ADDINGTON OR PITT?

Once more doth Pitt deem the land crying loud to him—
Frail though and spent, and an hungered for restfulness
Once more responds he, dead fervours to energize
Aims to concentre, slack efforts to bind.
Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts, Act i, sc. 3.

On 30th January 1803 there appeared in the "Moniteur" the official Report of Colonel Sebastiani, Napoleon's envoy to the Levant. So threatening were its terms respecting the situation in Egypt and Corfu, that the Addington Ministry at once adopted a stiffer tone, and applied to Parliament for 10,000 additional seamen and the embodying of the militia. But the House, while readily acceding on 9th March, evidently wanted not only more men but a man. The return of Pitt to power was anxiously discussed in the lobbies. The Duke of Portland and Lord Pelham strongly expressed their desire for it. Yet Pitt remained at Walmer, feeling that he could not support financial plans fraught with danger to the State. Addington therefore resolved to sound him again with a view to his entering the Cabinet as a coadjutor. The envoy whom he chose for this delicate mission was Henry Dundas, now Lord Melville. He could count on his devotion; for, besides nominating him for the peerage, he is said to have opened to his gaze a life of official activity and patronage as First Lord of the Admiralty in place of the parsimonious and unmannerly St. Vincent.[649] Pitt received his old friend at Walmer with a shade of coolness in view of his declaration, on quitting office, that he could accept no boon whatever from Addington. To come now as his Cabinet-maker argued either overwhelming patriotism or phenomenal restlessness.

Nevertheless, the two friends resumed at Walmer the festive intercourse of the Wimbledon days; and in due course, after dinner and wine, Melville broached the subject of his visit. It was that Addington, who was First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, should resign the latter office to Pitt, and take Lord Pelham's place as Secretary of State for Home Affairs. We can picture the astonishment and wrath of Pitt as this singular proposal came to light. At once he cut short the conversation, probably not without expletives. But Melville was pertinacious where patriotism and office were at stake; and their converse spread over the two days, 21st–22nd March, Melville thereupon sending a summary of it to Addington, couched in terms which Pitt deemed too favourable. The upshot was that on personal grounds Pitt desired not to return to office; and, if affairs were efficiently conducted, would prefer to continue his present independent support. If, however, the misleading statements of the Treasury were persisted in, he must criticize them. Above all, if he returned to office it must be as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer.

But Addington, foreseeing that Pitt would claim his two former offices, had concocted a sovereign remedy for all these personal sores. Pitt was to take office as Chancellor of the Exchequer, serving under his brother, the Earl of Chatham, as Prime Minister. Is it surprising that he negatived this singular proposal "without reserve or affectation"? By way of retort to this family prescription he charged Melville to point out the absolute need of the Cabinet being under the control of "the First Minister," who must not only have the confidence of the King and administer the finances, but also in the last resort impose his will on his colleagues. For himself he declared he would never come forward unless bound by public duty and with the enjoyment of the fullest confidence of the King.[650] There is a discrepancy between Melville's letter to Addington and a short account given by Pitt to Wilberforce two years later, to the effect that Melville, on cautiously opening his proposals at Walmer, saw that it would not do and stopped abruptly. "Really," said Pitt with a sly severity, "I had not the curiosity to ask what I was to be."

Such was the bomb-shell exploded on Addington's bureau on 23rd March. It must have cost him no less concern than Bonaparte's outrageous behaviour to our ambassador, Lord Whitworth, ten days before. That scene before the diplomatic circle at the Tuileries portended war. How would Addington and his colleagues behave in this crisis? Would they sink all personal feelings, and, admitting that they could not weather the storm, accept the help and guidance of long tried navigators? Or would they stand on their dignity and order the pilot-boat to sheer off? Clearly it was a case where half measures were useless. The old captain and his chosen subalterns must command the ship. Pitt made this clear during conversations with Addington at Long's house at Bromley Hill (10th April). While declaring that he would not urge any point inconsistent with His Majesty's intentions, he demanded that Grenville, Melville, Spencer, and Windham should enter the Cabinet with him on the clearly expressed desire of the King, and at the request of the present Ministry. The last conditions seem severe. But Pitt's pledge to Addington made it essential that the Prime Minister should take the first step. To these terms two days later Addington made demur, but promised to communicate them to his colleagues; whereupon Pitt declared that he had said the last word on the matter; and when Ministers objected to Grenville and Windham, he was inexorable.[651] That their anger waxed hot against him appears from the following letter sent to Pitt by Lord Redesdale, formerly Sir John Mitford, and now Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who had been with Pitt and Addington at their conferences at Bromley:

