Life of William, Earl of Shelburne/Volume 2/Chapter 12

by Edmond George Petty-Fitzmaurice

 

CHAPTER XII

 

THE NEW WHIG OPPOSITION

 

1793-1805

 

By the end of February of 1793, England had joined the continental Powers in their crusade against the Revolution. Technically, France declared war against England, not England against France, but in order to decide on the respective merits of the parties to the great contest that ensued, it is necessary to look further. If France had not declared war against England, England would have declared war against France, for the popular feeling had become ungovernable.

The French conquests in Belgium, the opening of the Scheldt in violation of existing treaties, the danger in which Holland stood from the further spread of French aggressions, the decree of the Convention of the 19th November 1792, to the effect that France would grant assistance to all people wishing to recover their liberty and charging their generals to carry out this order, were the main pleas on the side of England. But although the disturbance of the balance of power was put in the foreground of the English case, reasons far stronger than any fear of French aggrandisement drove England into arms in 1793. These were the horror and dread of French principles. "The war," as Lord Lansdowne said, "was a metaphysical war; it was declared against France on account of her internal circumstances; for the particular complaints made against the French Government might have been settled by negotiation, and did not in any case afford a ground for hostilities.^[1]

Ever since the commencement of the campaign it had been known to every diplomatist in the English service, that should the war prove successful, a partition of French territory would take place between the victorious allies. Against such a partition no whisper of disapproval had been heard. It was only when the tide of invasion was rolled back and Belgium was threatened, that English remonstrances arose and the balance of power began to be spoken of.

The closing of the Scheldt was owing to the commercial jealousy of the Dutch, and was a measure so repugnant to common justice, that it is difficult to realise that the minister who made the treaty of 1786, should have seen a serious provocation in the opening by the French of that river to navigation.

That the decree of the 19th November was a gross provocation is undeniable. The terms of it did not however necessarily apply to England, and for this interpretation M. Chauvelin contended. The best reply would have been a contemptuous silence. The danger to Holland seems to have been more felt in England than in Holland itself, and it was at the bidding ot England that Holland was reluctantly dragged into the war. But there were other reasons which ought to have made England hesitate about joining the continental Powers. A second dismemberment of Poland, as Lord Lansdowne repeatedly insisted, was being planned by them at a moment, when the internal condition of that country afforded less justification for interference than at any previous period. The despotic rulers of Russia and Prussia saw a risk of that country obtaining free and settled institutions, and they resolved to crush liberty all over the world at one blow. With these views, they were not averse to gaining the assistance of English gold, in order to equip armies which would be as easily used against Warsaw as against Paris. Such were the considerations which ought to have suggested themselves to the mind of an English minister; but in the turmoil of the political times, Pitt, who was destitute of knowledge of foreign affairs, became the tool of the Ministers of other countries, and involved England in a war, the disastrous effects of which are felt even by the existing generation. Never was there a time the circumstances of which so clearly called for a policy of rigid non-intervention. Warlike intervention was a mistake, for the reasons already stated. Mediation was impossible, either in the west or east of Europe. The character and the conduct of the belligerents alike forbade it.

But it was urged, and there was no argument upon which the supporters of the Government more often insisted, that there was no government in France to treat with. This, Lord Lansdowne said, reminded him of the arguments that used to be employed against treating with Congress in the early stages of the American war; and he frankly declared that he considered a republic to be the form of government on the whole the best adapted to the circumstances of France, deriding those who looked upon a coronation as a panacea for every political evil, and complaining of the contempt and odium cast upon the leading members of the Convention; and the perpetual talk about English morality and French immorality. "The fast-day was approaching," he said (for a fast-day had been proclaimed), "and though he was not fond of party discourses from the pulpit, he should be glad to hear a sermon on a text, which he had always considered as one of the best parts of the Scripture, viz. the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. As to the existence of a Government in France, let them ask General Wurmser if there was no existing Government in France? Let them ask the Duke of Brunswick and the King of Prussia!^[2] Let them ask Lord Hood and Sir Gilbert Elliot! let them ask the Royalist army of La Vendée! let them ask the unfortunate Lyonese! let them ask the Spaniards, retreating before the French arms! All these he was afraid must confess there was a Government; and he greatly feared it would not be long before the Prince of Saxe-Coburg and the Duke of York, would allow that there was a Government in France. It did not require much of the spirit of divination to pronounce what would be the consequences of involving the country in a war against opinions; the alleged object of which was to repel unprovoked aggressions, but the real one to prescribe laws to an independent country." In order to place these sentiments on record, Lord Lansdowne towards the commencement of 1794 brought forward a specific motion for peace with France, but though he was powerfully supported by the Duke of Grafton, only thirteen Peers recorded their opinion in favour of it. The days of the American war were returned and the chief actors were the same.^[3]

The armies on the Rhine and in the Low Countries soon found out to their cost the force of the French Government, which the cumbrous inefficiency of the Duke of York and Wurmser, of Mollendorf and Clarfayt, rendered doubly conspicuous. The want of energy of the allied commanders on the field of battle and the treachery of the continental statesmen in the council chamber were however compensated by the vigour with which the Ministers of the Crown and the Judges of the land exerted themselves to suppress the liberties which a century before had with difficulty been wrung from the Stuart kings. In Scotland a reign of terror was proclaimed; ancient offences and barbarous punishments were unearthed by the perverse ingenuity of the Lord Justice Clerk Braxfield; and prisoners under sentence of transportation for offences which in England would have amounted only to a misdemeanour, were charitably reminded that they might have been condemned to death by the gallows or by exposure to wild beasts. In England the doctrine of constructive treason was invented, and it was only through the eloquence of Erskine and the independence of an English jury, that this dangerous theory did not become embodied in the law; the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended; the Traitorous Correspondence Bill widely extended the definition of treasonable offences, and proposed that a prisoner might be sentenced to capital punishment upon the evidence of one witness, and without being furnished with a copy of the indictment against him, and without the privilege of being defended by counsel. The Whigs who had joined Pitt were the most vigorous defenders of the new system. Lord Loughborough was directly responsible for the new measures proposed, and Windham was their most ardent defender in the House of Commons.^[4] In the House of Lords the Bench of Bishops cast their mantle over every proposal for restricting the liberty of the subject. Dr. Horsley indeed did not know what the mass of the people in any country had to do with the laws but obey them.^[5] By "the Seditious Meetings Bill" every public assemblage for the purpose of petitioning or remonstrating or deliberating on any public question was forbidden, except under certain arbitrary regulations. Any Justice of the Peace might at his own discretion disperse the meeting, and, if, one hour after the meeting had been summoned to disperse, twelve persons were still found assembled together they became liable to the penalties of felony. The Attorney-General boasted that in the last two years there had been more prosecutions for libels than in any twenty years before. Fox declared that he feared that in a few years either the Government would become completely absolute, or confusion would arise almost as much to be deprecated as despotism itself.^[6] It was a sign of the times that the Government at this period renewed the unconstitutional practice, protested against in 1775 by the Whig Opposition, of landing foreign troops in England without the previous consent of Parliament.^[7]

