other great powers, and learnt that England would take no part in a congress.[230] Pitt, always more interested in domestic reforms than in foreign politics, had no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of France. War would hinder the commercial progress of the country; he wanted fifteen years of peace to secure the full benefits of his economic reforms: his policy was one of strict neutrality. He shared in the general belief, so soon proved to be mistaken, that the revolution would prevent France from engaging in war and would ensure years of peace to England; the funds were high and commerce was flourishing. Leopold could only look to Prussia for co-operation. The attitude of England decided that of Spain. Gustavus of Sweden was, indeed, eager for a war of a crusading kind to re-establish the old régime, but this idea was contrary to the policy of both Austria and Prussia, and Gustavus allied himself with the French emigrant princes who commanded an army at Coblentz; themselves selfish and intriguing, their army undisciplined and ill-provided; Leopold rated them at their proper value and was on his guard against them. Frederick William, untrustworthy as he was, seems to have been sincerely anxious to help the French king. Leopold hoped to avoid war; he distrusted Prussia, and the designs of Catherine on Poland caused both sovereigns to hesitate. In August, however, the diet demanded that Leopold should support certain princes of the German empire against France. He held a conference with Frederick William at Pilnitz, and on the 27th the two monarchs signed a declaration that they would employ force on behalf of the French king, provided that the powers to which they applied would join them. Leopold knew that England would refuse, and the declaration was nugatory. It enraged the French, and was used by the émigrés as though it promised the fulfilment of their hopes for an invasion of France by a foreign confederation. Calonne, who acted as their minister, applied to Pitt for an assurance of neutrality and for a loan. Pitt refused his requests and would not recognise him as having any formal authority. On September 13 Louis was forced to accept the new French constitution, and Leopold declared that his acceptance put an end to all need for intervention.
REVOLUTIONARY PROPAGANDA.
The French were not content to leave other peoples alone. To the more ardent revolutionists the revolution was not a mere political event in the history of their country; it was a religion which it was the mission of France to propagate. No part of France was to remain outside it; the feudal rights of princes of the empire in Alsace and Lorraine were abolished, and Avignon and the Venaissin were declared French territory. No people wishing to share in its benefits was to be left unenlightened, and French democrats were already intriguing with the factions in the Netherlands which were opposed to the Austrian rule. In England the propaganda had as yet made little way, though the democrats were noisy. At Birmingham, where Priestley had his chapel, they arranged to hold a dinner on July 14 to celebrate the fall of the Bastille, and a seditious address was circulated. In the evening of that day a violent riot broke out. The mob, with shouts of "Church and king," wrecked two dissenting chapels and seven houses belonging to prominent democrats, one of them Priestley's house, where they destroyed his library, philosophical apparatus, and papers. The riot lasted for two days and was finally quelled by dragoons. Three of the rioters were hanged, and over £26,000 was paid by the neighbouring hundreds as compensation to the sufferers.
Though both as a king and as a German prince George was indignant at the proceedings of the French revolutionists, he fully acquiesced in Pitt's determined neutrality. How little at the beginning of the session of 1792 Pitt expected to be driven from his position is shown by the line which he adopted in parliament. The king's speech declared that the state of Europe seemed to promise that the country would continue to enjoy tranquillity. The naval force was reduced to 16,000 men, and the proposed reductions in the two services amounted to £200,000. For the last four years there had been an average yearly surplus of £400,000, and Pitt proposed to add £200,000 a year to the sinking fund and to remit taxes to the same amount. He also instituted an additional system for the reduction of debt by providing that every new loan should carry a sinking fund of its own. When this scheme was before the lords, Thurlow poured ridicule upon it, and spoke of its author with contempt. The king wrote to Pitt, hoping that his old friend would own himself in the wrong, and that Pitt would overlook the offence. Pitt, who had borne long enough with Thurlow's sullen temper and constant opposition, told the king plainly that he must choose between him and the chancellor. George did not hesitate, and Thurlow, much to his surprise, received an order to give up the great seal. He retired at the end of the session, on June 15, and the great seal was put in commission. Pitt's ascendency in the cabinet was placed beyond dispute. The dismissal of Thurlow marks a step in the progress of the development of the cabinet system. It was no longer possible, as in the earlier years of the reign, for a minister to remain in office, through the king's favour, against the will of the prime minister. When a prime minister is dissatisfied with one of his colleagues he can insist on his resignation, for if he requests his dismissal, his request cannot be rejected unless the sovereign is prepared to take new advisers.
A WHIG SCHEME OF COALITION.
The loss of the chancellor was erroneously believed to have weakened the government. Some of the whig party, of which the Duke of Portland was the recognised head, busied themselves in devising a coalition government. Apart from the sweets of office, the condition of their party rendered the idea specially attractive to them. Burke's appeal to the whigs to maintain their old principles, which he urged in person at a meeting of the heads of the party on June 9, 1792, convinced them that unless Fox moderated "his tone and temper," it might become impossible for them to continue to work with him. A junction with the government might save them from disruption. It was proposed that Pitt should resign the treasury, that he and Fox should be joint secretaries of state and that the treasury should be held by the Duke of Leeds, as a neutral, who would be little more than a figure-head. This precious scheme, chiefly, at least, set on foot by Loughborough in the hope of gaining the chancellorship, was debated among them for weeks. Loughborough, who was not a man to be trusted, led them to believe that some of Pitt's confidential friends were in favour of it, and had assured him that Pitt would readily agree to it. Fox approved of the idea of coalition if he was to have an equal share with Pitt of power and patronage. Leeds mentioned the idea of a coalition to the king, who received it coldly, for George hated Fox; he did not intend to alter his government to suit the whig leaders, and he knew that they were mistaken as regards Pitt's attitude. At last Leeds spoke of the scheme to Pitt who drily told him that circumstances did not call for any alteration in the government and that no new arrangement had ever been in contemplation.[231] If the Portland whigs were to separate themselves from Fox and his friends and were to support the government, they would have to support the government of Pitt, and that after a while, as we shall see, they resolved to do.