That at so critical a juncture a supporter of Addington, not of Cabinet rank, should rake up personal reasons why Pitt should let things drift to ruin is inconceivable. And did Redesdale really believe Protestantism to be endangered by Pitt's return to office, after his assurance at Bromley that he would not press any point at variance with the royal resolves? The King, who knew Pitt far better than Redesdale did, had no fear that he would belie his word by bringing forward Catholic Emancipation. But the phrases in the letter quoted above show that some of the Ministers were preparing to beat the drum ecclesiastic, and, in the teeth of the evidence, to charge Pitt with ingratitude and duplicity if he became Prime Minister. Ignoring the national crisis, they concentrated attention solely on the personal questions at issue; and it is humiliating to have to add that their petty scheming won the day. A compromise between Pitt and Addington was exceedingly difficult, but their reproaches and innuendoes made it impossible.[653]

The outcome was disastrous. The failure to form a strong and truly national Administration ended all hope of peace. Over against Addington set Bonaparte; with Hawkesbury compare Talleyrand; with Hobart, Berthier.[654] The weighing need go no further. The British Ministry kicks the beam; and in that signal inequality is one of the chief causes of the war of 1803. The first Consul, like the Czar AlexanderI, despised the Addington Cabinet. He could not believe that men who were laughed at by their own supporters would dare to face him in arms. Twice he made the mistake of judging a nation by its Ministers—England by Addington in 1803, Spain by Godoy in 1808. Both blunders were natural, and both were irreparable; but those peoples had to pour forth their life blood to recover the position from which weakness and folly allowed them to slide. Politics, like meteorology, teaches that any sharp difference of pressure, whether mental or atmospheric, draws in a strong current to redress the balance. Never were the conditions more cyclonic than in 1803. A decade of strife scarcely made good the inequality between the organized might of France and the administrative chaos of her neighbours; between the Titanic Corsican and the mediocrities or knaves who held the reins at London, Vienna, Berlin, and Madrid.

War having been declared on 18th May 1803, Pitt sought the first opportunity of inspiriting Parliament and the nation. On the 23rd a great concourse crowded the House in the hope of hearing him speak; and cries of "Pitt, Pitt" arose as he strode to his seat on the third row behind Ministers, beside one of the pillars. The position gave point to a remark of Canning to Lord Malmesbury, that Pitt would fire over the heads of Ministers, neither praising nor blaming them, but merely supporting the policy of the war. Such was the case. Replying to a few criticisms of Erskine, he defended the Cabinet and powerfully described the unbearable aggressions of the First Consul.

The speech aroused a patriotic fervour which cannot be fully realized from the meagre and dreary summary of it which survives. Romilly pronounced it among the finest, if not the very finest, which he had ever made;[655] and Sheridan, in a vinous effusion to Lady Bessborough, called it "one of the most magnificent pieces of declamation that ever fell from that rascal Pitt's lips. Detesting the dog, as I do, I cannot withhold this just tribute to the scoundrel's talents." There follows a lament over Pitt's want of honesty, which betokens the maudlin mood preceding complete intoxication.[656] On the morrow Fox vehemently blamed the Cabinet in a speech which, for width of survey, acuteness of dialectic, wealth of illustration and abhorrence of war, stands unrivalled. Addington's reply exhibited his hopeless mediocrity; but, thanks to Pitt, Ministers triumphed by 398 votes to 67. As they resented the absence of definite praise in his speech, he withdrew to Walmer, there to serve his country and embarrass his finances by raising the Cinque Ports Volunteers.

Before recounting Pitt's services in East Kent, I must mention a bereavement which he had sustained. His mother died, after a very short seizure, at Burton Pynsent on 3rd April 1803. Thus was snapped a link connecting England with a mighty past. A quarter of a century had elapsed since her consort was laid to rest in the family vault in Westminster Abbey; she followed him while the storm-fiends were shrouding in strife the two hereditary foes; and the Napoleonic War was destined to bring her gifted son thither in less than three years. The father had linked the name of Pitt with military triumphs; the son, with futile efforts for peace and goodwill; but the lives both of the war-lord and of the would-be peacemaker were to be ended by tidings of national disaster.

No parleying now. In Britain is one breath;
We all are with you now from shore to shore;
Ye men of Kent, 'tis victory or death!

We all know these lines of Wordsworth. Do we know equally well that on Pitt, as Lord Warden, fell the chief burden of organization on the most easily accessible coast, that which stretches from Ramsgate to Rye?[657] It was defenceless but for the antiquated works at Sandown, Deal, Walmer, Dover, and a few small redoubts further west. Evidently men must be the ramparts, and Pitt sought to stimulate the Volunteer Movement, which now again made headway. He strove to make it a National Movement. At the close of July he sent an official offer to raise 3,000 Volunteers in Walmer and its neighbourhood; and he urged Ministers to have recourse to a levÉe en masse, whereupon Yorke, Under Secretary at War, proposed a scheme somewhat on those lines. Probably the encouragement offered to Volunteers was too great; for, while they were required to do less than was necessary to ensure efficiency, they were freed from all risk of compulsory enrolment in the Militia. This force and the Army consequently suffered, while the Volunteer Associations grew apace. On 27th October 1803 the King reviewed in Hyde Park as many as 27,000 of the London Volunteers and showed his caustic wit by giving the nickname of "the Devil's Own" to the Inns of Court Volunteers.