To all these measures Lord Lansdowne offered a most strenuous opposition. He still insisted that the true course for the Government to pursue was to persevere in the course of parliamentary and economic reform, which they had originally marked out for themselves. It was in no small degree owing to his efforts that the clauses of the Traitorous Correspondence Bill depriving the prisoner of the means of defence were modified in the House of Lords. The question, he said, was not one that might affect the life of one or two individuals, but the lives of many. Great as had been the alarm about treason, and of treasonable intentions, he owned he knew of neither; and as to the present measure avowedly framed for the purpose of affording protection in that respect, he owned it appeared to him to be a "hodge-podge," in order to supply, at the end of the session, all the want of evidence of the treasons with which the people had been alarmed at the commencement of it. The present reign had been remarkable for mildness in this respect, not one act having been declared to be treason that was not so by the ancient law of the land: but now the Ministers seemed determined to make up for their remissness and ready to declare many things to be treason which were in themselves innocent. He had at all times been disposed to uphold the majesty of the Throne; and he was still more disposed to do so, when the tide of Democracy was running so strongly against royalty; he was ready therefore to give his support to any Bill calculated to give greater security to the Crown, and insure the personal safety of the King; for such purposes he was willing to extend the Statute of Treason; but he could not bear to think that the selling of a pair of shoes to the French should be made in the eyes of the law as criminal an act as the murder of the Sovereign; not to mention that it was a true general maxim that excess of punishment for a crime brought impunity along with it.^[8]

The relations between Lord Lansdowne and Fox were steadily improving during these events. "In regard to what you say," the latter wrote to Lord Holland in 1795, "about any intimate connection between Lansdowne and me, I agree almost entirely with you, except perhaps that I do not give him the credit for sincerity in any system which you seem to do. I never can have a good opinion of him, and still less a great one. However, we are upon terms of the greatest civility, and it must be confessed that his conduct for these last three years has had an openness and consistency which entitles him to every outward mark of respect, from those who think as we do. I have dined with him once, and may probably do so oftener next year, and we have so far explained ourselves to one another, that we agreed that if any opening came from the Court to either of us, that we would mutually communicate and consult. I own I think this is no more than what his conduct has entitled him to, and if there were a change I cannot think that he ought to be left out of any new arrangement, however impossible I may feel it really to confide in him. I think it would not be right for our characters that he should be left out, and the events of these last years not only make one less nice about one's associates, but make it impossible that any system should be formed without some exceptional members forming a part of it; and, among those who are objectionable, I confess I feel less repugnance to those whose life has been mostly spent in opposition, than to those whose habits are all courtly, and whose prejudices are always of the Tory side. I think any overture from the Court so improbable, that perhaps all this discussion is very unimportant; but I felt (and I believe Lansdowne felt so too), that some explanation was necessary or at least desirable, for the purpose of going on pleasantly in opposition."^[9]

If any evidence were wanting of the law-abiding character of the English people and of the groundless character of the fears which caused the English Ministers to imagine themselves to be on the eve of the establishment of a London Commune, it is to be found in the fact that excepting some riots caused by the price of bread, no social disturbance occurred in England during the war, notwithstanding the provocation offered by the measures of statesmen, who in the teeth of their own previous professions, confounded Reform with Revolution and progress with anarchy.

The justification for the Seditious Meetings Bill was that on the 29th October 1795, three days after a great meeting held in St. George's Fields by the London Corresponding Society, at a time when great scarcity prevailed, the window of the Royal carriage was broken by a stone or by a shot from an air-gun. Addresses on the subject were voted by Parliament. Upon these Lord Lansdowne animadverted with great severity. He said he believed that the attack on the King was no more than an alarm-bell to terrify the people into weak compliances, and a scheme planned and executed by the Ministers themselves for the purpose of continuing their power:^[10] language, which, however exaggerated the terms of the Address in the House of Lords might be considered, was, it must be admitted, itself as exaggerated on the other side; for the attack, though not revealing any deep-laid conspiracy to overthrow the Government, might none the less have had the most serious consequences, if only from the contagion of example, at a time when misery and hunger, those fruitful mothers of Revolution, stalked in the streets.

If measured indeed merely by the rise in the number of Inclosure Bills, by the sums borrowed for navigation and canals, or invested in industrial enterprises, then the condition of the people of England at this period was remarkably prosperous. But there is another side to the picture. Notwithstanding the Inclosure Bills the price of bread owing to the Corn Laws went on steadily rising, while the Inclosure Bills themselves were steadily divorcing the people from the land. Population increased more rapidly than the means of subsistence, and wages did not rise in proportion to the increase of invested capital. Combination laws prevented the working classes obtaining their legitimate share of the increased prosperity of the country, and though the King could assure Parliament that the revenue was highly productive, and that the national industry had been extended, wages in Wiltshire were seven shillings a week, and the poor, so Lord Lansdowne told the House of Lords, were actually starving, and to a certain extent in consequence of the very laws intended for their relief. Taxation was steadily increasing, and it was a mere question of time how soon it would affect the industrial enterprise of the country. And for whose interests, Lord Lansdowne asked, were all these sacrifices incurred, these taxes raised, and these tyrannical laws passed? It was in order to please a Coalition, the objects of the members of which were inconsistent with each other and with the interests of England.^[11] The event soon proved the correctness of Lord Lansdowne's estimate of the character of the rulers of the Continent.

The Austrian minister Thugut told Mr. Grenville that what the King of Prussia wanted was not to crush the Revolution but to conquer Poland without the loss of a man, and in reward to receive from England a pension of a million and a half per annum.^[12] He forgot however to add that the chief object of his own Imperial master was to get possession of Bavaria and annex Alsace. When these were the motives of the principal European belligerents, it became only a question of time how soon the Coalition would break up. Prussia, being determined that Austria should not become too powerful in Germany, began by withdrawing the greater part of her troops from the Rhine, while those which remained behind, owing to the mysterious character of their movements, were a source of danger rather than of assistance to their allies. Pitt attempted to stimulate their ardour with fresh subsidies. "It was absurd," Lord Lansdowne said, "to suppose that we could dictate to, and manage the King of Prussia, as we would the Margrave of Baden and his paltry 800 men. He would do as his uncle did. He would laugh at us. He would call us a trafficking, commercial nation, who thought by a quantity of guineas to engage him to overlook the true interests of his people, and he would spurn the bribe. In the renewal then of this bloody lease, it surely became us to look back to the last campaigns, and see where the fatal errors lay by which our efforts had been ineffectual. One obvious cause of the failures was the difference that subsisted between the Austrians and Prussians. They hated each other. Did they not now hate each other? Did this treaty reconcile them? Austria was not even mentioned in it.^[13] What greater prospects, then, did this subsidy treaty open? Were the allies more firmly united? He could take upon himself to say, that the Austrians and the Prussians were at a greater distance than ever, not merely the armies, but the Courts. The Empress of Russia too, with her promised inundation of Cossacks, where was she? In plain English, she was off, she had stolen a march. Men were not ignorant of the diabolical transactions that were passing at the other end of Europe."^[14]

The King of Prussia, it is needless to say, accepted the English subsidy, but before the end of the year, emulating the example of the penurious German prelate immortalized by Dryden, who accepted a large sum from Charles II. for sending his troops to attack the Dutch, and a still larger sum from the States-General for keeping them at home, Frederic William entered into negotiations with France, signed the Treaty of Basel, and then, with unblushing effrontery, poured his troops, armed and equipped by English money, into Poland. Spain shortly after followed the example set by Prussia and made peace; while Holland, under the title of the Batavian Republic, found herself transferred from the number of the allies to that of the enemies of England. The conduct of the Court of Vienna, the remaining ally of England, for Russia could not be relied upon for any real support, was little better than that of the Court of Berlin. The operations of her armies, though supported by English supplies, were paralyzed by political intrigues, and by the incapacity of the Aulic Council. Pitt was engaged in a hopeless struggle, but refused to recognize the fact. The disappearance of the French émigrés from the camp of the allies, should by itself have taught him that the object of the war was no longer, even nominally, the destruction of the French Republic, but the dismemberment of French territory. Ever since the Revolution of Thermidor, the Government in Paris had certainly lost that anarchical character, which, it was alleged, had made any diplomatic dealings with it impossible. It was idle to persist in asserting, that any difficulty on this score, even if it had previously existed, still remained; yet partly owing to this idea, and partly owing to the dread of French territorial aggrandisement in the Low Countries, the war was persisted in, and brought with it a heritage of military defeat abroad and financial distress at home, which not even the splendid naval victories of Nelson and Jervis, of Duncan and Collingwood, could compensate.

