The Long Eighteenth Century

by Frank O'Gorman

  MAP 9: European battles of the War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War.

  Yet it was less the rise to power of the Elder Pitt than events outside Europe which created the momentum for political change, forcing government to focus directly upon imperial concerns and to develop strategies for dealing with them. Events in Canada, and to a much lesser extent in India, where hostilities in the south had continued almost uninterrupted since 1748, dragged the European powers into military conflict. (Indeed, the war is sometimes termed the ‘Nine Years’ War’ for empire between France and Britain (1754–63.)) The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1748 had settled once and for all the troublesome issue of the Protestant succession, with the French promising at last to abandon the Jacobites. The treaty, however, left unresolved most of the outstanding colonial problems, especially in North America, where British and French interests clashed. The treaty had left frontier disputes to be settled by commissioners of the two countries, but they made little progress. The French sought to link up their colonies of Canada and Louisiana in order to restrict British expansion to the west, and to this end looked to strengthen their position in the Ohio valley. But British land companies from the colony of Virginia were already planning to settle the fertile regions of the Ohio valley. The largest company was the Ohio Company, founded in 1748 and awarded half a million acres by the crown. In retaliation, the French built Fort Duquesne on this territory. The situation steadily worsened until in 1755 the French defeated a joint British and colonial force at Fort Duquesne. Worse was to come. Admiral Boscawen failed to stop French naval reinforcements from reaching the American colonies.

  Meanwhile events in Europe were leading to a declaration of war between England and France in May 1756. Newcastle, moreover, now found that the old diplomatic certainties of his earliest days in politics, an active policy of military intervention in Europe in the ‘old alliance’ with Austria and the United Provinces, were dissolving. Austria was no longer prepared to fulfil her customary role as defender of Hanover, and she had no wish to go to war against France. What she wanted was to take her revenge on Frederick the Great for the loss of Silesia.5 Newcastle in desperation negotiated an alliance with Russia in 1755 for the defence of Hanover, an alliance which in its turn persuaded Frederick the Great to ally with Britain in January 1756. This ‘Diplomatic Revolution’ was completed when France, hitherto the ally of Prussia, negotiated an alliance with Austria in May 1757.

  The French seizure of Minorca in May 1756 drew Britain into hostilities. The early years of the war were clouded by news of the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’, in which the officers of the young Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah, confined 146 Europeans in a badly ventilated room. In 1757 a British naval attack on the French naval base at Rochefort failed dismally. If this were not enough, in the same year, the Duke of Cumberland and his newly formed Army of Observation of Hanoverian, Hessian and Prussian troops was defeated at the Battle of Klosterzeven. Hanover was now at the mercy of France. In spite of his earlier tirades against the electorate, Pitt saw that the German front was of vital significance for the outcome of the war. Declaring his support for a continental strategy, he proceeded to throw men and money at Frederick the Great.

  This strategy quickly paid dividends. It may not have helped Frederick to defeat the French at Rossbach as early as November 1757, but it did much to assist the reconstruction of the Army of Observation on the Rhine under Ferdinand of Brunswick, one of Frederick’s own generals. By the summer of 1758 he was pushing the French back to the River Weser. Pitt was anxious to keep the European military front secure. His commitment to the defence of Hanover was much more than a pragmatic concession to the prejudices of George II. It was part of an integrated continental strategy. The shift to maritime and colonial priorities was not to come for another two years. Even in 1758, however, Pitt sent several raids to the French coast which inflicted some damage on the enemy while failing to take the ports against which they were directed, principally St Malo and Cherbourg. More successful was the tactic of blockading the French navy in its home ports in order to prevent the transport of enemy reinforcements to North America.