Pitt was not present on this occasion, he and his neighbour, Lord Carrington, on whom in 1802 he bestowed the command of Deal Castle, being busy in organizing the local Volunteers. As Constable of Dover Castle, Pitt summoned the delegates of the Cinque Ports to meet him there to discuss the raising of local corps; and he gave the sum of £1,000 towards their expenses. Dover contributed £885; Sandwich, £887; Margate, £538, and so on. As Lord Warden, he also took steps to secure a large number of recruits for the new Army of Reserve, and he further instructed local authorities to send in returns of all men of military age, besides carts, horses, and stock, with a view to the "driving" of the district in case of a landing.[658] At Walmer he kept open house for officers and guests who visited that coast. By the end of the year 1803 more than 10,000 Kentishmen had enrolled as Volunteers, and 1,040 in the Army of Reserve, exclusive of Sea Fencibles serving on gunboats. For the whole of Great Britain the totals were 379,000 and 31,000 respectively.[659] Pitt's joke at the expense of a battalion which laid more stress on privileges than drills, has become historic. Its organizers sent up a plan containing several stipulations as to their duties, with exceptions "in case of actual invasion." Pitt lost patience at this Falstaff-like conduct, and opposite the clause that they were on no account to be sent out of the country he wrote the stinging comment—"except in case of invasion."

The pen of Lady Hester Stanhope gives life-like glimpses of him during the endless drills between Deal and Dover. She had fled from the levelling vagaries of Earl Stanhope at Chevening to Lady Chatham at Burton Pynsent; but that home being now broken up, Pitt offered to install her at Walmer Castle. He did so with some misgiving; for her queenly airs and sprightly sallies, however pleasing as a tonic, promised little for comfort and repose. But the experiment succeeded beyond all hope. She soon learnt to admire his serenity, while his home was the livelier for the coming of this meteoric being. Her complexion was dazzlingly bright. Her eyes, usually blue, would flash black, as did those of Chatham in moments of excitement. Her features, too, had a magical play of expression, lighting up at a pleasing fancy, or again darting forth scorn, with the April-like alternations that irradiated and overclouded the brow of her grandsire. Kinglake, who saw her half a century later in her Syrian fastness, was struck by the likeness to the Chatham of Copley's famous picture.

Certainly she had more in common with him than with the younger Pitt. During the time when she brought storm and sunshine to Walmer, Park Place, and Bowling Green House, she often rallied her uncle on showing undue complaisance to the King or to stupid colleagues whom the Great Commoner would have overawed. Pitt laughingly took the second place, and at times vowed that when her voice rang with excitement, he caught an echo of the tones of his father.[660] Perhaps it was this which reconciled him to her vagaries. For her whims and moods even then showed the extravagance which made her the dreaded Sultana of that lonely Syrian castle where she ended her days amidst thirty quarrelsome but awe-struck servants, and an equal number of cats, over whom an apprehensive doctor held doubtful sway.

But that bitter, repining, spirit-haunted exile was far different from the joyous creature who shed light on Pitt. Her spasmodic nature needed his strength; her waywardness, his affectionate control. As for her tart retorts, terrifying to bores and toadies, they only amused him. In truth she brought into his life a beam of the sunshine which might have flooded it had he married Eleanor Eden. Hester soon found that, far from being indifferent to the charms of women, he was an exacting judge of beauty, even of dress. In fact, she pronounced him to be perfect in household life. His abilities in gardening astonished her; and we may doubt the correctness of the local legend which ascribes to her the landscape-gardening undertaken in the grounds of Walmer Castle in 1803. The dell at the top of the grounds was Hester's favourite haunt.

The varied excitements of the time are mirrored in her sprightly letters. Thus, on 15th November 1803, she wrote at Walmer:

On this topic Pitt met with a rebuff from General (afterwards Sir John) Moore, commander of the newly formed camp at Shorncliffe, near Folkestone. Pitt rode over from Walmer to ask his advice, and his question as to the position he and his Volunteers should take brought the following reply: "Do you see that hill? You and yours shall be drawn up on it, where you will make a most formidable appearance to the enemy, while I with the soldiers will be fighting on the beach." Pitt was highly amused at this professional retort; but at the close of 1804 his regiment was pronounced by General David Dundas fit to take the field with regulars. Life in the open and regular exercise on horseback served to strengthen Pitt's frame; for Hester, writing in the middle of January 1804, when her uncle was away in London for a few days, says: "His most intimate friends say they do not remember him so well since the year '97.... Oh! such miserable things as these French gunboats. We took a vessel the other day, laden with gin—to keep their spirits up, I suppose." Bonaparte was believed to be at Boulogne; and there was much alarm about a landing; but she was resolved "not to be driven up country like a sheep."