The expenditure of the country meanwhile continued to advance by leaps and bounds. Every possible device was resorted to to wring money from the already burdened tax-payer, devices described by Lord Lansdowne as "irksome, petty and unproductive exactions which fretted and disturbed men's minds."^[15] At the close of the American war, the national debt amounted to £268,000,000. In 1798 it amounted to £462,000,000. In 1797 the Bank of England suspended cash payments. Lord Auckland is said to have observed that "this was the beginning of the throat cutting." The measure was intended to be temporary, but like many temporary measures, it lasted far longer than its original promoters had intended, and it was not till twenty-four years afterwards that cash payments were resumed. "Mark my prophecy," exclaimed Lord Lansdowne, "and do not disdain the counsel while yet in time. If you attempt to make bank notes a legal tender, their credit will perish. They may go on for a time; but the consequence is certain. No art, no skill, no power can prevent their falling to a discount. I do not speak upon conjecture, the thing is matter of experience. A fever is as much a fever in London as in Paris or Amsterdam; and the consequence of stoppage of payment must be the same in whatever country it happens. The fall will be slow perhaps, and gradual for a time; but it will be certain. A few months may bring to the recollection of your Lordships with contrition the prophecy that I have now made to you."^[16] He also dwelt with great force on the evils which would infallibly arise from the gigantic system of forgery of paper money, which would be sure to spring into existence, and from the general rise of prices which would ensue.

His fears on the subject of forgery were at once fulfilled, and although his prophecy on the depreciation of the value of bank notes did not come true "within a few months," owing to the skill with which the issue of the inconvertible paper was managed, yet within a few years his apprehensions were fulfilled. The day was to come when a Chancellor of the Exchequer was to rise in his place in the House of Commons and boldly maintain, that bank paper must be as good as gold, and a new school of currency-mongers asserted that a metallic circulation was only worthy of a primitive state of civilisation.

The successes of the Imperial army in Germany in 1796 led to negotiations, but the English Envoy, Lord Malmesbury, found the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, M. Delacroix, quite as much elated by the successes of Bonaparte's first campaign in Italy, as depressed by the victories of the Archduke Charles. He refused to listen to the English demand for the evacuation of the Netherlands, and the war continued. During these negotiations Lord Lansdowne was accused of having secretly gone over to Paris in order to suggest to the French Ministers that they should insinuate in England that peace would be far more easily obtained, if he had the direction of affairs instead of Pitt.^[17]

The financial difficulties of 1797, the mutinies at the Nore and Spithead, the fresh victories of Bonaparte, the energy with which the followers of Fox in Parliament, though small in numbers, continued to protest against the longer continuance of the war, caused a renewal of the negotiations in the following year. Unfortunately the revolution of the 4th September, which overthrew the peace party in the French Directory, put an untimely end to the discussions.^[18] The commissioners sent by the victorious triumviri, Barras, Reubell, and Lepaux, demanded that Great Britain should surrender all her colonial conquests, whether made from France or her allies, and intimated to Lord Malmesbury, in the most insolent terms, that he must quit Lille within twenty-four hours, if he would not accept these conditions. The negotiations were accordingly broken off, and England was left to contend alone; for Austria, tempted by comparatively favourable terms, and the offer of Venice, had early in the year signed a separate treaty of peace with France at Campo Formio, to which Russia, determined as she was to retire at all hazards from the contest, soon formally acceded.

A great revulsion of feeling followed the rupture of the negotiations. It was felt that however different opinions might have been as to the original justice of the war, it was now being continued quite as much owing to the extreme demands of France as of England. Added to this the whole efforts of the enemy were now directed against England alone. An invasion was threatened, and the national spirit rose high before the common danger. The right line of conduct for the Opposition to pursue became more than ever difficult. Fox, after making an eloquent speech in favour of Reform, seceded with many or his immediate followers from the House of Commons: a course which Lord Lansdowne did not at the time approve, though he ultimately agreed to it.^[19]

One unfortunate result of the outbreak of national feeling was to encourage a renewal of the prosecutions for political offences, which had flagged since the acquittal of Hardy, Home Tooke, and Thelwall in 1794. The Government even thought of flying at higher game and of prosecuting the leaders of the Opposition. So feeble however had the Opposition become, that in the House of Commons their numbers frequently sunk as low as 30, and when on the 13th May 1797 the Duke of Bedford brought forward a motion for the dismissal of Ministers in the House of Lords which Lord Lansdowne supported in a vigorous speech, he was hardly able to muster a dozen votes to support it. A party so feeble was perhaps hardly worth prosecuting.

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. Having decided not to prosecute the leaders of the Opposition, the supporters of the Government fell upon the printers and proprietors of the Morning Chronicle for a breach of the privileges of the House of Lords. On the 21st March 1798 Lord Minto rose in his place to complain of the following paragraph which had appeared in that journal two days before.

 

The House of Lords must now be admitted to be highly important as a political assembly, notwithstanding it has of late appeared to be nothing more than a chamber where the minister's edicts are registered for form's sake. Some of their Lordships are determined to vindicate their importance. It is there that the dresses of the Opera dancers are regulated! One of the Roman Emperors recommended to the Senate, when they were good for nothing else, to discuss what was the best sauce for a turbot. To regulate the length of a petticoat is a much more genteel employment.^[20]

 

It was resolved that the above paragraph was a gross and scandalous libel. Mr. John Lambert and Mr. Perry were fined £50 each and committed to Newgate for three months, and several Peers expressed in solemn words their horror at this scandalous publication; horror which was much increased, when Lord Lansdowne rose and said, that to his mind the matter was too trivial to be worthy of their attention, that the paragraph was one of mere levity, and of some wit; and that he always read the Morning Chronicle with satisfaction. Mr. Perry and Mr. Lambert were none the less committed to Newgate.^[21]

It is perhaps fortunate that when the rulers of the land were in so sensitive a frame of mind, the following jeu d'esprit from the pen of Jekyll did not fall into their hands, but slumbered peacefully down to the present day at Lansdowne House; otherwise a fate similar to that of Mr. Perry and Mr. Lambert might possibly have befallen more conspicuous persons.

 

Scarcity of Ideas

At a meeting in Downing Street yesterday, Mr. Pitt declared to several of his friends that he found himself entirely destitute of any ideas to meet Parliament with, for the purpose of finance, peace, or war. It was held advisable to send to the Duke of Portland's office, and enquire if any were to be had there. The clerks returned for answer, that they were totally unprovided: the last two ideas that were left in the Treasury had been sent by Mr. Cox to the Emperor on Saturday; which it was confessed should not have been done without the consent of Parliament, but that it was thought the safety of Germany depended on it.

