They will not, I am sure, be less dear to me thro’ life than they would have had a right to expect from the nearest and closest connection.
Believe me, my dear Lord, under all circumstances,
Ever sincerely and faithfully yours,
W. PITT.
Auckland’s reply described the shock and disappointment of his wife and daughter. He said ‘it has been impossible for Ly. Ad. & for me not to remark that you entertained the partiality which you describe; and it has been for several weeks the happiest subject of conversation that we have had thro’ the course of a very happy life, to consider it in every point of view. We had from an early period every reason to believe that the sentiments formed were most cordially mutual: and we saw with delight that they were ripening into an attachment which might lay the foundation of a system of most perfect happiness, for the two persons for whom we were so much concerned.’32 He went on to probe for the nature of the ‘insurmountable obstacle’ protested by Pitt:
We presume that the obstacles alluded to are those of circumstances. (If there are any others we hope you will confide them to us.) I do not mean circumstances of Office & of the Public; they might create a temporary suspension, but could create no permanent difficulty. As to circumstances of fortune, I may be imprudent in the idea, but I cannot think that they ought in such a case to create an hour’s interruption in an intercourse essentially sought & loved by us all; still less that they ought to affect the ultimate result, tho’ they may impede it. I am sure that the person alluded to has steadiness of mind to wait any indefinite period of Time for that difficulty if possible to be got over. I am sure also that it would be happiness to her, as it has often been to her mother, to share such difficulties, & to endeavour also to lessen them. I only regret that my own position puts it out of my power to remove those difficulties. I have about 2000£ belonging to her from a legacy, & what I owe to the others will not allow me to add much to it.
He finished by inviting Pitt to come back and ‘talk about the whole at leisure & again & again’. Pitt’s reply was immediate:
Downing Street: January 22nd, 1797, 2 P.M.
My dear Lord, – If I felt much more than I could express in writing to you yesterday you will guess that these feelings are all, if possible, heightened by the nature of your answer. I will not attempt to describe the sense I have of your kindness and Lady Auckland’s, much less how much my mind is affected by what you tell me of the sentiments of another person, unhappily too nearly interested in the subject in question. I can only say, but it is saying everything, that that consideration now adds to my unavailing regret as much as under different circumstances it might have contributed to the glory and happiness of life.
Indeed, my dear Lord, I did not bring myself to the step I have taken without having, as far as I am able, again and again considered every point which must finally govern my conduct. I should deceive you and everyone concerned, as well as myself, if I flattered myself with the hope that such an interval as you suggest would move the obstacles I have felt, or vary the ground of my opinion.
It is impossible for me, and would be useless, to state them at large. The circumstances of every man’s private and personal situation can often on various accounts be fully known and fairly judged of by no one but himself, even where, as in the present case, others may be equally interested in the result. On the present occasion I have had too many temptations in the opposite scales to distrust my own decision. I certainly had to contend with sentiments in my own mind such as must naturally be produced by a near observation of the qualities and endowments you have described, with those of affectionate attachment, of real admiration, and of cordial esteem and confidence.
If anything collateral could add strength to these sentiments, they would have derived it (as you know from what I have said already) from every circumstance, with respect to all parts of your family, which could tend to render such a connection dear and valuable to my mind. Believe me, I have not lightly or easily sacrificed my best hopes and earnest wishes to my conviction and judgment. Believe me, also, further explanation or discussion can answer no good purpose. And let me entreat you to spare me and yourself the pain of urging it further. It could only lead to prolonged suspense and increased anxiety, without the possibility of producing any ultimate advantage.
Feeling this impression thus strongly and unalterably in my mind, I have felt it a trying but indispensable duty, for the sake of all who are concerned, to state it (whatever it may cost me to do so) as distinctly and explicitly as I have done. Having done so, I have only to hope that reading this letter will nowhere be attended with half the pain I have felt in writing it.
I remain, my dear Lord,
Ever sincerely and affectionately yours,
W. PITT.
Auckland had to concede defeat, as Pitt described in a letter to Addington:
The first answer indeed which I received on Saturday, tho’ thoroughly kind, was the most embarrassing possible, as it stated the sentiments entertained to be mutual and pressed for explanation and discussion, proposing at the same time any interval of delay in order to take the chance of overcoming the difficulties and desiring me to continue coming in the interval as if nothing had happened. I had then nothing left but to convey in my answer quite explicitly tho’ with as much tenderness as I could, that the decision I had felt myself obliged to take was final and that further discussion could only produce increased anxiety and could lead to no good. This was understood and received as I meant it should; and the answer I received last night, considers the thing as over, and proposes to contradict the reports gradually.
