The multiple crises of the first half of 1797 seriously affected Pitt’s domestic political standing. Since he had now been leading the government for over thirteen years there were few misfortunes which could not one way or another be attributed to him. By this time, if discontent arose in the parliamentary ranks, there was no shortage of offended grandees ready to feed on it: Leeds, Thurlow and the Marquis of Lansdowne (formerly the Earl of Shelburne) had all been pushed out into the cold by Pitt but had not left the political scene. In mid-May some combination of these dormant but not extinct figures and unhappy MPs promoted a plot to replace Pitt with the Earl of Moira; a veteran of the American War who had also led the expedition to Quiberon, he had become a key adviser of the Prince of Wales, but commanded wide respect. Their prime objective was peace, to which they believed Pitt now posed an obstacle. The plot fizzled out in early June: there was insufficient support for it from the established political groupings, George III took no notice of a letter from Moira proposing a change, and the restoration of internal order and external peace feelers at the beginning of June may have caused the discontent to recede. Yet Moira certainly claimed to have found a great deal of unhappiness with Pitt’s leadership, writing to the Duke of Northumberland after meetings with MPs: ‘they are violent against Pitt, though they vote with him, but they will not bear the Opposition as a party. Their object is to make some effort to save the country from the evident ruin into which it is most rapidly running.’18
Pitt’s leadership was therefore being seriously questioned in 1797, and it is not surprising, given his sensitivity to opinion, that he questioned it himself. There is some evidence that at the height of the naval crisis he lost his customary optimism: the following year Auckland would write to Mornington: ‘You know that (excepting perhaps during the naval mutiny) he never has inclined to despondency or even to serious discouragement: At present he entertains strong Hopes that all will, somehow, end well.’19 Pitt himself believed that peace was essential, and there is a strong suggestion that in early 1797 he was prepared to step aside as Prime Minister if doing so would allow peace to be negotiated. According to Pretyman, in the unpublished part of his life of Pitt:
It was imagined, though probably without foundation, that the French Government would be more disposed to make peace with a new Minister than with Mr. Pitt; & Mr. Pitt, therefore, entertained some idea of resigning. He mentioned this circumstance to the King & had several conferences with his Majesty upon the subject. After much deliberation the plan was abandoned, on the ground that a new, strong Administration, consisting of persons of true constitutional principles, could not then be formed, & Mr. Pitt remained in office; but the consideration of this business had gone so far that it was settled, in case of Mr. Pitt’s resignation that he should be succeeded by Mr. Addington, Speaker of the House of Commons, & this was known at the time to Mr. Addington himself & scarcely to any other person.20
It was indeed known to Addington, who decades later told his biographer that ‘Pitt told me, as early as 1797, that I must make up my mind to take the government.’21 Pitt had become steadily closer to Addington since the latter had succeeded Grenville as Speaker in 1789. Addington was the son of the elder Pitt’s friend and physician; he was also a highly able man who might have gained additional merit in Pitt’s eyes from being an ally, but one whose position excluded him from policy disagreements with the Prime Minister. It was to Addington that Pitt had written his frank letter about Eleanor Eden, and it seemed to be only Addington who could tell Pitt to stop drinking. Three years later the diarist Joseph Farington noted: ‘Mr. Addington … lives abt. a mile from Holm Park – Mr. Pitt is now with him & has been 10 days for the benefit of his health. Sir Walter Farquhar has been down to see him & allows him & the Speaker to drink a bottle between them after dinner (port wine) but none after supper. – Mr. Pitt one night pressed for some, but the Speaker was rigid.’22
Addington was in a strong position to be a candid friend to Pitt, since they had known each other for over thirty years. They were the same age, and had been friends since they were seven years old. Addington had an uncomplicated nature: loyal to his friends, of whom Pitt was the longest-standing, strictly supportive of the established Church, and utterly devoted to his family of seven children. Such qualities and long acquaintanceship encouraged Pitt to treat him as a confidant and steadily to promote his career. Addington was initially reluctant to make speeches in Parliament, but Pitt pushed him into seconding the Address at the opening of Parliament in 1786, and then into succeeding Grenville as the Speaker in 1789, in which position his obvious even-handedness and integrity made him a popular figure within the House of Commons. As a politician, however, Addington had weaknesses. In particular his strong desire to be liked and his discomfort when faced with personal acrimony would make it much harder for him to be a Minister than to be the generally respected presiding officer of the House of Commons.