Mr. Pitt then enquired if the Rt. Hon. Sylvester Douglas has brought any ideas with him when he so lately took his seat at the Board; and was informed that the few he had were by accident packed up, and had sailed with Lord Macartney. Lord Mornington declared he had put his whole stock into a pamphlet some years ago; and Lord Hawkesbury and Mr. Canning said they had lost all theirs with a variety of speeches, and other light baggage in a forced march to Paris.

Mr. Rose suggested a plan for putting ideas in requisition, which he had found very successful at a Verderer's meeting on the New Forest Bill, and proposed as the most intelligible mode the plan of the New Cavalry Act. Gentlemen, who are supporters of the Ministry and the war might be classed according to the number of ideas they possessed, or were supposed to possess, respectively. Ten in a class for instance, where each gentleman had only one idea apiece; so in proportion if any such gentleman happened to possess more, that the gentleman on whom the ballot fell, should be bound to furnish one idea for the use of the State, the fitness of which should be judged of by the Deputy Lieutenants of the respective counties. When the whole return was complete, Mr. Dundas might be directed to put the ideas in a large decanter, and Mr. Pitt and he might pour them out, as existing circumstances might require. Sir W. Young observed that such a ballot would fall very inconveniently on many gentlemen, who might thereby be delivered of the only idea they had in the world. Sir Gregory Page Turner said, he did not pretend to deny his having an idea, but declared to God if it were rejected by the Deputy Lieutenants he should not know which way to turn for a substitute.

Sir J. Marriott and Dr. Laurence gave it as the opinion of the best publicists of the Old School, that it might lead to a very unpleasant disclosure, in the case of acting justices and landed gentlemen in the country, and that it might affect the rights of Corporations, most of whom had only ideas granted by ancient charters from the Crown, certainly not impaired by use, but still most important to be preserved entire and undiminished.

Mr. Boyd offered the Minister ideas dated Hamburg, and on very moderate discount; they might be drawn in London and accepted by the Treasury.

Mr. Pitt said he could rely on the candour of the majority of the House of Commons for their support in a time of scarcity of ideas: the same patriotic conduct they had shown in the scarcity of bread corn, namely, to be satisfied with ideas of an inferior quality; it always gave him pain to distress the country gentlemen as he felt this particular requisition would; but he had the satisfaction of adding, that very few ideas would be wanting, and those reducible at a short date. Seven or eight of any sort would enable him to make six speeches of three hours and a half each, which would carry on the session perfectly well till the Easter recess; and as the Secretary of War had kindly consented not to expend any, he was under no difficulties but about the Admiralty. Mr. Pybus assured the Chan. of the Exchequer that the board had done so well without ideas of late, that he need not give himself any concern on their account. Mr. Pitt thanked Mr. Pybus very politely, and observed, that in that case, without any violation of the Appropriation Act, the Admiralty ideas might be put into the Poor-bill. The Duke of Dorset hoped that if the Minister persisted in the plan of putting ideas in requisition, his Majesty's menial servants would be exempted. Mr. Pitt assured his Grace that he need be under no sort of anxiety, the case being perfectly analogous to the powder licence; as they were both a sort of Poll-tax.

Mr. Pitt returned the gentlemen present a great many thanks for their very obliging advice; told Mr. Rose to make a minute of the transaction, and to write a civil note to Mr. Alderman Curtis, requesting him to second the motion he should make on Tuesday, for leave to bring in a Bill for the better supplying his Majesty's Ministers with ideas, in the present embarrassing posture of their affairs with the Public.

 

By the end of 1798 the relations between Lord Lansdowne and Fox had become cordial. "The circumstances of the time," the latter wrote to Lord Holland, "will of themselves bring Lansdowne and me together far better than any explanations or messages or communications etc. We are indeed now upon a very good footing, and quite sufficiently so to enable us to act cordially together, if any occasion offers to make our doing so useful."^[22] In the popular mind they were now intimately associated as the leaders of Opposition, and as such were the constant butt of the caricaturists of the day. Gillray drew Lord Lansdowne as the centre of a group of revolutionists including Fox, now weighing the crown by the new French weight, now presiding over the guillotine from the balcony of Brook's, or waving the wig of the decapitated Chancellor to the crowd, or firing a gun in at the windows of the Royal carriage. Sometimes he is represented as a bat or an owl, with Fox as his companion, fleeing before the rays of the rising sun; sometimes he appears with the Duke of Grafton and the Duke of Norfolk, as a member of the Council of the Ancients of the Republic. Elsewhere he is depicted as an old news boy stealing out of the back gate of his house in Berkeley Square, to disseminate "Malagrida's latest lie from Paris," or as training up Jekyll, represented as a bull terrier, to fly at a bust of Pitt placed at the end of an arbour in his garden, or dancing in a ring with the other leading members of the Opposition and shouting "Vive Barère."^[23]

In 1798 the condition of Ireland induced the French to attempt an invasion. The corruption and tyranny of the House of Commons had brought that country to the brink of civil war. The Protestant majority refused either to reform themselves, or to remove the remaining Catholic grievances, and when in 1795 Lord Fitzwilliam went as Lord-Lieutenant to carry out the policy of emancipation with, as he imagined, the consent of his colleagues, the combined opposition in London and Dublin was too strong for him, and a fortnight after the day on which Grattan had introduced a Bill to remove all religious disabilities, Lord Fitzwilliam had to leave Ireland, and was succeeded by Lord Camden. A formidable association, styled the "United Irishmen," was now organized throughout the country. It comprised Protestants and Catholics alike. The former represented the floating elements of political discontent which the events of the French Revolution had stirred into activity all over the world, but the real strength of the movement lay in the Roman Catholic population, whose priestly leaders only concealed for convenience' sake their intention of proclaiming a religious war against the Irish Protestants as soon as the English Government had been got rid of.

The rebellion, the death of Lord Edward FitzGerald, the cruelties of the rebels, the barbarities of the troops sent to suppress them, the landing of the French too late and in too small numbers to be of any assistance to their allies, are amongst the most interesting pages in the history of Ireland. Chatham had repeatedly declared himself against the Union of the Irish and British Parliaments, because—so he had told Shelburne—the British Legislature would be deluged by an addition of Irish Peers and Commoners; and he feared the results.^[24] But the main result of the events of 1798 was to prove the incompetence of the Irish Parliament to govern. The minds of men were naturally turned towards a union with England: the bigoted Protestant in the hope that further security would be thereby obtained for his own ascendancy; the liberal Protestant and the oppressed Catholic in the hope that the Union would be accompanied by a measure of emancipation. Lord Cornwallis, the successor of Lord Camden, was convinced that until the Catholics were admitted to a general participation of rights, under the protection and check of a Legislative Union, there would be no peace or safety in Ireland. Pitt was of the same opinion. "With regard to the Catholics," said Lord Lansdowne, "their emancipation was a thing which it was vain to stop. It was silly to say that we were sorry that anything was done for the Catholics; we ought to rejoice at it, and cheerfully finish what we had begun. There was nothing to fear from it. Those who thought there was, ought to look at the condition of the Pope, and the state of France; they would then see that there was no fear from any body of men on account of the religion they professed. That species of deception was gone. The question was not what religion you should have, but whether you should be permitted to have any? It was not whether this or that religion, but whether all religion should be destroyed?"^[25]