  The turning point in the war was rapidly approaching. There was to be seemingly no end to French disasters in Britain’s annus mirabilis, 1759. Throughout the year the French were planning to invade England. To frustrate the expected invasion, Pitt summoned the militia and stationed it along the south and east coasts, but it was even more important to prevent the fleet sailing in the first place. To this end the British navy blockaded both the Toulon and Brest fleets. Desperate to beat the blockade, the French fleets engaged the English. In the end Britain secured the great victories of Lagos and Quiberon Bay, which practically ensured British command of the seas for the rest of the war. Elsewhere in Europe, Britain was fortunate in her alliance with the military genius of Frederick the Great. Although suffering the calamitous defeat at Kunersdorf in August 1759, endangering even more seriously an already threatened Hanover, the Prussian army won the momentous victory of Minden.

  The fortunes of Britain soared as much in the colonies in annus mirabilis as in Europe. In the American campaign of 1758–9 Pitt followed a threefold strategy. One British army was to clear French forces out of the Ohio Valley, while another was to advance via Lake Champlain into the heart of Canada. A third army would attack Louisburg before advancing on Quebec. In September 1759 Quebec fell to Wolfe, and within a year Canada had submitted to the British. Pitt did not stop there, but transferred his attentions to the Caribbean. Guadeloupe had already fallen in early 1759; in May 1759 the rich prize of Martinique was taken by the British, and during the final years of the war most of the important French sugar islands capitulated. Other colonial victories followed in Africa and India. French trading stations had already suffered serious defeats on the coast of West Africa in 1758, and the loss of the gum and slave trades. On this was now heaped defeat in India. Already in 1757 Robert Clive had defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah at the historic Battle of Plassey and proceeded to take Chandernagore from the French and then to overrun Bengal, India’s richest province. In January 1760 the French defeat at Wandiwash at the hands of Eyre Coote, a protégé of Pitt, was the turning point in the battle for India. A year later, the final French base at Pondicherry fell. Britain was now the dominant power in both the north-east as well as the south-east of India.

  Britain was saturated in military victories and was beginning to anticipate the problems of peace. The war both on land and sea was proving unprecedentedly expensive. Normal peacetime expenditure was about £2 million per annum. The Land Tax was raised to 4s. in the pound, excise duties on a wide range of goods were steeply increased and the sinking fund was raided. These expedients succeeded in doubling government income to £4 million, but this still left an enormous deficit against an estimated expenditure of several times that amount. The chosen remedy was to borrow money from the City of London and this Newcastle did on an extraordinary scale: in 1761 and 1762 the sum borrowed reached £12 million per annum. One day the bill would have to be paid.

  The years of the supremacy of the Elder Pitt during the Seven Years’ War were years of unprecedented political tranquillity at home. Opposition had gone out of fashion. The old corps Whigs were united behind Pitt, the apostle of patriotism. Even the heir to the throne, the future George III, supported the war. Yet Pitt’s position was in some ways not as strong as it looked. The government was a coalition of disparate parts. For it to continue Pitt had to exert his authority and assert his independence of the old corps. This meant maintaining, even enhancing, his public reputation, cultivating the image of a patriot, appealing to Tories as well as Whigs and rousing the middling orders over the heads of the political classes. For the moment, however, he was the hero of the nation.

  By this time, however, public opinion was turning strongly towards peace. The publication of Israel Maudit’s pamphlet Considerations on the Present German War (November 1760) reflected this shift. Maudit’s
message that Britain should abandon the continental war touched a chord in public opinion. The pamphlet quickly ran through five editions. Even more important, the death of George II in October 1760 and the accession of the young George III weakened the position of Pitt. The new king, and his principal friend and adviser, Lord Bute, disliked the war, mistrusted the old corps and envied the power of William Pitt. These changing domestic circumstances happened to coincide with the early consequences of another new reign, that of Charles III of Spain, who had inherited his throne in 1759. In August 1761 he signed a family compact with France. Scenting trouble, Pitt advocated a pre-emptive strike against the Spanish colonies in the New World. George III, Lord Bute and almost all members of the cabinet were horrified at the prospect of extending the war to yet another continent, and refused to accede to Pitt’s demands. In October 1761 Pitt resigned. In the end, Britain was forced to declare war against Spain in January 1762. Within a few months both Havana and, on the other side of the world, Manila had fallen to British arms. In May 1762 Newcastle resigned, too, manfully but unsuccessfully defending the continuation of the subsidy to Frederick the Great.