When Eliot explained the possible transfer of the premiership Mrs Pretyman is reported to have exclaimed: ‘Addington! … are you all mad?’ and Eliot apparently replied, ‘Addington would do very well under the direction of Mr. Pitt, – for a time – It would not do for ever, but it would do Mr. Pitt good to be out of Office for a little while.’23 This statement is important, coming as it does from one of Pitt’s closest friends, since it is so revealing about how Pitt thought of resignation both in 1797 and later. He was thirty-eight years old, and even though he had been in office for thirteen and a half years he regarded resignation as a respite rather than retirement. That he could employ his abilities as anything other than a dominant figure in politics, in or out of office, did not occur to him.
In any event, the succession of crises in 1797 almost certainly made it harder rather than easier for Pitt to contemplate going ahead with the mooted resignation, and there was no real evidence at the time that any alternative Prime Minister would have found it easier to make peace – except perhaps Fox, which Pitt, George III and a majority in Parliament would have found unthinkable. However Pitt wrestled with this problem, some combination of duty, ambition and conceit about his own abilities relative to those of others persuaded him that it was better to continue. For all the political damage he had sustained, he still towered above his contemporaries, and it would not have been difficult to reason that he was the only man with the strength and experience either to insist on peace or to lead a still more difficult war.
Pitt’s decision to continue meant that from then on he was psychologically prepared for both war and peace. Once a new round of peace negotiations was underway, the point at which he could consider voluntarily surrendering office had passed. For while he could cope with the idea of temporarily stepping aside to ease the path to peace, he had no intention at all of resigning if his own renewed push for peace ended in failure. If that were to happen, he would have to take on the responsibility of rousing himself and the nation to an even greater effort in war.
Should that prove necessary, so be it, but he was convinced in June 1797 that it was right to try once again to make peace on honourable terms. A settlement in which Britain retained some of its colonial gains, albeit while recognising the enhancement of French power on the Continent, would at least give a pause from conflict while only accepting what was now an accomplished fact: French forces were not going to be defeated on land in the foreseeable future. While peace would therefore require Britain to cut its losses on the Continent, it would also allow her to consolidate her maritime strength and recover her financial position. Pitt continued to be far more sensitive than his colleagues to the problems of raising finance and maintaining public support: he could not be sure of holding the nation together, particularly in the light of the mutinies and the growing problems in Ireland, while implementing the necessary levels of taxation and military recruitment for Britain to fight France alone. With Austria out of the war, it would take years for the exertion of naval and financial strength to bring France to her knees. To Pitt, the logic
of the case for attempting a settlement was therefore compelling.
Others, however, were more reluctant to find compromises with the French after so much blood had been shed and French power had grown too extensive for her neighbours to live comfortably. George III in particular thought that: ‘If both Houses of Parliament are in as tame a state of mind as it is pretended, I do not see the hopes that either war can be continued with effect or peace obtained but of the most disgraceful and unsolid tenure.’24 Within the Cabinet, Grenville complained of ‘dejection, cowardice and disaffection’.25 When the French responded to the British request for further talks with the stipulation that they should be held in Lille, with Britain represented by an emissary empowered to conclude ‘a definitive and separate treaty of peace’ (that is, without reference to any former allies), Grenville opposed the talks.
