British diplomats were particularly concerned about the position of Poland, which had the potential to be a major trading partner for Britain and which needed international support if it was to be a bulwark against Russia. It was envisaged that both Poland and Turkey could join the Triple Alliance, possibly followed by Sweden and Denmark, thus creating an impressive force for stability in Europe.
The logic of requiring Russia to give up some of its gains, in particular the fortress of Ochakov at the mouth of the Dnieper on the Black Sea coast, therefore seemed sound. It was a final and crucial piece of an intricate jigsaw. In early January 1791 a series of complex and interrelated despatches was sent from London to other European capitals seeking varying degrees of support and cooperation to bring this about. This was ambitious, Leeds speaking of a ‘permanent System of Good understanding and friendship’ for the Continent,23 but most diplomats were confident; one thought the appearance of a British fleet in the Baltic ‘will probably suffice to frighten the Russians into almost any terms that may accompany it’.24 It also seems to have been assumed that the policy would be readily accepted in Britain. Auckland, who was unsure about the true importance of Ochakov, nevertheless thought that ‘nothing can be more brilliant than our position in England’.25
In fact, all the assumptions on which confidence in this policy were based turned out to be wrong. The military importance of Ochakov was disputed even by those who had been there, other countries were not motivated by the same vision of permanent friendship and peace to the same extent, Catherine II was not frightened of anyone, and British domestic opinion would prove hard to persuade that seeking the return to Turkey of a fortress in the Black Sea merited the risk of war with Russia. Difficulties began to emerge in February, when the flat rejection of the proposals by Russia was accompanied by uncertain sounds from other capitals. While Prussia joined in pressing the British demands, the Dutch were unwilling to risk a war, the Swedes demanded a subsidy, the Spanish were not prepared to help and the Austrians became markedly less cooperative and were actually playing a double game with the Russians. Berlin and London now looked to each other for assurances of continued support. On 11 March Frederick William II of Prussia sent a message to London insisting that it was necessary either to climb down or to force the Russians to acceptable terms. In London, the Cabinet held lengthy meetings on 21 and 22 March, and did not easily find agreement. Grenville was now doubtful about the policy and Richmond frankly opposed to it, but Pitt and Leeds were for going on. The result was that the Cabinet ordered thirty-nine ships of the line to be made ready for the Baltic and ten for the Black Sea, offered a subsidy to Sweden and ordered an ultimatum to be sent to Russia.
Unlike in previous crises, the approach to war was immediately subject to parliamentary debate. In the Lords, Grenville’s defence of the government was accompanied by a most unhelpful contribution from Thurlow, who warned of the lack of allies and the strength of Russia. In the Commons, Pitt was less effective than usual: he was constrained from mentioning British ambitions for extended alliances with other states, and his argument that Turkey was important to Prussia and therefore to Britain was not convincing. Although MPs gave him a majority of ninety-three, the debate was not a comfortable experience for the government and his majority should really have been higher. Neither MPs nor the press could see how the war was going to be fought, or indeed why it should be fought for a faraway fortress of which they had never before heard. The Russian envoy Vorontsov was particularly adept at mobilising public discontent with the situation through the press. Pitt himself was becoming dispirited. Some intelligence suggested that even the Prussians could not be relied upon to join Britain in a war with Russia. He was reduced to saying to Stafford, ‘I feel that we have nothing for it, but to go on with vigour and to hope for the best.’
Pitt was now in serious trouble. At Cabinet meetings on 30 and 31 March the split in the government itself became more serious: Richmond, Thurlow, Grenville, Stafford and Camden were all unhappy with the policy to some degree. It was clear Pitt would have to retreat. Facing humiliation, he took the opportunity afforded by Danish compromise proposals to send a message to Berlin requesting that the final ultimatum not be delivered to Russia. Leeds, who had always favoured a hardline approach, would not sign the capitulatory message, and Grenville had to do so instead. Fresh Commons debates on 12 and 15 April gave Pitt majorities of eighty and ninety-two, but afforded much sport to the opposition. Fox, who had his own source of information in St Petersburg, advocated alliance with Russia rather than war against her: ‘We had no alliance with Turkey, and were only called upon to gratify the pride of our ministers, and to second the ill judged policy of Prussia.’