  British naval victories against Spain were to be little more than negotiating counters in the protracted peace process which was completed by the Treaty of Paris in February 1763. Britain made overwhelming gains, whose effect was to make her the leading power in Europe and, indeed, a world power of the first rank. In North America Britain took Canada and Louisiana from France and Florida from Spain. In the Caribbean, she won Grenada, Dominica and Tobago and thus became the greatest power in that region. In Africa, she reinforced her position as the dominant power over the slave trade with the acquisition of Senegal. In the Mediterranean, Minorca was restored. These were massive gains but they were not enough to satisfy Pitt, who became the most trenchant critic of the peace terms. He deplored the abandonment of Frederick the Great and the eventual decision to end the subsidy to Prussia. He condemned the British negotiators for restoring too many of France's conquests, particularly Guadeloupe, Martinique and St Lucia in the Caribbean. With these, argued Pitt, France would be in a position to rebuild her wealth and to redevelop her naval power. He also condemned other clauses of the treaty. France received back Belle Isle, Gorée in West Africa and her trading posts in India; Spain received back Manila and Havana. Pitt's denunciations of such generosity knew no bounds. Yet it is likely that he overlooked the probable consequences of too sweeping a victory. Had the British negotiators extracted every drop of blood that they could have done from their French and Spanish counterparts, they would have done little more than prepare the groundwork for another war against the Bourbon powers as soon as the latter had recovered. Britain was already the superior power in North America, Africa and India. To adopt a conciliatory approach at least made it possible that in the years to come peace might be preserved.

  Historians have for over two centuries debated the status of Pitt's achievement. There has, thankfully, been a revision of the old imperialist and triumphalist accounts which idolized Pitt's heroism and foresight and attributed victory in the war principally to his genius. British victory in the Seven Years’ War, in fact, owed more to external factors than to those within Pitt’s control. The fact that Spain remained neutral for most of the war years was a vital advantage to Britain. The military genius of Frederick the Great, furthermore, tied up hundreds of thousands of French troops in Europe for the duration of the war and created gaping holes in French resources. Moreover, the French army and navy had been allowed to run down in the previous decade. By contrast, British naval strength in the Seven Years’ War was a result of decades of careful expansion which owed nothing to the Great Commoner. It was ludicrous for Pitt to claim all the credit for the war's successes. As Paul Langford sensibly explains, ‘Every action of government had been a collective one, from the ministers in Whitehall to the men on the battlefield.’6

  Pitt was no innovator, no reformer. He advocated no new political or imperial theories. He was a patriot before he was an imperialist. The idea that he brought a master imperial design to the government in 1756 which he then proceeded to implement is not borne out by the facts. This imperial design was a rationalization voiced by Pitt and his admirers after he resigned in 1761. During his years in office between 1756 and 1761 he learned to appreciate the value of commerce, and there is no doubt that he came to understand the importance of empire. But others showed a clearer appreciation of the value of colonies and a greater sensitivity to domestic imperial interests. Pitt’s intentions in 1756 were to safeguard the interests of his country and to destroy the power of France.7 How that might be done, in which theatres of conflict the war might proceed, under which commanders and with what strategy had to be determined pragmatically and pursued with the materials to hand. He was forced to use existing political and administrative machinery, but he was to a large extent constrained, and indeed frustrated, by existing departmental boundaries.