On the 22nd of January 1799, a Royal Message announced the proposal for a Union to both Parliaments. In Ireland Mr. Ponsonby moved and carried a hostile amendment to the address in answer to the Speech from the throne. In the English House of Commons a similar amendment, moved by Sheridan, was negatived without a division, and after long discussion resolutions in favour of the Union were carried. On the 19th March they were discussed in the House of Lords. The correspondence which had passed between Lord Shelburne, the Duke of Portland, and Lord Rockingham in 1782 relative to the affairs of Ireland, had been recently presented to Parliament, and with the resolution of the 17th May of that year had been quoted to prove that the work then done was not regarded by the authors of it as closing the chapter of the connection between England and Ireland. When accordingly Lord Lansdowne rose to speak on the 19th March, there was general attention. He began with a strong declaration in favour of the complete emancipation of the Roman Catholics. "As to what passed in 1782," he went on, "the Cabinet at that time, making the exception of one person"—he was alluding to Lord Keppel—"consisted of as great and worthy men, as any that ever existed in this country. They were ten in number, and only three of them were dead; consequently there were six of them to bear testimony to the truth of what he was about to say. He had made some communication, in 1782, about a plan which he had much at heart, but which was not proceeded upon. It did not go to the length of a despatch. It related to what might be called the expense of the system which was carried on under the two Parliaments. This had nothing to do with a Union. Those who had taken a share in the proceedings of 1782 had entered into no pledge whatever about a Union.^[26] It was extraordinary that any one should refer to it on the present occasion. Most clear it was, that those who favoured the idea of a Union at this moment were no more acting in violation of any pledge in 1782, than those who were now opposing that idea, neither having entered into any pledge upon the subject. He could not conceive how any man possessed of a clear understanding could think of introducing the idea of any pledge to do nothing as between the two countries since the proceedings of 1782. The present plan could not be said to grow out of those of 1782, any more than those of 1782 could be considered as a bar to any future proceedings." He then proceeded to insist upon the necessity of sincerity and straightforward dealing in everything connected with the Irish, for they were a nation who prided themselves on a scrupulous regard for honour; a part of the national character demonstrated by a popular anecdote, in which a person is accused by the landlady of a public-house with having stolen her poker. He swears the most bitter oaths that he has not; "but," says the landlady, "you have not pledged your honour." "Oh," says he, "touch my honour, touch my life. There is your paltry poker!"^[27]

He next enlarged, "in glowing terms and at greater detail than was usual with him, on the advantages of union, in church, in state, in army, in navy, in commerce, and in finance. Lord Grenville bowed assent to all his propositions, beat time to his periods, and loudly cheered his declarations; when, at the close of his oration," says Lord Holland, "he added, that there was one thing however, which he could not prevail on himself to approve, or even to harbour an idea of, and that was bringing the two Parliaments together. The ministerial cheers suddenly dropped, and Lord Lansdowne burst forth into one of the most eloquent invectives I ever heard him pronounce against the whole conduct of the Irish Parliament for twenty years, stigmatizing all their acts, and especially the spoliation of Lord Edward FitzGerald's innocent children, as base, servile, barbarous, inhuman, and unprincipled!"^[28] His general conclusion however was favourable to a union of some kind, and in the following session, when the Irish Parliament itself had sealed the doom of its own existence, he declared that his chief objection to the scheme of Pitt was thereby removed. To the objection that the real opinion of Ireland ought in reality to be collected rather from petitions than from the votes of her representatives, a plausible objection in the then condition of the Irish Parliament, he replied by an anecdote which is of general application, and worth preserving. He recollected, he said, in the year 1769, when he was Secretary of State, on coming down rather late to that House, he was told that a petition, with a numerous list of subscribers, had been just presented, the prayer of which was, that he might be impeached. He was told it came from the Royal Exchange, and being desirous to see who were the subscribers, he took it up, when the very first name he cast his eye upon was that of one of his particular friends, an Alderman of London. The next day the Alderman called on him, when he told him he did not expect to see him again in his house. The Alderman, Sir William Stephenson, stared, and asked him, "Why so?" He explained that he had seen his name to a petition desiring that he might be impeached; when the Alderman replied with indifference, "Oh, aye, I did sign a petition at the Royal Exchange, which they told me was for the impeachment of a minister; I always sign a petition to impeach a minister, and I recollect that as soon as I had subscribed it, twenty more put their names to it." But in supporting the Bill he urged that the borough franchise should be further extended, especially at Belfast, where the borough was in the hands of twelve persons; that the right of Parliamentary representation should be accorded to the Roman Catholics; that the payment of tythes, "the ever fruitful cause of disturbance and outrage," should be transferred from the occupier to the owner; that the clergy should be compelled to reside on their benefices; and that remedial legislation generally should be constantly kept in view.^[29]

While Pitt by this great measure was recalling the peaceful triumphs of his earlier and better days, he was persevering in his unfortunate Continental policy. A fresh coalition had been formed against France. The triumphs of the Archduke Charles in Germany and of Suwaroff in Italy during the absence of Bonaparte in Egypt in 1799, gave unusual hopes to George III., who thought he recognized the visible interposition of Providence. Pitt contemptuously rejected the offers of the First Consul on his return from Egypt to treat, and Lord Grenville once more declared, in proposing an enormous subsidy to Russia, that the existence of the present government of France was incompatible with the security of the other Powers of Europe. It was against that government, he said, acting on its present principles that he would wage war, and he accompanied his observations by an apology for the Cabinets of St. Petersburg and Vienna, an apology which Lord Lansdowne ridiculed, returning to the conduct of the allies towards Poland, and again insisting on the impolicy of even seeming to dictate to another country the form of government which it was to possess. He added that in his opinion there was no valid ground for the expectations held out by Ministers of the general deliverance of Europe.^[30] Within another year the battles of Marengo and Hohenlinden had been fought, and the Peace of Luneville signed. The new century opened for England amid distress, despondency and defeat.

The speech of Lord Lansdowne, which has just been quoted, was made remarkable by the formal declaration of his complete change of opinion on the question of neutral rights. Ever since the outbreak of the war, England had been engaged in renewed wrangles on this subject with the Northern Powers, especially with Denmark. It was even attempted to bring food and provisions within the category of contraband, and the controversy between Count Bernstorff and Mr. Hailes in 1793 on this point remains a cause célèbre in the annals of international law. To these extreme applications of belligerent rights Lord Lansdowne had at all times been opposed, and he pronounced the Memorial of Bernstorff, in reply to the English Instructions of the 8th of June 1793, "one of the boldest, wisest, and most honourable replies he had ever read. It was a State Paper that should be kept for the model of every cabinet in Europe."^[31] He now went further, and after freely confessing that he had formerly advocated the opposite doctrine, asked, using the arguments which Oswald had urged upon him in 1783,^[32] how the old doctrines could be made to apply to neutral States, when America had arrived at such a pitch of magnitude? "The question," he said, "had assumed a very altered aspect. Was it possible to prevent America carrying any kind of goods as a neutral nation? He would defy the wildest ministers that ever could exist, supposing it possible to have wilder ministers than we had, to prevent America from becoming the carrying country of Europe. He admitted it was unpleasant to lose the power we once possessed, but what the land lost by the encroachment of the sea in one place, it gained by its receding in another. If we were obliged to forego the maritime code, it would be succeeded by other sources of wealth."^[33]