Pitt’s grand design for European peace had collapsed. He was distressed and, unusually for him, even emotional. Ewart wrote an account of a conversation he had with him at about this time, in which Pitt complained:
‘All my efforts to make a majority of the House of Commons understand the subject have been fruitless; and I know for certain that, tho’ they may support me at present, I should not be able to carry the vote of credit … They can be embarked in a war from motives of passion, but they cannot be made to comprehend a case in which the most valuable interests of the country are at stake. What, then, remains to be done? Certainly, to risk my own situation, which my feelings and inclination would induce me to do without any hesitation; but there are unfortunately circumstances in the present state of this country which make it certain that confusion and the worst of consequences might be expected, and it would be abandoning the King.’
After … repeating, even with the tears in his eyes, that it was the greatest mortification he had ever experienced, he said he was determined not to knock under but to keep up a good countenance … in the meantime he hoped means might be found to manage matters so as not to have the appearance of giving up the point.26
Pitt was facing international humiliation and the ruin of his grand design for Europe. Ewart was sent to Berlin to explain that Britain now sought a peaceful compromise with Russia – the Prussians were actually rather relieved. On the following day, 21 April, Leeds resigned. He had not been happy in the Cabinet for some time, and the abandonment of his policy was the last straw. Clearly, Pitt thought of resigning too, but perhaps only momentarily. The defeat he had suffered was analogous to the loss of his Irish propositions in 1785: he had not been able to win sufficient support for a comprehensive and elegant solution to a seemingly intractable problem. This defeat, however, was very much bigger for being on the international stage. Yet he had maintained a decent majority in Parliament, and there was no general call in the country for his resignation. No one else in the Commons could hold a government together against Fox and the Whigs, and George III would certainly not want him to go. In any case, he probably reflected that after so many victories and achievements he was not going to bow out of politics for good in his thirty-second year.
In St Petersburg, the Empress displayed a bust of Fox and acidly observed that ‘dogs that bark do not always bite’. She made her own peace with Turkey, keeping Ochakov and a large slice of territory beyond it. The European powers would continue to jostle for advantage in Central and Eastern Europe, leading in only a few years to the destruction of Poland and the continual disruption of alliances against France. A heavy price would be paid for the defeat of Pitt’s grand design.
In June, Pitt moved Grenville sideways to replace Leeds as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. As the other Secretary of State he appointed Dundas, temporarily at first in anticipation of Cornwallis returning from India; but Cornwallis had no appetite for a parliamentary role and was in any case engaged in fresh warfare in India. At last Pitt had his two closest and most able acolytes by his side officially as well as unofficially, and he emerged from the crisis with a more united – and talented – Cabinet team. Divided the Cabinet may have been over Ochakov, but it was in the ranks of the opposition that a true schism was now taking place
. The French Revolution had continued unabated, with the abolition of titles and the resignation of Necker. Soon, in June 1791, Louis XVI would make his ill-fated attempt to escape, the ‘flight to Varennes’, and would be brought back to Paris and suspended from his duties as King. In November 1790 Burke had published his denunciation of the Revolution, Reflections on the Revolution in France. Events in Paris would soon redefine political debate and allegiance in Britain.