Stormy Cabinet meetings took place in the closing stages of the Nore mutiny, reaching a climax on 15 June. The Whigs – Spencer, Portland and Windham – supported Grenville, Windham noting: ‘Lord Grenville observed truly, that we were at a period at which nothing but firmness could save us; that if we were to continue these concessions there was no reason why the government should exist at the end of a twelvemonth.’26 But Pitt, who by now had differed from his cousin so frequently that the old trust between them was evaporating, was supported by Loughborough, Cornwallis, Chatham, Liverpool and Dundas. The Cabinet therefore agreed to send an emissary, once again to be the Earl of Malmesbury, to Lille, with Grenville’s dissent noted in the minutes. As Malmesbury set off, the greatest of all the opponents of the French Revolution, Edmund Burke, died at Beaconsfield, ‘rather irritated than flattered by the supposition of his recovery being possible’.27 The foremost advocate of war had passed away just as talk of peace was once again revived.
Malmesbury journeyed to Lille unsure whether the large crowds which gathered round his carriage were the result of novelty value in that region, or the curiosity of the Flemish, or ‘from the desire of peace being much stronger in the people of France than it was eight months ago’.28 Certainly, the initial outlook was not without promise: the French negotiators were affable personally, and made demands – such as the renunciation of the long-held English claim to the throne of France, and compensation for the ships destroyed at Toulon in 1793 – which were awkward but not insoluble. Britain was willing to acknowledge French sovereignty in Belgium, Luxembourg, Avignon, Savoy and Nice and to restore her colonial possessions, while keeping Trinidad, Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope, all taken by British forces from French allies.
In private, Pitt was prepared to go even further for peace. He had told Malmesbury as he set out that ‘he would stifle every feeling of pride to the utmost to produce the desired result’.29 He was even prepared to accept Grenville’s resignation if it meant a treaty could be arrived at, afterwards telling Malmesbury that ‘rather than break off this treaty, we should have given way either on the Cape or Ceylon. That Lord Grenville, who from the beginning had declared he would never consent to any concession on either of these points … but had the negotiation gone on, and depended on this particular point, he, or Lord Grenville, must have gone out; and he added, it would have been Lord Grenville.’30 Pitt used Canning as a separate line of communication to Malmesbury, leaving the latter complaining that ‘the instructions and opinions I get from the Minister, under whose orders I am bound to act, accord so little with the sentiments and intentions I heard expressed by the Minister with whom I wish to act, that I am placed in a very disagreeable dilemma’.31
Malmesbury agreed with Pitt that Britain should bend over backwards for peace, particularly since he thought that in the absence of war all the tensions and disagreements ignited within France by the Revolution would turn inwards and ‘peace will palsy this country most completely … all the violent means they have employed for war will return upon them like a humour driven in’32 The majority of the French people did indeed appear ready for peace, having themselves suffered food shortages, severe inflation, civil war and huge losses at the front. Difficulties over the separate French negotiations with the Portuguese threatened the talks but did not appear insurmountable. Pitt rather than Grenville held sway, vindicating Canning’s sycophantic judgement in June that Pitt ‘has exerted himself, and is really master now’.33 With the mutiny and the immediate financial crisis behind him, Pitt gave way to his inherent optimism, writing to Malmesbury on 14 September that he would stand fast for peace, and that it could be attained: ‘My ultimate determination will be what I think you know. I believe, however, all will end in what I shall reckon more than well.’34
It was tragically symbolic of Pitt’s life that this renewed moment of confidence was followed by one of the worst weeks he would ever experience; already in Paris there had been another coup d’état, in which the three hardline members of the five-man Directory used the army to oust the moderates: ‘Between the hours of 5 and 7 A.M. on Monday morning, the greatest number of them were taken into custody without the smallest resistance, and, in the course of that day, sentence of banishment pronounced upon them.’35 Malmesbury reported to Pitt that this ‘violent revolution’ was ‘the most unlucky event that could have happened’, particularly given that he was ‘very near obtaining the great object of our wishes’.36 He was given twenty-four hours by new French negotiators to agree to impossible terms, under which Britain would surrender all her conquests without exception. Once again, all hopes for peace were dashed; Britain could not possibly contemplate such terms unless, in Canning’s words, she was prepared to be ‘trampled on’.37
Pitt was already feeling unwell when Malmesbury returned on 20 September. On the same day, he received the news that his lifelong friend and brother-in-law Edward Eliot was dead. Eliot had been one of his closest companions, joining his family, and often in the past residing at 10 Downing Street. His death left Pitt more grief-stricken than at any time since Harriot’s death eleven years before. Wilberforce wrote that: ‘The effect produced on Mr. Pitt by the news, which came in a letter from Lord Eliot by the common post with his others, exceeded conception. Rose says he never saw and never expects to see anything like it.’38 The blow was all the harder because, as Pitt explained to Addington, it came ‘at a moment when I was quite unprepared for the event’.39
Pitt had already been complaining of headaches which he had ‘not been able to get rid of for several days’.40 Now, following such catastrophic personal and political news, he had severe abdominal pains. The relationship between his declining health and his struggle to control events in the world around him was becoming sharper. He was now sick, disappointed and distraught; it cannot be known how close he came to despair.