Pitt had intended that the union between England and Ireland should be immediately followed by a measure for the relief of the Roman Catholic population from the disabilities under which they suffered. The prejudices of the King proved however too strong for his more enlightened minister, who on the 5th of February 1801 accordingly resigned. Addington, the Speaker of the House of Commons, was charged with the formation of a new Government. Before his final arrangements were made, the King again fell a victim to mental disorder, and the question of the Regency was once more forced upon public attention. The Prince of Wales, sure of the support of Fox and his friends, looked forward to forming a Ministry after his own heart. But in Lord Lansdowne he foresaw an obstacle to his plans, believing him to be irrevocably hostile, owing to the speech which he had made on the Regency Bill in 1788, expressing a complete agreement with the views of Pitt.^[34] Ultimately at the advice of Mr. Grey the Prince had sent Lord Moira in 1798 to ascertain his views.^[35] "Lord Moira," writes Lord Lansdowne, "said that he had sometime since had the Prince's directions to consider of two lines of administration; one, an eventful one in case of the King's illness being a short one; the other in case of its being permanent; that in the latter case there was no situation which the Prince would not consider to be at my choice, no competitor, of course after the Treasury. I told him I had none in view, though I wished the country saved, which could only be by settling the Government in the first instance, and by peace in the second. He described the Prince's character, that it was good-natured, quiet, easy of comprehension, with an appearance of unsteadiness arising from people presuming too much upon his affability; and this occasioned what had been called breaches of friendship, and that he lamented sometimes his want of application. I told him that I did not desire to be let into Court secrets; I had no talents for any sort of Court management when young; and now was incapable of anything of the sort, and would only expose myself, if I attempted it; that as to measures, I thought it my duty to attend to them and to give the best opinion I could. He said that the Treasury was at his option long before Mr. Addington was thought of.

"He said that the six mentioned by Mr. Grey would command in his opinion the public confidence; that Lord Thurlow was determined if he had a leg to stand upon to come forth; he talked of the Duke of Northumberland, Lord Bute, and the country gentlemen; of Fox, as wanting to come in for a short time to save appearances, and to go out again; that he had brought the country gentlemen at last to endure him; of Lord Fitzwilliam as possibly to go to Ireland; of a reform of Parliament, not disapproving it altogether, but not cordially; of peace, eagerly; of economy, but not enthusiastically; that Lord Buckingham had applied to him repeatedly about stirring the question of the King's competency (a good instrument to take up ground full of danger and difficulty); the Queen might be gained; the Duke of York not, who had differences with Pitt about Hanover, which was the subject of two or three conversations with the King, in which Pitt proposed its being given up for British objects; that Pitt he had reason to think set out in concert with Addington; Fox was ill with Pitt, but likely to be well with the King if he recovered; Lord Gower and Pitt had had for some time a great coldness."^[36]

Several conversations ultimately took place between the Whig leaders, and the following outline of a Ministry was agreed upon:^[37]—

 

First Lord of the Treasury	Lord Moira.
Chancellor of the Exchequer	Mr. Sheridan.
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs	Lord Lansdowne.
Secretary of State for Home Affairs	Mr. Fox.
President of the Council	Duke of Grafton.
Lord Privy Seal	Duke of Bedford.
First Lord of the Admiralty	Lord Wycombe.
President of the Board of Trade	Lord Hawkesbury.
Secretary at War	Mr. Grey.

 

All arrangements were however abruptly terminated in 1801 by the recovery of the King. The Addington Administration was successfully formed, and the position of the Opposition, as Fox felt, became more hopeless than ever. They resolved however to persevere with their opposition in Parliament, where Fox had now returned. "The line of conduct to be taken," he wrote to Lord Holland, "seems quite clear; as Lord Lansdowne would say, simplicity and consistency.^[38] Removal and censure of Pitt and his associates; Religious Liberty to its utmost extent; Reform in Parliament; Liberty of the Press, in which I include pardon in all instances, and indemnity in others to Libellers, &c.; not only peace, but a good understanding if it can be had with Bonaparte, and everything that is mild and conciliating to Denmark, Sweden, &c."^[39]

During the session of 1801 accordingly, the Opposition continued to urge on the Ministry the necessity of concluding peace. The retirement of Pitt and Grenville had made a negotiation easier. Their successors Addington and Hawkesbury were not pledged never under any circumstances to treat with the existing Government of France. But the events which had been recently passing on sea and land made France herself less arrogant in her demands. On the 16th December 1800 the Armed Neutrality had been renewed by the Northern Powers against England, chiefly through the machinations of the Emperor Paul. The battle of Copenhagen and the destruction of the Danish fleet was the high-handed answer of the English Government. The murder of the Emperor Paul, who from the enemy had become the devoted adherent of France, still further broke up the Northern alliance, while the complete success of the English expedition to Egypt not only restored the prestige of the English arms, but secured India against French aggression.

It was thus easier than in previous years for England to negotiate, and on the 1st October 1801, preliminary articles of peace were agreed upon. "I am impatient," Lord Lansdowne wrote to Lord Holland, "to drink the French consul's health now that we may do it safely and honourably, and thanks to him for granting us peace, no matter what it is."^[40] On the 25th March 1802 the Treaty of Amiens was signed. The French Republic retained all her recent acquisitions in Europe, while Great Britain restored all the conquests she had made, except Ceylon and Trinidad, and was left to calculate at leisure the cost of the war into which she had been hurried by the passion of Burke, and by the ignorance of foreign politics of Pitt.

Not the least advantage which the peace brought to Lord Lansdowne was the opportunity it gave him of renewing his intimacy with his friends in France. "My mind," he wrote to Morellet, "gets every year more philosophized, and I cannot express the satisfaction it gives me to find it enlarging by dint of reflection and observation, or the pleasure it gives me to see things great and small through a just medium, unencumbered with prejudices, and little passions of which I feel I had my full share. I now look down upon them as I would upon a fog in a valley. I am very happy in both my sons. I have been uneasy about your friend's long absence from home, but I find that he improves considerably in respect to talents and that his mind strengthens.^[41] He lives in perpetual pursuit of information, and his mind appears constantly employed, which makes him happy, and what else are we to look for? My younger son is a quite different character. A very happy temper, with, I would say if I were not afraid of rating him too high, a strong natural judgment. His brother loves him very tenderly, as he may well do his brother who has acted a very noble part by him. Let me now say a word with regard to yourself. You may depend upon it that if I have one quality beyond another it is sincerity, and that in no part of my life I was ever capable of failing in it. I hope and trust that some settlement will take place in France, in which case however happy I may be to see you in England, I should be sorry you thought of quitting it, because I am persuaded from all I have seen and read, nothing can supply the place of early habits and long connections; but if the Reign of Terror should return, you may be assured of finding a home here, and that I will do everything in my power to make it as natural to you as possible. … I expect that peace will revive us here as well as elsewhere, and that I shall be enabled to pursue for some years before I die the dictates of an unshackled mind. I have a very great desire as soon as the peace takes place to see the bonne ville de Paris once more after such wonderful events, and to pass a winter afterwards in some warm climate, arranging so as to pass some little time at Paris going, and more returning. I wish you would have the goodness to make a plan for me how I can see and not be seen. I do not want to make connections, much less to intrigue, or to be active in any pursuit, but my curiosity will be insatiable, as long as it can be gratified in a quiet way. I beg you will write to me a plan in the greatest possible detail, it will serve me at least to dream upon.