The views of Fox and Burke on the merits of the Revolution had diverged from the beginning. In April 1791, Fox said in the Commons that he ‘admired the new constitution of France, considered altogether, as the most stupendous and glorious edifice of liberty which had been erected on the foundation of human integrity in any time or country!’27 By contrast, Burke argued that the French ‘had completely pulled down to the ground; their monarchy; their church; their nobility; their law; their revenue; their army; their navy; their commerce; their arts; and their manufactures’, and had shown themselves ‘the ablest architects of ruin that had hitherto existed in the world’.28
Relations between the two men had deteriorated during the Regency crisis, and Fox had taken little trouble to try to repair them since. In the spring of 1791 a Bill to reconstitute the government of Canada – setting up a lower and an upper province to give English-and French-speakers some measure of independence from each other – was proceeding through the Commons. Fox used some of the debates on the Bill to lavish praise on the French Revolution, and his friends tried to shout Burke down when he rose to answer. As a result, Burke wound himself up to a fury. On 6 May he used a further debate on the Canada Bill to reply to Fox’s view of the Revolution, calling him a ‘Right Honourable Gentleman’ rather than a ‘Right Honourable Friend’, and saying: ‘It is indiscreet at any period, but especially at my time of life, to provoke enemies, or to give my friends occasion to desert me; Yet, if my firm and steady adherence to the British Constitution placed me in such a dilemma, I would risk all …’ When Fox whispered that there was no loss of friends, Burke continued: ‘Yes, there is a loss of friends. I know the price of my conduct. I have done my duty at the price of my friend. Our friendship is at an end.’29 Fox rose to reply, but the tears rolled down his face. Horace Walpole recorded: ‘He, though still applauding the French, burst into tears, and lamentations on the loss of Burke’s friendship, and endeavoured to make atonement; but in vain, though Burke wept too.’30
In the short term this traumatic separation, which Pitt happily aggravated by congratulating Burke on his speech and offering cooperation in the defence of the constitution, did not threaten the cohesion of the rest of the Whigs. Many of those who shared Burke’s hostility to the Revolution, such as the Duke of Portland, were still prepared to keep quiet about it and accept Fox’s leadership. But a fault line had been opened which would widen as the Revolution intensified.
Pitt and Grenville were determined to stand apart from the troubles in France, but both domestically and internationally the consequences of the Revolution were intruding more and more. In July 1791 five days of riots took place in Birmingham after Joseph Priestley, clergyman, scientist and discoverer of oxygen, held a dinner to celebrate the fall of the Bastille. The following month Leopold II of Austria and Frederick William II of Prussia published the Declaration of Pillnitz, appealing to other European countries for concerted action to restore the French monarchy. This initiative was not welcomed in London: war on the Continent would spell fresh trouble in the Low Countries. Grenville explained that ‘His Majesty has observed the most exact and scrupulous neutrality … With respect to the concert which has been proposed to His Majesty and to other powers … the King has determined not to take any part either in supporting or in opposing them.’31 Pitt and his Ministers were united in seeking to avoid intervention in French affairs, and comforted by the knowledge that the imperial powers were not planning to take action without the Royal Navy to support them. He was confident that Britain could remain at peace. At a dinner in October 1791, when Burke told him that the French Revolution posed a danger to the other monarchies of Europe, he answered, ‘Never fear, Mr. Burke: depend on it we shall go on as we are, until the Day of Judgement.’ Burke replied: ‘Very likely, Sir, it is the day of no judgement that I am afraid of.’32 Within a year the slide to war would have begun.
* * *
*A quarter was eight bushels, approximately a quarter of a ton of grain.
*Marie Antoinette was believed to have schemed to obtain a diamond necklace of enormous value from Cardinal de Rohan, and then refused to pay for it. In fact both she and the Cardinal were victims of a fraud perpetrated by the Comtesse de La Motte, who tricked the Cardinal into thinking that he would win the Queen’s regard by providing the necklace, obtained it from him and then sold it.
*This would be unheard of today, when the Speakership of the Commons is regarded as a disqualification from subsequent partisan activity, but in those days it could be a stepping stone to higher office.
*The Marquis of Carmarthen had succeeded to the title fifth Duke of Leeds in 1789.
15
The Cautious Crusader
‘As soon as I had arrived thus far in my investigation of the Slave Trade, I confess to you, so enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did its wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for Abolition.’
WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, 1789
‘If we listen to the voice of reason and duty, and pursue this night the line of conduct which they prescribe, some of us may live to see a reverse of that picture, from which we now turn our eyes with shame and regret. We may live to behold the natives of Africa engaged in the calm occupations of industry, in the pursuits of a just and legitimate commerce. We may behold the beams of science and philosophy breaking in upon their land, which, at some happy period in still later times, may blaze with full lustre.’