Did Pitt really fall in love with Eleanor Eden? The words he addressed to Auckland certainly suggest that he was happy for this to be thought to be the case – the use of the word ‘attachment’ in the eighteenth century conveyed the impression of strong affection, and usually of sexual desire. Pitt would have known what he was saying. Yet the profession of such an attachment, coupled with the countervailing ‘decisive and insurmountable obstacle’, must also have seemed to him to be a neat formula which dishonoured no one and avoided the potentially greater embarrassment of saying it was all a mistake. To simply admit that he had no desire to marry the good-looking Eleanor would have been to invite a new round of ribaldry and innuendo at his own expense.
In later years, Pitt was happy for others to continue to believe that had he been a private citizen he would have married Eleanor Eden. Lady Hester Stanhope formed the impression that it ‘almost broke his heart when he gave her up’. Interestingly, however, his explanation – some six or seven years later – of why he had not proceeded was varied, and might be considered less than convincing. He had, he said, thought ‘she was not a woman to be left at will when business might require it, and he sacrificed his feelings to his sense of public duty’. In addition, ‘there is her mother, such a chatterer! – and then the family intrigues. I can’t keep them out of my house; and, for my King’s and country’s sake, I must remain a single man.’33 These sound like the arguments of a man making excuses rather than one reluctantly abandoning a passionate love.
It seems unlikely then that Pitt set out with an intention to marry Eleanor Eden and later changed his mind. Far more probable is that he did not initially realise what other people would make of his friendship with Auckland’s family, and that he simply liked Eleanor’s company without wishing to take it further. There are many candidates to be considered for the role of ‘insurmountable obstacle’ if his opening letter is to be taken at face value. Auckland raised the issue of finance, and Pitt’s debts were certainly heavy after continued years of neglect, along with the added burden of the loyalty loan he invented. Another possibility is shortage of time; but hard-working as he was, it is clear that Pitt had sufficient time to enjoy friendships and recreations if he wanted to. A third possibility is the state of his health, but his complaints were erratic rather than chronic, and did not prevent him from doing anything else. The fou
rth possibility is simply sexual. Dundas is said to have wagered £500 that Pitt never touched a woman. At thirty-seven years old he had no experience of intimacy with the opposite sex. It is likely therefore that he lacked either inclination or confidence, and had never even thought about Eleanor Eden in a sexual sense, while enjoying her company. The latter possibility must be the most likely decisive obstacle in Pitt’s mind, although it may also have been a mixture of any or all of these things. Given the need to be categoric in his letters to Auckland, he probably chose to express a general unwillingness to marry in the form of a single, albeit mysterious, problem. The episode has often been described as ‘Pitt’s one love story’. It seems unlikely that he would have given it that title himself.
However Pitt reflected on this unfortunate incident, it is unlikely to have dominated his thoughts for many days. On the last day of January 1797, the Spanish grand fleet put to sea with the apparent intention of a junction with the French. The British Mediterranean fleet in their path was outnumbered two to one.
20
Breaking Point
‘No crisis so alarming, or nearly so alarming, has ever been known in England since the Revolution of 1688. One night the Ministers were roused from their slumbers by the booming of the distant cannon.’
LORD STANHOPE1
‘There is one great resource, which I trust will never abandon us, and which has shone forth in the English character, by which we have preserved our existence and fame, as a nation, which I trust we shall be determined never to abandon under any extremity … that we know great exertions are wanting, that we are prepared to make them, and at all events determine to stand or fall by the laws, liberties, and religion of our country.’
WILLIAM PITT, 10 NOVEMBER 17972
THE TWENTY-SEVEN SHIPS of the line that headed west through the Straits of Gibraltar in February 1797 represented the pride and might of Spain. Between them they mounted more than 2,300 guns, including 136 aboard a single ship, the Santissima Trinidad, then the largest warship in the world. But what happened to them when they entered the Atlantic would reaffirm with devastating clarity that, however desperate the situation on the Continent, Britain could assert her command of the seas. The Spanish ships were intercepted off Cape St Vincent by a far smaller force of British warships under Sir John Jervis, joined from the Mediterranean by the audacious and frequently disobedient Commodore Horatio Nelson. The Spanish, many of whose sailors had never been to sea before, let alone experienced the point-blank violence of a sea battle, soon found their ships divided into two forces and raked by superior British gunnery. Faced with the potentially massive firepower of the Spanish vessels, Nelson performed one of his legendary feats of daring. Directly confronting the Santissima Trinidad with a ship scarcely half her size, he was able to board and capture the San Nicolas and then use her as a bridge to capture the huge San Josef as well. The loss of this and other enormous three-deckers tore the heart from the Spanish navy in a matter of hours. The survivors limped to Cadiz, and while the Spanish Admiral was court-martialled, Jervis and Nelson returned to Britain to an earldom and a knighthood respectively.