"I have not changed an atom of the principles I first imbibed from you and Adam Smith. They make a woeful slow progress, but I cannot look upon them as extinct; on the contrary they must prevail in the end like the sea. What they lose in one place they gain in another. There is nothing would give me more pleasure than to discuss all these subjects with you once more before we die, but I am afraid it will be impossible for me to think of it before the year after next. If I live till then, my health will not leave me an option. The dampness and uncertainty of this climate disagrees with me every year more. You used to tell me that you were ten or twelve years older than me, but I can now tell you that I am ten or twelve years older than you."^[42]

The projected journey never took place. After the conclusion of the Peace of Amiens, the restless ambition of Bonaparte never paused in pushing his schemes for universal dominion on the continent of Europe, and angry recriminations continued to be bandied between the Governments of France and England. The peace was indeed a hollow truce, and it may be fairly doubted if war could long have been avoided under any circumstances. The Addington Administration unfortunately did their best to place their country in the wrong. They not only showed an unwarrantable tardiness in executing several of the provisions of the peace, but in the ultimatum which Lord Whitworth presented to the First Consul, on the 10th May 1803, demanded the evacuation of Switzerland by the French troops, and a territorial equivalent for the dispossessed King of Sardinia in Italy. On both points France had the advantage in argument; for the affairs of Switzerland had been arranged by the Treaty of Luneville, which gave the Emperor, but not England, a right to interfere; while whatever changes had been recently introduced into that country diminished rather than increased French influence, compared with what it had been in 1799. Sardinia had been in the possession of France at the time of the signature of the Peace of Amiens, and no demand had then been made on behalf of the King. Still more unfortunate was the English position regarding Malta. That island had not been restored to the Knights of St. John, according to the stipulations of the recent treaty, though all the conditions on which the restoration was to depend had been fulfilled, and the English ultimatum now proposed that the evacuation should not take place till the end of a further term of ten years, and then without any regard to the possessory claims of the Knights.

These points were insisted upon by Lord Lansdowne in the last speech he made in Parliament. "Let us first try," he said, "every possible way to obtain by conciliation the objects we are desirous of possessing; and if our efforts fail, let us then have recourse to arms. Let us profit by the example of the American war and take care that our discretion and prudence be not sacrificed to false glory."^[43] The die was however cast. On April 29th, 1803, war was again declared, and on May the 12th, 1804, Pitt again became Prime Minister. Lord Lansdowne saw these events with a feeling akin to despair. He determined however to continue the struggle, but illness and infirmity, which soon proved fatal, now began to make it difficult for him to appear in Parliament. The brief remainder of his life was spent at Bowood, now cheered only by the hopes of the future career of his second son. "Henry," he writes to Lord Holland, "promises to be a very great resource to me, so far as private life goes, and as to public life, I have seen so much of it, that I shall consider it as no misfortune if he fails in it. My next greatest resource is this place, where I am perpetually doing and undoing, and to which I grow every day more attached. "You will be pleased," the letter continues, the old flame kindling for a moment, "that Dumont and Bentham's book is likely to make its way and to lay the foundation of a new science in Legislation. It ought to be translated into Spanish."^[44] "Whatever disappointments," said Fox, "Lansdowne may have had in public life, and of a still more sensible kind in Lord Wycombe,^[45] he must be very unreasonable if he does not consider them all compensated in Lord Henry. I never did see a young man I liked half so much. The little he has done is excellent; good sense, and good language to perfection; a little more force might be desirable, but that will come possibly when he speaks on greater occasions than he has yet done."^[46] The greater occasion came with the debate on the charges against Dundas, now Lord Melville, in regard to his conduct as Treasurer of the Navy. "It is a matter of pride to any man," said Tierney, "who followed later in the debate, to be allowed to call himself the friend of such rising talents and eloquence."^[47]

On the 15th January 1805, Lord Lansdowne dictated the following letter to Lord Holland. "The state of public affairs is such as to leave me little to regret, whether considered in a large or a narrow point of view, relative to persons or to things. As to the first, the contradictions and inconsistencies are endless, and afford a despicable view of human nature; and as to things, never was this country so totally void of plan as at present, the consequence of which must be such a total want of system both bad and good, as to mock all conjecture of what may happen. I am sorry to say that both Christianism and feudality are approaching every day to their downfall, without anything to replace the good of the one, or the bad of the other; but on the contrary, a spirit of destruction has arisen, which goes to pull down, without the least design of building anything in its room. The most striking feature is a general secresy in all parties, which is easily accounted for by a general want of confidence. But I hope we shall see you soon, which makes it unnecessary for me to enter into further details. I need not tell you that you will be sure to know everything Henry and I do, but there is one thing which I have more at heart than all the politics in the world, which is my gratitude to your sister.^[48] I wish I knew how to return half her kindness to you and Lady Holland, to whom I consider myself as beholden for it, and never can sufficiently show how much I feel it, and how much I consider myself as indebted in consequence."

It was at this time that he is said to have been appealed to by Sir Richard Phillips as to his knowledge of the authorship of Junius. Sir Richard Phillips, according to his own account, said to Lord Lansdowne that many persons had ascribed those letters to him, and that the world at large conceived that at least he was not unacquainted with the author. Lord Lansdowne replied: "No, no, I am not equal to Junius; I could not be the author; but the grounds of secrecy are now so far removed by death and changes of circumstances, that it is unnecessary the author of Junius should much longer be unknown. The world are curious about him, and I could make a very interesting publication on the subject. I knew Junius, and I knew all about the writing and production of those letters. But look," said he, "at my condition; I don't think I can live a week—my legs, my strength tell me so; but the doctors, who always flatter sick men, assure me I am in no immediate danger. They order me into the country, and I am going there. If I live over the summer, which, however, I don't expect, I promise you a very interesting pamphlet about Junius. I will put my name to it; I will set that question at rest for ever." He subsequently added: "I'll tell you this for your guide generally—Junius has never yet been publicly named. None of the parties ever guessed at as Junius was the true Junius. Nobody has ever suspected him. I knew him; and knew all about it, and I pledge myself, if these legs will permit me, to give you a pamphlet on the subject, as soon as I feel myself equal to the labour."^[49]

 

But it was not to be. The end was not far off. Only a week after the conversation with Sir Richard Phillips, on the 7th May 1805, Dumont wrote to a friend: "There is no longer any information to be asked. The last event took place this morning at six o'clock. The two last days have been passed in a state of exhaustion or insensibility."^[50] Lord Lansdowne had ended his stormy and chequered career. If life and health had been continued to him a little longer, he would probably have been a member of the Coalition Ministry formed in 1806 by Lord Grenville and Fox, or perhaps he would have been satisfied with seeing Lord Henry Petty filling the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer at the age of twenty-six. His remains were interred in the church of High Wycombe, in the county which has given five Premiers to Great Britain—Mr. Grenville, Lord Shelburne, the Duke of Portland, Lord Grenville, Lord Beaconsfield. No tasteless monument nor fulsome inscription disfigures his grave, but if any epitaph were needed to mark where he rests, it might be found in the words attributed to Bentham, that alone of his own time, the first Lord Lansdowne was "a Minister who did not fear the people."^[51]

 