WILLIAM PITT, 1792
IN THE GROUNDS OF HOLWOOD, where Pitt used to love to cut and plant, a celebrated oak tree lived on into the twentieth century. Only a small stump remains today.* One day in 1787, Pitt sat beneath this tree with one of his closest friends, discussing a subject which was moving rapidly from being an accepted part of the economy to a burning moral outrage: the Atlantic slave trade. The friend was William Wilberforce, who later wrote: ‘When I had acquired so much information, I began to talk the matter over with Pitt and Grenville. Pitt recommended me to undertake its conduct, as a subject suited to my character and talents. At length, I well remember, after a conversation in the open air at the root of an old tree at Holwood, just above the steep descent into the Vale of Keston, I resolved to give notice on a fit occasion in the House of Commons of my intention to bring the subject forward.’1 Pitt enjoined Wilberforce to take up the cause of abolishing the slave trade without delay: ‘Do not lose time or the ground may be occupied by another.’2 He would have been happy, after his tortured conversations with his old friend about the purpose of his life and his role in politics, that Wilberforce had found an intensely political subject with which to occupy his time. Wilberforce the zealous campaigner would provide far more agreeable company and support for Pitt than Wilberforce the agonised doubter.
Finding a purpose for his friend was not, however, Pitt’s only motive. Wilberforce would be an eloquent and indefatigable campaigner, and Pitt had already come to believe in the justice of this cause. In the first place, people educated in the late eighteenth century were influenced by Enlightenment values to find slavery morally unacceptable, and Pitt would have known that the two writers he most respected had pronounced strongly against it. Pitt’s commitment to freer trade and reformed taxes owed much to Adam Smith; in The Wealth of Nations Smith had argued that slavery was an inefficient system of production, for slaves had no prospect of owning property and possessed no incentive to work. In addition, William Paley, whom Pitt described as ‘the best writer in the English language’, had published in 1785 his Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, including a rejection of s
lavery. Pitt was highly influenced by such thinking, making it impossible to group him politically with more trenchant or instinctive conservative opinion. For two and a half centuries ship-owners had plied their trade in human cargoes across the Atlantic, and for all Elizabeth I’s view that such activities would ‘call down the vengeance of Heaven’,3 there had been no interference from governmental authority. Now, in the late eighteenth century, the combination of Enlightenment values, the confidence of Christian evangelism, the maturing of the West Indian sugar trade, the growth of European interest in Africa and the rise of a literate middle class in Britain would come together to bring the slave trade under sustained and impassioned challenge.
Wilberforce was motivated, above all, by Christian evangelical values: if the Christian gospel was indeed intended to be made available to all men, then Negroes could receive the Holy Spirit and be saved just as readily as others. While tactical arguments inevitably became important to him, he always saw it as a matter of pure principle. Whatever the practical and economic arguments for it, he could not accept that Providence had intended a trade ‘so enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable’4 to be carried on. Therefore, ‘Let the consequences be what they would, I from this time determined that I would never rest till I had effected its abolition.’5
The force of passionately held principle was now about to collide with the rock of immense vested interests. More than half the slave trade of the late eighteenth century was carried on in British ships (the rest being mainly French and Portuguese), and in ports such as London, Liverpool and Bristol a huge amount of capital was committed to it. A Parliamentary Commission would find that in 1775 alone, 74,000 Negroes were taken from Africa to the Americas, although the real number may have been significantly higher. The cumulative numbers being enslaved were therefore immense. Economically this traffic reinforced Britain’s colonial system in two ways: providing slave labour for the sugar plantations of the British West Indies as well as for other destinations such as the southern United States, and providing a valuable cargo for the hundreds of ships which took manufactured goods to Africa from Britain and could then go on to make large profits on an Atlantic crossing. The human consequences of the trade were unspeakable. The methods by which slaves were captured by traders or rival tribes were bad enough, but that was only the beginning: they were then flogged into the ships and chained in tiny spaces for a three-month voyage. Slave ships were famous for their unbearable stench, with many of the slaves dying in epidemics or driven mad. Whips were used without limit, those who became unfit for work were often killed, with many deaths soon after arrival, and those who survived spent the rest of their lives without property, freedom or hope.
William Pitt the Younger: A Biography Page 34