The Battle of Cape St Vincent removed for years to come the threat of Franco-Spanish domination of the English Channel in the manner of 1779, and for Pitt it provided immediate and much-needed political relief when news of it arrived in London in early March. It followed by only four weeks reports of a fresh disaster for the Austrians in Italy: at the Battle of Rivoli in mid-January Napoleon had won yet another decisive victory. He could now dictate his terms to the Pope, consolidate French power in northern Italy and take the war towards Austria’s own heartland. It would only be a few weeks before the French were marching through Carinthia and were reported to be within sight of the spires of Vienna.
The news of St Vincent therefore coincided with the realisation in London that Britain’s only remaining major ally might face imminent collapse. It was a moment which illuminated the pattern of warfare for years to come: French domination of the landmass of western Europe, and British dominion of the seas. While an invasion force could still slip past the Royal Navy, as the aborted expedition to Bantry Bay had shown, it ran the risk of disaster if caught on the high seas. For the evidence was emerging after the Glorious First of June and the Battle of Cape St Vincent that British victories at sea were not the result of random factors or good luck, but were the product of a clear superiority in naval warfare. The shock of the loss of control of the Channel during the American War of Independence had induced Pitt and Parliament to devote unprecedented peacetime resources to rebuilding the navy in the 1780s: the administrative reforms pursued by Sir Charles Middleton and overseen by Pitt also had a telling effect.
Such efforts were all the more productive because they were built on the foundation of an unrivalled seafaring tradition and experience: most of the nearly 280,000 men serving in the navy and the merchant marine as recorded in the census of 1801 were willing recruits. The large peacetime navy had fostered the emergence of several brilliant commanders. Once war broke out the British advantage at sea was consolidated by the early successes: French sailors could not be trained effectively when they could not safely leave port, and only Britain could easily import suitable timber for warship building from the Baltic. The loss of experienced French sailors in these early engagements was hard to make up – in the Glorious First of June and at Cape St Vincent the numbers of French and Spanish sailors killed in action were six times that of British. British ships tended to be more durable even though they were smaller, and they enjoyed a technological advantage in gun design which permitted them to fire heavier broadsides with greater frequency. Thus by 1797, while no army could stand against Napoleon on the Continent, no navy could overcome the British at sea. Faced with an increasingly hostile Continent, the navy represented for Britain her longest arm and most vital shield.
The news of Cape St Vincent helped Pitt to promote the recovery of national sentiment in the wake of the first of the many crises of 1797. In late February there had been a run on the Bank of England caused by fears for the financial system and the possibility of invasion. Ludicrously but understandably, such fears were exacerbated when 1,400 French ruffians or ‘banditti’ managed to set foot on the British coast, first anchoring off Ilfracombe and then coming ashore in Pembrokeshire. This, the last landing of enemy forces on the British mainland up to the present day, did not have the remotest hope of any military success. Surrounded by local militia and volunteers (and according to some accounts believing that the scarlet cloaks of women peasants represented an elite force of Guards), the forlorn 1,400 soon capitulated.
Strategically irrelevant as it may have been, this incident fed the febrile atmosphere of that winter, with stocks falling to a record low and £100,000 a day being withdrawn from the Bank of England at the end of February. The Bank’s stocks of bullion were down to £1.2 million: if they were exhausted in the next few days the nation would be bankrupt and the entire system of finance and credit which had provided the tens of millions of pounds to sustain the war would collapse.
Pitt was well suited to such a crisis. His response was to promote the wider circulation of notes while suspending the obligation of the Bank to meet its commitments with bullion. It was a tense weekend as the Cabinet met on Saturday, 25 February, and the King agreed to Pitt’s exceptional request to hold a Privy Council at Buckingham House on the Sunday. There an Order in Council was agreed suspending cash payments ‘until the sense of Parliament can be taken’.3 On the Monday, the authorities issued calming statements while the Lord Mayor of London led the City merchants in undertaking to accept notes, rather than gold, as legal tender for any amount. From 2 March, after Pitt secured the passage of the necessary legislation within two days, the Bank was able to issue £1 and £2 notes without regard to the previous £5 minimum. Such measures maintained the circulation of money and helped narrowly to avert a financial crash. Pitt had been forced by an emergency to create the paper money supp
ly which would become a permanent feature of the economy. Successful as this was, it must have been an agonising step for a man who understood the risks of inflation and had recently witnessed the French currency spiral into worthlessness after the excessive issuing of assignats – paper currency secured on confiscated land. Years later Grenville would say that it caused Pitt the most painful day of his political life.4
Pitt would have felt a good deal of pain as he outlined the circumstances and the measures to the House of Commons on 28 February. Notwithstanding his effective response to the crisis, he was the financial wizard who now had to explain how he had so nearly presided over national bankruptcy. Fox and Sheridan denounced the mismanagement which they alleged had produced the crisis; many attacked the huge subsidies paid to the Austrians in gold bullion, which had never been popular and had undoubtedly depleted the Bank’s reserves. Pitt won the day by 244 to eighty-six, but he had taken another knock, which his wittiest critics were happy to record in verse:
William Pitt the Younger: A Biography Page 46