During the winter the coalition was broken up by the defection of Russia. Paul was angered by the policy of Austria which, under Thugut's direction, was dictated by anxiety for the acquisition of Piedmont; he was irritated by the support Thugut received from the English government which, so far as the continental war was concerned, based its hopes on Austrian success, and he was disgusted by the failure of his arms. He considered that his troops were sacrificed in Switzerland to Austrian selfishness, that they were not well treated in the expedition to the Helder, and, which seems to some extent true, that they were shabbily provided for in the Channel islands.[305] He recalled his troops and withdrew from the coalition. His political attitude exhibited "daily tergiversation," the result of palace intrigues.[306] The hope of gaining Malta for himself and the knights still allured him, and on December 31, he assumed the grandmastership of the order. He kept his fleet in the Mediterranean to assist in the blockade of Valetta, in the hope of making other acquisitions, and to support the King of Naples. Yet his unsettled mind sometimes veered towards France; the "virtues of Bonaparte" would suddenly become his chief topic of conversation and "everything would be in suspense" as regards his policy.[307] Bonaparte had returned to France, and his return was to decide the issue of the war on the continent, though that result could not be foreseen immediately. From the newspapers sent him by Sidney Smith he learnt in Egypt the news of the early successes of the Austrians and the distracted state of France. The government was unpopular, the taxes were heavy, the revenues fell short of the expenditure, commerce was destroyed, the royalists were in arms in the north-west, and brigandage was rife. He left his army in the charge of Kléber, embarked on August 23, evaded the British cruisers, and landed at Fréjus on October 9. He joined a party which was plotting against the directory. On November 9 and 10 (18th and 19th Brumaire) he overthrew not only the directory, which was ready to fall, but the legislature also. A provisional government was set up, and on December 13 a new constitution was published. Bonaparte was declared first consul for ten years with powers which, under a thin disguise, made him virtually master of France.
Kléber found his resources failing, no help came to him, for England was supreme in the Mediterranean, and the Turks threatened to attack him. With the assistance of Sidney Smith, who acted on his own responsibility, he arranged a capitulation with the grand-vizier. The convention of El Arish, signed on January 24, 1800, provided that the French should evacuate Egypt and return home unmolested, and it contained no stipulation that they should not serve again during the war. The English ministers, aware that Kléber was in straits, had already ordered Keith not to agree to any terms short of the surrender of the French troops as prisoners of war. Keith informed Smith of this order, but his letter did not reach him until after the convention was signed. On receiving it, Smith sent word to Kléber that his government refused to sanction the convention. When the ministers heard that Smith had assented to it, they generously resolved not to disavow the act of a British officer, and ordered that the convention should be recognised. By that time, however, the French had defeated the Turks at Heliopolis and were determined to make further efforts to hold the country.
BONAPARTE'S LETTER.
Bonaparte lost no time in setting about the pacification of civil strife in France. In December, 1799, Pitt, untaught by experience, was planning an expedition to co-operate with the royalists in La Vendée and Brittany, with the object of reducing Brest, compelling the surrender of the French fleet, which was to be held in the name of Louis XVIII. (the Count of Provence), and taking the Spanish fleet as prize. Bonaparte's skilful policy pacified the disturbed districts, and foiled the hopes of the royalist conspirators. Pitt was forced to postpone his scheme and after a time abandoned it. While he was engaged on it, Bonaparte sent a letter addressed to the king personally, in which he declared his desire for peace. In later days he said that his object was merely to increase his popularity; for the French were weary of war. In this case he probably spoke the truth. Be this as it may, he certainly would not have agreed to such terms as would have given to England and to Europe the security for which England was fighting. His letter was answered by Grenville, who said that the king could not enter into negotiations unless he had a satisfactory assurance that France would abandon the system of aggression, that while he did not prescribe the form of government she should adopt, no assurance would be so satisfactory as the restoration of the monarchy, and that her present government afforded no evidence either of a change of system or of stability. George thought this letter "much too strong," but suggested no alteration. Talleyrand, then French minister of foreign affairs, wrote in favour of a negotiation between the two powers, and was told by Grenville that if the king could see the security of his own dominions and of Europe assured, he would gladly negotiate "in concert with his allies". The position taken by the ministers was sound and honourable, but the tone of their answer to Bonaparte was unwise, for it played his game by uniting the French in a determination to resist foreign dictation with respect to their domestic affairs.
An address to the crown on the French overtures was moved in the lords by Grenville, and was carried by 92 votes to 6. In the commons it was supported by George Canning, already one of the ablest speakers on the government side, and by Pitt who, in one of his finest speeches, reviewed the relations of France with other states from 1792 onwards, as proving that the proposed negotiations would have been illusory; he urged that the exhausted state of France held out hope of a permanent peace, and declared that as a lover of peace he would not sacrifice it by grasping at a shadow. The address was opposed by Fox, who returned to parliament for the occasion. He effectively ridiculed Pitt's oft-repeated assurances that France was exhausted; but his main contention, that if France as a republic had been aggressive, so she had been when under Louis XIV., that she had not acted worse than the allies of Great Britain, and that there was therefore no reason to refuse to negotiate with her, seems academic and feeble. The opposition mustered in full strength, but was defeated by 265 to 64. The divisions prove that the position of the government was unimpaired in parliament.