  Furthermore, military and naval victories were not the achievement of one man. Naval victories owed more to Anson8 and his colleagues at the Admiralty than they did to Pitt. The naval strategy that was so successful after 1758 had been planned for over a decade. Furthermore, Pitt owed just as much, although historians have been slow to recognize this, to the Duke of Newcastle. Newcastle did far more than distribute patronage while William Pitt ran the war. As Newcastle’s biographer makes clear, ‘He was not indispensable – only Pitt bears that distinction – but he was performing indispensable tasks.’9 Newcastle was closely involved not merely with the essential business of financing the war through his contacts in the City of London but also with supplying British armies in Germany and North America. His skills, furthermore, in managing Parliament were absolutely indispensable. The almost complete absence of parliamentary opposition to the government during the Seven Years’ War was most unusual, compared to the political experiences of the other wars of the eighteenth century. The careful management of men and issues, to say nothing of this management of King George II, during the war was one of Newcastle’s greatest achievements.

  What Pitt did bring to government was a burning sense of patriotism, an overwhelming desire to defeat the Bourbon enemies of Britain and a clear sighted view of the value of trade to British national strength and security. His contributions to the war effort were threefold. First, he was an important influence in the promotion on their merits of a group of outstandingly talented commanders. After Klosterzeven, Cumberland was replaced as Commander-in-Chief by the aged Ligonier. It was he, rather than Pitt, who was responsible for the rapid promotion of the young Amherst (40), Howe (28) and Wolfe (31). Pitt’s chosen First Lord of the Admiralty was Anson, under whom exceptional officers like Hawke, Rodney and Saunders served. Indeed, the promotions of Boscawen, Hawke and Rodney probably owed more to Anson than to Pitt. However, to deprive Pitt of any credit for presiding over this extraordinary flowering of talent would be unwise and unfair. Second, Pitt made a decisive impact upon the strategy of the war. He enjoyed the gift of global vision in the execution of his strategy, seeing the interconnectedness of European and maritime operations. For example, he conceived the policy of blockading the French fleet in its home ports as a necessary preliminary to maritime exploits in the far corners of the globe. If it is dangerous to credit him with a prepared strategy before the war he was, nevertheless, capable of evolving one during it. He was prepared to adapt his earlier views, and quite rapidly came to the conclusion that a war in Germany was justified only insofar as it facilitated British success in the global naval and colonial struggle and, in particular, in the North American theatre, which for Pitt was the centre piece of the overall strategy. Third, and whatever the limitations of his influence on events, William Pitt had the courage, the energy and the self-belief to conduct the war with savage energy, at whatever cost to his political and personal relationships and even to his own health. Furthermore, the extraordinary willingness of the House of Commons to accept his leadership
owed much to the force of his personality. With the benefit of hindsight, there is something almost inevitable about the great military victories of 1758–63. Yet, that is not how they appeared to most contemporaries, many of whom were fearful of being committed to warfare against at first two, later three, of the greatest powers in Europe. Most of all, Pitt appeared to epitomize simple, timeless values: patriotism, courage, honesty. He evinced no personal doubt or insecurity. He had the great virtue of believing in himself. To the contemporaries whom he inspired, he conveyed the excitement of greatness.

  Indeed, the period of the Seven Years’ War possesses a sense of cultural excitement which may have owed much to William Pitt but which has a much broader significance. In the 1740s and 1750s, a torpid sense of national self-doubt had been evident, manifested in a critical protest against corruption in politics, towards luxury among her governing classes, towards entanglements in foreign affairs and even a negative attitude towards imperial projects. The period of the Seven Years’ War has a quite different cultural feel. It displays a more assertive spirit of imperial enthusiasm and anti-Catholic nationalism. The uncertainties of the earlier decades were replaced by a more bracing and positive patriotism. Indeed, the importance of the empire in British society in these years can scarcely be exaggerated. This was evident ‘at a number of levels: literature (both adult and children’s), theatre, music, painting, leisure pursuits, gardening, philanthropy, fashion, religion, politics and graphic and literary propaganda’.10 Nor were these merely cultural interactions. Many people from the middling order were drawn into investing in the empire for one reason or another: investment in ships and ships’ cargoes, money lending, colonial land speculation and international trade. Yet even poorer people were touched by employment, by service in the army and navy, by the exultation of street celebrations of military and naval victories and, less tangibly, by sentiments of pride – in the country, its armed forces and in the achievements of a free, Protestant, imperial nation.