This phrase refers to the arrangements for "driving" the country, that is, sweeping it bare of everything in front of the invaders. The plans for "driving" were thorough, but were finally pronounced unworkable. His efforts to meet the Boulogne flotilla were also most vigorous. On 18th October 1803 he informs Rose that he had 170 gunboats ready between Hastings and Margate to give the enemy a good reception whenever they appeared. He adds: "Our Volunteers are, I think, likely to be called upon to undertake permanent duty, which, I hope, they will readily consent to. I suppose the same measure will be recommended in your part of the coast [West Hants]. I wish the arrangements for defence were as forward everywhere else as they are in Hythe Bay under General Moore. We begin now to have no other fear in that quarter than that the enemy will not give us an opportunity of putting our preparations to the proof, and will select some other point which we should not be in reach of in the first instance." On 10th November he expresses a hope of repelling any force that attempted to land in East Kent, but fears that elsewhere the French cannot be stopped until they arrive disagreeably near to London.[662]

It is clear, then, that Pitt was not dismayed by the startling disparity of forces. On the coast of Flanders and Picardy were ranged regular troops amounting to 114,554 men seemingly ready for embarkation on an immense flotilla of small craft, part of which was heavily armed. It is now known that these imposing forces were rarely, if ever, up to their nominal strength; that part of the flotilla was unseaworthy; that the difficulties of getting under way were never overcome; and that the unwieldy mass would probably have been routed, if not destroyed, by the cruisers and gunboats stationed on the Kentish coast. Still, even if part of it made land, the crisis would be serious in view of the paucity and want of organization of the British forces. As bearing on this subject, a letter of Lord Melville to a relative deserves quotation:

Pitt did not leave his post for long, except when high winds made an invasion impossible. At such times he would make a trip to London. A short sojourn in town in the early spring elicits from Lady Hester the words: "I cannot but be happy anywhere in Mr. Pitt's society"; and she hoped that she helped to amuse and entertain him. Certainly Pitt did his utmost to enliven her stay at the little residence at Park Place. In the Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne, who claims to have known her well, we catch a glimpse of Pitt acting as chaperon at balls which obviously bored him. Yet he would patiently wait there until, perhaps, four a.m., when Lady Hester returned to end his ennui. Is it surprising that after his death she called him that adored angel?

Early in the year 1804 a ministerial crisis seemed at hand. The personal insignificance of Ministers, the hatred felt for St. Vincent at the Admiralty, the distrust of Hobart at the War Office, and the deep depression caused by the laboured infelicities of Addington's speeches presaged a breakdown. So threatening was the outlook that Grenville urged Pitt to combine with him for the overthrow of an Administration which palsied national energy. For reasons which are far from clear, Pitt refused to take decisive action. During his stay in London in mid-January he saw Grenville, but declined to pledge himself to a definite opposition. Grenville and his coadjutors, among them Lord Carysfort, were puzzled by this wavering conduct, which they ascribed to finesse, pettiness, or even to insincerity.[664] But it is clear that Pitt objected only to their proposed methods, which he termed a teasing, harassing opposition. In vain did the Bishop of Lincoln, who came to town at Pitt's request, seek to reconcile their differences. The most to be hoped for was that Pitt would be compelled by force of circumstances to concert a plan with the Grenvilles for Addington's overthrow. The following letter of Carysfort to the bishop is of interest:

Jan^y. 18, 1804.[665]

Lord Grenville and Mr. Pitt being agreed upon so material a point as the necessity of removing Mr. A[ddington] from his present situation, it must be a matter not only of regret but of surprise, that they should not be able to reconcile any difference of opinion between them as to the sort of opposition to be carried on in Parliament; and I cannot help thinking that Mr. Pitt's avowal that he intends opposition would in itself be sufficient to incline (not merely Lord Grenville and his friends, who have made it a principal object to be united with Mr. Pitt and place him again at the head of affairs) but all the parties who may mean to oppose, to leave the mode pretty much at his option!... [Your letter] leads me to think that Mr. Pitt and he may not have understood each other. Lord Grenville's attachment to Mr. Pitt has been so conspicuous, and I am persuaded his communications have been so frank and so explicit, that I cannot account for Mr. Pitt using any reserve with him, and must be of opinion that greater openness, where there is such solid ground of confidence, would lead to more satisfactory results. [Lord Carysfort then says that Pitt should not keep public opinion so long in suspense; for] the public danger from a Ministry confessedly incapable is already great and urgent and will be continually increasing.