1. Parliamentary History, xxx. 329, 422.
2. On January 9th, 1794, the Duke of Brunswick, disgusted alike with the political and military situation, resigned the command of the Allied armies on the Rhine.
3. Parliamentary History, xxx. 152, 1391; xxxi. 684.
4. See Cooke, History of Party, iii. 433.
5. Parliamentary History, xxxii. 258.
6. Ibid. xxxii. 488. Memorials of Fox, iii. 124.
7. Parliamentary History, xxx. 1434; xxxi. i.
8. Parliamentary History, xxx. 728, 733.
9. Correspondence of C. J. Fox, iii. 112-113.
10. Parliamentary History, xxxii. 154.
11. Parliamentary History, xxxi. 198. Notes on the "Poor Law." Lansdowne House MSS.
12. Courts and Cabinets, ii. 292.
13. On the 19th of April 1794, a subsidy treaty had been signed between England and Prussia. See Malmesbury Correspondence, iii. 85, 89, 96-98. Austria was bound to Prussia by the treaty of 1792.
14. Parliamentary History, xxxi. 458.
15. Parliamentary History, xxxiii. 538.
16. Parliamentary History, xxxii. 1564.
17. Castlereagh Correspondence, i. 277.
18. The "Journée du 18 fructidor."
19. Memoirs of the Whig Party, i. 91. Memorials of Fox, iii. 138.
20. Parliamentary History, xxxiii. 1310.
21. Parliamentary History, xxxiii. 1312.
22. Memorials of Fox, iii. 129.
23. In a Paper printed in the Fortescue Papers, iv. 69-70, entitled "Secret Intelligence from France," and purporting to contain "the French rulers' " plan for the government of England, it is stated that "the Directory of England is to consist of Paine, Tooke, Sharpe, Thclwall, Lansdowne." Among the condemned to deportation are nearly the whole of the nobility and rich proprietors. Among those condemned to transportation is Mr. Fox, with the remark: "Faux patriote: ayant souvent insulté la nation française dans ses discours, et particulièrement en 1786" (January 1798).
24. Arthur Young, Tour in Ireland, ii. ch. xxii. 251, ed. 1892.
25. Parliamentary History, xxxiv. 677.
26. See supra, Vol. II. Ch. III. In an article in the Contemporary Review (1887), "Ireland 1872 and 1887," I have examined the history of these transactions more fully (F.).
27. Parliamentary History, xxxiv. 675-678.
28. Memoirs of the Whig Party, by Lord Holland, i. 147. In the debates of 1886, Mr. Childers claimed that Lord Lansdowne's views in 1799 were in favour of union for Imperial affair* and the maintenance of the Irish Parliament for internal or domestic purposes. It has been seen that in 1782 Lord Shelburne had tried to devise a scheme for a permanent Irish contribution to the Imperial Exchequer, which Grattan rejected, and that he clung to the last to the hope of maintaining some connection between the mother-country and the American Colonies of a similar kind by an agreement with the Colonies. (Vol. II. Ch. III.)
29. Parliamentary History, xxxv. 167.
30. Parliamentary History, xxxv. 1198.
31. Manning, Law of Nations, 297; and see the speeches of Lord Shelburne and Lord Camden as to the policy of Lord Chatham on this subject in the debate of June 1st, 1780. Parliamentary History, xxi. 629.
32. Memorandum by Oswald on Neutral Rights, February 1783.
33. Parliamentary History, xxxv. 1199.
34. Notes of a Conversation between Lord Lansdowne and ——, 1798. A conversation between the Prince Regent and Mr. Grey is recorded in a paper which runs as follows:—
    "Friday, January 26th, 1790.

    "Last night I went to the Duchess of Gordon's a little before twelve o'clock. The Prince of Wales soon after came up to me & seemed to desire a private Conversation. He began by saying things of general Civility as to the Line I had taken in Parliament, & soon proceeded to ask me if I had dined at Mr. Fox's Birthday the day before? On my Replying in the Negative, he observed that strange Things had been said Yet, (said he) 'I love the Duke of Norfolk & I dare say he will soon come to Carlton House & explain it all to me. I love too Charles Fox extremely, but I wish Things were not so conducted—I have but few friends to consult or advise with—Moira is gone to Ireland for whom I have the highest Regard—he will do correctly where he is—and, Il est brave comme son Epée—Thurlow is a strange Man. We are great friends in private—but what a Speech he made in the House of Lords! They press me to act—How can I take a public Part? I should be torn to pieces by new Calumnies from the Ministers—and called a second Egalité—what can I have at heart but an Union of those who would serve the Public efficiently?—My Stake is pretty considerable—the Crown, my family, and my little Daughter—But the King is a mere Tool in the hands of these Men—What a Dog is the Chancellor?—Pitt and He combined in the Business of my Debts to render me unpopular, and the Country now owes me 250,000l. which I have been absolutely defrauded of. I know it is not a Period at which I can apply to the Public for it, but my affairs have never been before that Public—I could have desired nothing more advantageous for me than to have stated them broadly & openly—The King—but that is a sad subject and we will not talk upon it——

    "'By the Way (continued the Prince) I never was acquainted with Lord Lansdown, and indeed I have understood from a Variety of Quarters that he was disinclined to me personally.' I assured the Prince it was a gross Misrepresentation as I had often heard Lord Lansdown express the highest Regard for him.

    "The Prince went on—'The Strength of the Monarchy,' said he, 'after all consists in the affections of the People—Government cannot continue to go on by the Few exerting mere Influence & Prerogative—I say these things merely to know whether my Opinions are supported by yours—We have laughed together formerly, but times now grow serious, & I have a respect for your Opinions.'

    "I replied, 'Certainly, Sir, the broader the Basis the firmer the Monarchy.'

    "He said, 'You have got rid of that fellow Anstruther—but He was only a contemptible Instrument of their Treachery to me. Yet I shall never be at Ease while I am in the Fangs of this Fiend (Pitt). Why should not Lord Lansdown & Fox meet & define the Line of Measures they would mutually abide by? Why should they not mutually carry the Proposition of that Line of Measures openly & fairly to the King? I never knew Lord Lansdown & I repeat to you that I have been informed on strong Authority that he was personally disinclined to me. I wish you would sound him on the Subject. I should be glad if an Occasion offered itself of conversing with Lord Lansdown for half an hour—I have taken up a great deal of your time—but I wished to know how far you thought my Modes of thinking on these Subjects were conformable to your own.'

    "This Conversation lasted more than an hour and till we were left alone in the house I am sure I have remembered all the leading Topics.

    "The night after I met Lady Jersey, who told me the Prince mentioned that he had had a long Discussion with me on the preceding Evening." (Lansdowne House MSS.)

35. Some details relating to these negotiations will be found in the Journal of Elizabeth, Lady Holland, who says that Mr. Tierney was instrumental in bringing Lord Moira and Lord Lansdowne together (ii. 137).
36. Lansdowne House MSS.
37. In a paper among the Lansdowne House MSS., more than one proposed arrangement is given, Mr. Fox and Lord Lansdowne changing places.
38. The allusion is explained by the following passage from the Journal of Elizabeth, Lady Holland, "Upon the breaking or rather stoppage of the Bank, Messrs. Fox, Grey, and Sheridan went to him to concert measures for the ensuing debate, upon which he said: 'I will tell you, gentlemen, very fairly my opinion, which has always been publicity and simplicity.' With these two words they were obliged to be contented, and extract from them what meaning they could if any they had" (i. 210-211, January 20th, 1798).
39. Memorials of Fox, iii. 187.
40. Lord Lansdowne to Lord Holland, October 1801.
41. The allusion is to Lord Wycombe.
42. Lord Lansdowne to Morellet, August 20th, December 7th, 1802.
43. Parliamentary History, xxxvi. 1507.
44. Lord Lansdowne to Lord Holland, April 13th, 1803.
45. See The Journal of Elizabeth Lady Holland, i. 191, 209-210, 221, 239.
46. Memorials of Fox, iii. 203, 209, 246, 464.
47. See Lord Stanhope, Life of Pitt, iv. 280.
48. The Hon. Caroline Fox. See supra, p. 329.
49. See Junius elucidated, by John Britton, F.S.A., xxx. Monthly Magazine, July 1813.
50. Bentham, x. 419.
51. Lord Holland, Memoirs of the Whig Party, i. 41, note.