In the country generally the patriotic spirit aroused by the military aggressions of France and the achievements of the British navy was strong, and revolutionary principles were seldom publicly professed. Some abortive projects of Irish conspirators in 1798 for co-operating with the corresponding society led to the appointment of a committee of the commons, which reported on the revolutionary societies in March, 1799. Bills were passed for suppressing these societies and restricting debating societies, and for compelling printers to obtain certificates and to affix their names to all matter that they printed. In evident connexion with these measures was the law against combinations of workmen enacted in this, and amended in the next session, to which reference has already been made (p. [277]); though probably political in intention, it had an oppressive effect on the condition of the working classes. Only three trials for sedition took place during the year, one of them of the printer and publisher, and another of the author of the same libel, a pamphlet by Gilbert Wakefield in answer to one on the government side. Wakefield, who had taken deacon's orders and afterwards left the Church, was a distinguished scholar and a friend of Fox. He was prosecuted by Scott, the attorney-general, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and to find sureties for his future behaviour. The severity of the sentence excited the indignation of the opposition, and £5,000 was subscribed for him. In July Scott was appointed chief-justice of the common pleas, and received a peerage as Lord Eldon.
THE INCOME TAX.
The burdens of the country were increasing. In December, 1798, Pitt announced that the supplies exceeded the ordinary revenue by £23,000,000. He repeated the principle which he enunciated when proposing the triple assessment, that loans should not exceed such amount as could be defrayed within a limited time by temporary taxation. The triple assessment had failed, though the deficiency had been supplied by voluntary contributions. He proposed to substitute an income tax of 2s. in the pound on all incomes of and above £200, and of graduated amounts between £60 and £200. The produce, he calculated, would be at least £10,000,000 a year. The opposition, led by Tierney, objected to the tax as inquisitorial, as a grievous confiscation, and as unjust, in that it would fall equally on precarious and on settled incomes, on the produce of industry and on the wealth of the idle. It was carried in the lords without a division, and in the commons by a large majority, and came into operation on April 5, 1799. During the year 1799 Pitt raised £15,000,000 by loan, including £3,000,000 for Ireland, charging the income tax with the interest and redemption of £11,000,000. The loan was raised in the 3 per cents; it created £175 debt for each £100 money, and the rate was therefore 5¼ per cent. In his next budget, for 1800, Pitt reported the supplies for the year at £39,500,000. The produce of the income tax for the first year was disappointing, and for the coming year he reckoned it only at £7,000,000. In return for a renewal of its charter the bank of England granted a loan of £3,000,000, without interest, for six years, and Pitt further borrowed £20,500,000, including £2,000,000 for Ireland. The income tax was charged with £13,500,000 of the British loan, and additions were made to the taxes on tea and spirits. Public credit was good and commerce and manufactures rapidly increasing, and Pitt obtained the loan at an average rate of not quite 4¾ per cent.
But while commerce was flourishing the poor were suffering terribly from scarcity. The spring and summer of 1799 were cold and wet, and the harvest was wretched. During the twelve months which succeeded September 1, 1799, the average price of wheat rose to 106s. a quarter. Parliament held several debates on the scarcity. Whitbread for the second time brought in a bill for the regulation of the wages of agricultural labourers; Pitt opposed it on sound economic grounds and it was again rejected. During the spring of 1800 parliament made some proposals for the husbanding of wheat and for bounties on importation, but, as we shall see later, the scarcity grew more grievous. The distress of the poor and the burden of taxation strengthened the desire for peace, and a large meeting of London citizens petitioned parliament for negotiations with France. In May the king was shot at in Drury Lane theatre. The incident had no political significance; his assailant, Hadfield, a discharged soldier, was insane and was sent to Bedlam.
At the beginning of 1800 Pitt's hopes were mainly founded on his scheme of co-operation with the French royalists, which was rendered abortive by Bonaparte's measures of pacification, and on the arms of Austria. Thugut knew that from Bonaparte the emperor could not expect to gain better terms than those of the treaty of Campo Formio, and held that the best chance of forwarding Austrian interests lay in prosecuting the war in alliance with England. Austria, however, could not move without English money. The English government promised a loan of £2,000,000 and made subsidiary treaties with the Elector of Bavaria, the Duke of Würtemberg, and the Elector of Mainz for contingents to serve with the Austrian armies. In April the Austrians under Melas defeated the French in the mountain passes to the west of Genoa, shut up the left wing of their army within the lines of Genoa, and forced the right wing under Suchet across the Var. Their advance was stayed by Masséna's defence of Genoa. His troops suffered terribly from famine; they were shut in on land by the Austrians and bombarded from the sea by British ships. Meanwhile Bonaparte was preparing to attack the Austrians in northern Italy as soon as their chief army in the Black Forest country under Kray was effectually held in check by the French army of the Rhine, so as to enable the French to use the Swiss passes. If Masséna could detain the Austrians before Genoa until Bonaparte descended into Italy, they might then be taken in the rear. A promise had been made that a British force would co-operate with the Austrians and excite the royalists of southern France to insurrection. If such a force had landed on the rear of the French, Suchet's corps must have been destroyed, Genoa would probably have fallen, and the campaign might have had a different event. But the ministers failed to see the supreme importance of supporting the Austrians. They hesitated, and withdrew troops which should have been sent to Minorca to form an army to co-operate with Melas, in order to employ them in Portugal. There, however, they were not wanted, for Portugal was not attacked. The great opportunity was lost. Sir Ralph Abercromby with 5,000 men sailed from Minorca for Genoa on June 22, but then it was too late.