Whatever his emotional and physical wounds, in Pitt’s mind the time for giving up had passed. He did not enjoy that quality of resilience which belongs to politicians who have families, money or other careers to fell back on; but he did command the even greater stamina and persistence of the politician who has nothing else to live for. In late September 1797 he either looked deep into his soul and found a new reserve of strength, or else simply shut the disasters from his always practical mind and gave his usual ‘unremitting Attention to the … Business’.41
He toyed with one remaining and intriguing possibility for finding peace: an apparent offer from the highest levels of the French Directory to come to acceptable peace terms in return for a personal bribe of £2 million. Under this extraordinary scenario, Britain could retain the Cape of Good Hope for £800,000, and Ceylon for £1.2 million. Pitt went so far as to contemplate a payment of ‘450,000l. if the conditions are satisfactory’,42 but the project collapsed in October.
With it went the truly final chance of peace. Pitt was never one to let his private troubles be visible to more than a handful of those close to him, and Malmesbury reported him as being ‘in spirits’, with ‘supplies for two more campaigns’.43 Pitt’s friend Lord Mornington, whom he was now despatching to India as Governor General, went to Walmer and
found ‘Mr. Pitt in the highest spirits, entertaining officers & country Gentlemen with his usual hospitality.’44 His spirits would be lifted still higher in October by a new and crushing naval victory. The Dutch fleet had at last put to sea and on 11 October was intercepted by Admiral Duncan at the head of the very ships involved in the outright mutiny only four months before. In the bloody and numerically evenly-matched Battle of Camperdown, off the coast of Holland, British seamanship and weight of metal again proved decisive. As Duncan towed seven captured ships of the line towards the Nore, leaving the Dutch navy devastated, Pitt rose from his sickbed to begin the celebrations, writing to his mother from Walmer: ‘Lord Duncan joined us very opportunely on Friday at Dover Castle, where We had gone the day before to be present at a Feu de Joie in honour of his Victory … We shall probably … visit the Fleet in our Way back tomorrow sennight, when the King intends to go on Board. Such a ceremony will be no bad Prelude for the opening of the Session.’45
It did indeed set the scene for a new spirit in the country and its Prime Minister. Since peace was not available on any but the most abject terms, war must now be fought without restraint. Pitt had gone much further than many of his colleagues or the King found comfortable in trying to make peace; now he would unambiguously become the embodiment of national determination to win the war. On 10 November 1797 he attacked ‘the duplicity, the arrogance and violence’ of the French Directory in a speech in the Commons.46 In a rousing peroration he declared:
there is not a man, whose stake is so great in the country, that he ought to hesitate a moment in sacrificing any portion of it to oppose the violence of the enemy; nor is there, I trust, a man in this happy and free nation, whose stake is so small, that would not be ready to sacrifice his life in the same cause … There may be danger, but on the one side there is danger accompanied with honour; on the other side, there is danger with indelible shame and disgrace; upon such an alternative, Englishmen will not hesitate … 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, but shall join hand and heart in the solemn pledge that is proposed to us, and declare to his Majesty, that we know great exertions are wanting, that we are prepared to make them, and at all events determined to stand or fall by the laws, liberties, and religion of our country.47
William Pitt the Younger: A Biography Page 48